Elementary School 1968-1976

KINDERGARTEN – 1969 to 1970

I went to Canyon Rim Elementary school.  My first day of kindergarten was exciting and frightening for me.  Mom walked me to school and introduced me to my new teacher Mrs. Hertig, I liked her; she was very nice to me!  My school was close enough to my house that I had to walk to and from school every day no matter the weather. 

Each day there was a time when we had milk, graham crackers and a nap.  We took turns passing out the snacks and I was so excited and nervous to have my turn.  This was my favorite time of day but I also liked singing and story time.  Part of the day was also spent learning numbers and how to count, letters, my address, and many other useful life skills.

Recess was also pretty fun.  We were allowed to stay in and play with toys or go outside.  I did some of both.  To this day, I remember how the boys loved to chase the girls around and when they caught one, they would kiss them! Scott Thorell chased me a lot and I can honestly say he was the first boy who ever kissed me.

One of the biggest things I remember that year was learning about Hawaii.  Mrs. Hertig had lived in Hawaii and she hosted a big luau for all the kids and their parents.  In preparation for this event, we learned all about Hawaii in class, made grass skirts out of paper bags and she taught us how to do the hula dance.  We also had a Hawaiian feast where we sampled all kinds of cool new foods like coconut, papaya, pineapple, roasted pork.  It was fun having my mom come to school and see what I had learned.

I also had fun learning about Monarch butterflies and putting together a booklet about them.  Each page was about four stages of a butterfly’s life cycle; the egg, the larva (caterpillar), the pupa (chrysalis) and the adult butterfly.

Once a week we had Show and Tell where we’d each bring something interesting from home to show the class and talk about it.  One day my mom was cleaning out the garage and came across a mason jar with a huge, live bumblebee in it.  She quickly put the lid on it and for lack of anything else I took it for Show and Tell that day.  She put it in my back pack and sternly cautioned me NOT TO DROP THE JAR!  She made sure that I knew that the bee would be very angry about being trapped and if it got out it would most certainly sting me.  I’m not going to lie, I was terrified but I made it to school okay and showed it to the class.  On my way home from school some kids wanted to see my bee again so I stopped and took it out of my backpack to show them.  The bee began to furiously slam into the glass and the side of the jar where I was holding it.  This startled me and I dropped the jar, glass shattered everywhere and off went my bee.  I never got stung but I was quite upset over it all and I cried all the way home.  After that, I never took another living thing to school again!

I went to afternoon kindergarten and because my mom worked, a neighbor, Dorothy Taylor, watched me in the mornings and got me to school.  I especially liked this because she had a daughter my age who quickly became my best friend.  Her name was Shellie.  We played dolls together and played house.  Dorothy introduced me to painting.  She had a big collection of ceramic figures that we could choose from to paint.  Oh how I loved to paint!  I also remember sitting up to TV trays in the living room with a warm bowl of chicken noodle soup for lunch and watching TV before school.  I really enjoyed my time at the Taylor’s house. 

Below is a card I made for my family, maybe for Christmas, I don’t remember when but I traced my hand and practiced writing my families names.

PRIMARY
When I was young, we went to the church twice on Sundays, first for Sunday School and then we’d come home for a break and eat lunch then back for Sacrament meeting. Primary was held during the week after school. We’d first meet in the chapel and each class had its own row to sit on. We’d start with an opening exercise which included prayer, a few talks and singing and then dismiss for classes. I remember trying so hard to be reverent because the most reverent class got dismissed first. I really loved going to primary. All through my growing up years we had six girls in our class; Karen Wursten, Annette Miller, Marianne Johnson, Tonya Neerings, Shellie Taylor and me. We were a pretty close group.

24^TH OF JULY PRIMARY PARADE
I believe 1970 was the year that my mother dressed me up as a clown and we participated in the Primary parade for the 24^th of July celebrations. I think we just marched through our neighborhood, I don’t recall ever going downtown or being in the big Salt Lake Pioneer Parade. However, I do recall wondering why I was dressed up as a clown instead of a pioneer, cowboy or Indian like most of the kids were and I felt silly.  Most likely it was the only costume my mom could come up with.

DOCTOR VISITS
Another thing I remember from this time in my life was visiting Dr. Hunter’s office. His office was in Sugarhouse and for some reason; I distinctly remember the unique doors with the three sections of octagon trim. I also loved his front office, one wall had a big Garden of Eden type mural and there were books, one of them was an illustrated Bible Stories for kids (below) which was my favorite. In the exam room hung famous Norman Rockwell pictures (below), the one of a boy getting a shot. I remember Dr. Hunter giving me shots just like that, he’d always have me stand on a chair, drop my drawers and count backwards from ten. He promised the shot would be over before I could finish counting and most of the time it was. After the doctors visit, my mom would often stop at a nearby drugstore and get me a Popsicle and the very best part was getting to stay home from school on sick days!

Unfortunately I got lots of ear aches and sore throats as a kid. Ear aches were the worst because there really wasn’t anything that you could do to make them feel better. My mom did try putting oily ear drops in my ear and a cotton ball, I guess to keep the air out but the piercing pain was still terrible. Whenever I got a sore throat my glands would swell up as well. When I was five years old, Dr. Hunter decided I should have my tonsils removed. My mom took me to Primary Children’s hospital for this procedure. I remember being their in the waiting room, being scared and then waking up and eating Popsicles for a few days. Apparently the darn tonsils have grown back but I don’t continue to suffer with sore throats.

FIRST GRADE – 1970 to 1971:
My first grade teachers name was Mrs. West.  She had the big job of teaching me how to read using the phonics method where you sound out each letter and then put them all together. Because of this, I got really good at reading and I could spell just about anything correctly but I did have troubles with comprehension. At some point during the school year, Mrs. West had a meeting with my mom and told her she was worried about me and gave her some suggestions about how to help me comprehend better. She told my mom, and my mom told me, I might not be able to go to the second grade if I didn’t make better progress.  This really flustered my mom and I remember her sitting down with me, making me read things to her and asking me after what I had read. Unfortunately, most of the time, I couldn’t remember a thing even though I just read it. Looking back on the situation, I think I was just so stressed out about it all that it clouded my memory. My poor mother was so frustrated with me but eventually I was able to focus and alas, come the end of the school year, I was granted the privilege of moving on to second grade.

At the end of the school year the teacher gave me a book called Sunny and Gay, it was special to me because this was the book that finally clicked with me, the one I was finally able to comprehend. I loved and cherished that book and the stories in it and still have it. I also have another book, Mother Goose; that Grandma Ricks gave me. Along with learning comprehension, my dad wanted me to be a good speller and every day at dinner he’d challenge me by saying “I bet you can spell (this or that word)” and of course I’d have to show him that I could indeed spell those words. I think this is the reason I became a very good speller.

BUTCH AND COOKIE
Each year in school, I had one or two really close friends. In first grade, I was friends with a girl name Pamela Knaphus and I went over to her house after school to play a few times. Her mother liked to oil paint and she taught Pam how to paint and I thought she was really good. I looked up to her quite a bit. One day at school, I remember everyone was talking about Pam’s awesome birthday party. Her parents had hired Bob Pratt to bring the Hogle Zoo chimpanzees Butch and Cookie to her party and it was a huge hit – everyone was talking about it! I’m pretty sure everyone in my class was invited except me. I was so very sad and disappointed, I felt so left out! Butch and Cookie and one other chimp were acquired by Holge Zoo in 1966 through donated trading stamps. Later Bob Pratt also trained Chip and Happy.

MY HOGLE ZOO
I have enjoyed many visits to Hogle Zoo throughout my life and have seen many changes over the years. First a little zoo history; the zoo first started out at Liberty Park in 1911 and in 1931 moved to the mouth of Emigration canyon when Mr. and Mrs. James Hogle donated a parcel of land for zoo use. Princess Alice was one of the first elephants at the zoo and an elephant building was built in her honor. I remember visiting this building; it had an awesome elephant carving on the outside.

The entrance of the zoo used to be two mountain lions on top of 18 foot tall pillars and the zoo had two entrances; one in front and one in the back.

One of the highlights of the zoo was Shasta, the liger, who was born in 1948. Shasta was quite a novelty and people flocked to see her. She died in 1972 and was stuffed and put on display until she was eventually moved to the BYU Bean Museum in Provo. She holds the record for the longest living liger of all time. Another fun thing was the Leo the Lion drinking fountain, it’s been a long standing tradition to stick your head into the lion’s mouth and get a drink from that fountain, so much so that when they remodeled the zoo, they also refurbished the fountain so that generations to come can drink from it! I have to admit, when I was little, I was always a tiny bit scared to stick my head in there to get a drink of water!

In 1969 the two level giraffe building was complete. This building had a lower level where you could look at the giraffe’s feet and an upper level where you could get up close and personal while the giraffe ate hay out of a cage attached to the wall.

I distinctly remember the smell of the freshly molded, hot to touch, animal figurines that came out of the Mold-A-Rama machines at the zoo. These plastic animal machines were invented in 1964 and they were found all over at the zoo. For just 25 cents, you could pick your favorite animal and color and in mere minutes, it would be injection molded and drop out the slot in the bottom!

In first grade, we had a field trip to the zoo. I was so excited to be at the zoo with my class mates but I remember the day was fairly short; we packed a sack lunch and were only there for a few hours.  I found that it was much more fun to go with my sisters who spent more time than to go with my class.

FRIENDS
I was lucky enough to have a few kids on my street that I played with. Next door to us on the west side was the Robb family. They had two girls; Karen who was about three years older than me and Peggy who was two years younger. They were the first friends I remember. They had a huge walnut tree in their backyard that hung over the fence and we spent hours and hours climbing around in that tree. We played took our dolls up there and played house with them. We both had swing sets in our backyards so we took turns between each of our houses. We played dress ups and had all sorts of fun. I’ll never forget when Karen went to Junior High and my mom telling me that she was too old for me and couldn’t be my friend anymore. I still played with Peggy from time to time but not too long after that they moved.

McKell’s lived two houses up from us on the east side. They had two children a girl Karie who was a year younger than me and her little brother Steven. Karie and I quickly became best friends and we spent a LOT of time together especially in the summer. We were together almost every day, hanging out, lying on the grass looking at clouds listening to our little transistor radios, playing in the sandbox, playing “night games” with the neighbors, riding bikes and roaming the neighborhood. Karie and I even made up our own “ubba-dubba” language so we could talk to each other in secret. This included adding the word “ub” before every vowel, so my name was Jubanuba and Karie was Kubarubie! We understood each other perfectly and I’m sure everyone else understood us too but they never let on. More about Karie later.

HALLOWEEN
When I was seven years old, I was invited to a little Halloween costume party at my friend Karie’s house. We had a little box of costumes at our house and my mother helped me put together this witch outfit.

Halloween was a fun time and I really looked forward to it! I have fond memories of the ward carnivals we used to do probably because my mom actually got involved and was excited too. There was carnival type booths all around a very well decorated ward gymnasium and up on the stage behind the big black curtains, there was a dark, scary homemade spook alley where I remember them sticking my hands into all sorts of odd things, telling me that it was bats brains or toads or some other terrible thing. The games were fun and the treats even better! My mom dressed up in her awesome witch costume for this event and served apple cider from a black Calderon with dry ice in it to make it simmer and sputter like smoke.

On Halloween night, I’d dress up and go out trick or treating from house to house with my friends. We usually went by ourselves, no parents needed, and we took pillowcases to collect candy in. After two to three hours, the pillowcases would be so full we could hardly carry them. Then at home, we had to dump them out and look them over with our parents to make sure the candy was “safe”. There were always plenty of rumors going around about how some terrible, unscrupulous person put razor blades in apples or acid on candy and we wanted to be sure that we weren’t some poor unsuspecting victim. My Halloween candy usually lasted me until Christmas time.

CHRISTMAS
I believe this was the year I got my first bike for Christmas. It was a girls purple Schwinn bike with a white banana seat (similar to this picture). My parents taught me how to ride by taking me out in front of our house and holding the back of the seat running along side of me until I got my balance. It didn’t take too long to learn because the hill pushed me along but if I went to slow, I had a harder time balancing. Once I learned how, I rode my bike nearly every day.

PIANO LESSONS
Another memory I have from first grade is taking a few months worth of piano lessons from our neighbor, Sherrie Rasmussen. She lived around the block and I was able to walk or ride my bike there. My lessons were thirty minutes long and I learned the basics of music. Sherrie was the sort of teacher that wanted things done perfectly, for example, the correct hand and body position was critically important to her and every note had to be played and held just right. I had a tendency to tense up and shrug my shoulders as I played, (probably because I was under so much pressure). Whenever she caught me doing this, she would whack my shoulders with a ruler and tell me to relax! It was very counterproductive for me. I was there long enough to participate in one recital which scared me to death. I was so nervous and I felt like everyone expected such perfection from me that I couldn’t play well. After that, Sherrie talked with my mother and told her that she didn’t think I had the aptitude to play the piano and my mother discontinued my lessons. I was relieved to be done with Sherrie and I enjoyed the extra time to play with friends but I so desperately wanted to learn how to play the piano.

When I visited Grandma Ricks, I often asked her to play the piano. She played really well with or without sheet music. She taught me a few duets like Heart and Soul and Chopsticks.  I loved it when she would play with me!  She could see I had an interest so she gave me a bunch of beginner piano books that she had used for her son. She also gave me the sheet music to Dr. Zhivago and told me she would give me $20 when I learned how to play it – (here I am 50 years later and I still haven’t mastered it!)  Whenever I was alone at my house, I spent hours and hours teaching myself how to play from those books and I got fairly good…as long as no one was listening. As I learned to relax, I started to enjoy playing more and more. A while later, my grandma who volunteered at the Veterans Hospital took me with her. She wanted me to play a few songs for the Veterans. It was a disaster, I simply couldn’t play a thing in front of anyone, I was mortified and I’m sure it embarrassed her as well. She was so very disappointed in me.

COUSINS
My mom came from a family of nine kids and my dad from a family of five kids so I had plenty of cousins to play with. My parents were pretty close to their siblings too, so we spent a lot of time visiting with them.

Pete & Leila’s in Milford (The following is a story I wrote about being at their house)
Are we there yet? It seemed to me like it took forever to drive to Milford and eagerness was consuming me. At last, we rounded the corner and pulled into Pete and Leila’s driveway. 

There they were, Uncle Pete and Aunt Leila running out of their house to greet us with warm smiles and open arms. Immediately my senses were filled the heady aroma of the flowers that grew all around their entire yard. Ah, the sweet smell of petunias, lilacs and honeysuckle. Oh how I loved the honeysuckle plants. My cousin Pat had already shown me how to find the plumpest bloom on the bush so I could savor the taste of the sweet honey nectar from the tip of the flower. My mouth was watering already.

It was considered polite in our family to have a proper two or three hour visit on the couch before being released to do other activities such as unpacking the car or playing in the yard.  Most of the time this consisted of sitting on the couch next to mom listening to the ‘old folks’ catch up on the latest gossip.

In my minds eye, I can still see myself sitting the sofa with my parents. As I surveyed the room; the couch we sat on faced a big picture window to the street, there were two chairs; one on each side of the window where Pete and Leila sat and a small table in between them and at the opposite end of the living room stood the piano. I could almost hear Bill tickling the ivories into one of the liveliest tunes I’d ever heard. Glancing over the amazing sheet music he’d just played was always mesmerizing, to me it was just a blur of black dots scattered all over the page. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how anyone could read that kind of music, let alone get it from the brain to the fingers. He touched so many piano keys all at the same time, to produce a wonderful masterpiece! It was pure magic to me. They were a musical family; all my cousins played the piano. Aunt Leila told me if I practiced every day, and practiced really hard, that I might be able to play those same songs someday. It all seemed so complicated so I often settled for Pat teaching me a new, much simpler song on the piano so I could take it home and show my friends.

As I pulled my thoughts back to the present, I heard Uncle Pete bragging about the several fish he’d just caught. “They’re in the freezer!” he said and I translated that to mean we’re having fish for dinner tonight and that was all right with me. Dinnertime was always a happy time at Pete and Leila’s. It was such fabulous event where we all worked together to prepare a delicious homegrown meal. I usually got assigned to set the table, this was a perfect time for mom and Leila to teach me which side of the plate the fork went on, which I still can’t remember to this day! Sometimes I’d get a little confused about the proper placement for a table setting and then I would have to endure friendly teasing throughout the entire dinner!

Their food was so fresh, wholesome and delicious. Mostly because they grew their own foods in one of the best gardens I have ever seen. It was always fun to go out to the garden with Aunt Leila to see what we could pick for dinner. We cleaned it and prepared it with our mouths watering the whole time.  Even in the winter we ate out of that garden because Aunt Leila was such a hard worker, she always canned and preserved enough food to last through out the entire winter until harvest time again. 

Often, Uncle Pete would hunt or fish to provide the meat for the meal. One time, Uncle Pete took us all fishing. It was the first time I’d ever gone fishing. Somehow I managed to talk Uncle Pete into threading that icky, wiggly worm on my hook; he even cast it into the lake for me! From there out, it was my job to hold the pole in my hands and tell someone if I felt a tug. I remember feeling very anxious about that, I was afraid that a big fish might just tug Uncle Pete’s fishing pole right out of my hands and into the lake! So there I stood, white knuckled, gripping this fishing pole, waiting, waiting and waiting some more. Nothing happened. I looked around and noticed that my cousin had just caught another fish. I thought I was doing it all wrong when all of a sudden, I felt the pole give a little jerk. What? Could this be a fish? Another stronger jerk and then a big yank!  “Help” I hollered and Uncle Pete came running to my rescue. He took the pole and as he wound the line in, there it was, a slimy rainbow trout flopping around at the end of the line. Uncle Pete expertly grabbed a hold of the fish, hit its head on a rock until it went limp then he handed the fish to me and my dad snapped a picture. I looked up to Uncle Pete and thought he was an exceptional fisherman; he’d made me feel so special that day and I was proud to be part of his life! 

On the way home he told my dad how he made smoked salmon. He had just bought a special smokehouse that was set up in his shed. He said he had to continually feed smoke chips into the fire for at least twenty-four hours in order to achieve that mouth watering smoky taste. I remember that Uncle Pete sent some of that fish home with us; best fish I ever tasted! As a matter of fact, my mom was furious with me when she went to the fridge and found out I had snuck bits and pieces of it so many times that it was gone! I really didn’t mean to eat it all…but it was just that good!

All this reminiscing about dinner, gardens and fishing started my stomach to growling but I was still sitting on the sofa for the obligatory visiting session and dinner wouldn’t come around for a while yet. So I began to ponder other things, like, how could I talk one of my cousins into pulling out the old bicycle built for two. My cousins and I somehow always managed to peddle together long enough to get to the local drive inn for a shake! Getting on the bike was a challenge all by itself. One of us had to hold the bike steady while the other one hopped on the back; then we had to start pedaling at the exact same time or we’d tip over and end up on the ground in a heap of hysterical laughter. Oh my, I have fond memories of that bike!

“How would you like to go to the train yard?” Uncle Pete asked. I had been so lost in thought I almost forgot that we were still sitting on the sofa. Uncle Pete worked for the Union Pacific Railroad. He was a real train engineer and I loved seeing him in his uniform; striped overalls and conductor hat, I felt proud to be with him. Sometimes he took us to the train yard and let us jump up into the engineer’s car with him, and then we’d travel a short distance down the track to the big Milford water tower to fill the tank. One time Uncle Pete even got us free train tickets to ride to Milford all the way from Salt Lake. I enjoyed being around the trains.

It was late afternoon and we had been visiting quite some time now. I wondered when it would be time for dinner. Yes, I was hungry. But wait, what’s happening? Uncle Pete was setting up the ping-pong table in the yard for an after dinner tournament! Now I knew I couldn’t wait much longer! I was good at ping-pong and there wasn’t anything better than hanging out on the patio on a warm summer’s eve, playing ping pong with the floodlights on with a little healthy competition brewing until eventually everyone drifted off to bed. 

I knew I would get to sleep in Pat’s room. I loved how it was always so clean and organized. I could almost feel myself slipping between the cool sheets and dozing off with my head on her fluffy feather pillow dreaming about all the wonderful things of the day…wait a minute…is this all just a wonderful dream?  In the distance, I can hear my mom saying, “Jaena, wake up, its time to help with dinner!” Rubbing my eyes I sat up and realized I had just dozed off on the sofa and my grand adventure at Uncle Pete’s and Aunt Leila’s had only just begun!

Meade & Jewel in Cedar City
Often after visiting Milford we’d head over to Jewel’s house in Cedar City. I had cousins there as well; Allen and Diane were the oldest and I don’t remember them around much. I hung out with Jon who was just a year or two younger than me and his little brother David. I thought Jewel was so cool! I loved her house and her warm hospitality. She always had the latest fad in decorations. I specifically remember one time her showing us her newly remodeled kitchen with the vibrant yellow and orange colors, it was really cool. Meade was a pretty great guy as well. On one of our visits, he was so excited to show us his new typing machine – a new improved typewriter of sorts but it was electronic. We were fascinated by its capability to back up and erase letters typed in error and the spell check feature was phenomenal! We hadn’t ever seen such a thing in our lives and it was all we could talk about the whole trip. After the initial couch visit, the kids were released to go outside and play. They had one of the most awesome swing sets with a built in play house that I’d ever seen. We spent lots of time in their backyard playing. I also remember many times walking over to the Southern Utah University campus which was about a block away from their home. We’d hang out on the football field and play tag or whatever games we could come up with, it was a LOT of fun! Sometimes our trips would include a day’s ride to Enterprise where mom grew up. On the way, Jewel knew spots to stop where we could go down into the ravine on the side of the road and pick watercress. I loved doing this and the watercress was really yummy fresh from the pond, nothing like you get in the store these days.  In 1969, when I was six years old, Diane got married to Dale Hoff and she asked Jon to be her ring bearer and me to be the flower girl at her wedding! What an exciting event! Mom helped Jewel plan everything out and was involved in prepping food for the wedding. I think mom made my dress as well. She wanted to make sure I looked my very best and that included getting a bowl hair cut and lots of curling and fussing over my hair. She thought I looked great, me not so much, I didn’t care for that style at all! Recently Diane sent me this picture of Jon and I together, I asked Jon why he had the pained look on his face. He told me he had to go the bathroom the whole time and didn’t dare ask!

Cliff & Eileen in Midvale, Utah
We also visited Cliff and Eileen’s house quite a bit and they had two kids; Janice and Doug. Doug was just a year older than me and I had fun hanging out with him as well. They always had a super nice house and yard which we spent a lot of time running around in. Doug had a cool bedroom and fun boy toys like cars, army guys and construction type sets. Cliff went to the Utah Barber College owned several different barber shops in the Salt Lake area for many years. He enjoyed dabbling in real estate and also became a realtor and owner of a Century 21 franchise. Later he acquired the land next to his barber shop in Midvale and built a strip mall. I don’t remember the year but there was a big fire in the strip mall where his business was and he lost everything. Eileen was a bank teller and one dark evening after her shift she got into her car and hadn’t noticed that someone was in the backseat until she drove off. He held a gun to her and demanded money. I don’t recall exactly what happened but I do know she was able to get away unharmed.

Wendell & Lorna
My mom’s brother and his wife, Wendell and Lorna, were into buying and selling real estate and we often spent time seeing their new houses. Their family also did lots of camping with us. My cousin Lori was pretty close to my age and we spent countless hours together having fun. Most of my memories of them were when we were camping. We spent countless hours sitting around a campfire together singing songs while my mother played the guitar. She never had lessons but she could pick out a few tunes. One of my favorites was “Springtime in the Rockies” which brings a tear to my eye to this day. What I wouldn’t give to hear her play and sing that to me again! One night around the campfire my cousin, Sandy tripped and fell into the flames. She got burned pretty bad. We were way more careful after that. Lori, Craig and I used to wander off for hours making all sorts of new discoveries. One time we found a little island in the middle of the river that we decided to explore. We boldly waded across the river and found that it had lots of rocks and a stand of trees around the perimeter but not in the middle, perfect for playing ‘house’ a game where we pretended we were grown ups running a household. At one point I heard a rattle and looked down to discover that we were standing in the middle of a huge tangle of rattle snakes! I was absolutely terrified and screamed so loud that the adults heard me a mile a way and came running up the road to find us. Somehow, by the grace of God, we all managed to jump over the snakes, run through the river and made it to the road without getting bitten.

Arnold & Geri
Uncle Arnold lived in Fairview and we would visit them every now and again but not too often. They had a small house on a large piece of land out in the country and were quite accustomed to rural living. I remember being amazed that they still used an old cook stove that required you to build a fire in it for cooking! Geri loved horses and she had a lot of horse pictures around the house.  Arnold had been married before and had five kids from Kaye; Gayle, Susan, Cindy, Frank and Jeanette. With Geri he had Paul, Jamie, Daniel and Becky. Frank was closest to me age although he never wanted to spend much time with me. I remember the older girls the best.  This picture was taken in 1973. Arnold was an owner operator truck driver and one time he took Frank with him on a delivery. At some point during this trip, Arnold had a heart attack while driving and Frank’s quick thinking saved his life! He jumped into action moving Arnold out of the way enough that he could take control of the truck and brought it to a stop; then he got on the radio to call for help. He was quite young at the time and didn’t even have a driver’s license yet but he was credited with saving his dads life that day! Some years later, Geri filed for divorce and during that time she dated a lot, Arnold became jealous one time he showed up at her house when another man was there. Someone pulled a gun and there was a wrestle that ensued causing the gun to go off delivering a fatal shot to Geri’s head.  Arnold was convicted and went to prison for several years.  One of his sons, Paul, is the owner of Terry Trucking located in Filmore, Utah, it’s always fun to see one of their trucks rolling down the road and to think of how it all started. 

Jean & George
Aunt Jean was a real estate agent and she liked to buy and sale properties. Because of this and Georges work, she lived in several different places but the two I remember most were Seattle, Washington and Summit Park. In 1971, we took a trip to Seattle to visit them at their house by the lake. It was so fun, they had a cool house and Terry Ann, their daughter who was close to my age had an awesome bedroom with a pink canapé bed that I was super jealous of. She had lots of friends and one day I went on a bike ride with her through the forest. I remember being so scared we were lost but she knew exactly where she was going. Jean had two other kids besides Terry Ann, DeWayne and Greg; together they started up their own little band and performed different places. I remember being so impressed when they played a song called “Indian Reservation” by Paul Revere and the Raiders. It was one of my new favorite songs and here were my cool cousins playing it!  When they moved back to Utah, they built a home at Summit Park near Park City. It was a huge beautiful cabin in the woods. When we visited there, I could often talk DeWayne and Greg in to taking me out shooting. We’d go shoot targets and jack rabbits. I always liked shooting a pistol and felt I was pretty good at hitting the target.  In 1977 George got in a bad car accident in his tiny, sporty CR7 and barely made it out alive.

I had other cousins as well, Arvetta, Gordon and Leona’s kids but they were all older than me and while I knew them, I didn’t spend a lot of time with them growing up.