Zoo

Did you visit the zoo when you were a youngster?   We didn't go very often, but I do have memories of the zoo.   One of my Aunties would usually plan an outing over the labor day weekend for her family,or sometimes another summer day, and our family would usually be invited along.  Most of the outings were to places that would fill one of the cub scout requirements for visiting a local historical attraction or bird watching or some such thing.   Since we did some such activity every year, we ended up visiting a lot of fun and interesting places that we may not have done otherwise.   The Zoo is one of the places I remember visiting together.  Elephants, Giraffes, Zebras, Lions, Tigers, Monkeys, Polar Bears, Birds, Reptiles . . . and so much much more.  The zoo also features a petting zoo and a train ride, features that attract any child.

I couldn't find any photos of our visit to the zoo back in the day, but here are some more recent photos from our local zoo's facebook page.  I think it's great for children to be able to see and experience as much of the world and it's creations as they can, and I feel that our local zoo does a tremendous job of providing natural habitat and careful care of the animals.

Source for Photos

Do you have fun memories of the zoo?

Yhatzee

Yhatzee is one of the many games that we had in our house when I was growing up.   In reading a quick history of the game at Wikipedia, I am thinking that we must have first received the game sometime around 1973 when the Milton Bradley company bought  the game from the E.S. Lowe Company that first introduced the game back in 1958.

I must confess that Yhatzee was not my favorite game, but I did play it fairly often and managed to even score decently sometimes, which was not always the case with other board games.  We played a lot of board games during school vacations, especially at Christmas time and during the early weeks of summer vacation before the haying season was in full swing.    As one of the youngest of the family, I lost at board games more often than not, which somewhat soured me on board games for many years.   Monopoly, Risk, Life, Sorry, and even Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land were the games I remember playing, and losing, the most often during my childhood years.  Sometimes our family Monopoly marathons would last for days at a time . . .and of course I was usually one of the first ones to go bankrupt.

It wasn't until my Adult years when I discovered that I was a fairly reasonable player of Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble that I began to enjoy, and remember the enjoyment of sitting down together with family and friends over a good board game.  Possibly I have matured a bit too, and the winning vs the losing don't quite matter as much any more.  It's more about the time spent with those that I love.

(PS.  I'm still not a fan of Risk or any other strategy games!!)

What are your favorite board game memories?

X-Rays and X-tra Teeth

One of my claims to fame is that I have never had a broken bone.  (Perhaps it is due to the calcium from all of the home grown milk I have consumed over the years).  I do vaguely remember having an X-Ray of my hand or my arm at some point in my childhood, but I don't remember exactly why.  I do remember the huge X-Ray machine and the heavy blanket (is it a lead blanket?)  that was used to cover me to protect the rest of my body from the harmful rays.

I do remember getting dental X-rays almost every year.   Every June Mums would schedule an appointment with the dentist who lived and worked in the neighboring town, and the entire family would load up in the car and travel to visit the dentist.  It always took the entire morning, or longer, for him to examine each of the eight sets of teeth and take care of whatever cavities or extractions were necessary.   I dreaded the visits to the dentist office that was located on the second floor of an ancient office building.   The old wooden stairs creaked as we climbed them, a foreboding sound as I pondered the tortures to come.   The high ceilings and linoleum floors accentuated that echoing of a frequently ringing telephone in another office down the hall.  It seemed there was never anyone there to answer that phone, and it would ring and ring and ring over and over again.

The waiting room was comfortable enough, filled with magazines and books to read.  I remember admiring the glass covered barrister type bookcases filled with important looking books.  But eventually my interest would wane, and the seemingly endless waiting for my turn in the chair would continue.   But my turn did eventually come, the dentist would poke and prod and clean, and sometimes the x-ray machine would be pulled around to check for the inevitable cavities or to see just where that new tooth or that extra tooth was.  Yes, one year I did have an extra tooth erupt from the middle of the roof of my mouth.  And no, I did not miss growing any other teeth, except for wisdom teeth.  I have never had a wisdom tooth.

The reward after the day of torture?  We would usually stop for hamburgers and ice cream before driving back home!

What are your memories of X-rays?  Did anyone else out there ever have an X-tra tooth?

West Hills

Although I grew up on the family farm, it was not the same farm that my father grew up on.   The house that my Daddy grew up in was several miles to the west of the current family farm, nestled right up against the western foothills that bordered the little mountain valley filled with farms and lumber yards.  This house tragically burned to the ground in January 1939 when Daddy was 15 years old.  The family moved into a home in town several miles away for several years and moved the cows to a friend's farm nearby until Grandpa was able to sell the property on the west side of the valley and buy the farm where I grew up.

Daddy and his sisters and neighbors spent much of their free time as children exploring and playing in the West Hills.   They would go hiking and find pretty rocks and Indian arrowheads and an Indian Spear Head that Daddy still has in his collection.   They would swim and fish in the nearby Beaver Creek.   They would ride the horse up into the hills to round up the cows and sheep that were pastured up in the hills during the day and bring them back to the farm at night to protect them from the coyotes.  I even remember hearing stories about an old abandoned mine that they knew about, but had been warned to not play in.

Of course Daddy wanted to share his childhood memories with us too, so sometimes he would take us over to the West Hills to go hiking among the sagebrush and prickly pear cactus and lichen covered boulders.  The valley was always lush with green meadows, but the hills were much dryer and had little grass.   I remember  the constant sound of crickets, seeing rabbits and lizzards, and keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes.  We would hunt for arrowheads too, but I never remember finding any.  The town dump was located in the West Hills, and sometimes we would take a load of our trash over to be dumped, and sometimes find treasures that had once belonged to someone else!  Sometimes we would go over to the West Hills with our cousins to pick chokecherries for our mothers to use to make chokecherry jelly.

And of course, almost every winter we would need to take a trip over to the West Hills to our favorite sleigh riding spots.  It was there that one of our favorite family movies was shot.  Mums was sledding down the hill, with Daddy shooting her ride with the camera.   The sled she was on hit a big drift or bump and off she flew, landing in the snow and tumbling down the hill a ways, the sled continuing on without her.  This particular film was originally shot with a 3 mm camera, then later converted to VHS and then digitized.  This is probably our very favorite film of our dear mother, and we would stop the film, and then reverse it, watching her fly back onto the sled, zoom up the hill, and then start the film forward again, watching her repeat her now famous ride back and forth, over and over while we would laugh and enjoy the memories.   Of course Mums was always a good sport and would laugh right along with us, remembering her sleigh ride in the West Hills.

Vacations

The last week of May was always a very favorite time of year.  School was out!   The weather was warming up, we planted the garden, and almost every year we prepared for a family vacation.   The family vacation varied from year to year, but almost without fail we would pack up the car with our suitcases and a box of easy to prepare food, and leave the farm in the capable hands of Grandpa and some cousin or local young man to help with the milking.   It would be several weeks before the hay would be ready to cut and haul, so we had time for some family recreation.

Most years our trips would be to visit various relatives who lived a day or two's car ride from our home.   It was a tight fit to get all eight of us in our four door sedan, and yes there was always a bit of bickering amongst the kids.   We would read books, sing songs, and play the typical car games such as seeing how many different states license plates we could spy, or the ABC game:  who could find a word beginning with every letter of the alphabet from road signs and billboards along the side of the road.  Sometimes we would rent a motel room or a cabin along the way, and we would almost always visit national parks and monuments or places of historical interest along the way.   One year we stayed at the lake several hours north of our home,  and one year we traveled to Yellowstone National Park.  One year we visited Zions and Bryce Canyons, another year we visited the World's Fair in Spokane, Washington, and another time we visited relatives in California and made the drive along the California coast.  Some years we stayed close to home, pitched our tent in the nearby mountains, and spent the days hiking.   No, we never visited Disneyland or went on a cruise, or traveled to Hawaii or Europe, but the family vacation was always a highlight of the summer, if not the entire year.

What are your favorite vacation memories?

1974 World's Fair, Spokane, Washington

Grand Coulee Dam

 Camping 1975

Camping 1973

Hiking 1973

Under the Willow Trees

Family Reunion Under the Willow Trees 1962

 Under the trees was the popular gathering place during the summers when I was growing up.  When my Grandfather bought the farm, he planted a row of golden willow trees as a wind break to the west of his home.   Willow trees grow quickly, and within a few years this row of trees provided not only a wind break, but a nice area of shade from the hot summer sun.   Most of my Grandfather and Grandmother's siblings and their families lived down the mountain in the city, so each summer there would be family reunions up on our farm.   For as long as I can remember there have been rows of picnic tables under those willow trees.  One Saturday in July and one Saturday in August were set aside for these reunions.   Great Aunts and Great Uncles, my own aunts and uncles and myriads of cousins would descend on the farm for a day of picnic lunch under the trees, tractor drawn hayrides through the meadows, horseback riding, volleyball, horseshoes, watermelon and ice cream.  Of course everyone was interested to wander out to the barn when milking time came around to watch the cows being milked.

Those same trees are still there.   My nephew now lives in my Grandfather's old house with his wife and children, and my brother build his house on the other side of the row of willow trees.   We still gather under the trees several times most summers to celebrate holidays or other family events with a picnic lunch and games and visiting.   The huge extended family reunions under the trees are mostly a thing of the past, though we did gather together with my cousins for an afternoon picnic and visit at a different location this past summer.   It is good to get together with family, whether it is under the trees or some other location.

Does your family have a favorite traditional place for reunions?

 Family Reunion 1964 

Family Reunion 2015

Under the trees 2016

Tire Swings

 

This is a photo of the tire swings that my Daddy made for his kids many long years ago.   I have spent hours in these swings dreaming lazy summer dreams as I gently swung under the blue sky, or feeling the thrill of racing back and forth as high as my Daddy or Mums or older siblings could push me.  This is no ordinary swing set, and it has lasted well over 60 years.  The tire swings themselves may have changed once or twice over the years, but the huge log standard has stood it's ground for over half a century and held up under hundreds of children, including myself, my siblings, and countless cousins, friends, nieces and nephews and grandchildren.   I'll admit that my Daddy is one amazing, talented, and thoughtful man.   Don't you agree?