Cousin Joy has given me permission to include her stories of childhood. Great memories of wonderful times spent with her Aunts, but more importantly with her Grandmother (Cora). Here are her memories:
August, 2011
I enjoyed seeing the Little family pictures.
I remembered your Dad and my memory hasn’t failed me. His photos are how I remember him.
I absolutely loved your Mom to pieces. She used to take Susie, Jean and myself to spend the night with them. They had chickens and pigs that I remember. We would beg Uncle Irvin to play that trumpet and he would. At the time I knew the song but I can’t remember it right now.
About the story of Grandma Johnson treating Aunt Gracie for warts: Well, your Mom did the same thing with Susie once when we were visiting her. Your Mom told Susie to bury the rag somewhere inside the fence where the chickens were. She did, but I don’t know if the warts went away or not.
We had the best time at your Mom’s. Happy memories.
The Johnson photos were nice to see. I had almost forgotten what Uncle Claude looked like.
I do remember the pig roasts.
I also remember the time when they shot a goat and when they did they made all of us kids go around behind the house while my Dad shot it. I don’t remember if they roasted it or not but they probably did as everyone was there. (Later Billy Ross Bennett said that they did roast the goat, he remembers the day as well)
I remember Grandma (Cora) would take a chicken and tie its legs to the clothesline. Then she’d wring its neck. Ugh. . .
When we went to visit Grandma she nearly always took us into the back room. It was very dark and that is where she kept all of her canned vegetables, jams, etc. She sealed the top of her jars and jams and jellies with paraffin and she would take it off and give us the wax to chew on. It always had a little jam or jelly on it and that made it taste really good. We would chew it for hours.
I used to look at Grandma’s false teeth that she kept in a jar of water by the pitcher pump in the big kitchen. The gums were almost purple, and they were fascinating to a little kid.
I loved Grandma more than anyone else in the whole world. She was so special to me. I missed her dearly after she died. For a long, long time when I thought of her I would cry and cry. Her spirit has stayed with me for many, many years. I always knew she was near, even after I was an adult.
The best time of my life was when we were kids at Grandma’s house.
To this day I can remember when I was very little, sitting on her lap as she would rock me and sing to me. . .
“Here comes the Sandman
Stepping so softly
He scatters sand, with his own little hand
Through the eyes of the sleepy Children
Go to sleep my Children
Close your sleepy eyes
The Lady moon will watch you
Throughout the Darkening sky.”
Why do I still remember it? I don’t know.
Grandpa Johnson used to keep the slop bucket on the back porch and grandma would throw all the scraps from meals into it. Then, in the afternoon Grandpa would pour water into it and add a scoop of hog feed. Off we’d go to the barn to slop the hogs.
That was fun stuff don’t you know? Grandpa was a pretty good Grandpa also. . .
Ask Billy Ross if he remembers when we were all at Grandma’s and everyone spent the night. All of us kids had to sleep in the same bed; some of at the head of the bed, and some of us at the foot of the bed. There must have been 6 or 8 of us in the same bed. They had a big bedroom at the front of the house, but later tore the room off. The front porch extended from the front door around the house past the big bedroom. I don’t’ think I got any sleep when we slept there. Gary Wayne took up a lot of room and stretched out and those of us at the foot of the bed had to scrunch up to fit.
There was an alley that ran between the properties. The house, coal shed, storage shed, chicken coop, and outhouse were on one side of the alley and the barn was down and across the alley (in Lodi).
One day Susie, Jean and myself were out playing as we always did at Grandma’s house and behind the outhouse and across the alley along the fence row were some bushes that had purple berries that were ripe. We found out that they stained when you mashed them.
So, we girls used the berries as lipstick and then went back inside of the house. Oh my! All hell broke loose. Aunt Violet, Aunt Mary, and Aunt Gracie were mortified.
“Where did you get them berries?”
“Did you swallow any of them?”
They were all scurrying around trying to get it off of our lips and they made us drink a glass of milk. They told us the berries were “poison”.
Gee, I just knew we were in so much trouble that we were going to get a whipping for what we did.
It never happened. Not from our Aunties. They scolded us and told us never to touch them berries again or they would kill us. “NEVER AGAIN!”
I was a teenager when Grandpa Bill passed away.
He had always been a robust guy and when he was in the TB Sanatorium (Rockville, IN) I went with my Dad to visit him. I remember walking past this long row of beds looking for Grandpa. I couldn’t see him anywhere and then my dad said, “Joy, back here.” Grandpa was so thin I didn’t know who he was. I had been looking for a big guy. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say to him. He knew who I was as he always called me “Jo”. When he died I didn’t go to his funeral since I just couldn’t bear to see him like that again. Afterwards I was ashamed because I didn’t go.
Our family blog began in 2008 when we were fortunate enough to experience a RV trip that circumnavigated America. Our family of four includes Audrey, Hannah, Connie and Tony (+ Cocoa our Chocolate Lab). This blog is simply a diary of our adventures to share with family & friends. The photo below is of the girls at the VERY LARGE ARRAY (VLA) in New Mexico; One of the many fascinating spots that we have been lucky enough to have visited.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
My Mom's Stories of Growing Up in Indiana
Where you are and what you are doing right now has been greatly influenced by your past experiences in life.
For a change of pace I'm posting not "what we are doing" right now but in a way, how we got here.
Heritage.
Family tradition.
For me, I learned a great deal from my Mom and her sistes. Here are some of the stories that they told me about growing up on the banks of the Wabash River, northeast of Cayuga, Indiana.
Thanks Mom, Aunt Grace, Aunt Mary, and Aunt Mousie.
L-R: Grace, Mary, Violet, and Olive
STORY TIME
In 1976 Connie and I left our hometown, Danville, Illinois with the intention of returning one day. We were both close to our families and we enjoyed our joint recreational pursuits of tennis, bicycling, boating, hiking and fishing. We both enjoyed listening to the cacophony of the katydids on a hot August night, chasing after lightening bugs (fire flies) and running outside amongst a cooling July thunderstorm that brought welcome relief from the sweltering temperatures. We both enjoyed the Covered Bridge Festival in Rockville and hiking, driving or bicycling amongst the orange, yellow and brilliant reds of the hardwood canopies around Parke County, Indiana (which has more covered bridges in this one county than the rest of the country combined). I even looked forward to the challenges of twenty below temperatures and of snowdrifts that would bury cars. I considered my neighbors and family to be “hearty” and “dependable”. I was proud of my heritage, content with my lot in life.
After wetting our appetites to the prospect of life outside of Danville (my college experience, limited traveling and time spent in the Marines) it became obvious to both of us that we suffered from the “wanderlust”. We looked at Danville, remembered our upbringing there with gratitude and a smile and turned our collective visions westward. Our gaze was towards the mountains; towards the vastness of the Pacific Ocean and the beauties of nature. We were off and we have never returned less for our visits to our beloved families.
However, it was our upbringing in Danville that has been the foundation for our lives. As children we were raised on the midwestern concepts of hard work, frugality, service to God and a willingness to offer a helping hand to neighbors. Physical labor was what largely defined the Illinois scenery. During my youth, factories in Danville were ablaze with the fires of steel production. Forging parts for General Motors automobiles, Hyster forklifts and the machinery that would build them. But, mostly it was the vistas of the grasslands, long since replaced by tillable soil. Farming this black soil was my family’s heritage and that of Connie’s mother’s family. While I ran miles for conditioning, my relatives saw this as wasted energy. For any effort that didn’t produce tangible, useful results was seemingly “needlessly without purpose”. Their vision of manhood was of a guy who could till the soil, plant and tend a crop, harvest its bounty, butcher a pig, construct a broken part for a tractor on a metal lathe (instead of purchasing the part at the local International Harvester (IH) dealer), solve any mechanical problem that arose, dig a well, build a house or farm outbuilding, and on the 4th of July pitch washers or horseshoes with the best of ‘em and during the winter months play a fare hand at cards (Dirty Hearts and Spades mostly).
My father died when I was but 3 years old and my mother never remarried. She always said, “Nobody measures up to your Dad”. She was with retrospect as competent in her roll as a father as she was as a mother. She was the product of midwestern common sense and loyalty and I never lost much sleep over not having had a Dad; because, in my Mom, I still did.
Webster’s dictionary has it wrong. For when they define the word “pragmatic” there should be a picture and a description of my Mom. Recently, my family had a scare that Mom had spots on her lung that might turn out to be cancerous. My Mom in talking of her plight would say “Heck fire. You don’t expect me to live forever do ya?” Fortunately, the spots turned out to be scars from long ago bouts with pneumonia.
Those that know me, have heard me often say that one of my favorite past times is to listen to my Mother and her sisters as they recount stories of their childhood. Their words ringing out with humor, courage and of those wonderful memories of youth. A time in all of our lives when adulthood, agedness and death are so distant that they seem unobtainable. My Mother and her sister’s eyes and faces full of love and glimmering as they recount memories of their mother, father, siblings and close friends. As they sit and recount memories that are more than seven decades distant. Their minds full of images of their parents and siblings, long departed from this earth.
Their youth was spent in the midst of the "Great Depression". A time in the history of this nation when frivolities were rare, food on the table was greatly appreciated and bartering for goods and services was commonplace. For the Johnson family living on a small farm northeast of Cayuga, Indiana, there wasn't always money on hand to pay for even the most basic necessities of life. Whether those necessities are clothing, food, and medical services or even to pay for the services of an undertaker.
I will attempt to put onto paper the words of my Mother and her beloved sisters. Using their phrases, lingo and eloquence. Honoring their stories of joy and of hardships endured.
A number of the "Girls" stories relate to the medical care that they received during their years on the Sand Prairie farm. This care was provided by the town doctor and also by close neighbors and resourceful parents.
The Johnson family lacked ready access to medical services. Today we simply dial 9-1-1 in an emergency and help is at or door in a matter of minutes. During the 1920’s and 30’s on the Johnson farm a telephone was more than a mile away at a neighbor's house on Old Highway 63. A buggy ride into Cayuga to obtain the services of a physician was anything but quick. Consequently, more times than not, the family took circumstances into their own hands. They dealt with emergencies that would have left most of today's society paralyzed with fear and inactivity. They got by on good ol’ fashion “Midwest Common Sense”. They simply "handled things" themselves. They did whatever was needed to get the job done and they did so without ever complaining. Without once wishing that there lot in life could have been different. Their love of family sustaining them through all sorts of hardships.
When my Mom or Aunts talk of their mother, Grandma Pearl (Cora Pearl Cox-Johnson) they do so with reverence. Grandma Johnson died before I was born and the only knowledge that I have of her is from her daughter’s stories and by looking at old, faded, black and white pictures. Torn and wrinkled with age. My Grandma Johnson was much more than what mothers are required to be these days. By that, I mean out of sheer necessity, she was able to wear more "hats". Throughout the day you might see her wearing the hat of mother, wife, friend, teacher, doctor, nurse, emergency medical technician, pharmacist, midwife, barber, cook, baker, seamstress, tailor, gardener, farmer, veterinarian, carpenter, leather-maker and that of many other skilled crafts, too numerous to mention. When she married Bill Johnson she was expected to put up preserves, can vegetables and fruit which she had grown in her own garden, she would wash his clothes (doing a “rubbin”) make soap, make and maintain the family’s clothing, and be able to nurse back to health a sick child or a sick pig alike. She had learned all of these skills not in school but from her mother. She learned skills and fortitude, which was deep in tradition, folklore and superstition.
This first story relates to my Grandma Johnson as she was wearing the hat of "Doctor".
Cora Cox Johnson (holding her baby Claude) and her family circa. 1917 William Johnson (her husband) is at the top right of the photo
GRACIE PLAYS WITH TOADS
My Aunt Grace recalls a summer day when she was a child of about five years old. A day where she gained great delight from that childhood pastime of playing with toads. These creatures provided her with a few hours of wonder and many days of utter misery. For, perhaps as a result of her playing with these critters or probably for some other reason, Gracie got a bad case of "The Warts". She told me that they covered her face, neck, hands and arms. My Mom tells me that while suffering from the warts, Gracie looked “scary”.
As most children do in times of trouble, Grace upon discovering her warts, ran to her mother for relief from her plight. Grandma Pearl's treatment was to take a "dirty-greasy-filthy-slimy" ol’ dishrag and wipe the affected areas of Gracie's body with it. She then took some chicken gizzards and removed the "gravel" from them. Pearl then wiped Gracie’s body with the chicken gizzards and then re-wiped the areas with that filthy ol’ dishrag. Grandma then wrapped the gizzards into the rag and instructed Gracie to dig a hole and bury the rag in the hole. Grandma admonished Gracie that it must be “a place where nobody would ever find it”. Pearl then warned Gracie that if she ever told anybody where she had buried the rag, then her warts would return. Now Gracie is an intelligent woman, but to a five-year-old little girl, these instructions must have been pretty daunting.
Gracie realized that she was just too small to dig a hole deep enough to bury the rag and the gizzards in. She pleaded with her mother to allow an exception to the rule, one that would allow her older brother Lorey to help her bury the rag. Cora agreed, but only after instructing Lorey that he too wasn't to ever tell anybody of the burial spot. Cora herself said that even she mustn't find out where the rag was buried. Again, she emphasized to Gracie that if she ever found out where the rag had been buried, then the warts would reappear.
Lorey became a key player in the treatment of Gracie's warts. He did as Gracie and his mother had instructed him to do and he dug a deep hole in a secret spot (behind the chicken coop) on the Sand Prairie farm. Gracie placed the rag containing the chicken gizzards into the hole and Lorey covered them and stamped down the mound. Together they spread debris over the newly dug hole to conceal it's location. Lorey vowed to Gracie that he would never tell a soul about their secret.
A short time later, the warts disappeared and Gracie to this day believes “whole heartedly” in the healing power of her mother's treatment. “My Word!” she proclaims, “I’d still have those warts if it weren’t for Mom’s treatment”.
I had never heard this story, nor had my Mother or my sister or any of my cousins until June of 1993 when Gracie was so overwhelmed with my enjoyment of "story time" that she shared this previously untold story with me. It was her most secret of all of her stories. In sharing it, she realized that she risked severe repercussions by telling it.
Her beloved brother Lorey, it seems was true to his vow. For nobody in my family had ever heard of this story. Lorey was truly a person to share secrets with. He was a person loyal to his Mother and his siblings.
After Gracie finished the story, almost fifty years after the fact (isn't memory a wonderful treasure) and after all the laughter had died down, I noticed a concerned look fall upon Gracie's face. It was almost as if she was remembering her mother's words. For I noticed Gracie looking at her hands and arms and feeling the back of her neck and face. Perhaps she was checking to see if the warts had returned. For her mother had warned her that they would, more than a half century before.
And a life time away, on Sand Prairie.
A RUSTY OL' RAKE
As a young teenager, my mother's eldest sister, Mary Jane Johnson-LaBaw, suffered the great misfortune of stepping on a rusty ol' rake. As she did so, she ran the tongs completely through her foot and out the top of her foot. Now, I expect that didn't feel all that great and little Mary's cries soon brought her dad to her aid. Grandpa Bill (William Elsworth Johnson) had been working in the truck patch (field planted with vegetables which would be taken to market after harvest) nearby when he heard his daughter's shouts. Grandpa didn't hesitate. He didn’t fret over what to do, for he knew what ought to be done. He braced himself against an old oak tree and pulled the darn thing out.
To prevent infection and to help stop the bleeding, Grandpa Bill sent Gracie to collect some fresh cow manure. Gracie fetched a pail and a small shovel and ran as fast her legs could take her the long distance down to the bottom pasture along the ol' Wabash River. In this pasture, the family kept its cows. There Gracie followed a big ol' Roan round for what to her "seemed like an eternity" until finally the cow hiked up it's tail and laid a fresh steamin' pile. Gracie quickly shoveled it into her pail and ran back to her father and her distressed "Big Sister". Grandma Pearl had arrived on the scene by now and by virtue of her being the head doctor of the family; she relieved her husband of his duties. She took the fresh manure and packed Mary's wounds with the still warm, steaming feces. The bleeding stopped, the wound healed just fine and Aunt Mary somehow avoided infection. Her foot being no worse for the wear.
To this day, my Mom swears that Grandma Pearl “saved Mary's foot that day. For if she hadn't did what she done, they would have had to cut Mary's leg off".
Well, regardless of my education, my knowledge of physiology and microbiology, I'm inclined to side with my Mom. For I think the same today of my Mom, as the girl's did of theirs back then. I'm POSITIVE my mother is right. If she said it's so, well then it is.
Without Grandma Pearl's treatment, Mary would have had to have hobbled through life one-footed.
THORNS
To the girls growing up on Sand Prairie, the meaning of "Family" was a little different than what we think of these days. For this word not only included their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc., (people that we normally consider as family) but, it extended beyond mere "kin". Their close neighbors, in pretty much the same predicament as they were, were pretty much their family too. And their "best friends" were the Keisers.
The Keisers were always at the Johnsons to provide solace and comfort in times of tragedy (which unfortunately seemed to frequent the Johnson farm) as well as being there to share in the bounties of the harvest season. Heck fire, Mrs. Keiser even delivered Grandma Cora's babies right there on the Johnson's kitchen table. My Mom and Aunts vividly recalling their mother squatting over the table as she pushed out “Little Brother Billy” into Mrs. Keiser’s waiting hands.
My Mother tells me that one summer day she was running around barefoot (a dreadful habit which she continues to this day, even in winter time) through the pastures. She says that she was enjoying the butterflies, catching grasshoppers beneath the big oaks. Being utterly amazed as the grasshoppers spat up "tobaccy" onto her hand. When she happened to step on a big ol' thorn.
Mrs. Keiser was working in the garden when she heard my Mom's cries and she quickly came to little Violet's aid. She diagnosed the problem but didn't have any tweezers or any kind of instrument with which to pull the darn thing out. So she used what was available to her. She used ingenuity and good ol' fashioned rural America common sense. Traits that seemed to be abundant along the banks of the Wabash. Mrs. Keiser got down on her knees, and got the thorn out of my Mom's foot with her teeth.
Now, I ask you, the next time you happen to be working in the yard and see your next door neighbor carrying in a video for that night's entertainment, belly right on up to him (or her, if the case may be) and say "Hey neighbor, I've known you for quite some time now, and I was kind of wondering, if I had a thorn in my foot, would you get it out with your teeth, or say, hey, if my wife was having a baby, would you deliver it in here on the kitchen table for me?"
I suspect, for myself anyways, that seeing that the Auter's aren't my neighbors anymore, cause I'm sure that Ann or Newman could and would without a moments thought, do that or anything for me. But since my present neighbors ain't them, I figure that they would march right on in their own house and have a telephone conversation with the POLICE.
BARTERING TO GET A TRIP TO THE HOSPITAL FOR MOST OF THE KIDS
My sister Ginger and all of my cousins have heard this story from Bee-Bee (our family’s nickname for my Mom), or Gracie, or Mary or from Aunt Mouse (Olive Irene Johnson-Holycross), cause this story is the classic. It’s the yardstick against which all other stories are measured. And it just happens to be my favorite. If you haven't been fortunate enough to hear it from the "horses mouth", well folks, I'm sorry, but you have missed out. You need to live a good life in order to sit around the pearly gates and listen to Aunt Grace tell the story.
It seems that sometimes around 1934-35, good ol' Doctor S. Daroch (the only physician in Cayuga) got into his shiny black car and drove plum from Cayuga out to the Johnson farm on Sand Prairie. Once there, he loaded my Mom, Mary Jane, Gracie Louise, Olive Irene, Lorey and Grandma Pearl into his car and drove the whole bunch of em down Highway 63 to Clinton's Vermilion County Hospital. Fer it seems, for all practical purposes that the family had come of age. It was time for the Johnson kids to get their tonsils yanked out (and Gracie tells me that none of them were sick at the time).
Now it seems that on the pediatric floor of the hospital there were two wards. There was one for the boys and one for the girls. Well, I'm pretty sure that the "Johnson girls" pretty much ruled the roost over on their side. I can imagine all those other little non-Johnson girl types, laying there with stitches in their belly, in an ether haze from some appendectomy or something like that, in sheer terror as Gracie just gleamed with joy as she began telling her "Ghost" stories. Then the rest of the Johnson girls would begin cackling away and carrying on, running around, laughing and a shouting, and I bet those non-Johnson types to this day, have nightmares about that ordeal.
Nurses who were working on the floor at that time probably left the profession, sought salvation, left for Siberia or something, cuz the Johnsons were in the girls ward, and that folks, would change people, much like the holy ghost descending on a prayer meeting, but maybe not in such a positive manner.
Finally, the girls would quiet down, probably somewhere around 3 in the mornin I suspect, dozing off, in awe of the big ol' hospital. Fer they weren't on Sand Prairie any more. The hospital was the biggest building that any of them had ever seen.
About that time, Lorey who was the only Johnson over on the boys’ ward was getting pretty bored. He was probably pretty envious of all the laughter and commotion coming from over on the girl's side. Gracie says that Lorey was getting to feel a little "Mischievous" for he donned a sheet over the top of his head and tiptoed over to the girl's ward.
Unknowingly, Gracie had pretty much primed them all for what was to come. For the Ghost stories would have worked them into quite a fright as any sound would have had the girls leaping with fear. I bet that even the storyteller was taken by her own words. When Lo and Behold, from the shadows of the big dark, cavernous ward a real GHOST materialized right in front of their eyes. And to top things off, it even yelled "B-O-O-O!" I imagine about this time that the non-Johnson types couldn't hold their bladder and wet the bed, making a terrible mess of things. But, even the Johnson girls, being as tough as they all were, let out a blood curdling yell of such volume, that Lorey upon seeing their reaction, and realizing the necessity of it all, (including not wanting his butt to be tanned by Pearl) immediately calmed the girls fears by removing his sheet and saying "S-h-h-h! It's only me." The Johnson girls giggled and said, "It's only brother Lorey" while the non-Johnson types pondered over their punishment in having messed in the bed.
The next morning, it was time for the tonsil pulling to commence. Mary, being the eldest of the girls was scheduled to go first, but she pleaded with her sister Grace to take her turn, saying "Oh Please Grace, Please Go First!"
Grace didn't even make any deals or nothing, forgetting for an instance that she was holding the high cards. Instead, Gracie reluctantly obliged her older sister. I imagine that my Mom and Olive secretly smiled to themselves. Seeing that it wasn't one of them who had to go under the knife first.
Good ol Doc Daroch, he didn't care. He knew he was going to get to them all eventually. He didn't say "Bring me that little one there, or bring me the one who tells those ghost stories, I'll shut her up for awhile". Fer I imagine he was a patient man.
I don't know for sure, but have a gut feeling that Doc Daroch was being paid on the barter system. A pig for the bigger ones, chickens for Olive or something like that. Cause from listening to the girls, he sure did seem intent on keeping his costs down.
He didn't even administer the common anesthetic for the period, ether, to Gracie or Mary. Instead telling them both "You girls are to big for that." Grace sez that he did swab the back of their throats with "something purple that had a terrible taste." I imagine it was probably iodine, which wouldn't have done spit for killing pain, but was a cheap antibiotic to swab the area of the cutting with. Gracie remembers the stuff as if it had been put on her throat an hour ago. Saying, "That darn stuff would take your breath away!" (As she told me that she screwed up her face and spat, as if she had some terrible taste in her mouth).
Poor Aunt Grace, she had a heck of a time. The good ol' Doctor broke the bloody needle off in the back of her throat (probably cuz Grace was writhing around in so much pain) and he spent an awful long time trying to retrieve the broken needle. Finally succeeding, he remarked, "There, now I got it!"
Grace hearing that, and hoping that the good Doctor was making reference to getting her tonsils out, bolted from her chair, and using her Johnson size and strength broke free of the doctor's grasp (she was determined). She was sprinting down the hallway before she heard him yell to the nurses "Get Her! Get Her! That was only one!" The nurses hesitated but finally went in force to capture the now terrified but combative Gracie. Being hauled back into the chair the removal of the second tonsil was a little less eventful.
Finally Gracie's ordeal was over. She was wheeled back to the comfort of the "Johnson" ward when she saw her eldest sister Mary. Grace told her "Now it's your turn! But don't worry, it was nothin".
With a disbelieving and frightened expression on her face, Mary was taken to the operating room. Mary told me that she knew Grace had lied to her the "Moment the doctor started working on my throat".
Somehow my Mom had done some wheeling and dealing with Mousie, for Olive went next (when it should have been my Mom's turn).
But, my Mom's curiosity had gotten the better of her. My Mom snuck out of the ward and down to the Operating Room. She peeked through the doorway just in time to see Doc Daroch administering ether to the terrified Olive (for "Mousie" wasn't to big for ether). Sister Mousie was thrashing for all she was worth to break free. Now, talking to my Aunt Olive, she seemed to fair pretty well, but the image of her flailing around in the chair with those masked men and women holding her down so terrified my Mother that as they came to get my Mom for her turn in the chair, she was hauled from the room screaming "Mommy, Go Get Daddy! Cuz I'm Gonna Die!"
Well, they all made it, but I imagine the ride back to Sand Prairie was a little subdued as the girls all eyed the evil Doc Daroch and schemed in their minds their own revenge.
When I was trying to nail down a date for this incident in the life of the Johnson girl's, they could pin the year down to 1934 or 35, but Gracie didn't hesitate as to the time of year. For she replied "It was squirrel season. Cuz when we came home after having our tonsils yanked out, Mom had fried up a mess of squirrel, which Dad had just got. And it liked to have killed us all. Choking down that scratchy ol' squirrel."
A SOFT BED
From 1927 to 1939 the family lived on a small farm in an area of western Indiana known as "Sand Prairie". I'm not sure if this is a township or not. But I think it probably derived its name from the sandy soil deposited there by the meandering Wabash River. Sand Prairie is located in an area northeast of Cayuga, not far from the present day North Vermilion High School. It is south of Perrysville and just west of the Wabash, north of its confluence with the Vermilion River.
All of the girls say that one of their absolute favorite times of year was during hay cutting season. For it was then that they would take freshly cut hay and stuff it into their mattresses.
Now, I would wager that if you were to ask Lorey or Claude if hay season were among their favorite time of the year, I'm sure that they'd look at you as if you were some kind of a loony. They'd probably say a resounding "NO!" Fer putting up scratchy ol' hay in the heat and humidity of an Indiana summer is not all that much fun. I know that from personal experience.
But, for the girls, late summer meant new mattresses. My Mom sez that "Early on, the mattresses were like sleeping on clouds, but the hay cutting was only once a year, round August, and as the year moved on, the hay would flatten out and it would be like sleeping on sticks." I suppose that would make a person look forward to hay cutting season, now wouldn't it.
As the girls got older, they replaced the hay mattresses with feather beds, which they all agreed were very comfortable to sleep on (year round).
Gracie sez that the benefits weren't only in their comfort, "Cuz if you slept on one, you wouldn't get struck by lightening!" When I heard her say this, I must have looked up with a puzzled expression on my face, cause Gracie looked at me and said "Pete, have you ever heard of anybody getting struck by lightening while sleeping on one, now name me just one, I bet you can't, not even one!"
Well, she's right. I can't name even one, and I would wager that you can't either.
Cora Pearl Cox Johnson, with her mother, Mary Ellen Thompson Cox, and her mother, Mary E. Bailey Thompson
SUMMER RELIEF
The Sand Prairie home was just a stones throw away from the Wabash River. And many a hot, humid, sweltering summer days were spent cooling down in its muddy ol' water.
The bottomland had five cabins on the bank of the river, which Grandpa Bill would rent out to fishermen. At every cabin, he kept a rowboat (Jon boat), which would be anchored with a blacksmith anvil. But, even this heavy old anvil often times dragged along the bottom in the swift and unpredictable currents.
One particularly hot day Grandma Pearl took Lorey, Mom, Gracie, Olive and a "third cousin" named Louella Parsons down to the river for some welcome relief from the heat and the chores.
Everyone was having a pleasant day practicing their diving and playing tag in the water. Telling stories to one another under the shade of the sycamore trees and swinging from vines hanging from grand ol’ oaks, which had lined the banks since the time of George Rogers Clark.
After awhile, Louella got a little overly brave and ventured too far into deep water. As she did so, she began to be swept along in the swift current. She struggled and soon realized that she was unable to get back to shore. Panic crept in and she let out a scream for help.
The family rallied to her rescue. Grandma Pearl leaped into the water after Louella. Olive seeing this yelled, "I'll save you Mommy!" and leaped in after her mother. At this point, Pearl was in no need of rescue, but pressed on in the direction of Louella. Olive still in hot pursuit and determined to rescue her mother.
Gracie and my Mom took things into their own hands and got into one of the Jon boats and took out after their cousin, their mother and their sister.
About this time, an unwanted visitor showed up. Mr. Murphy (of Murphy's Law fame) paid a visit. Louella was now hundreds of yards from where she had gotten in and was mid-stream in the river. She was going under from fatigue.
With the distance between her and Louella still increasing instead of lessening, and fatigue paying her a visit as well, Grandma Pearl began to join Louella beneath the waves. Olive made it a threesome.
I don't know for a fact, but I imagine there were some screams, as panic was replaced by desperation and everybody became just too tired to stay on top of the water.
To make things worse, the Jon boat that my Mother and Aunt Grace were in was plum out of control. They rushed pass the swimmers, carried on not by their own exertions, but by the fast flowing current. They were on their way to the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Gulf, none of these places being where they wanted to be.
Together, the two of them were able to slow their break neck speed by about half by tossing the anvil over the side. But even with the heavy old anvil dragging across the muddy bottom they were still moving along faster than they would have liked.
Now, for my entire life I have known my mother to fear the water. I believe that her fear had its origin on this very day.
Things were bad and they soon got worse. Mom was in fear of being swept downstream, past her drowning mother. She wanted to save her Mom, but wasn't going to be able to do so from the ol’ Jon boat. So, she dove into what the girls best describe as being a "whirlpool". My Mom, who describes herself as being a good swimmer, was sucked under in no time at all. Grace dove in after my Mom in yet another rescue attempt, but was just able to save herself. Gracie realized the urgency of her own dilemma and was just able to cling to the side of the rowboat, adding, "I could barely save myself but I was too tired to get back in the boat”.
So at this point in the story, there are five family members in the Wabash River. ALL OF THEM in desperate shape. There numbers about to be reduced significantly. What a funeral that would have been.
Cousin Louella was now under the surface and not coming up. My Mom was spending more time beneath of the waves than above them. Grandma Pearl and Olive somehow still swimming, but getting mouth fulls of water and by now nearing exhaustion. Gracie doing all she could to hold on to the side of the Jon boat.
Into the fray came Uncle Lorey who at the onset of the ordeal had been upstream fishing for channel cat, bulls and sturgeon when he heard the screams for help. He got into a rowboat and went out into the current. He picked up his sister Olive and his Mother first. Then he went to where Pearl had last seen Louella. He anchored the boat and dove in after her. Miraculously he found Louella and dragged her aboard the Jon boat.
Grandma Pearl beat on her back while little Olive screamed with terror. Finally Louella gave back the muddy brown water from her lungs and cried. She was not dead after all.
By this time, my Mom came close to not being my Mom. Her situation had worsened. She was exhausted and said she sank to the muddy bottom unable to get back to the surface. Wide eyed, she said she was surrounded by brown boiling water and then by blackness.
Lorey dove after her. Gracie said that her brother spent "an awful long time" looking for Bee-Bee before he finally "felt" her. He pulled her to the surface, passing her up into the boat.
Grandma Pearl wasn't able to get my Mom to respond by beating on her back so she turned her over and "Pumped on her stomach". Finally, after who knows how long, my Mom threw up the river, and coughed, gasping for air and clinging to precious life.
Lorey took them all in to shore before heading out again to rescue the stranded Gracie who by that time was more than a half mile downstream. He towed her and the rowboat back to shore, and a reunion with the rest of the family.
Now I knew my Uncle Lorey. But my recollections of the man, who died in a 1967 alcohol related automobile accident, aren’t all that positive. To let the truth be known, as an adult he was an alcoholic. Sober, he was gentle and kind. When he drank it was like Jekyl and Hyde.
My Mom is a rock. Stone faced and a pillar of strength, but I have never seen her display more grief than the night when she heard that her brother Lorey had died. I was 10 years old and was confused by my mother's display of affection toward her brother.
Now, after hearing this story, I understand. Lorey was to my Mother, a HERO. Nothing less. For one day during the sweltering heat of an Indiana summer when my Mother was a young teenager, death visited her. It was Lorey's hand that wrestled her from its grip.
To my best estimation, Lorey in a span of a few minutes saved his Mother, his sister Olive, his cousin Louella and my Mother from certain drowning. Along with his sister Grace from possible drowning (it wouldn’t have been much longer when Gracie’s grip would have let go of the jon boat).
Of that day, Grace sez "That was scary, we didn't go swimming after that!"
To this day my Mother is afraid of the water.
She is alive to be afraid thanks to the courage, stamina and decision making of her beloved brother Lorey.
Thank You Uncle Lorey for saving my Mom.
Thanksgiving Day 1948 (The Family Would Eat What They Shot in the Morning) L-R: Claude, Lora (Lorey), Grandpa Bill, Wayne LaBaw, Gary with shotgun, my Dad, Raymond Holycross
THE EARLIEST MEMORIES
Psychologists tell us that the earliest memories that we can recall are often times of a negative experience. Listening to my Mom and her sisters relate stories of their childhood, one would be inclined to side with the psychologists. For my Mom's recollections are often of painful, emotionally trying episodes of her life.
Audrey Bernice Johnson was born in 1928 on Sand Prairie. Mrs. Keiser was with Pearl when she delivered Audrey, squatting above the kitchen table. My Mom speaks of Audrey as being "just beautiful". Aunt Grace describes her as being "Angel like". I never knew my Aunt Audrey.
During May of 1930 the young Audrey experienced as most children do, the joy of candy. In this particular instance the sweet-hot goodness of "Red-Hots".
My Mom tells me that about a week after tasting the candy for the very first time, Audrey spotted a glass jar holding what she believed to be the Red-Hots perched far out of reach on the top of the family's “chiff-a-robe” (A piece of furniture that is something between a wardrobe and a chest of drawers). This jar was perched about seven feet above the living room floor and its contents were thought to have been safely out of the reach of the Johnson children. Especially the youngest amongst them, little Audrey.
But candy is a strong motivator and Audrey was not to be deterred by the seemingly impossible to reach location of the jar. The sensual joy of eating the candy was a powerful beacon to her. Audrey climbed the chiff-a-robe as if she were born a monkey instead of a little girl. She climbed to that unobtainable height and reached the jar. Tossing it to the floor before down climbing herself in order to relish the rewards of her toil. She was to young to understand such abstract concepts such as "sharing" or "asking permission". The candy was hers and hers alone. She hoarded the entire bottle. Eating all of the "Red-Hots".
This time, the candies somehow tasted different. They weren't quite as sweet as she had remembered from the previous week and somehow they made her feel strange. Peculiar sensations flooded her little body. She couldn't even begin to understand what was happening to her. She sensed something was wrong and she needed to be comforted.
Who could provide the needed solace? Audrey spied a source of love and caring, her grandmother, Ruth Ann Nevins-Johnson. Audrey tottered towards her Grandmother, carrying the now empty bottle, which had contained the "candy".
My Mom tells me that she and Grace were playing in a nearby room when they heard their Grandma Johnson scream "Oh Pearl, Come in Here and see what the baby has gave me!"
Cora ran into the room and immediately recognized the bottle to be the one that had contained her mother in laws heart medication, strychnine.
Cora took the baby into her arms as Audrey lapsed into an unconsciousness that she would never awaken from. But even as this happened, Cora did what she could. She ordered one of the older boys (either Lorey or Claude) to the neighbors to call for the Doctor. She tried to force feed the baby "clabbered" milk, which she believed would counter the effects of the poison.
My Mom, who wasn't yet 7, and Aunt Grace watched as the baby convulsed in their mother's arms and then went limp and passed on into oblivion.
Doc Daroch arrived and did what he could. He ordered the family to the kitchen table. He had Cora prepare a pail of ice-cold water and a separate pail of hot water. He alternately dipped the now lifeless body of Audrey from one into the other. In a fruitless attempt to shock the baby back into life.
It didn't work.
Such were the lessons of Sand Prairie.
THE LESSONS CONTINUE
The girls Grandma Johnson would die later that year (1930) of a stroke. Keeping with the tradition of the family, the funeral, as had sister Audrey's and many before, was held in the home. My Mom recalls that the family of the deceased would hang a wreath on the front door indicating to all eyes that the family was mourning the passing of a loved one and that the deceased was lying at rest inside of the home.
I don't quite understand why, but perhaps out of tradition, or perhaps out of lack of space, but an awful lot of activity was centered around and upon the family’s kitchen table. Cora had her babies while squatting over its surface. Doc Daroch plunged Audrey into the pails on the kitchen table, in a life and death struggle.
And now, my Mom tells me that she and Gracie watched the undertaker as he embalmed their Grandmother on yes, you guessed it, the kitchen table.
Mom recalls vividly the undertaker draining Grandma Johnson's blood out of her body into an old metal pail and then pumping the embalming fluid into her. This was done on the kitchen table, the same place where the family ate their meals. This is a hard one for me to take. I for one would have a tough time eating my food from that surface after seeing the things that my Mom and her sisters saw happening upon it.
My Mom however, isn’t dazed in the least. To her it was acceptable and appropriate behavior. To her the kitchen table was multi-purposed. You were supposed to do those things on it and then you were supposed to set down at it and eat your meals without giving it a second thought. For me, multi-purposed means, yeah you eat at it, and maybe you play dirty hearts or spades around it, but not much more than that.
What did bother my Mom and Aunt Grace about the ordeal of Grandma Johnson's death was as they were watching the embalming, the undertaker matter of factly turned to these two young girls (Mom's 7 by now) and ordered them to "empty the blood in the out-house". Without any bit of hesitation, both of the girls grabbed onto the pail handle and gingerly walked to the out-house with their Grandmother's blood sloshing around in the pail. Mom proudly remarks, "We didn't spill a drop."
Good for them.
Once at the out-house they matter of factly poured their grandmother's blood down the hole. They couldn't help but look down and see the blood with all of that shit and piss and toilet paper.
Both of them said that they had a hard time using the out-house after that. For whenever they did they couldn’t help but think that they were desecrating their beloved grandmother.
I'm glad to hear that something finally bothered them.
Another of my Mom's recollections regarding the death of their grandmother was that their father paid for the services of the undertaker by giving him their last pig and some chickens. Gracie recalls that fact vividly, remarking, "That undertaker knew we didn't have a lot to eat, and he still took our last pig!" As she said this, I recognized something that is rare in my God fearing Aunt Grace. She was angry thinking about that undertaker.
I would like to think of myself as being "tough". But, I'm a wimp compared to my Mother and her sisters.
ONE LAST TIME
My Mom believes that the last time that the body of a loved one was kept in the home as opposed to a funeral parlor, was when her mother Cora Pearl died in 1951.
William and Pearl had been living in Lodi and even though the depression had long before ended, finances were still an issue in the household. Cora was taken by the undertaker to the funeral home for the embalming and was then returned to the family home in Lodi.
The wreath hung from the door for one last time.
ORIGINS
One of my mother's greatest traits (and sometimes nemesis) is her great, un-bending pride. I have always believed that one learns certain "ethics, morals and values" from those that you admire most, those individuals (most often family members) that you most love. And I have always wondered who my mother had learned "Pride" from?
During my June, 1993 trip home my Mom told me a story that helped clarify things for me. It seems that the Sand Prairie Home and farmland that William Johnson worked was leased from a gentleman named Burt Fitch. Mr. Fitch and his wife had been unable to have any children of their own. As Mr. Fitch was getting on in years he offered to give the land to my grandfather.
William Johnson respectfully declined the offer.
THE MOST TREASUSRED MEMORY
I once asked my Aunt Grace what her most vivid memory of her childhood was, the one thing that she thought of most often. Here is what she told me.
"Dad was a hard working man. He would work all day in the mines and then he would come home and work the fields to take care of us kids. He would be plum tired by the time we would sit down for supper. He would always sit at the head of the table with Mom to his left. More times than not we would have wonderful Fried chicken for supper that Mom had fixed. Dad would take the platter of chicken and take the best pieces and put them on Mom's plate and then pass the rest around to us kids. When it would finally get back round to him there would be some scrawny neck or maybe a wing left for him to eat. He would take it and we never heard him complain. Often times there wouldn't even be anything on the platter by the time it would come round to him. But still he wouldn't complain. That's what I think of most when I think of being a kid."
Yep, my Mom learned pride from her father, but one thing is for sure, of all of my Mother's many redeeming traits, the one that I would list as being on the top of the list is her unselfishness. It sure seems to me that she learned that from her Dad too. While sitting round the table in the tin-roofed home on Sand Prairie.
Yep, This is the Place
TIL 4 July, 2000
For a change of pace I'm posting not "what we are doing" right now but in a way, how we got here.
Heritage.
Family tradition.
For me, I learned a great deal from my Mom and her sistes. Here are some of the stories that they told me about growing up on the banks of the Wabash River, northeast of Cayuga, Indiana.
Thanks Mom, Aunt Grace, Aunt Mary, and Aunt Mousie.
STORY TIME
In 1976 Connie and I left our hometown, Danville, Illinois with the intention of returning one day. We were both close to our families and we enjoyed our joint recreational pursuits of tennis, bicycling, boating, hiking and fishing. We both enjoyed listening to the cacophony of the katydids on a hot August night, chasing after lightening bugs (fire flies) and running outside amongst a cooling July thunderstorm that brought welcome relief from the sweltering temperatures. We both enjoyed the Covered Bridge Festival in Rockville and hiking, driving or bicycling amongst the orange, yellow and brilliant reds of the hardwood canopies around Parke County, Indiana (which has more covered bridges in this one county than the rest of the country combined). I even looked forward to the challenges of twenty below temperatures and of snowdrifts that would bury cars. I considered my neighbors and family to be “hearty” and “dependable”. I was proud of my heritage, content with my lot in life.
After wetting our appetites to the prospect of life outside of Danville (my college experience, limited traveling and time spent in the Marines) it became obvious to both of us that we suffered from the “wanderlust”. We looked at Danville, remembered our upbringing there with gratitude and a smile and turned our collective visions westward. Our gaze was towards the mountains; towards the vastness of the Pacific Ocean and the beauties of nature. We were off and we have never returned less for our visits to our beloved families.
However, it was our upbringing in Danville that has been the foundation for our lives. As children we were raised on the midwestern concepts of hard work, frugality, service to God and a willingness to offer a helping hand to neighbors. Physical labor was what largely defined the Illinois scenery. During my youth, factories in Danville were ablaze with the fires of steel production. Forging parts for General Motors automobiles, Hyster forklifts and the machinery that would build them. But, mostly it was the vistas of the grasslands, long since replaced by tillable soil. Farming this black soil was my family’s heritage and that of Connie’s mother’s family. While I ran miles for conditioning, my relatives saw this as wasted energy. For any effort that didn’t produce tangible, useful results was seemingly “needlessly without purpose”. Their vision of manhood was of a guy who could till the soil, plant and tend a crop, harvest its bounty, butcher a pig, construct a broken part for a tractor on a metal lathe (instead of purchasing the part at the local International Harvester (IH) dealer), solve any mechanical problem that arose, dig a well, build a house or farm outbuilding, and on the 4th of July pitch washers or horseshoes with the best of ‘em and during the winter months play a fare hand at cards (Dirty Hearts and Spades mostly).
My father died when I was but 3 years old and my mother never remarried. She always said, “Nobody measures up to your Dad”. She was with retrospect as competent in her roll as a father as she was as a mother. She was the product of midwestern common sense and loyalty and I never lost much sleep over not having had a Dad; because, in my Mom, I still did.
Webster’s dictionary has it wrong. For when they define the word “pragmatic” there should be a picture and a description of my Mom. Recently, my family had a scare that Mom had spots on her lung that might turn out to be cancerous. My Mom in talking of her plight would say “Heck fire. You don’t expect me to live forever do ya?” Fortunately, the spots turned out to be scars from long ago bouts with pneumonia.
Those that know me, have heard me often say that one of my favorite past times is to listen to my Mother and her sisters as they recount stories of their childhood. Their words ringing out with humor, courage and of those wonderful memories of youth. A time in all of our lives when adulthood, agedness and death are so distant that they seem unobtainable. My Mother and her sister’s eyes and faces full of love and glimmering as they recount memories of their mother, father, siblings and close friends. As they sit and recount memories that are more than seven decades distant. Their minds full of images of their parents and siblings, long departed from this earth.
Their youth was spent in the midst of the "Great Depression". A time in the history of this nation when frivolities were rare, food on the table was greatly appreciated and bartering for goods and services was commonplace. For the Johnson family living on a small farm northeast of Cayuga, Indiana, there wasn't always money on hand to pay for even the most basic necessities of life. Whether those necessities are clothing, food, and medical services or even to pay for the services of an undertaker.
I will attempt to put onto paper the words of my Mother and her beloved sisters. Using their phrases, lingo and eloquence. Honoring their stories of joy and of hardships endured.
A number of the "Girls" stories relate to the medical care that they received during their years on the Sand Prairie farm. This care was provided by the town doctor and also by close neighbors and resourceful parents.
The Johnson family lacked ready access to medical services. Today we simply dial 9-1-1 in an emergency and help is at or door in a matter of minutes. During the 1920’s and 30’s on the Johnson farm a telephone was more than a mile away at a neighbor's house on Old Highway 63. A buggy ride into Cayuga to obtain the services of a physician was anything but quick. Consequently, more times than not, the family took circumstances into their own hands. They dealt with emergencies that would have left most of today's society paralyzed with fear and inactivity. They got by on good ol’ fashion “Midwest Common Sense”. They simply "handled things" themselves. They did whatever was needed to get the job done and they did so without ever complaining. Without once wishing that there lot in life could have been different. Their love of family sustaining them through all sorts of hardships.
When my Mom or Aunts talk of their mother, Grandma Pearl (Cora Pearl Cox-Johnson) they do so with reverence. Grandma Johnson died before I was born and the only knowledge that I have of her is from her daughter’s stories and by looking at old, faded, black and white pictures. Torn and wrinkled with age. My Grandma Johnson was much more than what mothers are required to be these days. By that, I mean out of sheer necessity, she was able to wear more "hats". Throughout the day you might see her wearing the hat of mother, wife, friend, teacher, doctor, nurse, emergency medical technician, pharmacist, midwife, barber, cook, baker, seamstress, tailor, gardener, farmer, veterinarian, carpenter, leather-maker and that of many other skilled crafts, too numerous to mention. When she married Bill Johnson she was expected to put up preserves, can vegetables and fruit which she had grown in her own garden, she would wash his clothes (doing a “rubbin”) make soap, make and maintain the family’s clothing, and be able to nurse back to health a sick child or a sick pig alike. She had learned all of these skills not in school but from her mother. She learned skills and fortitude, which was deep in tradition, folklore and superstition.
This first story relates to my Grandma Johnson as she was wearing the hat of "Doctor".
GRACIE PLAYS WITH TOADS
My Aunt Grace recalls a summer day when she was a child of about five years old. A day where she gained great delight from that childhood pastime of playing with toads. These creatures provided her with a few hours of wonder and many days of utter misery. For, perhaps as a result of her playing with these critters or probably for some other reason, Gracie got a bad case of "The Warts". She told me that they covered her face, neck, hands and arms. My Mom tells me that while suffering from the warts, Gracie looked “scary”.
As most children do in times of trouble, Grace upon discovering her warts, ran to her mother for relief from her plight. Grandma Pearl's treatment was to take a "dirty-greasy-filthy-slimy" ol’ dishrag and wipe the affected areas of Gracie's body with it. She then took some chicken gizzards and removed the "gravel" from them. Pearl then wiped Gracie’s body with the chicken gizzards and then re-wiped the areas with that filthy ol’ dishrag. Grandma then wrapped the gizzards into the rag and instructed Gracie to dig a hole and bury the rag in the hole. Grandma admonished Gracie that it must be “a place where nobody would ever find it”. Pearl then warned Gracie that if she ever told anybody where she had buried the rag, then her warts would return. Now Gracie is an intelligent woman, but to a five-year-old little girl, these instructions must have been pretty daunting.
Gracie realized that she was just too small to dig a hole deep enough to bury the rag and the gizzards in. She pleaded with her mother to allow an exception to the rule, one that would allow her older brother Lorey to help her bury the rag. Cora agreed, but only after instructing Lorey that he too wasn't to ever tell anybody of the burial spot. Cora herself said that even she mustn't find out where the rag was buried. Again, she emphasized to Gracie that if she ever found out where the rag had been buried, then the warts would reappear.
Lorey became a key player in the treatment of Gracie's warts. He did as Gracie and his mother had instructed him to do and he dug a deep hole in a secret spot (behind the chicken coop) on the Sand Prairie farm. Gracie placed the rag containing the chicken gizzards into the hole and Lorey covered them and stamped down the mound. Together they spread debris over the newly dug hole to conceal it's location. Lorey vowed to Gracie that he would never tell a soul about their secret.
A short time later, the warts disappeared and Gracie to this day believes “whole heartedly” in the healing power of her mother's treatment. “My Word!” she proclaims, “I’d still have those warts if it weren’t for Mom’s treatment”.
I had never heard this story, nor had my Mother or my sister or any of my cousins until June of 1993 when Gracie was so overwhelmed with my enjoyment of "story time" that she shared this previously untold story with me. It was her most secret of all of her stories. In sharing it, she realized that she risked severe repercussions by telling it.
Her beloved brother Lorey, it seems was true to his vow. For nobody in my family had ever heard of this story. Lorey was truly a person to share secrets with. He was a person loyal to his Mother and his siblings.
After Gracie finished the story, almost fifty years after the fact (isn't memory a wonderful treasure) and after all the laughter had died down, I noticed a concerned look fall upon Gracie's face. It was almost as if she was remembering her mother's words. For I noticed Gracie looking at her hands and arms and feeling the back of her neck and face. Perhaps she was checking to see if the warts had returned. For her mother had warned her that they would, more than a half century before.
And a life time away, on Sand Prairie.
A RUSTY OL' RAKE
As a young teenager, my mother's eldest sister, Mary Jane Johnson-LaBaw, suffered the great misfortune of stepping on a rusty ol' rake. As she did so, she ran the tongs completely through her foot and out the top of her foot. Now, I expect that didn't feel all that great and little Mary's cries soon brought her dad to her aid. Grandpa Bill (William Elsworth Johnson) had been working in the truck patch (field planted with vegetables which would be taken to market after harvest) nearby when he heard his daughter's shouts. Grandpa didn't hesitate. He didn’t fret over what to do, for he knew what ought to be done. He braced himself against an old oak tree and pulled the darn thing out.
To prevent infection and to help stop the bleeding, Grandpa Bill sent Gracie to collect some fresh cow manure. Gracie fetched a pail and a small shovel and ran as fast her legs could take her the long distance down to the bottom pasture along the ol' Wabash River. In this pasture, the family kept its cows. There Gracie followed a big ol' Roan round for what to her "seemed like an eternity" until finally the cow hiked up it's tail and laid a fresh steamin' pile. Gracie quickly shoveled it into her pail and ran back to her father and her distressed "Big Sister". Grandma Pearl had arrived on the scene by now and by virtue of her being the head doctor of the family; she relieved her husband of his duties. She took the fresh manure and packed Mary's wounds with the still warm, steaming feces. The bleeding stopped, the wound healed just fine and Aunt Mary somehow avoided infection. Her foot being no worse for the wear.
To this day, my Mom swears that Grandma Pearl “saved Mary's foot that day. For if she hadn't did what she done, they would have had to cut Mary's leg off".
Well, regardless of my education, my knowledge of physiology and microbiology, I'm inclined to side with my Mom. For I think the same today of my Mom, as the girl's did of theirs back then. I'm POSITIVE my mother is right. If she said it's so, well then it is.
Without Grandma Pearl's treatment, Mary would have had to have hobbled through life one-footed.
THORNS
To the girls growing up on Sand Prairie, the meaning of "Family" was a little different than what we think of these days. For this word not only included their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc., (people that we normally consider as family) but, it extended beyond mere "kin". Their close neighbors, in pretty much the same predicament as they were, were pretty much their family too. And their "best friends" were the Keisers.
The Keisers were always at the Johnsons to provide solace and comfort in times of tragedy (which unfortunately seemed to frequent the Johnson farm) as well as being there to share in the bounties of the harvest season. Heck fire, Mrs. Keiser even delivered Grandma Cora's babies right there on the Johnson's kitchen table. My Mom and Aunts vividly recalling their mother squatting over the table as she pushed out “Little Brother Billy” into Mrs. Keiser’s waiting hands.
My Mother tells me that one summer day she was running around barefoot (a dreadful habit which she continues to this day, even in winter time) through the pastures. She says that she was enjoying the butterflies, catching grasshoppers beneath the big oaks. Being utterly amazed as the grasshoppers spat up "tobaccy" onto her hand. When she happened to step on a big ol' thorn.
Mrs. Keiser was working in the garden when she heard my Mom's cries and she quickly came to little Violet's aid. She diagnosed the problem but didn't have any tweezers or any kind of instrument with which to pull the darn thing out. So she used what was available to her. She used ingenuity and good ol' fashioned rural America common sense. Traits that seemed to be abundant along the banks of the Wabash. Mrs. Keiser got down on her knees, and got the thorn out of my Mom's foot with her teeth.
Now, I ask you, the next time you happen to be working in the yard and see your next door neighbor carrying in a video for that night's entertainment, belly right on up to him (or her, if the case may be) and say "Hey neighbor, I've known you for quite some time now, and I was kind of wondering, if I had a thorn in my foot, would you get it out with your teeth, or say, hey, if my wife was having a baby, would you deliver it in here on the kitchen table for me?"
I suspect, for myself anyways, that seeing that the Auter's aren't my neighbors anymore, cause I'm sure that Ann or Newman could and would without a moments thought, do that or anything for me. But since my present neighbors ain't them, I figure that they would march right on in their own house and have a telephone conversation with the POLICE.
BARTERING TO GET A TRIP TO THE HOSPITAL FOR MOST OF THE KIDS
My sister Ginger and all of my cousins have heard this story from Bee-Bee (our family’s nickname for my Mom), or Gracie, or Mary or from Aunt Mouse (Olive Irene Johnson-Holycross), cause this story is the classic. It’s the yardstick against which all other stories are measured. And it just happens to be my favorite. If you haven't been fortunate enough to hear it from the "horses mouth", well folks, I'm sorry, but you have missed out. You need to live a good life in order to sit around the pearly gates and listen to Aunt Grace tell the story.
It seems that sometimes around 1934-35, good ol' Doctor S. Daroch (the only physician in Cayuga) got into his shiny black car and drove plum from Cayuga out to the Johnson farm on Sand Prairie. Once there, he loaded my Mom, Mary Jane, Gracie Louise, Olive Irene, Lorey and Grandma Pearl into his car and drove the whole bunch of em down Highway 63 to Clinton's Vermilion County Hospital. Fer it seems, for all practical purposes that the family had come of age. It was time for the Johnson kids to get their tonsils yanked out (and Gracie tells me that none of them were sick at the time).
Now it seems that on the pediatric floor of the hospital there were two wards. There was one for the boys and one for the girls. Well, I'm pretty sure that the "Johnson girls" pretty much ruled the roost over on their side. I can imagine all those other little non-Johnson girl types, laying there with stitches in their belly, in an ether haze from some appendectomy or something like that, in sheer terror as Gracie just gleamed with joy as she began telling her "Ghost" stories. Then the rest of the Johnson girls would begin cackling away and carrying on, running around, laughing and a shouting, and I bet those non-Johnson types to this day, have nightmares about that ordeal.
Nurses who were working on the floor at that time probably left the profession, sought salvation, left for Siberia or something, cuz the Johnsons were in the girls ward, and that folks, would change people, much like the holy ghost descending on a prayer meeting, but maybe not in such a positive manner.
Finally, the girls would quiet down, probably somewhere around 3 in the mornin I suspect, dozing off, in awe of the big ol' hospital. Fer they weren't on Sand Prairie any more. The hospital was the biggest building that any of them had ever seen.
About that time, Lorey who was the only Johnson over on the boys’ ward was getting pretty bored. He was probably pretty envious of all the laughter and commotion coming from over on the girl's side. Gracie says that Lorey was getting to feel a little "Mischievous" for he donned a sheet over the top of his head and tiptoed over to the girl's ward.
Unknowingly, Gracie had pretty much primed them all for what was to come. For the Ghost stories would have worked them into quite a fright as any sound would have had the girls leaping with fear. I bet that even the storyteller was taken by her own words. When Lo and Behold, from the shadows of the big dark, cavernous ward a real GHOST materialized right in front of their eyes. And to top things off, it even yelled "B-O-O-O!" I imagine about this time that the non-Johnson types couldn't hold their bladder and wet the bed, making a terrible mess of things. But, even the Johnson girls, being as tough as they all were, let out a blood curdling yell of such volume, that Lorey upon seeing their reaction, and realizing the necessity of it all, (including not wanting his butt to be tanned by Pearl) immediately calmed the girls fears by removing his sheet and saying "S-h-h-h! It's only me." The Johnson girls giggled and said, "It's only brother Lorey" while the non-Johnson types pondered over their punishment in having messed in the bed.
The next morning, it was time for the tonsil pulling to commence. Mary, being the eldest of the girls was scheduled to go first, but she pleaded with her sister Grace to take her turn, saying "Oh Please Grace, Please Go First!"
Grace didn't even make any deals or nothing, forgetting for an instance that she was holding the high cards. Instead, Gracie reluctantly obliged her older sister. I imagine that my Mom and Olive secretly smiled to themselves. Seeing that it wasn't one of them who had to go under the knife first.
Good ol Doc Daroch, he didn't care. He knew he was going to get to them all eventually. He didn't say "Bring me that little one there, or bring me the one who tells those ghost stories, I'll shut her up for awhile". Fer I imagine he was a patient man.
I don't know for sure, but have a gut feeling that Doc Daroch was being paid on the barter system. A pig for the bigger ones, chickens for Olive or something like that. Cause from listening to the girls, he sure did seem intent on keeping his costs down.
He didn't even administer the common anesthetic for the period, ether, to Gracie or Mary. Instead telling them both "You girls are to big for that." Grace sez that he did swab the back of their throats with "something purple that had a terrible taste." I imagine it was probably iodine, which wouldn't have done spit for killing pain, but was a cheap antibiotic to swab the area of the cutting with. Gracie remembers the stuff as if it had been put on her throat an hour ago. Saying, "That darn stuff would take your breath away!" (As she told me that she screwed up her face and spat, as if she had some terrible taste in her mouth).
Poor Aunt Grace, she had a heck of a time. The good ol' Doctor broke the bloody needle off in the back of her throat (probably cuz Grace was writhing around in so much pain) and he spent an awful long time trying to retrieve the broken needle. Finally succeeding, he remarked, "There, now I got it!"
Grace hearing that, and hoping that the good Doctor was making reference to getting her tonsils out, bolted from her chair, and using her Johnson size and strength broke free of the doctor's grasp (she was determined). She was sprinting down the hallway before she heard him yell to the nurses "Get Her! Get Her! That was only one!" The nurses hesitated but finally went in force to capture the now terrified but combative Gracie. Being hauled back into the chair the removal of the second tonsil was a little less eventful.
Finally Gracie's ordeal was over. She was wheeled back to the comfort of the "Johnson" ward when she saw her eldest sister Mary. Grace told her "Now it's your turn! But don't worry, it was nothin".
With a disbelieving and frightened expression on her face, Mary was taken to the operating room. Mary told me that she knew Grace had lied to her the "Moment the doctor started working on my throat".
Somehow my Mom had done some wheeling and dealing with Mousie, for Olive went next (when it should have been my Mom's turn).
But, my Mom's curiosity had gotten the better of her. My Mom snuck out of the ward and down to the Operating Room. She peeked through the doorway just in time to see Doc Daroch administering ether to the terrified Olive (for "Mousie" wasn't to big for ether). Sister Mousie was thrashing for all she was worth to break free. Now, talking to my Aunt Olive, she seemed to fair pretty well, but the image of her flailing around in the chair with those masked men and women holding her down so terrified my Mother that as they came to get my Mom for her turn in the chair, she was hauled from the room screaming "Mommy, Go Get Daddy! Cuz I'm Gonna Die!"
Well, they all made it, but I imagine the ride back to Sand Prairie was a little subdued as the girls all eyed the evil Doc Daroch and schemed in their minds their own revenge.
When I was trying to nail down a date for this incident in the life of the Johnson girl's, they could pin the year down to 1934 or 35, but Gracie didn't hesitate as to the time of year. For she replied "It was squirrel season. Cuz when we came home after having our tonsils yanked out, Mom had fried up a mess of squirrel, which Dad had just got. And it liked to have killed us all. Choking down that scratchy ol' squirrel."
A SOFT BED
From 1927 to 1939 the family lived on a small farm in an area of western Indiana known as "Sand Prairie". I'm not sure if this is a township or not. But I think it probably derived its name from the sandy soil deposited there by the meandering Wabash River. Sand Prairie is located in an area northeast of Cayuga, not far from the present day North Vermilion High School. It is south of Perrysville and just west of the Wabash, north of its confluence with the Vermilion River.
All of the girls say that one of their absolute favorite times of year was during hay cutting season. For it was then that they would take freshly cut hay and stuff it into their mattresses.
Now, I would wager that if you were to ask Lorey or Claude if hay season were among their favorite time of the year, I'm sure that they'd look at you as if you were some kind of a loony. They'd probably say a resounding "NO!" Fer putting up scratchy ol' hay in the heat and humidity of an Indiana summer is not all that much fun. I know that from personal experience.
But, for the girls, late summer meant new mattresses. My Mom sez that "Early on, the mattresses were like sleeping on clouds, but the hay cutting was only once a year, round August, and as the year moved on, the hay would flatten out and it would be like sleeping on sticks." I suppose that would make a person look forward to hay cutting season, now wouldn't it.
As the girls got older, they replaced the hay mattresses with feather beds, which they all agreed were very comfortable to sleep on (year round).
Gracie sez that the benefits weren't only in their comfort, "Cuz if you slept on one, you wouldn't get struck by lightening!" When I heard her say this, I must have looked up with a puzzled expression on my face, cause Gracie looked at me and said "Pete, have you ever heard of anybody getting struck by lightening while sleeping on one, now name me just one, I bet you can't, not even one!"
Well, she's right. I can't name even one, and I would wager that you can't either.
SUMMER RELIEF
The Sand Prairie home was just a stones throw away from the Wabash River. And many a hot, humid, sweltering summer days were spent cooling down in its muddy ol' water.
The bottomland had five cabins on the bank of the river, which Grandpa Bill would rent out to fishermen. At every cabin, he kept a rowboat (Jon boat), which would be anchored with a blacksmith anvil. But, even this heavy old anvil often times dragged along the bottom in the swift and unpredictable currents.
One particularly hot day Grandma Pearl took Lorey, Mom, Gracie, Olive and a "third cousin" named Louella Parsons down to the river for some welcome relief from the heat and the chores.
Everyone was having a pleasant day practicing their diving and playing tag in the water. Telling stories to one another under the shade of the sycamore trees and swinging from vines hanging from grand ol’ oaks, which had lined the banks since the time of George Rogers Clark.
After awhile, Louella got a little overly brave and ventured too far into deep water. As she did so, she began to be swept along in the swift current. She struggled and soon realized that she was unable to get back to shore. Panic crept in and she let out a scream for help.
The family rallied to her rescue. Grandma Pearl leaped into the water after Louella. Olive seeing this yelled, "I'll save you Mommy!" and leaped in after her mother. At this point, Pearl was in no need of rescue, but pressed on in the direction of Louella. Olive still in hot pursuit and determined to rescue her mother.
Gracie and my Mom took things into their own hands and got into one of the Jon boats and took out after their cousin, their mother and their sister.
About this time, an unwanted visitor showed up. Mr. Murphy (of Murphy's Law fame) paid a visit. Louella was now hundreds of yards from where she had gotten in and was mid-stream in the river. She was going under from fatigue.
With the distance between her and Louella still increasing instead of lessening, and fatigue paying her a visit as well, Grandma Pearl began to join Louella beneath the waves. Olive made it a threesome.
I don't know for a fact, but I imagine there were some screams, as panic was replaced by desperation and everybody became just too tired to stay on top of the water.
To make things worse, the Jon boat that my Mother and Aunt Grace were in was plum out of control. They rushed pass the swimmers, carried on not by their own exertions, but by the fast flowing current. They were on their way to the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Gulf, none of these places being where they wanted to be.
Together, the two of them were able to slow their break neck speed by about half by tossing the anvil over the side. But even with the heavy old anvil dragging across the muddy bottom they were still moving along faster than they would have liked.
Now, for my entire life I have known my mother to fear the water. I believe that her fear had its origin on this very day.
Things were bad and they soon got worse. Mom was in fear of being swept downstream, past her drowning mother. She wanted to save her Mom, but wasn't going to be able to do so from the ol’ Jon boat. So, she dove into what the girls best describe as being a "whirlpool". My Mom, who describes herself as being a good swimmer, was sucked under in no time at all. Grace dove in after my Mom in yet another rescue attempt, but was just able to save herself. Gracie realized the urgency of her own dilemma and was just able to cling to the side of the rowboat, adding, "I could barely save myself but I was too tired to get back in the boat”.
So at this point in the story, there are five family members in the Wabash River. ALL OF THEM in desperate shape. There numbers about to be reduced significantly. What a funeral that would have been.
Cousin Louella was now under the surface and not coming up. My Mom was spending more time beneath of the waves than above them. Grandma Pearl and Olive somehow still swimming, but getting mouth fulls of water and by now nearing exhaustion. Gracie doing all she could to hold on to the side of the Jon boat.
Into the fray came Uncle Lorey who at the onset of the ordeal had been upstream fishing for channel cat, bulls and sturgeon when he heard the screams for help. He got into a rowboat and went out into the current. He picked up his sister Olive and his Mother first. Then he went to where Pearl had last seen Louella. He anchored the boat and dove in after her. Miraculously he found Louella and dragged her aboard the Jon boat.
Grandma Pearl beat on her back while little Olive screamed with terror. Finally Louella gave back the muddy brown water from her lungs and cried. She was not dead after all.
By this time, my Mom came close to not being my Mom. Her situation had worsened. She was exhausted and said she sank to the muddy bottom unable to get back to the surface. Wide eyed, she said she was surrounded by brown boiling water and then by blackness.
Lorey dove after her. Gracie said that her brother spent "an awful long time" looking for Bee-Bee before he finally "felt" her. He pulled her to the surface, passing her up into the boat.
Grandma Pearl wasn't able to get my Mom to respond by beating on her back so she turned her over and "Pumped on her stomach". Finally, after who knows how long, my Mom threw up the river, and coughed, gasping for air and clinging to precious life.
Lorey took them all in to shore before heading out again to rescue the stranded Gracie who by that time was more than a half mile downstream. He towed her and the rowboat back to shore, and a reunion with the rest of the family.
Now I knew my Uncle Lorey. But my recollections of the man, who died in a 1967 alcohol related automobile accident, aren’t all that positive. To let the truth be known, as an adult he was an alcoholic. Sober, he was gentle and kind. When he drank it was like Jekyl and Hyde.
My Mom is a rock. Stone faced and a pillar of strength, but I have never seen her display more grief than the night when she heard that her brother Lorey had died. I was 10 years old and was confused by my mother's display of affection toward her brother.
Now, after hearing this story, I understand. Lorey was to my Mother, a HERO. Nothing less. For one day during the sweltering heat of an Indiana summer when my Mother was a young teenager, death visited her. It was Lorey's hand that wrestled her from its grip.
To my best estimation, Lorey in a span of a few minutes saved his Mother, his sister Olive, his cousin Louella and my Mother from certain drowning. Along with his sister Grace from possible drowning (it wouldn’t have been much longer when Gracie’s grip would have let go of the jon boat).
Of that day, Grace sez "That was scary, we didn't go swimming after that!"
To this day my Mother is afraid of the water.
She is alive to be afraid thanks to the courage, stamina and decision making of her beloved brother Lorey.
Thank You Uncle Lorey for saving my Mom.
THE EARLIEST MEMORIES
Psychologists tell us that the earliest memories that we can recall are often times of a negative experience. Listening to my Mom and her sisters relate stories of their childhood, one would be inclined to side with the psychologists. For my Mom's recollections are often of painful, emotionally trying episodes of her life.
Audrey Bernice Johnson was born in 1928 on Sand Prairie. Mrs. Keiser was with Pearl when she delivered Audrey, squatting above the kitchen table. My Mom speaks of Audrey as being "just beautiful". Aunt Grace describes her as being "Angel like". I never knew my Aunt Audrey.
During May of 1930 the young Audrey experienced as most children do, the joy of candy. In this particular instance the sweet-hot goodness of "Red-Hots".
My Mom tells me that about a week after tasting the candy for the very first time, Audrey spotted a glass jar holding what she believed to be the Red-Hots perched far out of reach on the top of the family's “chiff-a-robe” (A piece of furniture that is something between a wardrobe and a chest of drawers). This jar was perched about seven feet above the living room floor and its contents were thought to have been safely out of the reach of the Johnson children. Especially the youngest amongst them, little Audrey.
But candy is a strong motivator and Audrey was not to be deterred by the seemingly impossible to reach location of the jar. The sensual joy of eating the candy was a powerful beacon to her. Audrey climbed the chiff-a-robe as if she were born a monkey instead of a little girl. She climbed to that unobtainable height and reached the jar. Tossing it to the floor before down climbing herself in order to relish the rewards of her toil. She was to young to understand such abstract concepts such as "sharing" or "asking permission". The candy was hers and hers alone. She hoarded the entire bottle. Eating all of the "Red-Hots".
This time, the candies somehow tasted different. They weren't quite as sweet as she had remembered from the previous week and somehow they made her feel strange. Peculiar sensations flooded her little body. She couldn't even begin to understand what was happening to her. She sensed something was wrong and she needed to be comforted.
Who could provide the needed solace? Audrey spied a source of love and caring, her grandmother, Ruth Ann Nevins-Johnson. Audrey tottered towards her Grandmother, carrying the now empty bottle, which had contained the "candy".
My Mom tells me that she and Grace were playing in a nearby room when they heard their Grandma Johnson scream "Oh Pearl, Come in Here and see what the baby has gave me!"
Cora ran into the room and immediately recognized the bottle to be the one that had contained her mother in laws heart medication, strychnine.
Cora took the baby into her arms as Audrey lapsed into an unconsciousness that she would never awaken from. But even as this happened, Cora did what she could. She ordered one of the older boys (either Lorey or Claude) to the neighbors to call for the Doctor. She tried to force feed the baby "clabbered" milk, which she believed would counter the effects of the poison.
My Mom, who wasn't yet 7, and Aunt Grace watched as the baby convulsed in their mother's arms and then went limp and passed on into oblivion.
Doc Daroch arrived and did what he could. He ordered the family to the kitchen table. He had Cora prepare a pail of ice-cold water and a separate pail of hot water. He alternately dipped the now lifeless body of Audrey from one into the other. In a fruitless attempt to shock the baby back into life.
It didn't work.
Such were the lessons of Sand Prairie.
THE LESSONS CONTINUE
The girls Grandma Johnson would die later that year (1930) of a stroke. Keeping with the tradition of the family, the funeral, as had sister Audrey's and many before, was held in the home. My Mom recalls that the family of the deceased would hang a wreath on the front door indicating to all eyes that the family was mourning the passing of a loved one and that the deceased was lying at rest inside of the home.
I don't quite understand why, but perhaps out of tradition, or perhaps out of lack of space, but an awful lot of activity was centered around and upon the family’s kitchen table. Cora had her babies while squatting over its surface. Doc Daroch plunged Audrey into the pails on the kitchen table, in a life and death struggle.
And now, my Mom tells me that she and Gracie watched the undertaker as he embalmed their Grandmother on yes, you guessed it, the kitchen table.
Mom recalls vividly the undertaker draining Grandma Johnson's blood out of her body into an old metal pail and then pumping the embalming fluid into her. This was done on the kitchen table, the same place where the family ate their meals. This is a hard one for me to take. I for one would have a tough time eating my food from that surface after seeing the things that my Mom and her sisters saw happening upon it.
My Mom however, isn’t dazed in the least. To her it was acceptable and appropriate behavior. To her the kitchen table was multi-purposed. You were supposed to do those things on it and then you were supposed to set down at it and eat your meals without giving it a second thought. For me, multi-purposed means, yeah you eat at it, and maybe you play dirty hearts or spades around it, but not much more than that.
What did bother my Mom and Aunt Grace about the ordeal of Grandma Johnson's death was as they were watching the embalming, the undertaker matter of factly turned to these two young girls (Mom's 7 by now) and ordered them to "empty the blood in the out-house". Without any bit of hesitation, both of the girls grabbed onto the pail handle and gingerly walked to the out-house with their Grandmother's blood sloshing around in the pail. Mom proudly remarks, "We didn't spill a drop."
Good for them.
Once at the out-house they matter of factly poured their grandmother's blood down the hole. They couldn't help but look down and see the blood with all of that shit and piss and toilet paper.
Both of them said that they had a hard time using the out-house after that. For whenever they did they couldn’t help but think that they were desecrating their beloved grandmother.
I'm glad to hear that something finally bothered them.
Another of my Mom's recollections regarding the death of their grandmother was that their father paid for the services of the undertaker by giving him their last pig and some chickens. Gracie recalls that fact vividly, remarking, "That undertaker knew we didn't have a lot to eat, and he still took our last pig!" As she said this, I recognized something that is rare in my God fearing Aunt Grace. She was angry thinking about that undertaker.
I would like to think of myself as being "tough". But, I'm a wimp compared to my Mother and her sisters.
ONE LAST TIME
My Mom believes that the last time that the body of a loved one was kept in the home as opposed to a funeral parlor, was when her mother Cora Pearl died in 1951.
William and Pearl had been living in Lodi and even though the depression had long before ended, finances were still an issue in the household. Cora was taken by the undertaker to the funeral home for the embalming and was then returned to the family home in Lodi.
The wreath hung from the door for one last time.
ORIGINS
One of my mother's greatest traits (and sometimes nemesis) is her great, un-bending pride. I have always believed that one learns certain "ethics, morals and values" from those that you admire most, those individuals (most often family members) that you most love. And I have always wondered who my mother had learned "Pride" from?
During my June, 1993 trip home my Mom told me a story that helped clarify things for me. It seems that the Sand Prairie Home and farmland that William Johnson worked was leased from a gentleman named Burt Fitch. Mr. Fitch and his wife had been unable to have any children of their own. As Mr. Fitch was getting on in years he offered to give the land to my grandfather.
William Johnson respectfully declined the offer.
THE MOST TREASUSRED MEMORY
I once asked my Aunt Grace what her most vivid memory of her childhood was, the one thing that she thought of most often. Here is what she told me.
"Dad was a hard working man. He would work all day in the mines and then he would come home and work the fields to take care of us kids. He would be plum tired by the time we would sit down for supper. He would always sit at the head of the table with Mom to his left. More times than not we would have wonderful Fried chicken for supper that Mom had fixed. Dad would take the platter of chicken and take the best pieces and put them on Mom's plate and then pass the rest around to us kids. When it would finally get back round to him there would be some scrawny neck or maybe a wing left for him to eat. He would take it and we never heard him complain. Often times there wouldn't even be anything on the platter by the time it would come round to him. But still he wouldn't complain. That's what I think of most when I think of being a kid."
Yep, my Mom learned pride from her father, but one thing is for sure, of all of my Mother's many redeeming traits, the one that I would list as being on the top of the list is her unselfishness. It sure seems to me that she learned that from her Dad too. While sitting round the table in the tin-roofed home on Sand Prairie.
TIL 4 July, 2000
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Backpacking to Moose Lake, Olympic National Park
Grand Valley – Day One
The Hike In.
Audrey had never been on a mountain backpacking trip before so it was Hannah’s and my goal to make it a positive experience for her. If Audrey hated it, potentially she might be through with such trips in the future, and potentially be a city dweller for the remainder of her years. If she loved it, she might get the bug and LOVE to be out in nature. Nature is after all, God’s cathedral. He made it and he did a heck of a job. In my opinion, nothing that we lowly humans have ever made has ever come close to his work.
The mountains are simply his canvas and when the mountain meadows are abloom with flowers, well it just doesn’t get much better.
I knew where there were some mountain meadows and lakes and magnificent peaks. Why not go there?
So, off we went.
Audrey was very positive for the upcoming experience and Hannah was her normal, nature girl self.
At the Obstruction Point Trailhead Hannah was giddy with excitement and quickly persuaded her younger sis to quickly don her pack and hit the trail. Meanwhile, Dad manipulated his 18 year old pack a little bit and somehow got the waist strap to finally snap shut.
As I sat out on the trail I noticed that Audrey was about a quarter mile away and standing still while her sis was moving onwards about 200 yards above her.
I yelled, “Go ahead Audrey! I’ll catch up!”
She didn’t budge.
“Go ahead Audrey, I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”
Budgeless.
I trudged upwards and realized how age, life, and situations had made such endeavors as today a bit more challenging than say, thirty short years ago.
Finally, I got close enough to Audrey to see . . . tears streaming down her face.
As I got closer she said, “I can’t breathe.”
“Audrey, I can’t either. We live at sea level and here we are a mile high and we’ve both got quite a bit on our backs and we’re working hard to go uphill, so that’s just the way it is, Hon.”
My comforting words seemingly providing no comfort whatsoever.
She gazed at me in the manner that she had learned from watching her mother.
I cowered.
Ten minutes later Hannah was concerned that her trip was going to last all of 600 yards before turning around. But, Audrey, put her own comfort aside and moved forward.
I gazed about and recognized that the meadow in bloom might be a bit problematic for my beloved Audrey who probably suffers from allergy induced asthma (doctor’s appointment forthcoming).
I slowed the pace and as the views unfolded, and surprises such as snowfields in August presented their wonderment to Audrey we were suddenly at the “high point” of the day; A lunch stop on the ridge near Obstruction Point before our descent to the Grand Valley.
But, even during the “UP” of the trail, the grandeur of the mountains had brought a change of heart to our newest member of the trail.
Yes, breathing was difficult for her but that discomfort seemed to of been overshadowed with where she was. Audrey uttered such phrases as:
“I don’t want the day after tomorrow to get here, because that will mean we will have to go home.”
“This is beautiful. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful!”
“When is our next backpacking trip?”
"Barack Obama He's Our Man, This hike is hard but Yes We Can!"
"Peanut Butter - Reeses Cup
We Sing This Song to Pump Us Up
Bam - Bam Uncle Sam
Hannah do your stuff!"
Hannah made some observations of her own:
“You can taste the air. It’s so sweet.”
“Anyone care for a snow cone?”
H - Hey Audrey
A - Hey what?
H - Hey Audrey
A - Hey what? Hey what?
H - Show me how you jiggalo
A - My hands are high
My feet are low
This is how I jiggalo
H - Her hands are high
Her feet are low
And, this is how she jiggalos.
H&A - Jig-a-low
Jig-Jig-a-low
Jig-a-low
Jig-Jig-a-low
Yep, Obstruction Point to the Grand Valley was a good choice. The NPS Ranger who issued our permit suggested that we go the extra distance to Moose Lake instead of Grand Lake since the former was higher in the valley, provided more views, and as a bonus had a toilet for the girls. We got the last camping permit for Moose Lake. And, as we passed the fork to Grand Lake nobody was sad about our choice. Grand Lake seemed to sit in the valley surrounded by trees. Not a bad thing, just not a “high mountain” experience.
There was less than a half mile that separated the two lakes and we were trudging forward when we came to a creek crossing. I carried Audrey’s pack across to the other side and Audrey crossed some small tree limbs over the creek. Yes, her shoes were wet but she said, “Thanks Dad for waterproofing the shoes. It works.”
She was so happy with surmounting the obstacle that she insisted on “taking point”. She led us uphill towards Moose Lake when all of the sudden she said, “Dad, there’s a rat by the trail.”
I moved forward and said, “Don’t worry Audrey, that’s not a rat, it’s a common garter snake. Probably the most common snake in North America. Non-poisonous like all of the snakes here in the Olympics.” (I was hoping to comfort her, but the snake’s 6 feet length and huge girth was a bit intimidating).
Moving onward we were soon at the lake and we quickly reconnoitered the available campsites.
We found 9 sites, all marked, roomy, spacious, and separated from all of the other campsites by at least a hundred yards. It was great. An alpine lake surrounded by snowcapped peaks. Of course, the two BEST campsites were already taken (on the lake) but we had our pick of the remaining seven. We discussed the pros and cons and Hannah, as if she were in a debate gave a great summation as to why we should choose Site #9. We took her advice and that soon became our evening’s camp. Our camp was uphill from the lake, above a meadow full of marmots with a great view of the lake, with easy access to a stream for drinking water and bathing.
Since the girls do this, I now find it imperative that I will at this point in the story list what we had for supper: A potpourri of freeze dried meals: chili mac with beef, along with sweet & sour rice and chicken, Rolls, granola bars, hot chocolate, and Gatorade. All the while Audrey saying, “This is great.” (it’s amazing what hours of toil will do for the appetite)
Conversation and smiles were abundant as the sun fell beneath the peaks to the west and shadows extended across the valley. We crawled into our 2 person tent and I realized that the three of us in the tent was fine when my companions were kids, but these days Audrey is 5’8” (her Mom is 5’6-1/2”) and Hannah is 5’11-1/2” (her dad is 5’11”). The tent was a bit crowded albeit warm. A good thing.
Laughter eventually faded and was replaced by elbows in the ribs and feet in the back, but hey, we were together and enjoying nature and all was right in our world.
Who cares what the stock market does?
Not I.
To be in the mountains with my girls was absolutely PRICELESS.
Grand Valley Day Two
8/9/11
We started off the day by waking up and eating our freeze dried food (don’t worry, it was cooked), and choking down some water. We started planning for the day and then got dressed. Dad wanted to look for a better campsite because he had been whining all morning about the cool campsite near us that had been taken so we set off. We found a few options but then narrowed it down to one which was right by the lake.
After bringing our stuff to this new campsite we relaxed and set up and had lunch. Afterwards Hannah declared we should swim in the lake so we got in different clothes and prepared. After entering the water Hannah and I would run around to get the feeling back in our legs. Once when we got in the water Hannah splashed dad and his splash back was like a tidal wave. Hannah in the end went deepest and was declared ruler of the family.
After changing into different clothes we relaxed more and set up the bivy (sounds like a name for a toilet) which proved to be a disaster (Hannah will talk about that later).
I tried to make a fishing pole but sadly didn’t succeed.
We prepared dinner, without fish, because it looked like it was going to rain. We had fishermen’s stew (how ironic) and enjoyed an explodingly awesome Jiffy Pop.
After dinner we brushed our teeth and watched the deer eat dad’s pee (they love salt) and then watched them eat our spat out toothpaste and attempt to eat some drying clothes. We prepared for bed and fell asleep while sliding down the tent.
Until a yell in the night from Hannah who was in the bivy because she heard a deer licking our tent and knocking pans over.
TO BE CONTINUED
Ttfn
audrey
Grand Valley Day Three
8/10/11
When I start to blog about this day, I start at about 12:01 in the morning. But, we had no device that could keep track of time, so who knows when it actually was.
To clear up a few things, the Bivy sack is not a toilet. It is actually a small tent that fits one (or maybe two if you are really desperate) person. There is a small area that is about one and a half feet off the ground, and looks like a mini-version of a tent. Attached to that is a long sac that’s about three feet wide for your legs. Oh, and it’s blue!
Why am I sleeping in this tent? Dad’s blog may include a few of the details of our first night in his blog entry. If not, Audrey had the middle, is a deep sleeper, and she likes to move around in her sleep. Imagine this; Audrey in the center of not one, but two pads, and Dad and I in the corners of the small tent. I’m not doing that again. Good luck dad.
To clear things up for mom, I am not crazy or have any kind of mental damage. No, I did not know what I was asking for when I gave the air pad to dad, I thought I was being nice. And, I actually gave the air pad away, dad didn’t take it. He’s innocent (for once).
So here I am, on the ground in my little tent, trying to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. It was now as black as night (of course) and I do not know how long I have been sitting there staring at my very short ceiling. The cold keeps me from dosing off, no matter how tired I was. And, in the ground I found a rock right where my back was resting, and the only place my back could rest. Now, Audrey’s warm body crushing me sounded too good to be true. During the course of those hours of cold, I would slip into two jackets, a hat, gloves, and into short periods where I would shake violently on purpose to warm myself back up.
Who cares about pride, I’m going into their tent! Dad’s snores had gone from annoying into tortuous. I quickly slipped out of the tomb, cough, I mean tent, and enjoyed the nights display above me. One good thing had come out of this, mountainous stars make the sky appear to have more white that black in it. After about one minute, it was too cold for anymore star gazing, so I rushed to the side of what now appeared to be a large tent. “C-can I-I com-m-e i-in?” I stuttered. Wow, I could speak!
Dad, who had always been the one to hear Audrey and me crying in the night, appeared in the door almost immediately. This was a shock, because he always woke mom to deal with it. I half expected mom to be the one peering from the tent at me. His face recognized the cold I was dealing with, and quickly let me in the tent (into the middle, yes!) to warm up. Sweet, sweet warmth, I could never have been so relieved before. As it turns out, I was also their savior, because during the course of the night, Dad and Audrey had a struggle to stay on the pads. The tent was slanted down; their heads at the top, and gravity continuously pulled them down. After slipping, they crawled back up to only have the same event occur again and again and again and again. My presence apparently helped slow the process, although I woke with my head about three feet from my pillow.
We woke up to a fresh coating of frost, frost, over everything. Now you can truly understand my situation. Breakfast was eaten, scrambled eggs (freeze dried of course), and packing was commenced for the hike out.
Audrey ended up packing light, my load fairly heavy, but dad’s was massive, giving him about one foot extra in height. Extra, extra! 7 foot sweaty beast spotted in the mountains panting rabidly! Read all about it! But in real life, he handled the extra weight very well. He still looked like a Sasquatch though.
On our departure from Moose Lake, we ran into the ranger. We conversed about the trails out, and he recommended the trail through Badger Valley, a slower ascent than the trail we took in. The downside was an extra mile and overgrown trails, but they were still there. And besides, he said there was a surprise on the left after the second foot bridge, so it would be worth it! Badger Valley it is!
We then truly set off on the trail. After the second foot bridge, there was a waterfall. I mean a real waterfall, unlike the small ones we had seen off creeks that we had been crossing. It was a nice surprise after all!
But then, after about one mile, we encountered the first of the meadows. You could see the trail, but it was overgrown with not wildflowers (did I mention they were all in bloom?), but Devils Club and Canadian Thistles. We went though, poles in front of us, guarding ourselves from scratches and stings. Except Audrey of course, she had her pole above her head, swinging her pole around, chopping the plants up violently.
“Whi-ki-ki-ki-ka! Hiya! Yoooooo-cha!”
“Audrey, what type of noise is that?”
“I’m trying to sound like Jackie Chan!”
Later I would comment that hiking poles are a lot sharper than they look. Audrey responded, saying it was her sheer strength that shredded the plants.
After going through about 6 of those meadows, 4 miles later, we arrived at the 1 mile checkpoint for the Obstruction Point Trailhead, and our ride home. At that time though, we were at the base of a 600 foot high steep scree hill. Scree is the small rocks that tumble down the hill every time you step on them. So we began the switchback up. Snow blocked our path several times, and we had to cut either through the snow, risking our chance at slipping, or climb straight up the hill, cutting into the path. Most of the time we took the climbing alternative. This was no-doubt the scariest time of the entire trip, the exposure was stomach churning.
Dad tried to reassure us with this was not the most dangerous time of the hike, the most dangerous part was crossing a large foot bridge with a single wire railing. “If you had fallen then,” dad explained, “you would have died for sure. If you fall here, you would only get cuts and bruises, with the possible chance of a broken limb.” “Thanks dad, I love broken limbs and cuts.” I smartly responded.
Everyone handled this obstacle well thankfully, even Audrey, who was on her first backpacking trip into the mountains, and father, who was carrying a ton.
The view from the top was well worth it. In front of us was the gorgeous, lush green side of…the Jeep! Not that I was happy to leave the mountains, but I was exhausted, and Audrey had sprained her ankle on the scree slope. So we drove home, leaving the pristine mountains with the view of fog covering the landscape below, just like it had been when we had arrived in the mountains.
It was like the blue skies of the mountain were proving that it was much better up there than in the city below. I wouldn’t dare argue with that.
This backpacking trip had definitely turned out to be a success!
-Hannah
The Hike In.
Audrey had never been on a mountain backpacking trip before so it was Hannah’s and my goal to make it a positive experience for her. If Audrey hated it, potentially she might be through with such trips in the future, and potentially be a city dweller for the remainder of her years. If she loved it, she might get the bug and LOVE to be out in nature. Nature is after all, God’s cathedral. He made it and he did a heck of a job. In my opinion, nothing that we lowly humans have ever made has ever come close to his work.
The mountains are simply his canvas and when the mountain meadows are abloom with flowers, well it just doesn’t get much better.
I knew where there were some mountain meadows and lakes and magnificent peaks. Why not go there?
So, off we went.
Audrey was very positive for the upcoming experience and Hannah was her normal, nature girl self.
At the Obstruction Point Trailhead Hannah was giddy with excitement and quickly persuaded her younger sis to quickly don her pack and hit the trail. Meanwhile, Dad manipulated his 18 year old pack a little bit and somehow got the waist strap to finally snap shut.
As I sat out on the trail I noticed that Audrey was about a quarter mile away and standing still while her sis was moving onwards about 200 yards above her.
I yelled, “Go ahead Audrey! I’ll catch up!”
She didn’t budge.
“Go ahead Audrey, I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”
Budgeless.
I trudged upwards and realized how age, life, and situations had made such endeavors as today a bit more challenging than say, thirty short years ago.
Finally, I got close enough to Audrey to see . . . tears streaming down her face.
As I got closer she said, “I can’t breathe.”
“Audrey, I can’t either. We live at sea level and here we are a mile high and we’ve both got quite a bit on our backs and we’re working hard to go uphill, so that’s just the way it is, Hon.”
My comforting words seemingly providing no comfort whatsoever.
She gazed at me in the manner that she had learned from watching her mother.
I cowered.
Ten minutes later Hannah was concerned that her trip was going to last all of 600 yards before turning around. But, Audrey, put her own comfort aside and moved forward.
I gazed about and recognized that the meadow in bloom might be a bit problematic for my beloved Audrey who probably suffers from allergy induced asthma (doctor’s appointment forthcoming).
I slowed the pace and as the views unfolded, and surprises such as snowfields in August presented their wonderment to Audrey we were suddenly at the “high point” of the day; A lunch stop on the ridge near Obstruction Point before our descent to the Grand Valley.
But, even during the “UP” of the trail, the grandeur of the mountains had brought a change of heart to our newest member of the trail.
Yes, breathing was difficult for her but that discomfort seemed to of been overshadowed with where she was. Audrey uttered such phrases as:
“I don’t want the day after tomorrow to get here, because that will mean we will have to go home.”
“This is beautiful. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful!”
“When is our next backpacking trip?”
"Barack Obama He's Our Man, This hike is hard but Yes We Can!"
"Peanut Butter - Reeses Cup
We Sing This Song to Pump Us Up
Bam - Bam Uncle Sam
Hannah do your stuff!"
Hannah made some observations of her own:
“You can taste the air. It’s so sweet.”
“Anyone care for a snow cone?”
H - Hey Audrey
A - Hey what?
H - Hey Audrey
A - Hey what? Hey what?
H - Show me how you jiggalo
A - My hands are high
My feet are low
This is how I jiggalo
H - Her hands are high
Her feet are low
And, this is how she jiggalos.
H&A - Jig-a-low
Jig-Jig-a-low
Jig-a-low
Jig-Jig-a-low
Yep, Obstruction Point to the Grand Valley was a good choice. The NPS Ranger who issued our permit suggested that we go the extra distance to Moose Lake instead of Grand Lake since the former was higher in the valley, provided more views, and as a bonus had a toilet for the girls. We got the last camping permit for Moose Lake. And, as we passed the fork to Grand Lake nobody was sad about our choice. Grand Lake seemed to sit in the valley surrounded by trees. Not a bad thing, just not a “high mountain” experience.
There was less than a half mile that separated the two lakes and we were trudging forward when we came to a creek crossing. I carried Audrey’s pack across to the other side and Audrey crossed some small tree limbs over the creek. Yes, her shoes were wet but she said, “Thanks Dad for waterproofing the shoes. It works.”
She was so happy with surmounting the obstacle that she insisted on “taking point”. She led us uphill towards Moose Lake when all of the sudden she said, “Dad, there’s a rat by the trail.”
I moved forward and said, “Don’t worry Audrey, that’s not a rat, it’s a common garter snake. Probably the most common snake in North America. Non-poisonous like all of the snakes here in the Olympics.” (I was hoping to comfort her, but the snake’s 6 feet length and huge girth was a bit intimidating).
Moving onward we were soon at the lake and we quickly reconnoitered the available campsites.
We found 9 sites, all marked, roomy, spacious, and separated from all of the other campsites by at least a hundred yards. It was great. An alpine lake surrounded by snowcapped peaks. Of course, the two BEST campsites were already taken (on the lake) but we had our pick of the remaining seven. We discussed the pros and cons and Hannah, as if she were in a debate gave a great summation as to why we should choose Site #9. We took her advice and that soon became our evening’s camp. Our camp was uphill from the lake, above a meadow full of marmots with a great view of the lake, with easy access to a stream for drinking water and bathing.
Since the girls do this, I now find it imperative that I will at this point in the story list what we had for supper: A potpourri of freeze dried meals: chili mac with beef, along with sweet & sour rice and chicken, Rolls, granola bars, hot chocolate, and Gatorade. All the while Audrey saying, “This is great.” (it’s amazing what hours of toil will do for the appetite)
Conversation and smiles were abundant as the sun fell beneath the peaks to the west and shadows extended across the valley. We crawled into our 2 person tent and I realized that the three of us in the tent was fine when my companions were kids, but these days Audrey is 5’8” (her Mom is 5’6-1/2”) and Hannah is 5’11-1/2” (her dad is 5’11”). The tent was a bit crowded albeit warm. A good thing.
Laughter eventually faded and was replaced by elbows in the ribs and feet in the back, but hey, we were together and enjoying nature and all was right in our world.
Who cares what the stock market does?
Not I.
To be in the mountains with my girls was absolutely PRICELESS.
Grand Valley Day Two
8/9/11
We started off the day by waking up and eating our freeze dried food (don’t worry, it was cooked), and choking down some water. We started planning for the day and then got dressed. Dad wanted to look for a better campsite because he had been whining all morning about the cool campsite near us that had been taken so we set off. We found a few options but then narrowed it down to one which was right by the lake.
After bringing our stuff to this new campsite we relaxed and set up and had lunch. Afterwards Hannah declared we should swim in the lake so we got in different clothes and prepared. After entering the water Hannah and I would run around to get the feeling back in our legs. Once when we got in the water Hannah splashed dad and his splash back was like a tidal wave. Hannah in the end went deepest and was declared ruler of the family.
After changing into different clothes we relaxed more and set up the bivy (sounds like a name for a toilet) which proved to be a disaster (Hannah will talk about that later).
I tried to make a fishing pole but sadly didn’t succeed.
We prepared dinner, without fish, because it looked like it was going to rain. We had fishermen’s stew (how ironic) and enjoyed an explodingly awesome Jiffy Pop.
After dinner we brushed our teeth and watched the deer eat dad’s pee (they love salt) and then watched them eat our spat out toothpaste and attempt to eat some drying clothes. We prepared for bed and fell asleep while sliding down the tent.
Until a yell in the night from Hannah who was in the bivy because she heard a deer licking our tent and knocking pans over.
TO BE CONTINUED
Ttfn
audrey
Grand Valley Day Three
8/10/11
When I start to blog about this day, I start at about 12:01 in the morning. But, we had no device that could keep track of time, so who knows when it actually was.
To clear up a few things, the Bivy sack is not a toilet. It is actually a small tent that fits one (or maybe two if you are really desperate) person. There is a small area that is about one and a half feet off the ground, and looks like a mini-version of a tent. Attached to that is a long sac that’s about three feet wide for your legs. Oh, and it’s blue!
Why am I sleeping in this tent? Dad’s blog may include a few of the details of our first night in his blog entry. If not, Audrey had the middle, is a deep sleeper, and she likes to move around in her sleep. Imagine this; Audrey in the center of not one, but two pads, and Dad and I in the corners of the small tent. I’m not doing that again. Good luck dad.
To clear things up for mom, I am not crazy or have any kind of mental damage. No, I did not know what I was asking for when I gave the air pad to dad, I thought I was being nice. And, I actually gave the air pad away, dad didn’t take it. He’s innocent (for once).
So here I am, on the ground in my little tent, trying to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. It was now as black as night (of course) and I do not know how long I have been sitting there staring at my very short ceiling. The cold keeps me from dosing off, no matter how tired I was. And, in the ground I found a rock right where my back was resting, and the only place my back could rest. Now, Audrey’s warm body crushing me sounded too good to be true. During the course of those hours of cold, I would slip into two jackets, a hat, gloves, and into short periods where I would shake violently on purpose to warm myself back up.
Who cares about pride, I’m going into their tent! Dad’s snores had gone from annoying into tortuous. I quickly slipped out of the tomb, cough, I mean tent, and enjoyed the nights display above me. One good thing had come out of this, mountainous stars make the sky appear to have more white that black in it. After about one minute, it was too cold for anymore star gazing, so I rushed to the side of what now appeared to be a large tent. “C-can I-I com-m-e i-in?” I stuttered. Wow, I could speak!
Dad, who had always been the one to hear Audrey and me crying in the night, appeared in the door almost immediately. This was a shock, because he always woke mom to deal with it. I half expected mom to be the one peering from the tent at me. His face recognized the cold I was dealing with, and quickly let me in the tent (into the middle, yes!) to warm up. Sweet, sweet warmth, I could never have been so relieved before. As it turns out, I was also their savior, because during the course of the night, Dad and Audrey had a struggle to stay on the pads. The tent was slanted down; their heads at the top, and gravity continuously pulled them down. After slipping, they crawled back up to only have the same event occur again and again and again and again. My presence apparently helped slow the process, although I woke with my head about three feet from my pillow.
We woke up to a fresh coating of frost, frost, over everything. Now you can truly understand my situation. Breakfast was eaten, scrambled eggs (freeze dried of course), and packing was commenced for the hike out.
Audrey ended up packing light, my load fairly heavy, but dad’s was massive, giving him about one foot extra in height. Extra, extra! 7 foot sweaty beast spotted in the mountains panting rabidly! Read all about it! But in real life, he handled the extra weight very well. He still looked like a Sasquatch though.
On our departure from Moose Lake, we ran into the ranger. We conversed about the trails out, and he recommended the trail through Badger Valley, a slower ascent than the trail we took in. The downside was an extra mile and overgrown trails, but they were still there. And besides, he said there was a surprise on the left after the second foot bridge, so it would be worth it! Badger Valley it is!
We then truly set off on the trail. After the second foot bridge, there was a waterfall. I mean a real waterfall, unlike the small ones we had seen off creeks that we had been crossing. It was a nice surprise after all!
But then, after about one mile, we encountered the first of the meadows. You could see the trail, but it was overgrown with not wildflowers (did I mention they were all in bloom?), but Devils Club and Canadian Thistles. We went though, poles in front of us, guarding ourselves from scratches and stings. Except Audrey of course, she had her pole above her head, swinging her pole around, chopping the plants up violently.
“Whi-ki-ki-ki-ka! Hiya! Yoooooo-cha!”
“Audrey, what type of noise is that?”
“I’m trying to sound like Jackie Chan!”
Later I would comment that hiking poles are a lot sharper than they look. Audrey responded, saying it was her sheer strength that shredded the plants.
After going through about 6 of those meadows, 4 miles later, we arrived at the 1 mile checkpoint for the Obstruction Point Trailhead, and our ride home. At that time though, we were at the base of a 600 foot high steep scree hill. Scree is the small rocks that tumble down the hill every time you step on them. So we began the switchback up. Snow blocked our path several times, and we had to cut either through the snow, risking our chance at slipping, or climb straight up the hill, cutting into the path. Most of the time we took the climbing alternative. This was no-doubt the scariest time of the entire trip, the exposure was stomach churning.
Dad tried to reassure us with this was not the most dangerous time of the hike, the most dangerous part was crossing a large foot bridge with a single wire railing. “If you had fallen then,” dad explained, “you would have died for sure. If you fall here, you would only get cuts and bruises, with the possible chance of a broken limb.” “Thanks dad, I love broken limbs and cuts.” I smartly responded.
Everyone handled this obstacle well thankfully, even Audrey, who was on her first backpacking trip into the mountains, and father, who was carrying a ton.
The view from the top was well worth it. In front of us was the gorgeous, lush green side of…the Jeep! Not that I was happy to leave the mountains, but I was exhausted, and Audrey had sprained her ankle on the scree slope. So we drove home, leaving the pristine mountains with the view of fog covering the landscape below, just like it had been when we had arrived in the mountains.
It was like the blue skies of the mountain were proving that it was much better up there than in the city below. I wouldn’t dare argue with that.
This backpacking trip had definitely turned out to be a success!
-Hannah
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Summer Vacation - Part One
Cape Disappointment – Day One Getting There and Setting up Camp
FYI: This year's blog about the family vacation is authored by Hannah & Audrey (no adults allowed).
July 24, 2011
Hello, Audrey here and I am going to be blogging this summer’s vacation ( along with Hannah ). We are starting out our two week vacation here at Cape Disappointment and then going to Cascade Peaks RV park after four nights here. So, I’ll begin now.
Today we woke up early in the morning so we could eat breakfast out at a restaurant and then start our five hour drive from Port Angeles to here. After we dragged ourselves out of the house and into the RV we set off to go to our favorite breakfast restaurant, Chestnut Cottage.
When we got there, we ordered our drinks to start us off. Dad got a mocha and Hannah and I got hot chocolate. When they brought them dad started calling the fancy doilies on our plates that the drinks were on doities. When mom corrected him, or tried to, he said: “No! It’s a doity.”
When mom tried again he grinned and said: “Doity sounds better.” When we ordered our food he was still saying doity, doity, doity all the time we were there. After we ate he continued until we had paid and we were out the door.
We set off on the trip officially and continued to our first stop. Hannah had her nose in the Washington map book most of the time. When she asked where the playground was that we always stopped at for lunch dad answered Metropolis. We continued on and then came to an area in the road where all the cars had stopped. It turned out that two baby fawns were on one side of the road and drivers were waiting for them to cross over. When they did we saw that their mother was waiting for them on the other side. We rattled along the road some more and then saw a coyote in the brush after it had crossed the road. And then again later we saw two more fawns with their mom.
Hannah later on looked into her map book to see how far away we were from Metropolis she said there wasn’t one on the map. She also said there was only a Cosmopolis on the map. Dad said he thought it was Superman’s town. We all laughed at his 20th mistake of the day. After our laughter faded we continued to the now Cosmopolis.
When we got to the park, we got out of the RV and Hannah went to the bathroom. Mom got the bread out of the cupboard and started making lunch.
I went to the toy compartment on the outside of the RV and got our softball bat, mitts, and ball. I went into the field and waited for Hannah to come out of the bathroom. When she got out she came to the pitcher’s mound and picked up her mitt and the softball. She threw the ball and missed home plate by a mile. She tried again. Same result. Finally, we switched positions and actually got to hit the softball around a bit before mom called for lunch. We ate our lunch then hit the road again.
When we were continuing on dad saw a dead porcupine in the middle of the road. Not too long afterwards dad said we were almost there so after we passed the next hill we would be at the intersection that led to Ilwaco, a town near our destination. When we passed the hill, nothing. Dad’s 21st mistake. We were another half hour away.
Ok, now I’ll actually fast forward to the part we arrived at Cape Disappointment.
When we got there Hannah and I got out of the RV and helped dad unhook the jeep, our tow vehicle. When mom had checked in and the jeep was unhooked I got in our little jeep and went to our campsite . While mom and I were driving she noticed the tire air pressure sensor was on and she had a flat tire.
“Dang it,” She said.“ This must’ve happened when Tony hit that giant curb.” It turns out that dad had hit the RV on a giant curb that swung the jeep two feet off the ground.
When we got to our site Hannah helped dad back the RV into the site and make sure he didn’t hit another curb.
Mom lowered the jacks to make the RV level so we wouldn’t sleep upside down. She said if the Rv wasn’t level she would wake up with acid in her lungs. Then mom started the grill outside and began to make our dinner of filet mignon, corn, and potatoes. We ate and then sat around the fire to roast smores.We see lots of pelicans fly by and also cormorants. And now, here I am writing while dad makes incorrect comments on what I said I wrote.
Hannah will write tomorrow.
Bye bye for now.
Audrey
Cape Disappointment Day Two
Monday, July 25, 2011
Hi, Hannah here, taking day two’s blogging into her hands. May I just say now, Audrey will be blogging about 2 out of our 3 actual RVing days, where dad’s main screw-ups occur. As it turns out, the camping days that are supposed to be more adventurous, turn out to be comedy deprived. Unless dad is driving the car of course.
The Little family started out the day trying to coax us out of bed with the movie October Sky, and then resorted to sheer force. After all, Audrey sleeps on where we eat breakfast, a booth that is a foldable bed, about two feet too short for the poor growing kid. My sleeping quarters being the couch and, well, I’m just in the way. Pancakes and bacon (butter lathered in Dad’s case) suited to be a worthy purpose for waking.
After going outside for some relaxing time, the family sat at the picnic table with a piece of paper and a pencil to write down the grocery list. It went like this:
1. Bread
2. 1 dozen eggs
3. Can of air (no fooling that's what the adults spend their money on)
4. Fishing License (only one needed because of our youthfulness)
5. Package of Diapers (adult men’s)
6. Carpet spot cleaner (not because of the dog, refer to #5)
7. Ultra light spinning reel
Audrey made sure to put the star next to the grocery item that we didn’t need. No, it’s not the can of air! Then, laughter starting to fade, Audrey proceeded to doodle on the list, giving the can of air flavors, and visualizing what the proper Huggies bag would look like for dad’s diapers. Even more humored (and humiliated for one member of the family), we took out a separate piece of paper and began to doodle, taking turns. That resulted in two stars, a Super Man in remembrance of Metropolis, a canoe in the air, a tree, a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion, and a simple campfire, with a camper happily roasting his blue berry waffle. An interesting morning so far!
After enduring organizing and washing the dishes, we headed with our animal (Cocoa the chocolate lab) to the beach, for a well deserved game of fetch. Approaching the ocean, I was reminded of one of the reasons we love Cape Disappointment, and have stayed here 6 times. Black-stained beaches came into view, with a lighthouse perched on a black cliff behind, leering out into the cloudy day. But it’s not dull day-it’s mysterious. The reason for the shiny black sand is because of the magnetic rocks in the area, producing a black and, yes, magnetic sand. And, there’s not only one, but two lighthouses in the area, this one looking out at the pacific, the other guarding the mighty Columbia. I may not be able to speak for the rest of the family, but I personally love lighthouses.
Now let’s fast forward in time about twenty-five minutes, to a place where the dog is thoroughly soaked from catching the balls in the water, and where Audrey and I and thoroughly soaked legs down from a game of the waves can’t catch me (but, oh yes they can!). Then Audrey and I proceeded to go into the campground’s showers to rinse our legs off. There we discovered that the quarter operated showers ran on cold water for free, and that the cold water isn’t so cold after all. Hey, maybe we can save a few bucks in the near future! Now cleaner, but still wet, we went back to the RV and dried ourselves off for the coming trip to Long Beach.
Why Long Beach? Well, Illwaco is about 5 buildings large, it’s not far away, and it is a tourist trap, which we ourselves happen to be. And now for the 6th time we find ourselves to be tourists with brain loss, because of what happened AGAIN at our favorite place to have ice cream instead of lunch, Scoopers. There we all decided to have waffle cones, and decided to let poor (or not so poor) Audrey have two scoops instead of one. While she choose her ice cream first, we and all the other watching citizens watched in horror as little Audrey got something that looked like it was ten scoops instead of two. So, let me get this straight:
at Scoopers: 1 ice cream scoop = 5 ice cream scoops
And that’s what the rest of the family got. As you may have figured out from my opening to this paragraph, we had forgotten about the massive proportions of “I am not 2 scoops but 10 Scoopers” not only once with the same victim, but 5 previous times. Yep, every visit! After watching her choke down what seemed like 1,000 lbs. of ice cream, we enjoyed the local business stores by burning 1,000 lbs. of ice cream’s calories to and fro each store. Dad got a sign, bumper sticker, and a hat for the dog that said “Best Friend” (Lies!). Audrey got a nightgown, jacket, and a sign that said Audrey. I got a hat. And mom? Well…think “pack mule”.
A little later, we headed straight to the place of sheer excitement and control that pleased both a 14 year old and a 12 year old. The go-carts. Oh yeah. Last time that we had come to this place, little Audrey was too young to do the large track, the age limit being twelve. So we settled for the smaller course, even though I could have done the bigger one. “But you only have to wait one more year until you can do the larger course Audrey!”
“Hannah, I’m 10.”
She’s deceiving at times with her mature personality! Anyway, two years later, we’re back and ready to try the bigger course. Audrey and I sit down, buckle up, and prepare for the epic battle that is to come. On your marks. Get set. GO! We start, I raging ahead, and then…I lap her. Encouraged that there is a logical reason for her un-appealing slowness, I slow down, let her get ahead, then race head once again, to only have to wait some more. I did this the entire time until we had to leave, because I’m a cool older sibling. Later in the car, she reported that she was afraid that the faster she went, the less control, and the less control, the greater chance that she would bump into me, cause me to crash, and make my go-cart explode, leaving me to inescapably burn in my seat. “Are you kiddin?” I then retorted, “I’m immortal!”
Satisfied from our thrilling race (not), we retired to have lunch at 2:00 in the afternoon, thanks to Scoopers. It was called the Crab Pot, but we didn’t have crab. It was way more expensive than Audrey’s fancy new jacket! And a depressing bill still came without eating the crab. All of us had a great meal though.
And here I sit, soaking in the little bit of sunshine peeking from the clouds (the first time the sun has come out today!), enjoying writing about our not so boring day.
-Hannah ^-^
Cape Disappointment Day three
7/26/11
Hi, I’m back. Audrey here. Today was one of the best days yet and it’s my job to talk about it.
We started out the morning by groggily waking up to the movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou, and slowly waking up to it when the soggy bottom boys played in the movie. After we finished the movie, Hannah left to take a shower in the camp bathroom. While she was gone I played my Nintendo DS while mom made breakfast, which was malt-o-meal (not my favorite, even though I chose for us to eat it ). When Hannah returned we ate breakfast in uncomfortable silence until we had finished.
Mom and I left for the showers after we were done eating and returned shortly after being soaked to death. The family then met up at the RV to regroup and go to the beach, dad brought the mutt while I carried the kite (Hannah and mom hadn’t come yet). Mom and Hannah came later because I think they were jealous of me flying the kite. Hannah took control over it while I started playing in the sand like a little kid. I made a little sandcastle the looked like a giant snow cone until Cocoa trodded all over it with her big bear paws, forcing me to start over. This time I started with digging two big holes and then connecting them from underground to make a bridge. Then I made another snow cone sandcastle. But, of course, we had to leave then. I stayed back for a little while until Hannah fetched me.
We went to the car and left for Astoria, Oregon. When we crossed the bridge between the two states, we headed first to Astoria Column. When we reached the top, dad took his million pictures at the his million pictures of the top, absorbed the view and did the other half, climbing down. After we had reached the bottom and caught our breath it was to the car. Kip (our jeep) was pushed down deadly hills as we went to the Oregon film museum. There was stuff from one of our all time favorite movies, Goonies. I got a t-shirt from the gift shop that had the name of the movie on it.
We then drove to the other side of Astoria to the Goonie house because the movie was filmed here. It had been repainted by the owner since the movie was filmed but we didn’t care because it was the first time we had been there. After dad had taken a million photos of that, we left to the fish and chips place that was sold from an old boat, Bowpickers. The food was delicious and we met a nice couple who were full time RVers and had a good conversation with them.
Then we left to our final destination across the street which was the Columbia River maritime museum. They had all sorts of different exhibits that we visited and it was a fun experience. We also got to go aboard the Columbia which was a lightship which meant it was like a floating lighthouse that was a boat.
We then left to here and I might go back to the beach later and I hope to see my sandcastle still intact.
Bye for now,
Audrey
Cape Disappointment Day Four
7/27/11
Hullo, Audrey here, again.
Hannah didn’t want to write the blog entry for today so here I am, writing it for the second night in a row. And she’s reminding me of things that happened today. Talk about a backseat driver. If she wants me to put them on the blog, she should just do it herself. Plus, I know what happened today, I was there too!
Anyway, we started off the day by waking up to our morning movie of the day, Goonies. We watched the movie and then were forced to get dressed and prepare for breakfast. Mom quickly finished our chicken sausage and French toast breakfast which, to me, smelled like French fries.
After all of the not so little Littles anymore, after breakfast, had finished we got ready to journey to the beach. There we set up chairs to sit in and I began to make my pitiful sandcastles (they didn’t look like snow cones anymore because I was smart to bring a bucket). Cocoa dug holes with her dangerously deadly paws (more like claws) because her tennis ball that we used to play fetch with for her would fall to the sandy ground and she would be too lazy to pick it up with her mouth and so she would dig for it, which was a lot harder than just picking it up in the first place.
After about an hour of being at the beach we made our way to the squeaky little jeep, we ventured to Long Beach, a tourist town that had even drawn our attention. We parked the adorable little jeep in a parking lot next to scoopers which, as my sister described a few days earlier, was the home of the deadly two scoop ice cream. My sister thinks it equals ten but I think it equals twenty. I, the previous victim of this crisis, was really intelligent to get only get one scoop and breaking the record of not falling into the dangerous trap, which was now one.
After chugging down our humongous scoops of ice cream, we made our way to the go-carts again. This time I was prepared to race Hannah and not be afraid of accidentally killing her in a fiery inferno. Hannah lapped me twice this time. Apparently, my go-cart was defective because to make it actually go fast, you had to press down with all your might on the gas pedal. Then finally the end came after what seemed like forever of sputtering putts of speed. And we made our way back to the car.
We drove to a different parking spot and began to go window shopping. We first stopped at a store that had toddler high tops and bobble head magnets. The next place we stopped at was a bumper car place. After repeatedly bumping each other to death and tons of spinning out of control moments, we were called out of the arena because our turn was over. I think they took us out because they were annoyed of us chasing each other around and giggling like four year olds.
Our final store stop was a store that had I heart boobies belts and belts that had marijuana trees and leaves all over it. When we were heading back to the car, dad commented: “That’s just way life is; weird.” Our final stop total at Long Beach was the grocery store where I asked mom to buy me gum, but of course, she forgot. Hannah in the car before we left yelled out in victory because her book had finally downloaded onto her Kindle.
When we got back to the RV, dad, Hannah and I went back to the beach while mom napped. Hannah read her new book while I raised a sand mite farm in the bucket. It turns out that sand mites like water much more than they do sand and if you stir the water they form a swarm.
After a while we headed back to the campsite. I learned that it had been so windy at the beach that whenever I shook my head, a shower of sand came from it. Mom started making dinner after I made that discovery while I washed Cocoa and I off. Hannah read her book still. We had soft tacos for dinner and ate in silence. Hannah and I after we had waited a while went on a bike ride around the campground. We came back and now here I am typing (ping, ping, and ping).
We are going to roast marshmallows later tonight.
TTFN
Audrey
P.S. Dad and I had the best washers game of the century!!!!
FYI: This year's blog about the family vacation is authored by Hannah & Audrey (no adults allowed).
July 24, 2011
Hello, Audrey here and I am going to be blogging this summer’s vacation ( along with Hannah ). We are starting out our two week vacation here at Cape Disappointment and then going to Cascade Peaks RV park after four nights here. So, I’ll begin now.
Today we woke up early in the morning so we could eat breakfast out at a restaurant and then start our five hour drive from Port Angeles to here. After we dragged ourselves out of the house and into the RV we set off to go to our favorite breakfast restaurant, Chestnut Cottage.
When we got there, we ordered our drinks to start us off. Dad got a mocha and Hannah and I got hot chocolate. When they brought them dad started calling the fancy doilies on our plates that the drinks were on doities. When mom corrected him, or tried to, he said: “No! It’s a doity.”
When mom tried again he grinned and said: “Doity sounds better.” When we ordered our food he was still saying doity, doity, doity all the time we were there. After we ate he continued until we had paid and we were out the door.
We set off on the trip officially and continued to our first stop. Hannah had her nose in the Washington map book most of the time. When she asked where the playground was that we always stopped at for lunch dad answered Metropolis. We continued on and then came to an area in the road where all the cars had stopped. It turned out that two baby fawns were on one side of the road and drivers were waiting for them to cross over. When they did we saw that their mother was waiting for them on the other side. We rattled along the road some more and then saw a coyote in the brush after it had crossed the road. And then again later we saw two more fawns with their mom.
Hannah later on looked into her map book to see how far away we were from Metropolis she said there wasn’t one on the map. She also said there was only a Cosmopolis on the map. Dad said he thought it was Superman’s town. We all laughed at his 20th mistake of the day. After our laughter faded we continued to the now Cosmopolis.
When we got to the park, we got out of the RV and Hannah went to the bathroom. Mom got the bread out of the cupboard and started making lunch.
I went to the toy compartment on the outside of the RV and got our softball bat, mitts, and ball. I went into the field and waited for Hannah to come out of the bathroom. When she got out she came to the pitcher’s mound and picked up her mitt and the softball. She threw the ball and missed home plate by a mile. She tried again. Same result. Finally, we switched positions and actually got to hit the softball around a bit before mom called for lunch. We ate our lunch then hit the road again.
When we were continuing on dad saw a dead porcupine in the middle of the road. Not too long afterwards dad said we were almost there so after we passed the next hill we would be at the intersection that led to Ilwaco, a town near our destination. When we passed the hill, nothing. Dad’s 21st mistake. We were another half hour away.
Ok, now I’ll actually fast forward to the part we arrived at Cape Disappointment.
When we got there Hannah and I got out of the RV and helped dad unhook the jeep, our tow vehicle. When mom had checked in and the jeep was unhooked I got in our little jeep and went to our campsite . While mom and I were driving she noticed the tire air pressure sensor was on and she had a flat tire.
“Dang it,” She said.“ This must’ve happened when Tony hit that giant curb.” It turns out that dad had hit the RV on a giant curb that swung the jeep two feet off the ground.
When we got to our site Hannah helped dad back the RV into the site and make sure he didn’t hit another curb.
Mom lowered the jacks to make the RV level so we wouldn’t sleep upside down. She said if the Rv wasn’t level she would wake up with acid in her lungs. Then mom started the grill outside and began to make our dinner of filet mignon, corn, and potatoes. We ate and then sat around the fire to roast smores.We see lots of pelicans fly by and also cormorants. And now, here I am writing while dad makes incorrect comments on what I said I wrote.
Hannah will write tomorrow.
Bye bye for now.
Audrey
Cape Disappointment Day Two
Monday, July 25, 2011
Hi, Hannah here, taking day two’s blogging into her hands. May I just say now, Audrey will be blogging about 2 out of our 3 actual RVing days, where dad’s main screw-ups occur. As it turns out, the camping days that are supposed to be more adventurous, turn out to be comedy deprived. Unless dad is driving the car of course.
The Little family started out the day trying to coax us out of bed with the movie October Sky, and then resorted to sheer force. After all, Audrey sleeps on where we eat breakfast, a booth that is a foldable bed, about two feet too short for the poor growing kid. My sleeping quarters being the couch and, well, I’m just in the way. Pancakes and bacon (butter lathered in Dad’s case) suited to be a worthy purpose for waking.
After going outside for some relaxing time, the family sat at the picnic table with a piece of paper and a pencil to write down the grocery list. It went like this:
1. Bread
2. 1 dozen eggs
3. Can of air (no fooling that's what the adults spend their money on)
4. Fishing License (only one needed because of our youthfulness)
5. Package of Diapers (adult men’s)
6. Carpet spot cleaner (not because of the dog, refer to #5)
7. Ultra light spinning reel
Audrey made sure to put the star next to the grocery item that we didn’t need. No, it’s not the can of air! Then, laughter starting to fade, Audrey proceeded to doodle on the list, giving the can of air flavors, and visualizing what the proper Huggies bag would look like for dad’s diapers. Even more humored (and humiliated for one member of the family), we took out a separate piece of paper and began to doodle, taking turns. That resulted in two stars, a Super Man in remembrance of Metropolis, a canoe in the air, a tree, a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion, and a simple campfire, with a camper happily roasting his blue berry waffle. An interesting morning so far!
After enduring organizing and washing the dishes, we headed with our animal (Cocoa the chocolate lab) to the beach, for a well deserved game of fetch. Approaching the ocean, I was reminded of one of the reasons we love Cape Disappointment, and have stayed here 6 times. Black-stained beaches came into view, with a lighthouse perched on a black cliff behind, leering out into the cloudy day. But it’s not dull day-it’s mysterious. The reason for the shiny black sand is because of the magnetic rocks in the area, producing a black and, yes, magnetic sand. And, there’s not only one, but two lighthouses in the area, this one looking out at the pacific, the other guarding the mighty Columbia. I may not be able to speak for the rest of the family, but I personally love lighthouses.
Now let’s fast forward in time about twenty-five minutes, to a place where the dog is thoroughly soaked from catching the balls in the water, and where Audrey and I and thoroughly soaked legs down from a game of the waves can’t catch me (but, oh yes they can!). Then Audrey and I proceeded to go into the campground’s showers to rinse our legs off. There we discovered that the quarter operated showers ran on cold water for free, and that the cold water isn’t so cold after all. Hey, maybe we can save a few bucks in the near future! Now cleaner, but still wet, we went back to the RV and dried ourselves off for the coming trip to Long Beach.
Why Long Beach? Well, Illwaco is about 5 buildings large, it’s not far away, and it is a tourist trap, which we ourselves happen to be. And now for the 6th time we find ourselves to be tourists with brain loss, because of what happened AGAIN at our favorite place to have ice cream instead of lunch, Scoopers. There we all decided to have waffle cones, and decided to let poor (or not so poor) Audrey have two scoops instead of one. While she choose her ice cream first, we and all the other watching citizens watched in horror as little Audrey got something that looked like it was ten scoops instead of two. So, let me get this straight:
at Scoopers: 1 ice cream scoop = 5 ice cream scoops
And that’s what the rest of the family got. As you may have figured out from my opening to this paragraph, we had forgotten about the massive proportions of “I am not 2 scoops but 10 Scoopers” not only once with the same victim, but 5 previous times. Yep, every visit! After watching her choke down what seemed like 1,000 lbs. of ice cream, we enjoyed the local business stores by burning 1,000 lbs. of ice cream’s calories to and fro each store. Dad got a sign, bumper sticker, and a hat for the dog that said “Best Friend” (Lies!). Audrey got a nightgown, jacket, and a sign that said Audrey. I got a hat. And mom? Well…think “pack mule”.
A little later, we headed straight to the place of sheer excitement and control that pleased both a 14 year old and a 12 year old. The go-carts. Oh yeah. Last time that we had come to this place, little Audrey was too young to do the large track, the age limit being twelve. So we settled for the smaller course, even though I could have done the bigger one. “But you only have to wait one more year until you can do the larger course Audrey!”
“Hannah, I’m 10.”
She’s deceiving at times with her mature personality! Anyway, two years later, we’re back and ready to try the bigger course. Audrey and I sit down, buckle up, and prepare for the epic battle that is to come. On your marks. Get set. GO! We start, I raging ahead, and then…I lap her. Encouraged that there is a logical reason for her un-appealing slowness, I slow down, let her get ahead, then race head once again, to only have to wait some more. I did this the entire time until we had to leave, because I’m a cool older sibling. Later in the car, she reported that she was afraid that the faster she went, the less control, and the less control, the greater chance that she would bump into me, cause me to crash, and make my go-cart explode, leaving me to inescapably burn in my seat. “Are you kiddin?” I then retorted, “I’m immortal!”
Satisfied from our thrilling race (not), we retired to have lunch at 2:00 in the afternoon, thanks to Scoopers. It was called the Crab Pot, but we didn’t have crab. It was way more expensive than Audrey’s fancy new jacket! And a depressing bill still came without eating the crab. All of us had a great meal though.
And here I sit, soaking in the little bit of sunshine peeking from the clouds (the first time the sun has come out today!), enjoying writing about our not so boring day.
-Hannah ^-^
Cape Disappointment Day three
7/26/11
Hi, I’m back. Audrey here. Today was one of the best days yet and it’s my job to talk about it.
We started out the morning by groggily waking up to the movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou, and slowly waking up to it when the soggy bottom boys played in the movie. After we finished the movie, Hannah left to take a shower in the camp bathroom. While she was gone I played my Nintendo DS while mom made breakfast, which was malt-o-meal (not my favorite, even though I chose for us to eat it ). When Hannah returned we ate breakfast in uncomfortable silence until we had finished.
Mom and I left for the showers after we were done eating and returned shortly after being soaked to death. The family then met up at the RV to regroup and go to the beach, dad brought the mutt while I carried the kite (Hannah and mom hadn’t come yet). Mom and Hannah came later because I think they were jealous of me flying the kite. Hannah took control over it while I started playing in the sand like a little kid. I made a little sandcastle the looked like a giant snow cone until Cocoa trodded all over it with her big bear paws, forcing me to start over. This time I started with digging two big holes and then connecting them from underground to make a bridge. Then I made another snow cone sandcastle. But, of course, we had to leave then. I stayed back for a little while until Hannah fetched me.
We went to the car and left for Astoria, Oregon. When we crossed the bridge between the two states, we headed first to Astoria Column. When we reached the top, dad took his million pictures at the his million pictures of the top, absorbed the view and did the other half, climbing down. After we had reached the bottom and caught our breath it was to the car. Kip (our jeep) was pushed down deadly hills as we went to the Oregon film museum. There was stuff from one of our all time favorite movies, Goonies. I got a t-shirt from the gift shop that had the name of the movie on it.
We then drove to the other side of Astoria to the Goonie house because the movie was filmed here. It had been repainted by the owner since the movie was filmed but we didn’t care because it was the first time we had been there. After dad had taken a million photos of that, we left to the fish and chips place that was sold from an old boat, Bowpickers. The food was delicious and we met a nice couple who were full time RVers and had a good conversation with them.
Then we left to our final destination across the street which was the Columbia River maritime museum. They had all sorts of different exhibits that we visited and it was a fun experience. We also got to go aboard the Columbia which was a lightship which meant it was like a floating lighthouse that was a boat.
We then left to here and I might go back to the beach later and I hope to see my sandcastle still intact.
Bye for now,
Audrey
Cape Disappointment Day Four
7/27/11
Hullo, Audrey here, again.
Hannah didn’t want to write the blog entry for today so here I am, writing it for the second night in a row. And she’s reminding me of things that happened today. Talk about a backseat driver. If she wants me to put them on the blog, she should just do it herself. Plus, I know what happened today, I was there too!
Anyway, we started off the day by waking up to our morning movie of the day, Goonies. We watched the movie and then were forced to get dressed and prepare for breakfast. Mom quickly finished our chicken sausage and French toast breakfast which, to me, smelled like French fries.
After all of the not so little Littles anymore, after breakfast, had finished we got ready to journey to the beach. There we set up chairs to sit in and I began to make my pitiful sandcastles (they didn’t look like snow cones anymore because I was smart to bring a bucket). Cocoa dug holes with her dangerously deadly paws (more like claws) because her tennis ball that we used to play fetch with for her would fall to the sandy ground and she would be too lazy to pick it up with her mouth and so she would dig for it, which was a lot harder than just picking it up in the first place.
After about an hour of being at the beach we made our way to the squeaky little jeep, we ventured to Long Beach, a tourist town that had even drawn our attention. We parked the adorable little jeep in a parking lot next to scoopers which, as my sister described a few days earlier, was the home of the deadly two scoop ice cream. My sister thinks it equals ten but I think it equals twenty. I, the previous victim of this crisis, was really intelligent to get only get one scoop and breaking the record of not falling into the dangerous trap, which was now one.
After chugging down our humongous scoops of ice cream, we made our way to the go-carts again. This time I was prepared to race Hannah and not be afraid of accidentally killing her in a fiery inferno. Hannah lapped me twice this time. Apparently, my go-cart was defective because to make it actually go fast, you had to press down with all your might on the gas pedal. Then finally the end came after what seemed like forever of sputtering putts of speed. And we made our way back to the car.
We drove to a different parking spot and began to go window shopping. We first stopped at a store that had toddler high tops and bobble head magnets. The next place we stopped at was a bumper car place. After repeatedly bumping each other to death and tons of spinning out of control moments, we were called out of the arena because our turn was over. I think they took us out because they were annoyed of us chasing each other around and giggling like four year olds.
Our final store stop was a store that had I heart boobies belts and belts that had marijuana trees and leaves all over it. When we were heading back to the car, dad commented: “That’s just way life is; weird.” Our final stop total at Long Beach was the grocery store where I asked mom to buy me gum, but of course, she forgot. Hannah in the car before we left yelled out in victory because her book had finally downloaded onto her Kindle.
When we got back to the RV, dad, Hannah and I went back to the beach while mom napped. Hannah read her new book while I raised a sand mite farm in the bucket. It turns out that sand mites like water much more than they do sand and if you stir the water they form a swarm.
After a while we headed back to the campsite. I learned that it had been so windy at the beach that whenever I shook my head, a shower of sand came from it. Mom started making dinner after I made that discovery while I washed Cocoa and I off. Hannah read her book still. We had soft tacos for dinner and ate in silence. Hannah and I after we had waited a while went on a bike ride around the campground. We came back and now here I am typing (ping, ping, and ping).
We are going to roast marshmallows later tonight.
TTFN
Audrey
P.S. Dad and I had the best washers game of the century!!!!
Summer Vacation - Part Two
Part Two of the Little Family Summer Extraveganza - Exploring the Cascade Volcanoes
Cascade Peaks Day ½ (Technically speaking) - Mt. St. Helens
I guess I could have called this blog entry 1/4, because this is where our “relaxing at the beach days were over. Hannah here, reporting our trip to Mom’s well waited for highlight of the trip…
Now, because the kids are writing the blog, we have to mention what we ate. It’s one of the major motives for kids. But not today, waking up to the delicious smell of…Oatmeal. Goody, goody, my favorite. Oh well, we are camping though, which involves fast breakfasts on travel days. Especially today…
After enjoying our wonderful breakfast of oatmeal (Footnote 1), we then proceeded to leave Cape Disappointment. I think that I figured out the name. Our family could have used a few extra days relaxing and kite flying on the beach. Now I may confess, on the road, I do not remember much scenery, obstacles, or any conversing at all. This was because my nose was thoroughly burrowed in my new book, which I was determined to finish. And I did! Wait until Audrey gets these books, the bookworm of the family would continue to read with such intensity to be considered “burning them with her glare and then eating the books alive”. Finally we turned into our destination, not our campsite, but a parking lot that had a sign that read “Mount Saint Helens Volcanic Monument”.
Mom’s long awaited for pride and glory of the trip, visiting Mount Saint Helens. It’s not like we have never been here before, but when mom and dad visited some 1,000 years ago, the observatory of the crater was farther back than the recent one, closer to the volcano than ever before! As for Audrey and I, when we visited, it was on the other side, and just plain cloudy (Footnote 2). But now, we could try again to see the mountain, correction, volcano, and be able to see it much closer than we could have!
So being a kid, I have to mention that we had sandwiches in our RV at that point, excited for what was to come. Especially mother, who has been somewhat dazzled by the volcano. We then unhooked the jeep, and took off for the 50 mile drive to the observatory that looked into Mt. St. Helens crater. At that point, I plugged my earphone in, and listened to inspirational music as we climbed higher. Poor mom might have been talking, but I wouldn’t have noticed, because my eyes were on the scenery and blue skies (Footnote 3) 100% of the time. Apparently U2 and Coldplay really complemented mountainous highways.
Then, we arrived at the center. There were hills blocking the views of Mt. St. Helens, so we had to walk a little ways. But the look on mom’s face? Priceless (Footnote 4). We then went inside the center to watch a movie about all the things that we already know about Mt. St. Helens. Who suggested it? You're looking at (or reading) her. Some of the animation during that film had Audrey and me pinching each other to try and conceal our laughter. But it couldn’t keep it all when the scene where the pyroclastic flows hit the trees. There depiction was plastic miniatures being blown over by sawdust and a leaf blower. Priceless (Footnote 5). But I did enjoy the ending, where they raised the screen, raised the curtains behind it, and revealed volcano behind.
We finally exited the building to observe the physical volcano. Did I mention mom was still, and would remain to be, in her state? It was absolutely gorgeous, and for those who do not know what it looks like, look it up, because if you’re reading this, you have internet. Audrey identified something we called Christmas Tree Rock, a particular formation of rocks and a border of snow that formed a giant Christmas tree on the south-east face of the crater. And that concludes our trip to Mt. St. Helens. Mom (and about every other person that was leaving) craned her neck around to get one last glance of the volcano as we rode away.
Back in the RV around 3:30 (Footnote 6), we embarked on the two hour drive to our newest campground, Cascade Peaks. Everyone who is reading this for our misfortune, you should have just skipped to this section of my blogging.
Arriving at nearly 5:00, we went into the parking lot next to the main office. As I helped dad unhook the jeep, mom went to check us in. Silently unhooking the jeep, mute from hunger, mom came back looking even worse than us, and defiantly, un-mute.
“I went to the door” mom said, controlling the temper that was showing on her face, “and it said ‘Check yourself in, come back in morning’”
Dad and I blinked in stunned silence, comprehending what had just been said.
“So,” dad finally mustered, “basically it says pick your own campsite, then check with us in the morning, we’re doing something more important than you right now?”
“YES!” mom announced loudly, losing it, as we all were. For once we could understand her constant rage.
So, mom and dad decided to take the jeep and look around the campground for a decent full-hookup site, leaving me alone. Unless you count Audrey, who was in a separate room in the RV at the moment. I then went inside and explained the situation to her from the other side of the door. Now the only one left to tell was Cocoa, going into detail about why she couldn’t eat nor use the restroom at the moment. She licked me, which counted as an agreement.
Just then, a poor schmuck’s car broke down next to the entrance to this campground. You would think to say lucky, but remembering the current situation of the owner/manager (Footnote 7), it’s very ironic. He then proceeded to go to the main desk for help (I was watching through the RV), and came back with a very unhappy face. Then, he under the car to investigate, and all Audrey and I heard (Footnote 8) was something like this.
“F-ing car, F-ing weather, when they F-ing get back I’m going to F-ing kill them.”
That was around the lines of what he said, but I just used the more frequent words, and left out some of the other “colorful” words. You get the idea.
Another reminder, Audrey can hear this too, and being kids, when we hear “colorful words”, we think joking or ANGRY. We took a hint, taking the second option. Again, remember, we’re alone, and being the angels we are, we were scared.
Luckily, for us and him, he found the small grocery store and received some help from there. That’s when mom and dad got back, sending on the news that they had found a decent campsite. ’ Bout time! We then headed back, and ate the leftovers from a meal before we left on the trip, and don’t remember what it was, let alone I don’t care, it was FOOD!
That night, we managed to get to sleep around 11:30, because the campground is next to a highway with tons of loud motorcyclists and speeding cars.
Worse even than Happy Acre’s Campground in Indiana? Where a mean woman ruined it for me.
-Hannah ^-^
Footnote 1: Cough cough.
Footnote 2: Moment of sadness. And on that same trip, we tried to see Mt. Rainier, with more depression from the clouds.
Footnote 3: Did I mention how blessed we were today?
Footnote 4: Read: Giving candy to a baby.
Footnote 5: Read: Hilarious.
Footnote 6: Yikes! Race to dinner!
Gone/eating/fishing/hiking/swimming/something better than us.
Footnote 7: Did I mention that it was around 80-stinking-degree’s outside? Windows=OPEN!
Cascade Peaks RV Resort day 1 ½ (2)- Mt. Rainier
Date unknown (so far)
Dang. The days are starting to blur together now. We’ve been to two mountains in two days and they look almost the same. Oh, Audrey here by the way. I knew you were wondering.
Ok, so we started the day by waking up to The Bourne Identity. After the bullet shots and extremely awesome fight scenes ended we got up to eat breakfast. We ate deliciously good biscuits and gravy that came out of the microwave in almost perfection. Hannah immediately grabbed the extremely puffy biscuits for herself and hid them, hissing when we came near.
After being stuffed full to the brim, we got prepared to venture to paradise, at Mount Rainier. By the time we got up there many hours later our parents were probably planning to kill us because of a song we made up in the car. Ehem, it went like this.
Fawn, a deer, a baby deer.
Ray, a drop of golden DEATH (in a low voice say death loud).
Me, a name I call my pet.
Fa, a longer way to DIE (in another low voice).
So, a needle pulling stitches!
La, a thing you have to follow!
Ti, a thing that leads to torture!
That will bring us back to fawn, fawn, fawn, fawn.
Repeat after that.
That song is to the tune of the song about the musical scale in The Sound of Music.
Ok anyway, we continued to walk to the bathrooms and when we got inside it smelled like a mix of poop and death. My life flashed before my eyes.
After we survived the bathrooms, we walked to the trail that had the view. Only we had to walk back down because of risk of snow blindness. We met back up with mom in the visitor center because she had stayed behind. We ate lunch at the café. Hannah and I had sweet and sour chicken, which was pretty good. Mom had pulled pork sandwich. Dad had cream of corn soup.
After we ate we went to check out the gift shop and exhibits. When we came out empty handed we headed to the grove of the patriarchs. There was no parking so sadly we didn’t go. We continued to sing our song. On the way home we went to the grocery store. It was a miracle that mom remembered gum!
When we got back, we got ready to go to the pool. When we went to the pool we saw our friends from home, Olivia and Amber. We played in the pool and even got freaked out by a bat. We also played dunk when you had to guess what the person was thinking or you got dunked.
We went back to the RV after about 3 hours of playing and had dinner.
Well, gotta go now.
Peace.
audrey
Cascade Peaks Day 3 ½ - Exploring Ape Cave
7/30/11
Its nice having a date now, isn’t it? Hi, Hannah here again, I just know all of you have been waiting for my entries. Even though Audrey has written 4 out of the 7 days, me just writing 3. Poor kid. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that day off! Anyhow, I’m here to write about the definite highlight of the trip so far…for dad and me at least.
Today started as a day filled with questions.
What are we going to do?
What should we eat?
Why did we watch a saddening WWI movie to wake up (Footnote 1)?
Will the dog come with? Will the dog stay?
When will the dog efficiently digest the gum? Oh, yeah. Remember that gum that Audrey was commenting “Mom finally remembered my gum, for once”? Well, the dog found it first! At the time, we were waiting for the evidence to “pop out”, but I already know when it came. Believe me, I know (FN 2).
To answer the where question, I simply asked if we could go to Ape Caves, lava tubes from one of Mt. St. Helens early eruptions, the only one with lava. This was about 2,000 years ago, so no harm to people. There was snow and ice out that got trapped inside the lava flow. When the lava cooled and the snow melted, long caves were left, creating the Ape Caves. On our previous trip to Mt. St. Helens (FN 3), we decided to go into these caves, taking the short tour and looking into the lower caves. It saved my day. And ever since then, I’ve wanted to go back and explore the upper caves with dad, a 1.5 mile “strenuous” climb through the lava tubes. Just my thing! I mentioned I love lighthouses in a previous entry. It’s because their beautiful and mystical. Same goes for the caves and the ocean.
The family agreed to my wonderfulsuggestion, Except Audrey and mother had no idea of what was to come.
Turns out, it was a 97 mile trip to the caves, roughly 100 minutes or more of driving. We were going to do it though. And, the path we were taking was a secluded highway, twisting and turning its way around cliffs and views of Mt. St. Helens. I managed to stay well by listening to music and closing my eyes, enjoying the wind as it blew through my hair (FN 4). But Audrey on the other hand, had just discovered the books I had finished, and was burning them and eating them alive as long as she could, until the curves got the best of her. No, no vomiting. Merely a severe headache, stomach ache, and nausea. Poor kid.
Then we stopped at a place a little farther down then the caves, the Trail of Two Forests (FN 5) to have our sandwiches-without-mayonnaise lunch. It was pretty good. Then we left for adventuring!
When we finally reached the caves, we realized the inevitable, it was Saturday, and the parking lot was full. As was the lower parking lot. And the sub-lower parking lot. And every dirt space people could find to park at. Goody. So, dad dropped us off, me holding our equipment for our climb, and drove off to find a parking space. Restroom breaks were taken and then we waited for poor dad to walk up from the sub-sub-sub-parking lot. When he finally walked back, we all went to the entrance of the cave to regroup and go! Dad then stated, “Now we have to put our coats on. It’s going to be really cold down there.” He then looked around for a second, and then met my gaze.
“They're in the car?” Dad briefly explained.
“Yep.” I explained.
“What do you want to do?”
“Risk hypothermia and climb while jogging in place?” I wisely replied.
“Not today sweety.”
Dang. We forgot the coats.
The original plan was to have Mom and Audrey go explore the lower, easier, guided section of the cave, but now there was no choice. Mom instantly decided (FN 6) that Audrey, herself, and I would walk down to the car, drive me back up with the coats, and leave dad and I to do our spelunking (FN 7). I instantly felt bad. That means Audrey and mom would have to park at the Trail of Two Forests (where we ate lunch) and hang out for two hours until we got back. But we drove all this way out here, and mom and Audrey were determined to let dad and I go.
So dad and I regrouped at the cave entrance, put on our jackets, and proceeded to enter the cave. After taking about 3 steps down, we were met by a rush of cold air. It was about 85 degrees outside, but in the cave it was 42 (FN 8) degrees. After the 1.5 miles of climbing though, the cold air was highly honored. As dad and I exited the cave, we both remarked that this was the highlight of our trip. Audrey and mom? Not so much. The cave was fascinating though, and if you turned off your lights, it was complete darkness. And, there were several obstacles through rock piles, and an 8 foot high lava waterfall (FN 9) that we had to climb over. The rest of the cave looked like a train tunnel, only it wasn’t manmade, there were different formations and lines on the walls, and the caves would either break out into giant rooms, or get smaller and smaller. Best day ever!
Done with our climb, we hiked back to the visitor center through the forest. When we returned to the main parking lot, we found that Audrey and mom had found a parking space. Later they explained that they had gone back down to the Trail of Two Forests and discovered that the trail’s name was talking about the forest before and after the lava flow. Besides, Audrey had also gotten to read without the risk of getting car sick!
On our way home, we decided to take the highway home, instead of the twists and turns again. Besides, we could eat out for once (good bye oatmeal!). The only downside is that it was 115 miles home. Oh well, food was worth it! After driving for about an hour and a half, we came upon a familiar restaurant, one that we had been to before. But something was special about this place, and I quite couldn’t put my finger on it. Until we sat down at least. I took one look at the little advertisement pamphlets, and remarked, “Dad! This is where you got your Bee’s Wax tablets, the ones that were supposed to help you with your health!”
Mom then remarked loudly, “Yeah! They’re the ones that didn’t work!”
Every other member in the family quickly turned and shot her a look that said “People can hear you, you know?” Then everyone quickly burst into quiet laughter, including the smiling blushing mom. She was so cute when she was happy.
After enjoying a satisfying dinner, we then moved onto dessert. We were completely satisifed after dinner, but hey, this is a vacation, right? We got to have dessert.
Big mistake. Dad ordered a slice of Banana Cream Pie, mom ordered some bread pudding, Audrey order “Our Specialty”, mint chocolate chip ice cream on Oreo crumbs, and I ordered the brownie with ice cream. Sounds normal right? Well, you have to remember from time to time while reading this, the Little family curse . This was also the other reason why this place rang a bell…
First, mom’s bread pudding and dad’s banana cream pie came out. Dad had a large slice, and looked like a quarter of a pie. Just delicious. Mom’s was in a glass cup, with gooey bread pudding inside, with what she swears was 4 whole quarts of whipped cream on top. Then ours came. Audrey’s was a fair chunk of ice cream (FN 11), with Oreo everywhere, but mine could have been a small cake of molten brownie, lathered in hot fudge, and topped with soft served ice cream sooo good, you would never go back to homemade!
Then the whipped cream on ours could have been one meal. If mom thought hers was large, then ours was 10 fold. No joke! I couldn’t even tell that they had gotten our orders right for about 10 minutes of mining the cream. There’s no problem there. Except when everyone has too much, you can’t share. So, leaving with half of our plates left, we regretfully continued on our way home.
Once we got back to the RV (about an hour later), we decided to play a game of Pictionary. If you don’t know what it is, again, look it up! After an intense battle of speed and how well you can draw every state in the entire country, my team won again! Wahoo! Victory, almost as sweet as tonight’s dessert.
And yet again, we reach the part where I say that here I am sitting and writing today’s blog. But that’s not true! If you want to find out what I mean, read the next day’s entry by Audrey.
-Hannah ^-^
P.S. Did you realize how much both Audrey and I talk about food? I guess you can call us “detailed”.
Footnote 1: Flyboys - a movie about one of dad's favorite subjects - airplanes.
Footnote 2: Yup. You guessed it.
Footnote 3: Yeah, the really depressing and cloudy one.
Footnote 4: Top was off the jeep, oh yeah!
Footnote 5: I wonder what the two forests are? Hint hint, keep reading.
Footnote 6: Read: Yelled/Forced
Footnote 7: Best. Word. Ever.
Footnote 8: Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Footnote 9: P.S. I hate that word. I mean, really? Water-fall? It’s just too literal.
Footnote 10: Think Scoopers.
Footnote 11: Read: Half of an ice cream cake.
Cascade Peaks Day 4 Rest Day and Mom does Laundry
July 31 2011
Hi, Hannah here for the final day of Cascade Peaks RV Resort (FN 1), the resting day. You probably were expecting Audrey, but I took another day off of her hands, to try and make up for the one day that I lost. I might type the same amount of blogs now… I think. I’ll do the math later. But for now, it’s me (FN 2).
So today started off very slowly, waking up to the movie Robots (Robin Williams never gets old). And today, we got a real treat; mom’s made up recipe called Camper’s Breakfast. It has scrambled eggs, bacon or sausage, and hash browns all together, giving you a full meal in one dish! Just leave it to mother to make things easier.
For the basic summary of the day, we didn’t go anywhere outside of the RV campground. And we didn’t leave the RV until after lunch to do anything. Unless you count taking out the garbage (FN 3).
We started the day with a massive typing session, blogging. Audrey and I had been so busy going from mountain to mountain, and picking up the dogs gum poo, that we didn’t have time to blog. Oh, poor us. But catching all of it up in one day with sufficient quality (FN 4) was not easy at all. Audrey had one blog to do, Mt. Rainier, and I had two, Mt. St. Helens and Ape Caves. That means for Audrey, about 2 pages and 45 minutes, and for me, 6 pages and 2 hours. I’m a faster typist than Audrey as you can see her ratio being 1 page, 22.5 minutes, and mine being 1 page, 20 minutes. I am so fast it makes my head spin. It’s very entertaining to watch the “poke, poke, tap, tap, poke” of Audrey’s typing. So, we reluctantly started the typing process of blogging, trying to remember the day, in chronological order, and remembering every little detail. Now we had to remember the happenings of at most 3 days ago. Audrey went first, so I could get the typing out of the way all at once (FN 5). By the time both of us were done, it was already a little after lunch time. So, sandwiches were made and eaten.
Now it was time for the fun to begin! Being the last day, Audrey and I had to go to the pool, because this was the only place on our trip with one. Audrey and I love the water. Mom escorted us down in the jeep with her book in hand, and we thought we saw a bicyclist with boat feet (FN 6) racing into the distance. When we got to the pool, Audrey and I immediately raced in to swim. The layout of the pool(s) from a bird’s eye view has the left pool, one closest to the parking lot, and the right pool, separated by buildings connected by and overhang for shade. The pools appear to be very small, oval shaped and about 30 ft long and 15 feet wide, but are 8 ft at the deepest point. The right pool is heated, while the left pool is very unheated. As Audrey and I raced to put our towels down and enter the warm pool, we passed the overhang with a sudden boo to the side of us. Our small screams were met with laughter as we jumped into the left, freezing pool for safety. Now we were safe, bicyclists don’t venture into cold water! Dad tried to swim in that pool for a little while, but then begged us to go into the other with him. While in the warm pool with dad, we played a game called Dunk with him. Audrey may have mentioned it in a previous blog, but it goes like this. One asks another person what thing they are thinking of in a certain category. For example, what color am I thinking of, what animal, what tree, etc. If they guess wrong, you dunk them, and keep doing so until they get it right or give up, where you drag them to the bottom of the pool. On their call of course. It was all fun and games, until dad resorted to pulling my hair to dunk me and pull me back towards the surface. Very funny dad. Audrey and I went back to the cold pool. When dad was about to leave, our friend the bat came back. It swirled around a few times before finally roosting back under the overhang. Mom (FN 7) and dad were now glad to have seen it too. Audrey and I stayed the rest of the time in the cold pool, finding it oddly relaxing.
Then the sun moved, the shade changed, and mom got cold. So we reluctantly went back to base, saying our goodbyes to the pool. Back at the RV, we asked mom if we could go to the zip-line (did I mention this place had a mini zip-line?), and stayed there for about 30 minutes, zipping (FN 8) to and fro. Then we came back for dinner (Yum, grilled chicken!) After dinner we decided to play the Pictionary show down of the century. It was Audrey and I versus the adults. It was tense, both players on the last square, fighting it out at the All Play, when dad messed up again, mistaking what should be “foot print” for “foot impression”. Audrey and I won with it neck and neck. Woo hoo!
After this tiring day of nothing, tomorrow we are headed to our last destination, Fort Warden, where we will stay two nights, until finally going home. Finally? Did I say finally? Of course not!... But tomorrow’s bonus will be that Audrey is taking a shower, early in the morning, and I get to wake her up. This will be fun.
Until tomorrow.
-Hannah ^
Footnote 1: So called resort…
Footnote 2: Yippee!
Footnote 3: Yuck! Cocoa’s gum poop was still processing…
Footnote 4: I guess you could say we deliver!
Footnote 5: Poke, poke, tap tap, poke.
Footnote 6: Seriously, they’re size 15 in men’s!
Footnote 7: Remember, mom’s still reading.
Footnote 8: Punny (my own word)
Cascade Peaks Day ½ (Technically speaking) - Mt. St. Helens
I guess I could have called this blog entry 1/4, because this is where our “relaxing at the beach days were over. Hannah here, reporting our trip to Mom’s well waited for highlight of the trip…
Now, because the kids are writing the blog, we have to mention what we ate. It’s one of the major motives for kids. But not today, waking up to the delicious smell of…Oatmeal. Goody, goody, my favorite. Oh well, we are camping though, which involves fast breakfasts on travel days. Especially today…
After enjoying our wonderful breakfast of oatmeal (Footnote 1), we then proceeded to leave Cape Disappointment. I think that I figured out the name. Our family could have used a few extra days relaxing and kite flying on the beach. Now I may confess, on the road, I do not remember much scenery, obstacles, or any conversing at all. This was because my nose was thoroughly burrowed in my new book, which I was determined to finish. And I did! Wait until Audrey gets these books, the bookworm of the family would continue to read with such intensity to be considered “burning them with her glare and then eating the books alive”. Finally we turned into our destination, not our campsite, but a parking lot that had a sign that read “Mount Saint Helens Volcanic Monument”.
Mom’s long awaited for pride and glory of the trip, visiting Mount Saint Helens. It’s not like we have never been here before, but when mom and dad visited some 1,000 years ago, the observatory of the crater was farther back than the recent one, closer to the volcano than ever before! As for Audrey and I, when we visited, it was on the other side, and just plain cloudy (Footnote 2). But now, we could try again to see the mountain, correction, volcano, and be able to see it much closer than we could have!
So being a kid, I have to mention that we had sandwiches in our RV at that point, excited for what was to come. Especially mother, who has been somewhat dazzled by the volcano. We then unhooked the jeep, and took off for the 50 mile drive to the observatory that looked into Mt. St. Helens crater. At that point, I plugged my earphone in, and listened to inspirational music as we climbed higher. Poor mom might have been talking, but I wouldn’t have noticed, because my eyes were on the scenery and blue skies (Footnote 3) 100% of the time. Apparently U2 and Coldplay really complemented mountainous highways.
Then, we arrived at the center. There were hills blocking the views of Mt. St. Helens, so we had to walk a little ways. But the look on mom’s face? Priceless (Footnote 4). We then went inside the center to watch a movie about all the things that we already know about Mt. St. Helens. Who suggested it? You're looking at (or reading) her. Some of the animation during that film had Audrey and me pinching each other to try and conceal our laughter. But it couldn’t keep it all when the scene where the pyroclastic flows hit the trees. There depiction was plastic miniatures being blown over by sawdust and a leaf blower. Priceless (Footnote 5). But I did enjoy the ending, where they raised the screen, raised the curtains behind it, and revealed volcano behind.
We finally exited the building to observe the physical volcano. Did I mention mom was still, and would remain to be, in her state? It was absolutely gorgeous, and for those who do not know what it looks like, look it up, because if you’re reading this, you have internet. Audrey identified something we called Christmas Tree Rock, a particular formation of rocks and a border of snow that formed a giant Christmas tree on the south-east face of the crater. And that concludes our trip to Mt. St. Helens. Mom (and about every other person that was leaving) craned her neck around to get one last glance of the volcano as we rode away.
Back in the RV around 3:30 (Footnote 6), we embarked on the two hour drive to our newest campground, Cascade Peaks. Everyone who is reading this for our misfortune, you should have just skipped to this section of my blogging.
Arriving at nearly 5:00, we went into the parking lot next to the main office. As I helped dad unhook the jeep, mom went to check us in. Silently unhooking the jeep, mute from hunger, mom came back looking even worse than us, and defiantly, un-mute.
“I went to the door” mom said, controlling the temper that was showing on her face, “and it said ‘Check yourself in, come back in morning’”
Dad and I blinked in stunned silence, comprehending what had just been said.
“So,” dad finally mustered, “basically it says pick your own campsite, then check with us in the morning, we’re doing something more important than you right now?”
“YES!” mom announced loudly, losing it, as we all were. For once we could understand her constant rage.
So, mom and dad decided to take the jeep and look around the campground for a decent full-hookup site, leaving me alone. Unless you count Audrey, who was in a separate room in the RV at the moment. I then went inside and explained the situation to her from the other side of the door. Now the only one left to tell was Cocoa, going into detail about why she couldn’t eat nor use the restroom at the moment. She licked me, which counted as an agreement.
Just then, a poor schmuck’s car broke down next to the entrance to this campground. You would think to say lucky, but remembering the current situation of the owner/manager (Footnote 7), it’s very ironic. He then proceeded to go to the main desk for help (I was watching through the RV), and came back with a very unhappy face. Then, he under the car to investigate, and all Audrey and I heard (Footnote 8) was something like this.
“F-ing car, F-ing weather, when they F-ing get back I’m going to F-ing kill them.”
That was around the lines of what he said, but I just used the more frequent words, and left out some of the other “colorful” words. You get the idea.
Another reminder, Audrey can hear this too, and being kids, when we hear “colorful words”, we think joking or ANGRY. We took a hint, taking the second option. Again, remember, we’re alone, and being the angels we are, we were scared.
Luckily, for us and him, he found the small grocery store and received some help from there. That’s when mom and dad got back, sending on the news that they had found a decent campsite. ’ Bout time! We then headed back, and ate the leftovers from a meal before we left on the trip, and don’t remember what it was, let alone I don’t care, it was FOOD!
That night, we managed to get to sleep around 11:30, because the campground is next to a highway with tons of loud motorcyclists and speeding cars.
Worse even than Happy Acre’s Campground in Indiana? Where a mean woman ruined it for me.
-Hannah ^-^
Footnote 1: Cough cough.
Footnote 2: Moment of sadness. And on that same trip, we tried to see Mt. Rainier, with more depression from the clouds.
Footnote 3: Did I mention how blessed we were today?
Footnote 4: Read: Giving candy to a baby.
Footnote 5: Read: Hilarious.
Footnote 6: Yikes! Race to dinner!
Gone/eating/fishing/hiking/swimming/something better than us.
Footnote 7: Did I mention that it was around 80-stinking-degree’s outside? Windows=OPEN!
Cascade Peaks RV Resort day 1 ½ (2)- Mt. Rainier
Date unknown (so far)
Dang. The days are starting to blur together now. We’ve been to two mountains in two days and they look almost the same. Oh, Audrey here by the way. I knew you were wondering.
Ok, so we started the day by waking up to The Bourne Identity. After the bullet shots and extremely awesome fight scenes ended we got up to eat breakfast. We ate deliciously good biscuits and gravy that came out of the microwave in almost perfection. Hannah immediately grabbed the extremely puffy biscuits for herself and hid them, hissing when we came near.
After being stuffed full to the brim, we got prepared to venture to paradise, at Mount Rainier. By the time we got up there many hours later our parents were probably planning to kill us because of a song we made up in the car. Ehem, it went like this.
Fawn, a deer, a baby deer.
Ray, a drop of golden DEATH (in a low voice say death loud).
Me, a name I call my pet.
Fa, a longer way to DIE (in another low voice).
So, a needle pulling stitches!
La, a thing you have to follow!
Ti, a thing that leads to torture!
That will bring us back to fawn, fawn, fawn, fawn.
Repeat after that.
That song is to the tune of the song about the musical scale in The Sound of Music.
Ok anyway, we continued to walk to the bathrooms and when we got inside it smelled like a mix of poop and death. My life flashed before my eyes.
After we survived the bathrooms, we walked to the trail that had the view. Only we had to walk back down because of risk of snow blindness. We met back up with mom in the visitor center because she had stayed behind. We ate lunch at the café. Hannah and I had sweet and sour chicken, which was pretty good. Mom had pulled pork sandwich. Dad had cream of corn soup.
After we ate we went to check out the gift shop and exhibits. When we came out empty handed we headed to the grove of the patriarchs. There was no parking so sadly we didn’t go. We continued to sing our song. On the way home we went to the grocery store. It was a miracle that mom remembered gum!
When we got back, we got ready to go to the pool. When we went to the pool we saw our friends from home, Olivia and Amber. We played in the pool and even got freaked out by a bat. We also played dunk when you had to guess what the person was thinking or you got dunked.
We went back to the RV after about 3 hours of playing and had dinner.
Well, gotta go now.
Peace.
audrey
Cascade Peaks Day 3 ½ - Exploring Ape Cave
7/30/11
Its nice having a date now, isn’t it? Hi, Hannah here again, I just know all of you have been waiting for my entries. Even though Audrey has written 4 out of the 7 days, me just writing 3. Poor kid. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that day off! Anyhow, I’m here to write about the definite highlight of the trip so far…for dad and me at least.
Today started as a day filled with questions.
What are we going to do?
What should we eat?
Why did we watch a saddening WWI movie to wake up (Footnote 1)?
Will the dog come with? Will the dog stay?
When will the dog efficiently digest the gum? Oh, yeah. Remember that gum that Audrey was commenting “Mom finally remembered my gum, for once”? Well, the dog found it first! At the time, we were waiting for the evidence to “pop out”, but I already know when it came. Believe me, I know (FN 2).
To answer the where question, I simply asked if we could go to Ape Caves, lava tubes from one of Mt. St. Helens early eruptions, the only one with lava. This was about 2,000 years ago, so no harm to people. There was snow and ice out that got trapped inside the lava flow. When the lava cooled and the snow melted, long caves were left, creating the Ape Caves. On our previous trip to Mt. St. Helens (FN 3), we decided to go into these caves, taking the short tour and looking into the lower caves. It saved my day. And ever since then, I’ve wanted to go back and explore the upper caves with dad, a 1.5 mile “strenuous” climb through the lava tubes. Just my thing! I mentioned I love lighthouses in a previous entry. It’s because their beautiful and mystical. Same goes for the caves and the ocean.
The family agreed to my wonderfulsuggestion, Except Audrey and mother had no idea of what was to come.
Turns out, it was a 97 mile trip to the caves, roughly 100 minutes or more of driving. We were going to do it though. And, the path we were taking was a secluded highway, twisting and turning its way around cliffs and views of Mt. St. Helens. I managed to stay well by listening to music and closing my eyes, enjoying the wind as it blew through my hair (FN 4). But Audrey on the other hand, had just discovered the books I had finished, and was burning them and eating them alive as long as she could, until the curves got the best of her. No, no vomiting. Merely a severe headache, stomach ache, and nausea. Poor kid.
Then we stopped at a place a little farther down then the caves, the Trail of Two Forests (FN 5) to have our sandwiches-without-mayonnaise lunch. It was pretty good. Then we left for adventuring!
When we finally reached the caves, we realized the inevitable, it was Saturday, and the parking lot was full. As was the lower parking lot. And the sub-lower parking lot. And every dirt space people could find to park at. Goody. So, dad dropped us off, me holding our equipment for our climb, and drove off to find a parking space. Restroom breaks were taken and then we waited for poor dad to walk up from the sub-sub-sub-parking lot. When he finally walked back, we all went to the entrance of the cave to regroup and go! Dad then stated, “Now we have to put our coats on. It’s going to be really cold down there.” He then looked around for a second, and then met my gaze.
“They're in the car?” Dad briefly explained.
“Yep.” I explained.
“What do you want to do?”
“Risk hypothermia and climb while jogging in place?” I wisely replied.
“Not today sweety.”
Dang. We forgot the coats.
The original plan was to have Mom and Audrey go explore the lower, easier, guided section of the cave, but now there was no choice. Mom instantly decided (FN 6) that Audrey, herself, and I would walk down to the car, drive me back up with the coats, and leave dad and I to do our spelunking (FN 7). I instantly felt bad. That means Audrey and mom would have to park at the Trail of Two Forests (where we ate lunch) and hang out for two hours until we got back. But we drove all this way out here, and mom and Audrey were determined to let dad and I go.
So dad and I regrouped at the cave entrance, put on our jackets, and proceeded to enter the cave. After taking about 3 steps down, we were met by a rush of cold air. It was about 85 degrees outside, but in the cave it was 42 (FN 8) degrees. After the 1.5 miles of climbing though, the cold air was highly honored. As dad and I exited the cave, we both remarked that this was the highlight of our trip. Audrey and mom? Not so much. The cave was fascinating though, and if you turned off your lights, it was complete darkness. And, there were several obstacles through rock piles, and an 8 foot high lava waterfall (FN 9) that we had to climb over. The rest of the cave looked like a train tunnel, only it wasn’t manmade, there were different formations and lines on the walls, and the caves would either break out into giant rooms, or get smaller and smaller. Best day ever!
Done with our climb, we hiked back to the visitor center through the forest. When we returned to the main parking lot, we found that Audrey and mom had found a parking space. Later they explained that they had gone back down to the Trail of Two Forests and discovered that the trail’s name was talking about the forest before and after the lava flow. Besides, Audrey had also gotten to read without the risk of getting car sick!
On our way home, we decided to take the highway home, instead of the twists and turns again. Besides, we could eat out for once (good bye oatmeal!). The only downside is that it was 115 miles home. Oh well, food was worth it! After driving for about an hour and a half, we came upon a familiar restaurant, one that we had been to before. But something was special about this place, and I quite couldn’t put my finger on it. Until we sat down at least. I took one look at the little advertisement pamphlets, and remarked, “Dad! This is where you got your Bee’s Wax tablets, the ones that were supposed to help you with your health!”
Mom then remarked loudly, “Yeah! They’re the ones that didn’t work!”
Every other member in the family quickly turned and shot her a look that said “People can hear you, you know?” Then everyone quickly burst into quiet laughter, including the smiling blushing mom. She was so cute when she was happy.
After enjoying a satisfying dinner, we then moved onto dessert. We were completely satisifed after dinner, but hey, this is a vacation, right? We got to have dessert.
Big mistake. Dad ordered a slice of Banana Cream Pie, mom ordered some bread pudding, Audrey order “Our Specialty”, mint chocolate chip ice cream on Oreo crumbs, and I ordered the brownie with ice cream. Sounds normal right? Well, you have to remember from time to time while reading this, the Little family curse . This was also the other reason why this place rang a bell…
First, mom’s bread pudding and dad’s banana cream pie came out. Dad had a large slice, and looked like a quarter of a pie. Just delicious. Mom’s was in a glass cup, with gooey bread pudding inside, with what she swears was 4 whole quarts of whipped cream on top. Then ours came. Audrey’s was a fair chunk of ice cream (FN 11), with Oreo everywhere, but mine could have been a small cake of molten brownie, lathered in hot fudge, and topped with soft served ice cream sooo good, you would never go back to homemade!
Then the whipped cream on ours could have been one meal. If mom thought hers was large, then ours was 10 fold. No joke! I couldn’t even tell that they had gotten our orders right for about 10 minutes of mining the cream. There’s no problem there. Except when everyone has too much, you can’t share. So, leaving with half of our plates left, we regretfully continued on our way home.
Once we got back to the RV (about an hour later), we decided to play a game of Pictionary. If you don’t know what it is, again, look it up! After an intense battle of speed and how well you can draw every state in the entire country, my team won again! Wahoo! Victory, almost as sweet as tonight’s dessert.
And yet again, we reach the part where I say that here I am sitting and writing today’s blog. But that’s not true! If you want to find out what I mean, read the next day’s entry by Audrey.
-Hannah ^-^
P.S. Did you realize how much both Audrey and I talk about food? I guess you can call us “detailed”.
Footnote 1: Flyboys - a movie about one of dad's favorite subjects - airplanes.
Footnote 2: Yup. You guessed it.
Footnote 3: Yeah, the really depressing and cloudy one.
Footnote 4: Top was off the jeep, oh yeah!
Footnote 5: I wonder what the two forests are? Hint hint, keep reading.
Footnote 6: Read: Yelled/Forced
Footnote 7: Best. Word. Ever.
Footnote 8: Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Footnote 9: P.S. I hate that word. I mean, really? Water-fall? It’s just too literal.
Footnote 10: Think Scoopers.
Footnote 11: Read: Half of an ice cream cake.
Cascade Peaks Day 4 Rest Day and Mom does Laundry
July 31 2011
Hi, Hannah here for the final day of Cascade Peaks RV Resort (FN 1), the resting day. You probably were expecting Audrey, but I took another day off of her hands, to try and make up for the one day that I lost. I might type the same amount of blogs now… I think. I’ll do the math later. But for now, it’s me (FN 2).
So today started off very slowly, waking up to the movie Robots (Robin Williams never gets old). And today, we got a real treat; mom’s made up recipe called Camper’s Breakfast. It has scrambled eggs, bacon or sausage, and hash browns all together, giving you a full meal in one dish! Just leave it to mother to make things easier.
For the basic summary of the day, we didn’t go anywhere outside of the RV campground. And we didn’t leave the RV until after lunch to do anything. Unless you count taking out the garbage (FN 3).
We started the day with a massive typing session, blogging. Audrey and I had been so busy going from mountain to mountain, and picking up the dogs gum poo, that we didn’t have time to blog. Oh, poor us. But catching all of it up in one day with sufficient quality (FN 4) was not easy at all. Audrey had one blog to do, Mt. Rainier, and I had two, Mt. St. Helens and Ape Caves. That means for Audrey, about 2 pages and 45 minutes, and for me, 6 pages and 2 hours. I’m a faster typist than Audrey as you can see her ratio being 1 page, 22.5 minutes, and mine being 1 page, 20 minutes. I am so fast it makes my head spin. It’s very entertaining to watch the “poke, poke, tap, tap, poke” of Audrey’s typing. So, we reluctantly started the typing process of blogging, trying to remember the day, in chronological order, and remembering every little detail. Now we had to remember the happenings of at most 3 days ago. Audrey went first, so I could get the typing out of the way all at once (FN 5). By the time both of us were done, it was already a little after lunch time. So, sandwiches were made and eaten.
Now it was time for the fun to begin! Being the last day, Audrey and I had to go to the pool, because this was the only place on our trip with one. Audrey and I love the water. Mom escorted us down in the jeep with her book in hand, and we thought we saw a bicyclist with boat feet (FN 6) racing into the distance. When we got to the pool, Audrey and I immediately raced in to swim. The layout of the pool(s) from a bird’s eye view has the left pool, one closest to the parking lot, and the right pool, separated by buildings connected by and overhang for shade. The pools appear to be very small, oval shaped and about 30 ft long and 15 feet wide, but are 8 ft at the deepest point. The right pool is heated, while the left pool is very unheated. As Audrey and I raced to put our towels down and enter the warm pool, we passed the overhang with a sudden boo to the side of us. Our small screams were met with laughter as we jumped into the left, freezing pool for safety. Now we were safe, bicyclists don’t venture into cold water! Dad tried to swim in that pool for a little while, but then begged us to go into the other with him. While in the warm pool with dad, we played a game called Dunk with him. Audrey may have mentioned it in a previous blog, but it goes like this. One asks another person what thing they are thinking of in a certain category. For example, what color am I thinking of, what animal, what tree, etc. If they guess wrong, you dunk them, and keep doing so until they get it right or give up, where you drag them to the bottom of the pool. On their call of course. It was all fun and games, until dad resorted to pulling my hair to dunk me and pull me back towards the surface. Very funny dad. Audrey and I went back to the cold pool. When dad was about to leave, our friend the bat came back. It swirled around a few times before finally roosting back under the overhang. Mom (FN 7) and dad were now glad to have seen it too. Audrey and I stayed the rest of the time in the cold pool, finding it oddly relaxing.
Then the sun moved, the shade changed, and mom got cold. So we reluctantly went back to base, saying our goodbyes to the pool. Back at the RV, we asked mom if we could go to the zip-line (did I mention this place had a mini zip-line?), and stayed there for about 30 minutes, zipping (FN 8) to and fro. Then we came back for dinner (Yum, grilled chicken!) After dinner we decided to play the Pictionary show down of the century. It was Audrey and I versus the adults. It was tense, both players on the last square, fighting it out at the All Play, when dad messed up again, mistaking what should be “foot print” for “foot impression”. Audrey and I won with it neck and neck. Woo hoo!
After this tiring day of nothing, tomorrow we are headed to our last destination, Fort Warden, where we will stay two nights, until finally going home. Finally? Did I say finally? Of course not!... But tomorrow’s bonus will be that Audrey is taking a shower, early in the morning, and I get to wake her up. This will be fun.
Until tomorrow.
-Hannah ^
Footnote 1: So called resort…
Footnote 2: Yippee!
Footnote 3: Yuck! Cocoa’s gum poop was still processing…
Footnote 4: I guess you could say we deliver!
Footnote 5: Poke, poke, tap tap, poke.
Footnote 6: Seriously, they’re size 15 in men’s!
Footnote 7: Remember, mom’s still reading.
Footnote 8: Punny (my own word)
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