Aug 15, 2010

Share a memory about staying overnight with a friend?

I do not believe that I ever stayed overnight with a friend. We were all pretty much farmer’s and thus stayed home at night to do the work. I did however stay overnight at grandma and grandpa Hansen’s place several times when we would go to Centerfield to visit them. There were usually other families there as well so we always had a lot of fun. There were two bedroom in their basement where we would sleep, the boys on the east side and the girls on the west or in the west bedroom. It had a hole between the rooms where we could stand up on the bed and by lifting ourselves up talk to cousins in the other room. We use to always plat red rover on the front lawn and hide and seek at night after dark. I believe we were always there during the summer as well since we didn’t travel during the winter or when school was going. It was always very fun except for the long drive to get there and back.

Aug 14, 2010

Tell about your bedroom.

I had an upstairs bedroom that was fun since we had a pole going up near the window where we could climb in or out of our room by using it. Then later I had a basement room where it was always cool and had mice running around in quite regularly. I caught an awful lot of mice down in that room. It had two rooms adjoined by a doorway with no door. Our beds (two of them) were separated by a closet and in the same room we had a shower in the corner opposite of the doorway to the other room. The second room had a desk and book shelves where we could study in relative quiet surroundings. It also had a door that led to the outside of the house where I could sneak Pee Wee our small dog into the room without mom knowing. Dogs were not house pets according to her, only small birds and not even cats were allowed in the house, if she knew about it.

Aug 13, 2010

Did you have any favorite family songs that you sang together?

Other than Happy Birthday? Well we quite often sang as a family on Sunday evenings after sacrament meeting or even in the afternoons before meeting. The best part of it though was listening to dad with his beautiful base voice sing “The Mighty Deep”. He also sang some others but that was our favorite because he had to sing a note that was really low and we loved it because he always hit it perfectly. That was fun to sing and in fact I learned to sing parts , Alto no less, from Alma during several of those evenings as we sang “Love at Home” as a family for Sacrament meeting on time and she needed some help with the alto. I have sang base or tenor mostly since getting older but can still do alto if I use my falsetto voice mode.

Aug 12, 2010

What was the dumbest stunt pulled by you and a brother or sister? Were there consequences?

There were no consequences from my parents n this one but there were some natural consequences. I roped a calf one day thinking I would be able to rope it throw it and tie it just like the calf ropers in the rodeo. Needless to say those animals are very strong even when they are young. I roped it and then it began pulling me all over the coral and I finally was able to get on my feet and quickly go around a pole that then secured the calf enough that I could let go of the rope and then determine my next move to release it. I do not remember how I got that rope off of it’s neck but it had to have been a miracle. I had no brother’s or sister’s involved in this act with me or maybe it might have been easier, probably not. I never aspired to be a calf roper ever again.

Aug 11, 2010

Did you ever play in the sprinkler or hose?

Did I grow up as a typical buy you might ask and then you would get the answer of Yes and know instantly that of course I played in the sprinkler and the hose. We often had water fights break out during a down time after we had finished hauling the hay. The water fight helped to wash off the sweat and the hay leaves and it felt so good. Then there were always the water fights that just naturally broke out at reunions and other family gatherings. I have since learned though that to not get wet you have to not let your expensive camera get off of your body. At that time I didn’t know that and got soaked plenty of times. Mostly however I played in the irrigation water and really enjoyed that even though in today’s teachings it would have made deathly ill or sick from the bounty of germs in the water. I swallowed a lot of canal water and youth today would be served well by doing the same so their immune systems could get a chance to learn to defend themselves from diseases.

Aug 10, 2010

Tell about a time when you get lost?

There were the usual summer scout camps that I went on each year and really loved them but the second one was not so great to start out with. I was hiking in typical scout fashion with a couple of other scouts. We were not at the back of the group but rather at the front and by quite a distance until we took the wrong fork of the trail and then a second wrong fork and found ourselves on the far side of Betsy lake when we were suppose to be going to Palisade lake. It started to rain real heavy so we got under the shelter of a huge rock and then began backtracking to find the fork that we had missed. We ended up finding a second trail that led to Palisade lake and it was a lot shorter than if we had gone back to the first one but we didn’t know that until we had actually reached the lake and were there ahead of a lot of the troop even then. So even though we were basically lost we were also very blessed to have been able to find the way to the lake. I still to this day do not know which trail we ended up on that day and have never found it again but will always be thankful for a loving Father in Heaven that knew where it was and led us on it that day.

Aug 9, 2010

What was your best talent?

Now there’s a question that I am unsure of how to answer. I was good at playing the saxaphone, I was good at talking with people and I was good at photography but didn’t know it until I was in 9th grade when it was put to the test as yearbook photographer. I still do not know how the English teacher knew that I had a talent for that either. Mom may have had something to do with it but I really don’t know, she was the librarian and knew the English teacher. I played the sax and loved it but later played the trumpet and found I wasn’t so talented with that instrument. I suppose I was pretty talented at teasing also but we have already discussed that one in past questions.

Aug 8, 2010

Share an experience about poison ivy or poison weed, a bee sting or bug bite?

I was stung by wasps mostly while growing up and bitten plenty by horse flies. I was stung by Stinging nettle but lucky enough to never encounter poison oaks of ivys. Once when I had gone out to feed the horses I was carrying a pitch fork load of hay to their pen and stumbled on an old tire that I knew was there but had just cut the corner a little too much due to the weight of the hay on the fork. As I got to my feet and regained control of the fork load of hay I was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of yellow jacket wasps. Only one of them stung me but that was enough. I delivered the hay ad then climbed up to the canal where I got some mud from the side of the canal and plastered it onto the sting. It took the pain away rather quickly and I was soo glad about that because I had endured it long enough. I never made that mistake again.

Aug 7, 2010

Did your mom or dad have a favorite remedy for when you were sick or hurt?

Mom had a number of remedies that were from the pioneer days. For a cold we had honey and lemon mixed together and heated to drink to relieve the sore throat and get out the cold symptoms. Then for the chest when it was a real deep cold that had gone into the lungs mom would mix vinegar and mustard powder with water to make a paste that she would then put on a cloth and set the cloth on our chests with the mustard away from the skin. (If it was on the skin we would get a sunburn type burn from it and that hurt pretty bad. We would keep it on for as long as we could stand it and the heat from the remedy would sink deep into our chest and relieve a lot of the congestion. I was lucky to be raised after the cod liver oil days and was plenty glad about it when I learned what it was really like.

Aug 6, 2010

Tell about board games and card games that you played as a youth.

There were basically three games that I remember playing. First off however I will tell you that the only card games we played were “Old Maid” and I don’t think there were any others especially since face cards were strictly forbidden in our home. Grandma and Grandpa Hansen had taught their children well concerning the evils of gambling and tat included even having those cards present that were used in such activities. (It was indeed a huge shock to me when Marie would use them all the time and played games that I never even knew existed and it was never for gambling either.) Anyway the board games we had were “Clue”, “Monopoly”, “Chinese Checkers”, “Checkers”, and “Seek” an LDS scripture game. I mostly played checkers and Seek. I enjoyed Monopoly but was always somewhat frustrated by the amount of time required to play it so I stayed away from it as much as possible. We always played Seek on Sunday evenings when we played it and it was fun to learn the scripture stories by having to answer those questions. However with that all said we really didn’t play a whole lot of games since we always had so many chores to do and by the time they were done we were all pretty tired.