Sept. 7, 2010

Tell about the playground equipment at your grade school.

I kind of already told you. I did forget a few of the details. The swing set had three swings with flat board seats. The metal poles forming the A frame construction was fun to climb and we would often climb up them and then slide back down. It was quite tall but I really have no idea for sure how high they were at the top of the A frame ,I would guess about 12 feet. We also had a merry-go-round that I didn't mention. It was the typical tilted slightly to one side construction and I did spend a lot of time going around in circles on it. We also had some tetter-totters, at least that was what we called them. There were several sets and we had a lot of fun there. (You always had to have a buddy in order to use them though since sitting on the ground on just one side was quite boring.) We had a cement tennis court also if I remember correctly with a couple of basketball hoops on it but I don't remember ever playing on them other than to race across them during a game of tag. Well I don't remember any of the other equipment so I'll stop there.

Sept 6, 2010

What do you remember doing at recess?

Of course this only applies to 1 thru 6th grades since I went to Grandma's after the morning classes when in Kindergarten and 7 - 12 had no recess only breaks between classes.

I remember that we had a very tall swing set, monkey bars, and tetherball poles. We also had kick balls and baseballs. We also had the big medicine balls. So what I usually did since I was seldom chosen to be on the baseball team was to swing and bail out of the swing. (That was until one of my friends broke an arm and then we didn't get to go as high as we wanted to because a teacher was there to stop us.) So I liked also to play keep away with a group of friends with the medicine balls and the rest was pretty much chasing the girls around the grounds. (Well not really but I sometimes wanted to but I was a bit to shy.) I did play baseball sometimes on rare occasions but wasn't that good at it since I was pretty small or at least I think I was, it may have just been an excuse to not have to play and find out if I was good or not.

Sept. 5, 2010

Tell about a school bully.

I was lucky to have had only one bully. I was in 6th grade and he was in 3rd but he was actually larger than I was and a lot meaner. He beat me up during recess once and only once but that was enough for me to learn to avoid him. Later in high school I got to where we were friends but not best friends. I use to play at his home because he had a brother the same age as I and we were pretty good friends. Anyway I guess the only other bullies were the seniors in high school. We had 7th through 12th grades in our school and the seniors always liked to pick on the 7th grader. We had one hall where the stairs were actually a ramp from one floor to the next and were in a U shape with the sides and top open to the rest of the ramp and the seniors held me upside down over the top of the rail once but I was so small it wasn't much of a task and then someone else reminded them that my mother was a teacher so they ought to think twice about it. It never happened again either.

Sept. 4, 2010

Tell about your school year calendar.

I suppose we had calendars but I don't remember ever really using them. In elementary school we would have Halloween carnivals each year near Halloween and we would get out for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. We would have a couple of days in Sept or Oct for UEA. (Utah Education Association) Teachers were supposed to go to meetings in Salt Lake City but it was mostly just a couple of days out of school. We never had any Teacher Preparation Days and we generally started after Labor Day and ended before Memorial Day. In High School we would add the dances to the calendar. Usually a Home Coming dance after some basketball game and a Jr and Sr Prom in the spring. We would have a yearbook signing day just before the end of the year and Graduation on the last day of school for everyone. We would have basketball games on friday nights in Jan and Feb and wrestling meets, track meets and a few other sports mixed into the schedule through the year. That I guess was our calendar.

Sept. 3, 2010

Back-to-school-days... What do you remember about that big yearly "First Day of School"?

I remember the wearing of our new clothes that came once a year also and it was at school beginning each year. We might get some at Christmas but it was pretty much very scant compared to the beginning of school. I really didn't get that much then either because I got mostly hand-me-downs instead but I did get some and that was good.

The other memories included the first ride to school on the bus that made the whole summer seem to just vanish with the familiar ride that we had 9 of the 12 months of the year. I also remember the last three or so years sitting on the flower bench that was across at the end of the hall and watching Marie walk to school that first day. That was always fun for me no matter which day but especially the first day because I knew there were many more to come.

Sept. 2, 2010

VJ Day ... Do you have a memory involving the end of World War 2?

If not, then share a memory of Vietnam.

I grew up in the era of the Viet Nam war. I had a high draft number so I wasn't going to likely be drafted but the war was still plenty close to home. Clair joined the army so he would have a better chance of choosing where he would go and Stan was drafted and went to Nam. His experiences over there he hasn't really talked about too much but we were all very aware of the blessings from the Lord that he had which brought him home early. He awoke one day seeing double and it wouldn't go away. They finally sent to a hospital in Japan and then when they couldn't determine the cause of the problem sent him to the Denver VA hospital where he woke up one morning seeing fine again and he told me several years ago he has only had about a five minute occurrence of it since that time but he was discharged honorably from the military due to that problem. Other that I knew didn't return. I had a cousin killed in the war when I was a senior in High school and have never forgotten the day we found out. It was Jack Skewes little brother, Blake, and he came to tell his wife Dea who was in my senior class that it had happened.We were all very shocked and saddened but Jack took it the hardest by far.

It was apparently from shrapnel.

Sept. 1, 2010

Do you remember any Labor day traditions of your youth?

It was just another day of work on the farm and dreading it since it meant school would be starting the next day and summer was over. I don't ever remember any specific things that we would do to celebrate the holiday but it seem like the last of the summer chores were still there and of course we couldn't go shopping for school clothes since the stores all closed on all of the holidays as well. I suppose that it also meant dad and mom didn't have work so we could get the last full day of canning in for the summer, the rest would be done on saturdays till all of the fruit was put up and the jams and jellies made for the year.

Aug 31, 2010

Share a memory involving an outhouse.

We had an old outhouse in our yard but luckily I was in line far enough down in my family that we had indoor plumbing by the time I came along. I never had any desire to use it either since it was infested by spiders more than anything else. Later as a highway patrolman my brother would dispose of confiscated alcohol in the old outhouse.

It had a single seat but the one I do remember having to use was at the ranch where indoor plumbing was never installed. It had a two seats and after visiting it many times I could never understand why it had two seats. I suppose though in the olden days a couple would find it more pleasant to visit it together in the winter if such a pleasant thing existed when it came to outhouses. The ones I have used in the mountains even to this day I can never call as pleasant experiences.

Aug 30, 2010

Tell about an incident when your mom or dad was very angry with you.

I am sure there had to have been a time that I could tell to answer this question but I suppose time can be a friend to us by helping to forget these kinds of trivial incidents. Thus I cannot remember any of them and find no reason to rack my brain to find one since my memories of them include those things where they made me happy and I do not recall any time when they were mad at me. That is probably because it had to be really bad to make them mad and even backing into a new car that the dealer had brought over to sell to us didn’t make them mad that I can remember. They were disappointed in me several times I am sure but like I said it took an awful lot to make either of them mad.

Aug 29, 2010

Tell about an incident when you were very angry with your mom or dad.

I am sure there had to have been a time that I could tell to answer this question but I suppose time can be a friend to us by helping to forget these kinds of trivial incidents. Thus I cannot remember any of them and find no reason to rack my brain to find one since my memories of them include those things where they made me happy or corrected me with love so that I couldn’t be mad at them. I was raised by truly a loving set of parents.