THE TOYOTA

VIN: JT4LN55D 6F5000989

 

            It must have been around 1984 that the idea of selling homemade ice cream at a premium price came to Margaret.  She had become very fond of the homemade ice cream that I made for her and various guests both before and after we were married. It seems that her goals in life have always included being “productive” and “accomplishing things.” To sell ice cream we were to buy at least two more hand-cranked (actually equipped with electric cranking motors) and a chest-type deep freeze. We would make as much as three gallons of ice cream, three different flavors. These would be packed in pint and quart containers and sold to the public at a high price that we thought was commensurate with the high quality of our product. Hagen-Dazs had done it, why couldn’t we? 

            To transport the pints and quarts to the parking lot where Margaret proposed to sell, we had to have a truck or a van. There, at the parking lot, especially on a hot day, people would jump at the chance to buy ice cream, cranked in a wooden bucket of ice, with salt, exactly as was done on countless family farms a generation or two ago. I preferred a good-sized van, but Margaret favored a pickup truck, replete with a gaily colored umbrella. So we looked for a truck. 

            Rodland Motors in Everett was a good place to look, as we had already bought a Toyota car from them, and were well-treated. I was still intrigued by the new Toyota van, but there was no hope of standing up in it, and no easy access to the deep freeze it was to carry. It happened that Rodland’s had a new long-bed pickup truck on the lot, 1985 model, 4-cylinder diesel engine, white in color and just the thing for an ice cream truck. I had thought a diesel truck would have a premium price on it, but the American public, always carried away with the notion of high speed, blinding acceleration, rejected the Toyota diesel and it was being sold at a reduced price. 

            This was at a time when General Motors, following the Volkswagen example, attempted to make diesel engines out of their big gasoline V-8’s, with not enough modifications. These GM conversions were bad, and I hoped that this Toyota diesel was one that had been built that way from the beginning, not just a gasoline engine in disguise. It sounded OK to me; it had the loud diesel valve clatter at low speeds, and even hinted at sounding like a Kenworth. 

1985 Toyota - unknown source

            So we bought it, owing money on it, of course, and when I had built a frame to hold the bright colored sun umbrella and painted a few signs, we were ready to sell, and probably make a fortune. No fault of the truck or the umbrella, but our ice cream just didn’t sell at our high price when soft Dairy Queen type ice cream was being sold nearby at less than half the price we had to have. Margaret insisted on the very best ingredients, and absolutely fresh every day, so what we didn’t sell was thrown away. Some days we may have discarded more than we sold. Finally, we abandoned the ice cream business after two summers. 

            The next duty for the truck was to serve as my commuter car. The Country Club area where we lived on Camano Island, is more than thirty miles from Skagit Valley College where I was teaching, so at sixty miles per day for commuting plus trips into Stanwood for groceries and things, we piled on many miles. 

            Since we were not using it for ice cream anymore, it seemed wise to get a canopy for it. I bought a very light, cheap canopy from an outfit in Everett. It was black, on the white truck, and it looked flashy to us. Margaret and I thought it was big enough to use as a camping vehicle, putting down foam mattresses in the back, with sleeping bags, we thought we could go wherever we wanted at minimum expense and be safer than in a tent. Probably we could have put Holly, Margaret and me parallel on the floor, and I had a shelf built for little John athwart the box. We could easily sleep with our feet under the shelf. Holly refused to try the three abreast arrangement in the back and said she would sleep on the bench seat in the cab.

            We set out for a state park near Gray’s Harbor, got a place to park, had the usual camping goodies for supper and expected to have a fine time. Not so; we just couldn’t sleep under those conditions, so next day we left the camp. I did not want to give up so easily, so I persuaded the gang to go to one of the tourist areas on Mount Rainier. 

            If I remember correctly, Holly and I had a rather glum time in front (lack of sleep?) while Margaret and John were in back carrying on with some kind of play. It came out that Margaret was terribly worried about the State Patrol stopping us for having people “loose” in the back with no seat belts. No seats, either. What to do? Why, lie down, of course, to become invisible from outside. Margaret’s fertile mind came up with the idea of playing ambulance with John, replete with sirens, engine noises, whatever, but I couldn’t figure out what caused all the laughter and chortling going on back there. 

            After all this fun on the ambulance we spent the night on Mount Rainier and headed home in the morning to peace and comfort, washouts as truck campers. Later, on solo trips with the truck, I found it to be tolerable at worst, and fun at best. I had solo trips to Arizona, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and a couple of trips from Haines to Seattle. 

            One trip to South Dakota was with Margaret and three year old John who was fond of acting out the fairy stories that had been read to him over and over. He and I had a good time while Margaret was driving as he loved doing the dialogue in “Bremen Town Musicians,” “The Valiant Little Tailor” and” The Fisherman and His Wife.” We would switch parts, sometimes in the middle of the story, and John would change from being the donkey to being the chief robber, or from being the tailor to one of the giants. A favorite was a story involving young men striving to win the fair princess’s hand by climbing a very steep slippery glass hill. Somehow we came up with the notion that a certain boot butter, applied to his soles would give him enough purchase to get up the hill. 

            The first couple of times we played that story, John was the climber, and I was the boot-butter salesman. Then when we switched parts he became the salesman. He and Margaret went into shrieks of laughter when I left the “script” and complained bitterly about that lying, cheating, no-good John Bootbutter Plucker who sold me the worthless stuff. 



Mom's house - photo taken in 2007 by Jean E. Straatmeyer

            This might have been the same South Dakota trip when we went out to paint Mom’s house in Lennox. The actual scraping and painting went fairly well, but the day we left it turned out to be very hot. Since there was no air-conditioning in the truck we left early in the morning, but it was noon by the time we got to Aberdeen, and it was HOT. Who knows how hot it was in the cab of the truck, but we found out later that it was 105 degrees outside. We found an air-conditioned café that will forever be blessed in our memories. It saved us from premature cremation. 

            Both Holly and John learned to drive, using this truck because I believed that a competent driver should be able to handle a stick-shift transmission as well as an automatic. Also I believed that this diesel engine was a bit harder to kill, on rough starts, or from a dead stop on an ascending incline. 

            There were some notable times when the truck was used for legitimate hauling, not just as a passenger vehicle. Delivering new phone books on Camano Island was considered a difficult job as the roads and streets are not paid out in neat squares the way they would be in a town, plus it was a large territory. I took on the job for three summers, and it was quite an experience to hunt up all the addresses, avoid the dogs, and get the job done. The starting load on the truck was very heavy, down to the axles, as they say, as I took on as many 2.2 pound books as I could jam in. 

            Later I took on a weekly job of delivering the “Little Nickel” advertising paper on a route from Mount Vernon to La Conner to Anacortes to Oak Harbor. There were many stops, including several on the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. But it was a pleasant drive over scenic roads, plus there were several stops for truly superior coffee and cookies. There was also an embarrassing incident in which I got ticketed for speeding in Anacortes just after the ferry turn-off where the limit suddenly changes from forty-five to thirty miles per hour. The ticket and its accompanying fine were bad enough, but what embarrassed me was that young John was with me that day and witnessed my disgrace. 
 

Haines Harbor in 2012 - Photo by Jean E. Straatmeyer

            Not long after we moved to Haines, I met Bruce Gilbert who talked boats and sailing, was a neat guy, and we became friends very soon. We both had Washington connections; he had come from an apple-growing family in central Washington. He invited me to come and watch an important football game on television. I don’t remember if it was the super Bowl or the Rose Bowl game. At any rate, it was in a cold January. 

            Since we had just moved into the Senior Village and were within easy walking distance of nearly everything, we had not used the truck for a week or more. On the day of the game the temperature had fallen dramatically to a few degrees below zero. I was not about to walk to Bruce’s house in that kind of cold if I could avoid it, so I got into the faithful truck, let the glow plugs glow, and started the engine with some difficulty. I let it idle for a short time, and then drove away. When I had gotten perhaps half a block, the engine spluttered and died. I could not get it going again and finally wound up calling a tow truck to get it off the road. It was towed to Bigfoot Auto where they put it inside, allowed the frozen (or jellied) diesel fuel to start flowing again and charged me $60. Now I know that in really cold weather you’d better fill your diesel tank with what all Alaska gas stations sell in winter: diesel that does not turn to thick jelly. I don’t remember how I got to Bruce’s house that day; probably he came and got me. Our team lost – that much I remember. 

            Probably the most scared I had been with John at the wheel was several years after we moved to Haines. We two were coming up a rather long stretch of fairly straight road (Haines to Haines Junction?) where a constant speed of 55-60 miles per hour was possible. I never allowed anyone to over-rev the engine, so 60 was top cruising speed. John had become so accustomed to the steady hum of 55-60 that anything less seemed terribly slow. We were getting low on fuel, so I told John to pull over at a gas station on the outskirts of the town. We saw the station a good distance off, and John started slowing down, to about 30-35. He was fooled into believing that he was going slow enough to approach the gas pumps. I yelled at him to slow down several times, but in his own mind, he was going slow. We got to the pumps, moving much too fast; even John got scared, I think. He finally slammed on the brakes throwing gravel over the base of the pumps. I remember gasping, “Slow down! Jesus Christ!” I would not deny that the last expletive could have been a prayer. I was envisioning bashing into the gas pumps, knocking down at least two, and disappearing into a hellish ball of fire. Nope, just some stirred-up gravel. 

            John had some affection for the truck that Margaret and I did not suspect. He and some friends (mostly girls) cut narrow pieces of duct tape to make letters, then taped their names to the dash board. “Sarah” somehow got mixed up and her name came out as “Sahar.” Lucinda’s “Lucy” was a somewhat later addition; these names are still there. 



Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra
Photo on line

            Later, when John was a sophomore at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Margaret and I drove the truck to that city to attend a concert of the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra which featured Gail Williams, a horn virtuoso. Some of the players were invited to the home of Professors John and Jane Aspnes, to meet and socialize with Ms Williams. John was invited, with Margaret and me graciously included in the invitation. When the party was breaking up, to our surprise, John persuaded several of his good music department buddies to come out in the cold to see the truck. There was nothing on earth to distinguish this particular white Toyota pickup from any other, but John must have been convinced of its special qualities, including the 250,000 miles on the odometer at that time. Now, there are 266,000. 

            Actually, there are several missing “special qualities” that exclude this mobile Toyota from the ranks of Alaska trucks, Alaska license plates notwithstanding. Most important, it does not have four-wheel drive. Alaska vehicles have this. Real Alaska trucks in Southeast have a dog riding in the back. Sometimes the dog is in the front so the dog can sit behind the wheel while the owner is in the store, or wherever. It is not fitted with a head bolt heater for very cold winter starts. A snow-plow blade cannot be fitted to the front end; it has no trailer hitch, and no extra lights. The radio is still working, I think, but not in the truck. John took it out and installed it in his brother-in-law’s fish boat. 

            In another of these essays I wrote about John, as a two-year-old releasing the brake, letting the truck roll backwards down the driveway, across the road and finally stopping on the stub of an alder tree. This stub did not poke a hole in the fuel tank immediately. It may be that flexing a bit over thousands of miles finally caused the steady drip of diesel fuel I finally spotted. I was able to stop the leak with some gummy stuff the NAPA parts store in LaConner sold me. 

            It must have been more than ten years later when I brought the truck in for a check on the brakes that the owner of the shop pointed out the leak which had again appeared. This time it was more than a drip, it was a thin steady stream. The brakes needed parts and adjustments. There were other things that needed replacement and adjustment. This took place just after Margaret and I had both run up some staggering medical bills. I told the shop man I couldn’t begin to afford to have the truck fixed. I thought I had a couple of buyers who wanted the truck for parts, especially the diesel engine. 

            Can you believe this? My repair shop man said he just could not allow me to have the truck taken apart by a buyer, and then probably abandoned in some obscure driveway. “Could you,” he asked, “pay for the parts?” If I could pay for the parts, he said he would not charge me for the labor. Of course, I protested that I couldn’t’ let him do it for free, but he insisted that he would do it in his spare time. What a truck! To inspire such an action! 

            He took a rather long time to work on it, but I was still attempting to recover from my sciatic pain and didn’t much care how long it took. About six weeks later he was all through with his work, and the truck is in good shape except for some regrettable rust. A few months ago I bought four new tires for it, from my repair guy, of course, so I have confidence that it will serve us, or John, or Holly and Matt, or somebody in the family until the rust overcomes all our efforts.

 

My Life as a Tour Guide

 

Huge cruise ships with thousands of passengers stop at Southeast Alaska ports every summer, most of them stopping in Ketchikan, Juneau, Sitka and Skagway. Haines, being only fourteen miles south of Skagway but of less historical (gold rush) importance, docks far fewer, perhaps one tenth of the number in Skagway. Haines folks like the tourist trade well enough, but do not like to think of themselves as nothing but a tourist trap town. So there are fewer T-shirt shops, junk jewelry stores, and "art" objects made in Taiwan here. We do have, however, the most spectacular scenery in Southeast Alaska. Tours of various kinds are arranged to show off the truly great views to the visitors. I became one of the tour guides. 

Bart Henderson's Chilkat Guides had a number of great river and mountain tours; Lenice Henderson had collected four classic six or seven-passenger cars/limos which were to be used in the scenery tours. They were to be driven by the young women friends of Lenice. They were all pretty and charming as tour guides but many of the eight or ten members of the driving pool were not at all happy with the cars, a 1946 DeSoto, a 1947 DeSoto, and 1946 Packard and the car that eventually became "my" car, a 1939 Packard limousine. The difficulties were that these younger ladies had a hard time coping with the DeSoto Fluid Drive transmissions, and the Packards which had hand-shifting mounted on the steering column. Not the "four on the floor" they had at least heard about. Since I became the only driver older than the oldest car, these gear-shifting procedures were easy for me. So, almost always I got the job of driving and touring with the 1939 Packard. 

This Packard is a great car, a reasonably wide car, capable of seating three on the front bench seat, two in the grand rear bench seat, and one each on the two jump seats. Much depended, of course, on the size and weight of the passengers. This car has a very long straight eight engine with a lot of torque, but only a six-volt ignition system so it is tricky to start it on a cool morning. It has no fuel injection, no seat belts, no turn signals, no power steering and no power brakes. 



The appearance of this vehicle is impressive to say the least. Very long wheelbase, long hood to accommodate the straight-eight engine, very shiny black paint, wide white side-wall tires, two spare wheels and tires mounted in the front fenders, and of course the famous Packard hood ornament. This car is what the Russians copied practically bolt for bolt for their top Communist apparatchiks, called the ZIL. 

The other cars are impressive too; the other 1946 Packard is light blue, huge, bigger than the '39. The 1947 DeSoto is a "woodie" station wagon made with genuine wood trim; the ‘46 is a Suburban and had that name before the Chevrolet Suburban came out some years later. The Suburban is exactly like a limousine, but the rear seats could be folded down to create a very large storage space. A useful and elegant car during its limited production. Bart also has a 1941 Chevy four-door used only when we had filled the other cars. I had to drive it, as it has a vacuum-assisted shifter (!) and a hand choke. The ladies had no experience with either.

The Classic Car tours were scheduled mostly for mornings and lasted a bit more than one hour. The routes were all prescribed and included views over the Upper Lynn Canal, down-town Haines (no McDonald's, no Dairy Queen, no Starbucks, and certainly no high-end stores like Nordstrom or Neiman-Marcus.), views over Chilkat Inlet, the old fish cannery at Letnikov Cove and back again. There would be stops for picture-taking and one at a constantly flowing spring where everyone could have drinks of truly delicious hillside spring water. We drivers all rejoiced when we got sunny days and good see-ing conditions.

One bad trip I took was on a dark, foggy, and rainy cool day. My passengers happened to be two Chinese ladies and the maybe eight or nine year old son of one of them. They spoke almost no English, and I don’t know how much they understood. The boy had enough English to be able to talk to me, but lacked the age and experience to be able to translate quickly and accurately.

So there I was, responsible for keeping everybody happy for more than an hour—I couldn’t show them any of our magnificent scenery because of the fog, and I couldn’t tell anything either. Possibly the most successful stop was the one at the spring. They liked the cold water. I remember that the boy was shocked when he found there was only one police and one fire station in town. The ladies, I am sure, would have been happier if I had left them downtown to see the tourist gift shops.

Then there were the unfortunate souls who had to have their wheelchairs or their oxygen tanks with them at all times. Now and then there would be frightfully obese people who could barely get into the car, big as it was. One elderly woman from New York City complained about how uncomfortable the seats in the Packard were. It always struck me that the worst of the Packard seats were much more comfortable than the ones in my own almost new Subaru. But she did make a fuss after the tour, wanting to give me a tip as did some of the rest of the passengers. She told me she had no small bills and wanted me to give her my name and address so she could send the money. I gave them to her, but as I expected, the tip never arrived.

The great majority of people who rode with me were fine folks intent on enjoying themselves. Some wanted to see moose and bear, but even though there are plenty of them in this area, a mere tour guide can’t produce them on demand. Visitors were excited when a moose or two appeared, especially if it happened inside the city limits.

The Packard had a few idiosyncrasies, one being that it would stick in first or second gear and would not shift any further, up or down. I had one fellow sitting in back who spoke up, “I know how to fix that!”  So I stopped, lifted the hood, he got out and using only his fingers got the gear linkage to work properly. He showed me what to do. From then on I was able to deal quickly with this problem.

Another fellow who rode with me was a collector and restorer of classic cars, old Hudson autos only. He e-mails me now and then, and tells me of the progress he is making on some restoration or other. The jokes he forwards to me are outrageously funny, and once in a while he sends pictures of amazing things.

Concurrently with the morning Classic Car tours, my afternoon tours were a different kettle of fish. These were tours I guided for Jim Szymanski’s fish cannery museum. Jim had called me one day and asked if I could guide tours for him. I told him he was talking to the wrong guy. I didn’t know anything about fish, catching them or canning them. But he said he had a booklet that would cover everything I needed to know. Oddly enough, it did cover just about any question that ever came up and I guess I became fairly convincing. It might have been better, perhaps, if he had given me a spiel to memorize, but he did not want any memorization. Neither did Lenice and the Classic Car Tour people want any canned spiels.

The cannery in downtown Haines was supposed to duplicate the canneries that proliferated in coastal Alaska around the turn of the 20^th century. Jim had gone to great trouble and expense locating and moving these old cannery machines to a new building in Haines. The seven or eight machines shaped the cans (they were shipped from Seattle flattened), cleaned the fish, chopped them up into can-sized pieces, closed them and finally vacuum-sealed them before putting them into a big retort and cooking them under pressure at a high temperature. The machines were big and chunky, very heavy and designed to work forever with hardly any maintenance. Jim was especially proud of his vacuum-sealing machine, as he probably had the very last one to exist in Alaska, maybe anyplace.

A bus-load of fifteen or twenty people would be picked up at the cruise ship dock, the driver and I would give a tour that covered much of the same ground as the Classic Car tours. We would stop at the cannery museum and they would see the whole set of machines in actual operation. Actually, the cans were empty because that kind of can is now illegal. Jim would usually ask as we approached the vacuum sealer, “how much do you think this machine weighs?” They would guess, usually much too light, and Jim would then tell them that it weighed 3,500 pounds. So one day when I had a lively bunch of people on the bus, I coached them, “When he asks you to guess the weight of the last big machine, all of you jump up and yell “thirty five hundred pounds”. What fun!  They were all quiet as mice until the last machine. Jim asked for the guess, and with no coaching on my part, or any indication that I knew anything about it, they yelled in unison THIRTY FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS!  The look on Jim’s face was priceless.

And so passed a pleasant and profitable summer. Bad things happened to me later. I was laid up with severe sciatic pains the following summer and could not do the tours. The following year when I perhaps could have resumed driving, neither the Hendersons nor Jim Szymanski called me again. I was too proud, I guess, and too egotistical and conceited to ask for the jobs. Now the Hendersons, Bart and Lenice, have broken up their marriage and the classic cars get used only for special charters. Jim Szymanski has sold the cannery machinery to a museum in Ketchikan.

 

Here are a few of the questions that tourists sometimes ask.

Q. How far above sea level are we?   A. See the water over there?  That’s the sea; you can make your own estimate.

Q. Does it get terribly cold here?  A. It can get down to zero, but if you want cold, try Minnesota.

Q. Do Indians live near Haines?  A. Yes. Q. Do they ever come into town?   A. They don’t have to, they live here in town.

Q. How do you tell a small raven from a large crow?  A. Easy, the raven speaks Tlingit.

Q. Do you live here all winter?  A. That’s when the scenery is at its very best, the snow is the deepest and there is always a chance for a thrilling aurora display.

Q. Do all Haines people wear fishing boots all the time?  A. Nearly all, but I’m sure they take them off to go to bed.

Q. What brought you to Haines to live?  A. You can drive the 650 miles from here to Fairbanks and see fewer cars than in any given half mile of I-5 between Vancouver BC, and Los Angeles.

 

Illustration:

http://www.conceptcarz.com/view/photo/399835,10001/1939-Packard-1708-Twelve_photo.aspx

 

 

MEMORIES OF GERMANTOWN CHURCH

1886

MEMORIES OF GERMANTOWN CHURCH

Ca 1932 – 1947

 

Germantown Presbyterian Church, in my memory, consisted of four buildings across the road from my Dad’s alfalfa field, the old barn, the church hall, the manse (we called it “the preacher’s house”), and the church building itself. The least important was the barn, because in my earliest memory there were extremely few occasions upon which teams of horses waited in the barn for the church service to conclude. They would then transport their owners back home over the mud or snow-drifted roads that made Model T or Model A progress impossible. Its primary use was to serve as garage for an old Overland car which had been used to drive Rev. Siekman’s older children to high school, some four miles distant. I never saw it outside the barn; what happened to it in the end, I do not know.

            The Hall was a different story, as it was used heavily in the warmer months. There were two women’s organizations in the church: the “Ladies Aid Society” and the “Willing Workers.” They were meant to be of similar membership, but it turned out that the Ladies Aid was composed of older women, some of them old enough perhaps to have been involved in the founding of the church. The Willing Workers were the younger, more active women who in modern times might be official members of the church governing boards. Then, of course it was unthinkable that a woman could be an Elder, Deacon, or even a Trustee.

            Both of the organizations were heavily involved in financing special projects for the church, and this was done by having sales of fancy sewing and embroidery, hooked rugs and quilts, plus other art works at least twice a year. These sales were tremendously popular evening events; the hall would be jammed with people; there would be lots of goodies available at a low price; and of course, a grand opportunity to talk and gossip. The articles for sale were auctioned off, Benny Plucker, a relative of ours, was always on hand to be the auctioneer. As far as I know, no one would have attempted to take his place. The sale would start at about 7:00 pm and continue until everything was sold, perhaps as late as 10:30 or 11:00 pm. There would always be a horde of little kids on hand, the younger ones inside creating havoc with lots of crying, the older ones outside playing some game on the lawn between the hall and the church.

            The Mission Feasts, one or two per year, were to raise money for missions and to support young men (not women) who were studying for the ministry. There would be a morning service with money offerings, a noon meal in the Hall, more preaching and offerings in the afternoon and supper in the hall. This supper interfered a bit with afternoon “chores,” so there was not quite the crowd. I believe there was another evening session of preaching and money offerings. Visiting pastors did all this preaching. Probably some people attended every session, and I suspect they were plenty glad to take off their “Sunday” clothes at the end. 

            Sunday School picnics and Vacation Bible Schools also used the Hall for meals. We kids learned very soon who had made the jello salad with marshmallows, the various kinds of meat loaves and casseroles, and the potato salad. This may be where I gained my masterful connoisseurship of potato salad. 

            Since the church building itself had a very small unfinished basement, it meant that all the usual things that take place in church basements took place in the Hall. In my opinion this was a much better location, being above ground with lots of windows, plenty of room for chairs, tables, whatever was needed. 

            The church building was in the traditional shape, a rectangle with a steeple over the west entrance door. The bell could be rung, or tolled for funerals by pulling on one of two ropes that hung down in the church vestibule. The bell was rung very vigorously for five full minutes every Saturday night at six o’clock. This was so farmers who had no radios or telephones could get the right time so they could get to church next morning. Most of the farmers could estimate within ten or fifteen minutes of the correct time by watching the sun, but evidently Rev. Siekmann liked this rather old-world custom and didn’t mind the considerable exertion it took for five minutes of ringing. 

            The preparations for the Sunday School picnic, usually in the early summer, started early in the day. Other churches had their picnics in a city park, but Germantown had it in the acre or so of space formed as a quadrangle: the church to the north, the manse to the south, the Hall to the east, the fence (and the road) to the west. One reason for an early start was that ice had to be brought from a store to keep the lemonade cold. Ice was also necessary for the pop (not soda-pop) stand. Ice cream was brought in the big insulated four-gallon cans and placed near the manse porch steps along with the pop. This was sold, whereas the lemonade was free, and it was dispensed from the back steps of the church. Of course the women of the church had to be on hand to bring in and arrange the countless dishes of potato salad, casseroles, pies, cakes, jello and other salads, making as big a deal as possible. Almost all of the men of the church would stay home on the farm until about 11:00, but not much real work was accomplished, I suspect. After all, they would have to save time to clean up a bit, as you couldn’t appear all covered with dust and grease. 

            Uncle Folkert Poppens always handled the free lemonade stand. It was mixed up in a big stone crock, perhaps five or six gallons, the lemon squeezing had to be done by hand, and it was a major project. I have no idea how many lemons it took, or how much sugar, but it was delicious and you could have as much as you wanted. 

            The pop and ice cream stand was not free, but five cents for a bottle (not a can) of Coca Cola or a bottle of Orange Crush, or Nehi Grape pop was not all that expensive. I believe there were two flavors of ice cream, vanilla and chocolate. There may have been strawberry or cherry-nut, but certainly not both. “Fenn’s That Good Ice Cream” cones and dishes available, five cents. 

            The younger children played in the quadrangle all afternoon. There were some organized races and games, but I suspect that most did as I did – just run around. The younger men of the church would, after the monster lunch had settled a bit, go out to the preacher’s pasture, a fenced in area to the east of the Hall and the manse. Rev. Siekmann kept a couple of cows there; it was perhaps about five acres in area and flat enough to have a serious softball game. I played a few times when I got old enough and big enough, but I was never much of a ball-player. One of the reasons for this was because I was scared of the ball. I had seen the broken nose of Art Plucker, who had let a line drive slip right through his out-stretched hands. The ball got him right on the beak. The older men could pitch horse-shoes, some went home and back to the farm work. Most stayed, I think taking the afternoon off until chores time. Those cows had to be milked, and the eggs had to be gathered before the clumsy hens broke too many eggs. 

            The picnic was once a year, but Sunday School met every Sunday in the church sanctuary – obviously, because there was only one big room in the building. There was a kind of ritual to entering the church on the Sunday morning prior to the start. Since our house was only a quarter of a mile from the church, my sister and I were expected to walk there most Sundays of the year. The lucky ones who arrived by car never went inside until the last moment. That meant that we two walkers had no place to go but into the church, which could be a lonely, cold place. Only Uncle Enno, the Sunday School superintendent, a few teachers, and the pastor, Herr Siekmann. He was a formidable person indeed, with his super-loud voice and heavy German accent. Finally, Dots and I caught on to the fact that the car-sitters-until-the-last-moment would allow us to join them in their cars. Then we could wait, too. But soon the bell would ring, and we all had to troop inside. 

            With no separate rooms, all the classes met in the sanctuary; the younger boys on the left, the girls on the right. There were two aisles making three seating sections. The center section was for the Bible Class, the high school age people. The girls sat in the first couple of rows, the boys behind them. Rev. Siekmann taught this class in his usual super-loud voice. Somehow the other teachers had to deal with all the racket. So we kids sat in the side pews, read our Sunday School “papers,” recited the Bible verses we should have memorized and did the usual squirming and wriggling. 

            Cousin Alvin Plucker was in my class, and he and I were pleased, as all boys are, when our voices began to lower. We would brag to each other how we could hit G below middle C; later it would be E flat, and finally a whole octave below C. What bliss! Now we could begin to sing in parts, especially as by this time we would have been promoted to the Bible Class. Many of the DeVries girls were singing alto parts by this time, and Dan DeVries was beginning to add the tenor to that. Now and then bass was heard (Eddie DeVries) and part singing became so popular that sometimes it was hard to hear if anyone was left singing the despised soprano part. We had wonderful part singing in the Sunday School in those days, “Constantly Abiding,” “Wonderful Grace of Jesus,” “Victory Through Grace,” “A Wonderful Saviour is Jesus My Lord” and many others. Our favorites were the ones that had prominent and interesting bass and tenor parts. 

            Later, this Sunday School training was to pay off for Dad, who was able to keep an active Men’s Chorus going for many years and also made it possible to sing an occasional easy cantata for mixed choir. His first attempt at this resulted in an Easter cantata called “The Thorn-Crowned King.” Other cantatas followed at Christmases and Easters. I believe that we usually were able to recruit a cantata choir of 35 – 40 voices. 

            Then there were the Sunday School Christmas programs. We had the usual little kids come up to the front to say their “pieces.” They had all been seated in the front of the middle section with their teachers, waiting to be called. What a deal! To sit in church away from the parents! We also had the usual “dialogues” between the angels and shepherds, in bathrobe costumes of course. This was a long dull program which demanded a Pause (pronounced in German by Herr Siekmann as pow-sa) during which one could stand up and stretch while apples, oranges, animal crackers and some peanuts were passed around to everyone, not just the children. I remember one Christmas that I spent at home following a fall quarter at South Dakota State College in Brookings. I was sitting in the congregation beside my mother enjoying the visiting and the animal crackers, just the same as it had been some ten or twelve years earlier. After a few minutes Mom said to me, “Don’t talk, just listen carefully.” I did that, and Mom and I had a good laugh at the soft sound of all the good folks chomping away just like their own farm animals. 

            After the Pause and the grand finale with the angels, shepherds, wise men, Joseph and Mary and the Baby there would be the distribution of the sacks. Why or how the tradition got started I do not know, but each family, and each separate member of the family received one. These were big paper grocery sacks, and each would be filled with a large assortment of different kinds of nuts, lots of peanuts, a couple of oranges, and apple, plus a small bag of candy. This was mostly hard candy which I didn’t like, but there were also a coupe of bars, like Baby Ruth or Three Musketeers and a few Hershey kisses. These sacks of goodies were generous gifts, make no mistake about it. Many of the kids who were barely getting enough to eat at home during the Dust Bowl years were thrilled. I believe that the money to pay for them was all gathered by the Trustees who visited each of the members of the church to ask for contributions. Groceries were cheap in those days, but some of the donors must have been generous indeed. 

            The actual distribution of the sacks would consist of someone with a loud voice reading the name of the family, then the number of sacks they were to receive. The sacks would then be handed off to one of four or five young men who would deliver them to the families. These folks could then leave, or stay and visit for a while. Most stayed, I think. There were two years when I was one of the Passers of the Sacks. Proud moments, those. 

            Since in the earliest days, the morning church service was all in the German language, many of us were excused to leave, as we understood no “high” German. If it had been “low” German many more would have understood. If you were lucky as Dots and I were, it was simple to walk home. For a couple of years Stewart and Jewell Ulfers came with us and we had a good time playing while others had to sweat out the German hour or more. 

            The evening service was in English. It was probably not as well attended as the morning, but as fewer and fewer people knew the German, attendance dwindled until Rev. Siekmann resigned and moved away. Then the German was abandoned, and I believe no attempt was made to find a pastor from the German Synod of the West who could preach in that language. Of course, I could not judge how good the sermons were until English was adopted and we had to attend morning church. Now, with some of the new preachers who followed Herr Siekmann, the prayers seemed to become agonizingly long. Some, who had watches with a second hand, would surreptitiously, time them. Twelve minutes was very long but once or twice when it got to fifteen, well, that was outrageous. In those days I would have been aghast (but probably thankful) at the thought of a prayer being read out of a prayer book and thus of a defined length. 

            The hymn singing was not as good as the Sunday School singing even though the young people were mostly the same. They were probably too scattered out, and perhaps overwhelmed by the super-loud voice of Rev. Siekmann. Fact is, he “hollered” out the hymns. The German hymn singing in the morning was accompanied by a small reed organ; the Sunday School and the evening service used the piano. 

            The entrance of the two DeVries families was predictable. First, there would be the wait, either outside or in the smallish vestibule. Then, when the big wall clock showed 7:30, first one family would come in led by the father, then all the children and the mother. Somehow they would always wind up in one of the front rows in the middle section, mother on one end of the row and father on the others. A breath or two later, the other DeVries family would repeat the process (or procession). The old tradition of the men on one side and the women on the other did not die out completely; although men appeared on the women’s side now and then, very rarely did women appear on the men’s side. 

            When it came to the Communion service in Siekmann’s time, it was a very Big Deal, in part because it came around so seldom, only once a year, I think. Only older people who were official Members of the Church were eligible to take part. The officers and senior men of the church went up to the front first to be served their bread and wine, later the women. I don’t know if this restricted Communion was on the law books of the church; I did not receive Communion there until I had graduated from high school, and officially Joined the Church. This made first Communion roughly equal to the solemnity of First Communion in the Roman Catholic Church. After Rev. Siekmann left, the church went to the much less impressive Communion in the pews. 

            Baptisms were ridiculously easy as all the parents had to do was bring the baby forward to get it sprinkled, after answering the required questions. As a kid, I was always glad that I was not a Baptist, as those kids were old enough to be embarrassed and were made to go completely under the water in a big tank right out in front of everyone. Our family got invited to attend the baptism of some neighbor kids. I was fascinated, but very glad to be a Presbyterian. 

            It was probably my senior year in high school that I took on the job of church janitor. There were the usual sweeping and dusting duties in the church building, but not in the Hall. The real challenge was getting the church warm in winter, as it was left to go cold during the week. Any midweek church activity had to be in the large manse, or some member’s house. The church furnace was a coal burner that had one directly overhead heat register. The heat would rise straight up, and then could be distributed by the several big overhead paddle fans. The trick was to get a very early start with the furnace as the temperature could be zero or below. As there was no plumbing, there was no worry about pipes freezing. 

            I would have to get to the church soon after six on Sunday mornings, get a little corn-cob and wood fire going to ignite the coal. That done, it was a kind of delicate work to control the fire (it could get hideously hot) so that the temperature would be just right for the Sunday School crowd at 9:30. If I failed, I would be sure to hear about it from all my friends, enemies, and people I didn’t even know. I cannot brag about my skill at getting and maintaining a comfortable temperature for the entire day, including the evening service. 

            The basement was mildly fascinating’ it was not fully excavated, and there was room only for the furnace and the “light plant.” This was a two-cylinder gasoline engine running a generator to charge the sixteen two-volt glass cells that took up most of the space on a table about four feet wide and eight feet long. Connected in series, this big battery of cells delivered thirty-two volts of power for the church, the Hall, and the manse. Since there were not many appliances that ran on thirty-two volts of direct current, the generator did not have to run more than once, sometimes twice a week. It was a treat to have the steady electric light in the church, as almost nobody had electricity at home. It was not until 1948 or so, that Northern States Power Company hooked up the entire area. 

            When the new church was built in the late 1940’s, the old building was moved away and became a grain storage building. My Dad pointed out the old, old nails that had been used in the floor joists. They were square as if they had been hand-forged.



            The new church, in a great many respects, was an improvement. It was bigger, it had room for over-flow crowds, it had a true finished basement, it had much better heating. It had plumbing, and the kitchen and indoor toilets that the plumbing made possible. The Hall was probably too run-down to save and I don’t know what happened to it. In any event, it was not needed, with the new church basement available. Probably most people have forgotten the inscription over the old church door that to my regret, never appeared on the door to the new church, nor on the very new sanctuary that was recently built as an addition to the “new” church.



2008

 

ICH FREUE MICH, DAS WIR WERDEN INS HAUS DER

HERRN GEHEN 

(I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord) 

            I apologize to my younger sister, Jean, that she was not mentioned in these church memories. Of course I remember that my sister was born in 1938, the day after Thanksgiving; the age difference made shared memories unlikely.

 

 MEMORIES OF RAISING FOUR CHILDREN – PART III

Circa 1956 – 1984 – and beyond

By Dr. Robert E. Plucker

And now to John, who can't avoid being special because he became the first boy in a family collection of girls. There was Margaret, sister of Dorothy, only children of Marcel and Margaret Madsen. "Little" Margaret had Holly. Dorothy had Myra and Molly. I have two sisters, Dorothy and Jean, Barbara and I had Virginia and Dorothy Jean. Quite a proliferation of girls, and Dorothy’s. Amid all these females, John had to be a special event. John's first name came from my grandfather, John P. Plucker, and his middle name Marnin came from a list of baby names with meanings, plus the resemblance to Marcel, Margaret's father. I believe that the second meaning attached to "Marnin" was "Singer of Songs". Or something musical at least.

Margaret with baby John in 1984

John's birth story is partly in previous paragraphs, but some details need to be mentioned here. First was all my worries about his being conceived at all, as I had serious doubts about my willingness to take on fatherhood at my "mature" age. Margaret and I had agreed that there were to be no children in our marriage, as she had Holly, and I had Ginny and Dot. That was enough, we thought. But Margaret loves children, and after some seven years, she really wanted another child. I was scared. I was 55, and would be 56 before the required time would be up. I was sure I was far too old to care for another kid. Margaret was so determined, that one morning on the way to work I came close to panic, and upon arriving I asked, no, begged Father Bill Forbes, Episcopal priest, colleague and friend to counsel me. His wise words and the encouragement of a wise old lady, Violet Moen at the Stanwood Lutheran church gave me much comfort and some confidence. I was finally able to anticipate John's arrival with true enthusiasm, not apprehension and outright fear. I suspect the enthusiasm was cranked up some when the amniocentesis test indicated "boy."

It is only fair, however, to point out that daughter Dorothy already had broken the spell, and presented me with a grandson, named Robert. Later people would ask me if I intended to name our baby after me, and I would reply that I couldn't, as my grandson had gotten the name first.

Margaret's father's remarked when he came to visit in the hospital, "If only Paw could have seen this!" Evidently Margaret's grandfather had gotten a bit alarmed too, at the lack of boys.

When John was perhaps two years old, I had taken him with me in the truck to do some errand or other. We came back, stopped the truck in the driveway, set the hand-brake, and I went a few steps away to greet Margaret, Holly or for some other reason. All I remember is that I was close enough to watch with horror, as the truck rolled backward down the driveway, crossed the road, crossed the shallow ditch on the far side of the road, and finally came to a stop in the vacant lot across the street from us, hung up on some stubborn small stumps of alder that I had recently cut down to improve our view. The truck had good speed to have gone that distance over such obstacles; it was too far gone before I noticed what was happening for me to catch it and get it stopped.

We still have this good old Toyota (l985) truck and the hand-brake is still tricky and hard to release even when you know how to do it. I suppose I left the truck in gear (stick-shift) as well, as that was my habit, and it may be that not only did John somehow release the brake but also put the gears in neutral as well. Anyhow, the truck was stuck high and dry on the alder stumps and had to be pulled free with a tow truck. One of the stumps came near to penetrating the fuel tank, but the leak did not start until some years later. I put a temporary NAPA fix on it, and it was only last year that Bob Lowden here in Haines fixed it permanently.

John with Bob in 2012

There was another bicycle wreck that happened when John was older and rode faster. Holly was supposed to be watching him while Margaret and I were at a choir rehearsal, but John came flying down our street on his bicycle and crashed into the side of an innocent Pontiac. The police and fire trucks evidently came in response to neighbor's calls, and there was some excitement. But all this was unknown to Margaret and me until later. No serious injury; even the Pontiac survived with no significant damage.

John became a baseball player, starting with the T-ball league and progressing upward to the Little Leagues. Holly was responsible in part for this, because she had reminded me that real fathers always played ball with their boys. So John and I started playing ball on the driveway, the backstop being the garage door, using a short length of 2X2 for a bat, and a good-sized beach ball. Later I got John a genuine wood bat, and a left-hander's fielding glove.

Two truly outstanding plays that I remember the most vividly happened in Little League play. The first was a grand slam home run. John's face as he ran all the way around the bases was pure delight, probably the equal of Holly's face when she got to hold him as a new-born. The second was later, after he had become a "seasoned" player, and before he got serious about soccer. In this game, the opposing hitter slammed the ball a good bit further than anyone expected, right over centerfielder John's head. He turned and chased the ball down with his great speed, gathered it up and made a heroic left-handed throw to Adam Cook, the catcher, who very coolly caught it, bent down and put out the batter who had been sure he had a home run! Pandemonium from the spectators!

His soccer games were equally exciting because he could outrun everyone he played with, or against. But soccer, being a constantly moving game, did not present so many truly memorable single plays. However, Margaret and I were converted to being soccer fans.

And there was music. Since Margaret and I were both teachers of music, and since he was made to go to many of the concerts that I conducted, it was impossible for him to escape music. The Skagit Community Choir was performing the Handel Messiah when he was eight months old. He was in Margaret’s arms, sitting in the rear of the audience, and he decided to join the choir. I did not notice any sound from him at the time, as I was busy conducting, but Margaret said he was making convincing efforts to sing, not cry. I could hardly believe it, but when we played the tape recording of the concert, sure enough, there was the little voice, singing right through the rest in the score.

Young John with his horn.

When he was in school, he liked listening to Benjamin Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. He heard it many, many times and especially liked the trumpet parts. The big ending was a favorite and he could sing and pretend to play the trumpet along with the orchestra. The percussion parts were also a favorite. When he got the chance, he took up the trumpet in school. The next step was to borrow the school's (LaConner Public Schools) French horn, a single horn in F. He played it almost immediately, apparently because nobody had ever told him what a difficult and cranky instrument a horn is. When we moved to Alaska it appeared that there would be no school instruments to borrow, so we bought a new double horn for him. It has made world travels with him, and has played hundreds (probably) of concerts.

The first challenge with the new horn was when the LaConner school decided to perform "Bye Bye Birdie". John was recruited to play in the small orchestra, the only horn, and the only seventh grader amongst adult players. He said he had been scared at the performances, but of course Margaret and I thought he was perfect.
 

When John was in sixth grade, he began to complain of a pain and a swelling in his right ankle. He tried valiantly to ignore it and kept up his usual very active life until one night he was to stay overnight with his friend Jonathan Windle. When Jonathan's mother saw the hurting ankle and the large knob that appeared to have grown significantly since we last saw it, she said we had jolly well better come and pick up John and bring him directly to the emergency room at Skagit Valley Hospital. We did so, and the emergency crew started taking care of him immediately.

He had a bone scan plus all the other kinds of tests that they give. The frightening news was that they would have to operate on this ankle to remove the growth, or this "thing" would grow and cause the ankle bone itself to stop growing. John had by no means attained his full growth, and an athletic fellow like him should not have to deal with a lame leg for the rest of his life.

Dr. West did the operation/procedure on John, and that went well, but managing the dressing on the wound was another sickening affair. For a change, I was able to watch without feeling faint while Dr. West examined the result of his work, and changed the dressing over the next couple of days. Then came what seemed like quarts of antibiotics that we were to administer at home. Home, at that time, was sailboat Greta, I-dock at LaConner Marina. This went on for several weeks, and ultimately, John was as good as new, playing baseball, soccer, running very fast, and enjoying playing catch with me. It was not very long before he could throw much harder than I could.



John

His horn playing somehow seemed to keep on improving in spite of having virtually no formal lessons. He "turned pro" not long before we left LaConner for Haines. St. Paul's Episcopal Church choir was working on an anthem that had an optional cello or horn obbligato. I volunteered John to play, and he played it to everyone's enthusiastic approval. If memory serves, I think they gave him some money for that, so I could claim that at that point he turned professional.

Holly

Present-day thinking has it that children today have difficulty in school partly because their parents move around so much that they rarely spend much time in one school. The four kids of this essay either are exceptions to this thinking, or perhaps they did stay long enough to establish themselves. Ginny started at Alllouez kindergarten, first grade at Jackson School, Green Bay, Dot joined her there, and together they progressed to Ft. Howard school, Sandpoint School in Seattle, then junior high and high school in Everett. Neither graduated in the usual standard way.

Ginny and Dottie with Bob's mother, Dena

        Holly was more conventional, going through kindergarten to high school graduation in Stanwood, Washington. As it turned out, she was the only one of the four to spend four full years in high school. John also went to kindergarten and the first three grades in Stanwood, then to LaConner, and then to Haines where he graduated but took only three years to do it.

Colleges? Oh yes indeed.

Ginny: Seattle U., Everett Community, Edmonds Community, U. of Washington, Seattle Pacific U.

Dot: ITT technical school, U. of Washington over a long period of time.

Holly: Bryn Mawr College and U. of Alaska Southeast.

John: U. of Alaska Fairbanks, Victoria U. at Wellington NZ, and Norway Academy of Music in Oslo Norway.

A regret of my later life is that these four children, now grown up, live so far apart from each other. The first two hardly know the second two. Virginia is in Charleston, South Carolina; Dorothy is in Bothell, Washington; Holly is in Haines, Alaska; John is in Oslo, Norway. How scattered can you get?
 

What are the influences that largely shaped the lives of these four? There is no way of knowing, of course, but these are a few of the people that I respected most, and whose teaching, I suppose, had at least some effect on the lives of my children.

My mother's mother, Grandma Thaden: she had raised eleven children, she knew how to keep order, and had various rules for living in her house that could not be flouted.

My Grandfather, John Plucker: a kind, patient, caring person.

Both my mother and father, Dena and M E J Plucker, who forgave me for entirely too many "episodes" when I was in high school. My dad imparted invaluable wisdom to me, mostly when we were in the cow barn milking the cows by hand.

The music streak that runs through our extended family goes back a considerable distance as well. One of my mother's great-uncles was said to have been a cathedral organist in southern Germany. All the Thadens were singers of a sort, and some were very good. I have already written about Dad's influence as a member of the Johnson quartet. He was also a music director at Germantown Presbyterian Church for many years, founding a Men's Chorus that would continue for many years past his death. Mom was church pianist for a while, and there was a time when Dad was directing the choir, Mom was accompanying, and my sister Dorothy and I were singing in the choir. Jeanie was still too young, or she would have been there too, I am sure.

 

John, Virginia, Dorothy, Bob, Holly

 

 

Photos by Jean E. Straatmeyer and Matt Davis

Also, some scanned photos from Jean's collection.

 MEMORIES OF RAISING FOUR CHILDREN – PART II

Circa 1956 – 1984 – and beyond

By Dr. Robert E. Plucker

Now we come to Holly, who became Daughter #3 when Margaret and I got married in 1977. Due to the fact that I had never even met her mother before Holly was born, it deprived me of the honor of being her biological father. Still, at the age of not-quite 4, when Margaret and I got married, I feel secure in claiming her as Number Three Daughter. Oddly enough, I never wanted to adopt her formally; my reason being that the name Holly Plucker just didn't sound right, and I figured she'd get along better on school playgrounds as Holly Scott, and not with some name that kids could easily make fun of. She remained as Holly Scott until she took her husband's name and became famous as Holly Davis.

I have to admit that I felt rather like an interloper when she was little, and ruled over her empire that consisted of herself, her mother and her grandmother. On a boat trip one day she and my grandson Rob were having a heart-to-heart discussion on the foredeck. Margaret chanced to overhear Holly telling Rob that her mother and I had gotten married in the nick of time, or she would have been hopelessly spoiled.

 

Holly accepted me gradually. The first time Margaret ever left her alone with me as baby-sitter was before we were married. She had to do an errand quickly, and could not take the time to drive all the way from Madrona Beach, Camano Island, to Grandma in Stanwood. I was handy, and it would be for only a short time. Oh, but there was weeping and wailing and outright yelling when Margaret drove off in her Plymouth. Holly stood by the couch; hands clenched at her sides and had a great time howling. After a few minutes she began to suspect that there weren't going to be any sudden changes in her prospects, and she was getting tired. There was getting to be a little space between howls. I took the opportunity, and when I thought she might be able to hear what I said, I asked her calmly if she would like to walk along when I went to the fire-station to get a couple of big jugs of drinking water. The tap water was said to be too polluted to drink. She stood silent, for a beat or two, considering, and then said yes. We went off quite happily together, hand in hand. I have often marveled at the resilience of this young lady. She always springs back from adversity. On the other hand, perhaps she just wanted to play in the water. Every time she "helped" me wash my Fiat, or Margaret's Plymouth, I got at least as wet as the car.

Margaret and I took several long trips on our boat "Echappee" with Holly, of course. We were fond of going ashore somewhere and taking long walks. On one occasion we were anchored at Blakely Harbor on Bainbridge Island, and decided to walk to Winslow, not realizing what a mind-boggling distance this was for a little kid. We kept her going with promises of lemonade just around the next corner, but no corner turned out to be the right one. We did eventually get all the way to Winslow where we thought we would be able to deliver on the lemonade promise. Not a cupful in town! We must have gotten back to our boat somehow, but the disaster of not finding any lemonade destroyed my memory of the return trip.

Holly got to play the heroine's role on a boat trip to Nanaimo British Colombia. Newcastle Island is just across from the town, and looks small on the chart. We thought we could easily walk the trail all the way around the perimeter in what was left of the afternoon. The sun was quite bright and Margaret and I were both wearing our prescription sun-glasses. If we had realized how late it was, and if we had been much more careful in estimating the distance, and if we had known how obscure the trail on the far side of the island was, we could have avoided a lot of stumbling around in the brush. As I remember it, the side of this oval shaped island that faces Georgia Strait is well-marked and well-traveled. As you round the north end and start looking at the rather drab and grubby part of the city, hikers tend to be less interested. Also there is more brush and steep climbs and cliffs to navigate. About the time we got through the worst of the steep parts the sun was going down and it was getting dark fast. Margaret and I depended heavily on our glasses to see beyond our own noses, and these sun-glasses were the only ones we had with us. We were close to being blind, but Holly, bless her soul, was our seeing eye. "And a little child shall lead them."

Holly got stuck with accompanying many long walks. She would occupy herself by picking up a stick, which by its mere selection from amongst gazillions of sticks, would acquire great value to her. She would carry it, guard it, defend it against all comers, and would not drop it. A number of times, walking on Stewart Island (in the San Juan’s) over some steep narrow trail, I would worry that she would sacrifice herself to save her stick. Now, it seems to me that both of her little boys show the same tendencies, but I guess all kids do that.

One of the truly memorable moments with Holly was at Everett General Hospital, waiting for John to be born. Margaret thought she was ready on the afternoon of the 9th of April (1984), and so we went to Everett from Camano Island for the blessed event to occur. As it turned out, we waited all night in the hospital until after 9 o’clock the next morning. Most of that time Holly was by herself in a waiting room being extremely patient. I was with Margaret (things being totally different from 1956 and 1958), but would go down to check on Holly several times. She was awake, I think, most of the time, but there was no whining from her, not at the advanced and enlightened age of 10. She was ready and determined to wait for that baby no matter how long it took.

The birthing business was entirely new to me of course, not having been allowed to have the slightest part in the births of Daughters #1 and #2. I took it fairly well, having been prepared by attending classes in the preceding weeks. But this was a long and fairly difficult process, and my admiration for all mothers can hardly be stated. The only time I felt faint was when they got out a needle and stuck it in Margaret's arm!

After Margaret got the first chance to hold little John, I got the second. I asked Dr. Patton if I could take the baby to show to Holly in the waiting room, and to my amazement, she said yes, I could. I went down into this obscure waiting room carrying John; Holly was either asleep, or had just waked up. I showed her the baby and then asked her if she would like to hold him. Would she!! She couldn't have shown more excitement and delight than if she had hit a grand slam home run. (I was to see this kind of excitement and delight some years later on John's face, when he actually hit a grand slam home run.)

            This was certainly a great moment in both of our lives, but it was not just a brief flash in the pan. Holly and I went out to eat and celebrate together at Taylor's Landing, and of course Holly and John had many happy moments together in spite of their ten year age difference. I believe that John was never the pesky little brother in her eyes.
 

When John was perhaps six years old, he had a small bicycle which he learned to ride. (I might brag here, that I was the guy who ran behind the two-wheelers for all four kids when they learned to ride their bicycles, puff-puff.) I watched him come down a fairly steep hill one fall day, when a pickup truck started to back out of a driveway just below where he was barreling down the hill. John saw the truck, back-pedaled to brake, but there were wet slippery leaves on the road. He lost control and fell with his chin hitting some sharp object that put a nasty cut in it. The fellow in the truck had seen John, and had stopped backing, but by then John was out of control, and I was helplessly watching all this from maybe one hundred yards distance.

Anyhow, the truck driver took the bike, John, and me the short distance to our Camano Island house. Holly and I then rushed John to the Stanwood Clinic, with John well wrapped up in towels and things to stop bleeding. In the doctor's treatment room Dr. Minella set about cleaning up the cut, scraping out the gravel and dirt and so on. Holly held John's hand and comforted him while he was being sewed up. I attempted to help with the comforting, but sure enough, I couldn't stand the sight of it and had to go sit down. Holly bravely stuck to her job. John still has a small scar under his chin nearly 20 years later.

             So after all these adventures and experiences, I feel that I successfully overcame the feeling of being the interloper in the Holly-Grandma-Mom Corporation. This actually started early on, I think, when Holly stopped calling me Bob, and I became "Dad." This was a proud moment, as I had not asked her to do this.

*** Stay tuned to this blog for Part III of “Memories of Raising Four Children.”

 

Photos are all scanned from the files of

Jean E. Straatmeyer