Book Entry 79: 1969 First Baby on the Way

 

I found out in March I was pregnant.  It is impossible to put into words the feelings I had.  How exciting to think Larry and I were going to have a child.  This baby would be a combination of him and me?  It boggled my mind.  All thoughts shifted from fixing our home and yards for ourselves to getting ready for a baby and getting ready to be a mom.

I remember someone making the comment that the two of us would make a pretty baby.  It hit me as soon as I heard those words, even though this baby was growing inside of me, I had very little to do with “making it.” 

Larry bought me my first sewing machine from Mr. Angel at the Singer Shop in Turlock.  He was a nice man but I don’t remember anything about him but his name.  He gave me a beginners sewing book as a gift.  I bought a pattern, some thread, and some fabric.  I opened the pattern when I got home and began to teach myself to sew.

It’s a good thing we lived far in the country.  My first attempts at making smocks, to cover my growing belly, were pretty bad.  As puckered as they were they could not be fixed, but they could not be wasted, so I wore them but only while I was at home.  

In those days there was no test to determine boy or girl.  We painted our second bedroom yellow to be safe.  In July I was given a baby shower by our church and another by Larry’s aunts.  We had everything we needed from diaper pins (no disposable diapers then) to pajamas.  Almost everything was green or yellow.

August 26^th I had a regular checkup with Dr. Bigelow.  While he was listening to my tummy he got a huge grin on his face.  “You’ve gotten quite a bit bigger since your last visit, and there is a strange sound in there,” he said pointing at my tummy.

I didn’t have an idea what he was talking about.  When I asked him what kind of strange sound he grinned again and said, “Your baby has a brother or sister, you are having twins!”  I could hardly believe it!  Dr. Bigelow was smiling.  He called Mary, his nurse, into the office to tell her.  Once she heard she opened the door and called to the nurse at the front desk telling her! 

When I left the doctors office I was so excited.  I drove straight home to the field where Larry was irrigating.  When I told him our news his face beamed for a second, looked like he went into shock, them beamed again.

He checked the water, said he had thirty minutes, enough time to drive to his parents house to tell them our wonderful news.  They were excited too.  Alpha told me one of her sisters had twins and another sister had triplets. I told them my dad is a twin.  We all laughed and hugged. 

Del said I wasn’t having a baby I was having a litter.  We laughed again.  Alpha had promised to buy us a crib for our baby.  She laughed and said now she would have to buy two.  She giggled and said, “We will need two of everything!”

Larry drove us back to the place he was irrigating.  I didn’t want to tell my mom on the phone so I headed for Hughson to tell her and my grandmother the wonderful news.

I knew mom was at grandma’s house so that is where I went.  My aunt Kathleen happened to be there too.  When I blurted out the news all three of the women started starring at my tummy.  They all agreed I was awfully big for six months and laughed.  Grandma asked to see my tummy.  When she pulled up my smock she gasped at the stretch marks.  “Wow, I’ve never seen that many and they go all the way around you.  You must be growing very fast to stretch like that.” 

I think mom was in shock.  I don’t know why it was so shocking.  After a few minutes when she could speak she was happy too.  I didn’t stay long.  I wanted to go home and be with Larry.

 Mom left when I did to tell dad.  Dad kept saying it was because of him, because he was a twin, that I would be having twins.  He called me on the phone that evening saying how happy he was.  He said he was going shopping on the following Saturday.  He was going to buy two little pink dresses and two little blue outfits.  He was ready to be a grandpa.

Book Entry 78: 1968 Our First Chickens

  There was a little chicken house on our property.  Larry bought a couple dozen chicks in the spring.  Actually he bought the chicken feed at J.S. West in Modesto and they gave us the chicks.  We had fun watching them grow.  He had bought a mixture of chickens.  We had red ones, white ones, and black and white speckled ones. 

  The most fun were the little Araucona chickens.

The Araucona chickens were all different.  They had different colored feathers and were easy to tell apart.  

Arauconas are also known as “Easter Egg Chickens” because they lay white, brown, green, pink, and blue eggs.

Sometimes the eggs are one pure color and sometimes they have spots on them.  We had a lot of fun with those chickens. 

When they were old enough to butcher we saved a few favorites to lay eggs and put the rest in our freezer for future dinners.

Book Entry 77: 1968 Our Honeymoon Home

Larry’s folks were always such a blessing to me.  They accepted me as their daughter and never treated many any differently.  Del had a little 800 foot home build for us at 14436 Lombardy Rd.  It was on the backside of his property.  We were close to them but still separated and private.  It was a beautiful little house.  It had a kitchen, two small bedrooms, one bathroom, and a nice living room. 

Once the mess of all our wedding gifts was gone and everything was put away it was perfect.  It stayed perfect too!  I didn’t have anything to do but keep it clean, cook, and help Larry.   I remember John Hoino’s wife saying our house looked like it was in a magazine because I kept it so perfectly.  That changed later when babies started arriving!

Del gave Larry some old smudge pots and Alpha helped me spray-paint them pretty colors and put Pansies and Marigolds in them to decorate our yard.  The pots were no longer used in the fields and there were hundreds of them.  Alpha helps me pick out several that weren’t too badly dented.  

The pots didn’t look like the ones in this photo when I got them.  They were simple rectangle pots which flared out a bit so the top of the pot was a few inches bigger than the bottom.  They were metal and had been filled with oil many times.  The oil was thick on the inner sides of the pots. 

When I first saw them I was discouraged but Alpha was a trooper.  First she washed and spray painted the outside of the pots a dark green.  Then, she scraped down around the top of the inside of one for about three inches.  When she added dirt and flowers the ugly inside disappeared!  I felt like I’d hit it rich!  I talked Alpha into helping me choose several more. 

Larry was so busy.  He’d get up at five to work in the fields.  He’d come home about nine and clean up for his classes at Stanislaus State.  He’d be home by two and go to the fields again until supper time around six.  After dinner was homework, straightening his shop, or helping Del with a ranch chore or two.

 Somehow Larry got a little extra money from time to time to spruce up the yards.  Over the next year we added a small front fence and lawn.  The backyard had a fence too was nice sized.  We put in several plants in back and more flowering plants in the front. 

                            

I didn’t mind that we started out with nothing.  I didn’t mind the waiting between shopping trips for groceries or clothing or my constant gardening ideas.  I did mind the gophers!  I remember Larry setting traps for gophers.  He even taught me how to use a small shotgun, which I got very good at, to shoot the varmints.  Sometimes when the dirt at the opening of the mound would move I could tell a gopher was just under the ground.  I’d estimate how far back he was and push my shovel into the dirt as hard as I could chopping the gopher in half.  Living in the country can toughen a person up.  I didn’t want to kill anything but those gophers wanted my garden and I wasn’t going to let them have it!                    

The sandy ground at our home was nothing like the dirt in Hughson.  In Hughson dad would need to wait five or six days after irrigating to drive anything into the field.  Larry could irrigate in the morning and drive on the same ground in the afternoon.  

One day Larry saw me waiting with my shovel at the opening of a gopher hole behind our shop.  He laughed at me and said, “Get the hose by the shed and stick it in the hole and drown him.”  Of course, I did it.  I stuck the hose in the ground, turned it on, and started feeding more and more hose down the hole.  It was a long hose but before I knew it the whole thing was in the ground!  

Larry had a peculiar grin on his face when he said, “I guess he got away, you’d better put the hose back where it belongs now.”  The joke was on me.  That soft sand had just sucked that hose in and now there was no pulling it back out.  I tugged and tugged.  Finally Larry walked up with a pair of pruning shears and cut the hose off at the ground.  I felt foolish and knew at once a trick had been played on me.  When I got over the humiliation I thought it was pretty funny too.  Larry let me take the six or eight feel of hose that was left for my garden.

                                   

Our driveway was very long.  I loved turning onto our driveway and watching our home as we’d get closer and closer.  That little house just seemed so wonderful and perfect and full of love.  I still think it was!

Book Entry 76: 1968 Our Wedding Day

After 3 ½ years of dating and exactly 864 dates we got married on the hottest night of the year!  It was June 22, 1968 if you want to check the weather record.  And yes, I’m very sure of the number of dates we had.  I kept a running total on my calendar.  I did count riding together to JC and going to church.  Some Sundays Larry would go home to work between attending my church in the morning and his at night so those days counted twice.

  The church had a new air conditioner but the “person in charge” decided not to pre-cool the church and once people started coming in the heat inside soon matched the heat outside.  It seems back then weddings were scheduled a lot latter in the day.  Our wedding started at 8:00 in the evening. 

When I arrived with gown in hand I felt like a princess.  In fact, since the night before at our rehearsal I felt like the whole world was watching me and I must have been the most important girl in the entire world.  I know that seems silly but that’s how I felt.  I hope when our daughters got married they felt the same way.  I remember walking up the stairs to go into the sanctuary. 
The sanctuary was full, the balcony was full, the isles had folding chairs in them and there were rows of extra folding chairs at the back of the church.  People were standing inside and all up the stairway into the church.  They had to stand aside and make room for me.  One of my slippers came off.  When I stopped to put it back on someone said, “Just like Cinderella and the glass slipper.”  I never forgot that.  That was exactly how I felt.  I was Cinderella and Larry, waiting inside, was my prince.

                                   

 When I reached the top of the stairs dad was waiting for me.  He took my hand, just like in the movies, wrapped it around his own and led me down the isle.  I remember when I looked at the photographer my heart jumped with panic.  I can see the panic on my face in this photo of me and dad.  
When I saw Larry he was smiling from ear to ear.  Once our eyes met I don’t think I saw anyone else till we were pronounced man and wife and turned toward the audience.  Dad handed my hand to Larry, kissed me, and sat down with mom.

Larry led me up the steps and the wedding began.  The candles were lit and beautiful.  Three of them did have an odd bend that hadn’t been there before.  I realized later they were so hot they were bending.  As the ceremony proceeded I kept looking at Larry.  His whole head was perspiring.  Not only were we in front of over three hundred people but Larry and the other guys had on Tuxedos and I had on a long sleeved, multi-layered dress with a bunch of petticoats underneath.  During one of the prayers I looked at Larry.  He had his head bowed.  There was perspiration dripping off his chin and running down the sides of his face.  

                        

 

Pastor Brown was the pastor of Hughson First Baptist Church where I went.  Pastor Hersh was the pastor of the Turlock First Baptist Church where Larry attended and where we attended after we were married.  They both participated in our service.
             

                         

  Larry asked Larry Date to be one of his groomsmen.  They’d grown up together and had always been best friends.  Larry Date is Japanese as were most of the kids Larry spent his childhood with in school.  When my uncle Thomas heard we were having a Japanese boy in our wedding he made a fuss and said he wouldn’t come.  He and his brothers had fought in the war and he couldn’t get past it.  I think when he told me he wouldn’t come to the wedding if we had Larry in it he was surprised when I calmly told him I’d sure miss seeing him there on such an important night in my life. 

 When Larry and I were walking down the isle of the church Uncle Thomas waved real big to me as we passed his row.  Of course I don’t know what all he went through in the war but I was really happy he’d realized Larry Date wasn't part of it.  I was glad Thomas came to my wedding.

                                      

    I felt all eyes were on us and nothing but good lay ahead.

                Larry had threatened this…but I didn’t think he’d do it!

 

                                        So…naturally….

   

Our car was painted with the usual wedding graffiti.  Everywhere we went people honked and pointed at us.  The kids who had tied the strings of tin cans to drag behind the car had done a good job.  When we pulled into the hotel on our first night we were still dragging those noisy cans.  Windows and doors opened as folks staying the night looked to see what the noise was coming from.  I was really embarrassed at the smiles and silly grins we received.

                           
            Our friends handiwork...I was so embarrassed but I loved it! 

We spent one day of our honeymoon in San Francisco.  Larry bought me a rose from a lady selling them in the street.  The next morning, when we went to breakfast, we ran into the jeweler from Turlock who had sold us our rings.  

When we came home we stopped at mom and dads house to load our car and theirs with our wedding gifts.  We drove to our home at 14436 Lombardy Road.  Larry’s folks joined us and we had dessert and a fun time opening all the gifts.  I still have a scar on my left thumb from checking the sharpness of one of the steak knives Larry Date gave us.

We had been married on Friday night.  In the wink of an eye all the plans and events of our beautiful wedding, our two day honeymoon, and our party to open gifts were over.  

Larry was up and gone to the orchards by five the next morning.  I spent the day cleaning the huge wrapping paper mess, finding a place for all our wonderful gifts, and making our beautiful little house feel like home.

Book Entry 75: 1967 High School Graduation

This is me my senior year but not my senior photo.  

 The senior photos then were black and white.  I look better in this one.

I graduated from Hughson High School in 1967.  Graduation was great but it came in second in my big events of the year. 

Hughson was a much smaller town in the 60’s than it is today.  The kids all knew one another well.  We were in the same class with the same friends the entire time we were in school.  I was so happy.  I remember it was hot.  I remember we walked in boy-girl couples.  I remember some of the girls crying…I couldn’t figure out why.  I was so excited for my life to continue on to the next step.  I remember seeing Larry as I marched by him in the isle.  I remember wearing the corsage he gave me.

My partner to march in with was a boy named Coy Stark.  As we had been our entire school career, kindergarten to graduation, we were partners.  Everything was always alphabetical.  I always sat by Coy.  I was always his partner on field trips.  I was always his “student-helper” in the classes he had trouble understanding.  He was smart, he just didn’t have time for school or school work.  He hung out after school and weekends with his buddies instead of studying.  He always seemed happy.  Graduation night I was his partner for the last time.  That night felt as if an era was ending.  It was an era of school work, of childhood friends, and of being partners with Coy.

The war in Viet Nam was going furiously in our high school years.  Many of the boys I went to school with went to war.  Several of them didn’t come home alive.   I think it was the summer of our graduation that Sammy McClurkin and Coy joined the service together and went to war. 

Coy was killed in Viet Nam.  I never learned the particulars of his death but I sure did feel a loss to know someone who had always been in my life wouldn’t be in it anymore.  When Sammy came home he re-enlisted to go again.  Someone told me they had spoken to Sammy and he’d made the statement he was going back “for Coy.”  That year Sammy McClurkin’s named changed in my mind to Sam McClurkin.

Larry was exempt from the military at that time because of a student deferment and he was needed on the farm.  All of us were forced to face the fact that the world is not full of just nice people.  We all had to grow up faster than we would have liked.  The protection we’d all had in the little community of Hughson came to a slamming halt.  Every morning and every night we would search the obituary section of the newspapers hoping not to find any familiar names.

Turlock High and Hughson High were hit hard by fatalities, as were all the communities in the valley.  There were no towns where there were no losses.   Sometimes the paper check was good but very often there was a name we knew.  

I remember very clearly my mother handing me the paper one morning and pointing to Coy’s name.  Mom had been crying, she put her arms around me and we cried together.  We cried for Coy’s family, for our family, and for our country who was losing so many of her precious young men.   

Book Entry 74: 1966 Larry Graduates from Turlock High

                        Larry's Senior Picture

Larry's family and mine sat together in the bleachers for the ceremony.  I remember it was hot.  The main speaker was General Patton, the son of the famous General Patton.

I don’t remember the speeches but I do remember when one of the speakers was talking a dog walked up to the podium, lifted his leg, and relieved himself on it.  The audience clapped and laughed.  

When graduation was over the graduates all threw their caps into the air and ran (in no orderly fashion) in every direction.  

It was another step into adulthood.  Time seemed to be flying!

Book Entry 73: 1967 Engaged

      

  I can be more specific.  April 16, 1967, after many welcomed proposals and as many half-hearted refusals, Larry gave me a beautiful engagement ring.  Of course, we knew it was coming but that was the official day. 

Larry did it right, he even asked my dad before he gave me the ring.  When he asked dad for my hand dad replied he’d need to take the rest of me too not just my hand. 

We went to the Branding Iron Restaurant in Merced for dinner that evening.  I remember feeling like the ring on my hand just had to be so noticeable no one could possibly look in my direction and not see it.   

Dinner was great.  We had steak, baked potatoes, and the Branding Iron’s famous creamed spinach.  The room was full of patrons and servers.  No one noticed my ring.  I was shocked!  I think I finally told our waitress about it so somebody would make a fuss.

When I got home mom and dad called me into their room.  They asked me to turn on the light and show them my ring.  Finally!  They were both very happy and excited for me. 

The Viet Nam War (I don’t care what they call it!) was raging.  Larry and I were both losing friends.  We didn’t want to wait too long in case Larry might be called to serve before we had a chance to marry.  We decided we’d marry in June of 1968.  Larry would have his degree from Junior College and be enrolled in Stanislaus State by then and I’d have a start at Junior College.

Book Entry 72: 1966 Candy Striper Experience

Mom and dad agreed to let me be a candy striper my junior year of high school.  Bernie decided to be one too.  We rode together to the hospital in Ceres every Saturday to volunteer.  Besides having fun working in the hospital we got to wear really cute uniforms and we got to drive ourselves to Ceres and back!

I was chosen to work in the lab.  One of my assignments was to label test tubes.  I was always a little afraid I would do it wrong and some person would get the wrong blood work done.  I also was a delivery girl taking reports and collecting reports from all the departments in the hospital.

The one memory that sticks about Candy Striping is the time my manager took me into one of the storage rooms and showed me the long rows and high stacks of things that had been removed from patients during surgery.  

I remember seeing all types of body organs.  One thing I will never forget was three gallon jars full to the rim of fat.  My manager said all this fat had to be removed from a patient before the surgeon could perform the needed surgery.  

Being a Candy Striper was supposedly my first step to becoming a nurse.  That and taking German for two years.  My plans for being a nurse were pushed aside and never missed as time moved on.

Book Entry 71: 1966 Life Guard Class

I took the Life Guard swim class at the Hughson pool.  I don’t remember much of the class but I do remember we had to go to the bottom of the deep end of the pool and retrieve a "body."  Of course the body wasn’t really a person.  It was one hundred and fifty pounds of cinder blocks wrapped in a cloth. 

I passed the 100 laps we had to swim.  I passed the treading water for an hour.  But I thought I would drown trying to rescue that body of bricks.  Not passing that class was a real heart-breaker to me.  I thought for sure I could do it but I couldn’t.

Book Entry 70: 1966 Mrs. Daniel's Cat

Charlie Daniels was an older gentleman in our church while I was growing up.  I don’t know exactly how old, but even when I was young and he seemed really old.  I remember he married one of the widows in the church.  I don’t remember what her last name was before they married.  My mom and I went to visit the new Mrs. Daniels and took her a casserole one afternoon.  I guess she wasn’t feeling well.  It seemed my mom was always taking somebody food or something.   While we were visiting with Mrs. Daniels her cat came into the room. 

Her cat was a pretty black and white.  His bowl of food was on the opposite side of the room when he entered.  He took a few steps and fell to the right, he got up taking a few more steps and fell to the left.  He’d walk in spurts and fall forward as if his feet weren’t there.  I was horrified. 

I must have gasped.  Mrs. Daniels was startled at my response to the weird gait of the cat.  She explained to me that her daughter worked in a lab somewhere where experiments were done on brains and how they respond to certain medications.  She told me that her cat, along with others, were paving the way to new medicines that would help people.  As she explained the background of the cat it seemed a little less disturbing to me.  Mrs. Daniels assured me her cat was very happy living there with her. 

I got down on the floor and played with the cat for a little while.  It was hard to do.  I tried to get it to chase a ribbon but the poor thing would swat at the ribbon and fall over.  It couldn’t follow my finger with its eyes…they sort of wiggled from side to side.  It couldn’t even make a decent meow sound.  Instead it almost sounded like a human saying, “More, more, more.”  
Just when I was getting back that feeling I’d had of pity for the cat, Mrs. Daniels swept him up into her arms and said, “Watch this Joyce.”  She started singing and petting the cat.  He settled down into her lap.  He looked happy and comfortable.  He started to purr in one of the loudest purr sounds I’d ever heard.  He did seem happy after all.  I felt better when we left, not good, just better!

Book Entry 69: 1965 Rear-ending a Horse

Larry picked me up way too early one Friday.  We were going to the movie theater but we had a couple hours before the movie started so we took a drive out in the country.  

We noticed a horse standing beside the road, on the road side of the fence.  As our car got nearer the horse began running in the same direction as our car.  When we got right up next to the horse the horse kept running forward in the direction of our car but sidestepped right out into the street and into the path of our car.  The car was going faster than the horse.  Larry stepped on the brakes but we ran into the rear end of the horse.  The horse kind of sat on the hood of our car, looked puzzled, and took off running again down the street.

We got out and looked at the car.  There was a dent on the hood, there were skid marks on the road, and there was a pile of horse “droppings” at the end of the skid marks.

Larry felt bad.  He drove up the nearest driveway to ask to use the phone and report to the police that there was a horse loose and we’d just hit it.  When the owner of the home came to the door Larry explained we’d run into a horse and would like to use his phone to report it.  The man simply replied, “It’s not my horse so you can’t use my phone.” 

By then, the horse was trotting down the road.  We continued our drive through the country until it was time for the movie.  I still think of the odd statement given by the neighbor who wouldn’t let us use his phone.

Book Entry 68: 1965 Our Second Date

The night of our first date Larry picked me up at the house I had been raised in since I was born.  During the following week our house was moved out to the road and foundation work began on our new house.  Mom was finally getting the house dad had promised her when they moved to that location!

My second date with Larry was the next weekend.  I hadn’t mentioned to Larry we were building a new house.  When he pulled into the driveway to get me there was a huge hole where our giant almond tree had been, a pile of  dirt and 2 x 4’s where our house had been, and our house was on stilts out by the road.  I don’t know what his first thoughts were when he saw all the changes but he kindly made his way through the mess to our door.  We had a good laugh at the way everything looked.  

  

We went to see Billy Graham who was speaking at the fairgrounds in Turlock.  I had seen Billy Graham on television and was delighted to now see him in person.  As always the sermon was good, the music was wonderful, and many people went forward when the invitation was given. 

It was nice to sit through the service with someone I knew believed everything Pastor Graham was saying, who bowed his head during prayer, and who was touched as we witnessed people accepting Christ as their Savior.  I felt as if I’d known Larry for a long time.

We went to Latifs for a “6 x 6” hamburger and a shake again.  We sat in the same booth we had used the week before, way in the back, by the stairs.  When we had finished eating neither of us wanted to leave.  Larry was playing with the salt shaker.  He took the lid off and gently placed it back on the shaker without screwing it on tight.  He looked at me to get a reaction.  I told him he was going to ruin some persons dinner.  I expected him to tighten the lid on right away but he just left it sitting there.  I think he was waiting to see if I’d fix it.  I honestly can’t remember if either of fixed it or not.  I sure hope we did!

Later that night he proposed.   I was shocked!  It was only our second date!    I told him, “No, you can’t ask me that!”  I thought I was all grown up, like all teenagers do, but I had enough sense to know I shouldn’t be accepting a proposal yet.  On the other hand, when Doug asked me out for the following weekend I declined the invitation.  I never dated anyone again except Larry.

Book Entry 67: 1965 My First Date With Larry

           I guess Larry thought what Ron said was funny.  I didn’t realize it then but Larry had wanted to ask me out since our youth group had visited his church to play volleyball.  It seems funny after all these years but I can write down that on Monday around 7 in the evening on January 18^th Larry called me and asked me to go out with him the following Friday.  I accept the invitation and began to worry about how to call him back and cancel our date if mom and dad wouldn’t let me go. 

Mom was on the phone again with Liane asking if Larry was a nice boy.  Thank goodness Liane liked Larry.  She gave mom a good report and the rest is history.

Larry and I went out on Friday.  The next night I went out with Doug,  Paul, and Linda.  It was a date to a movie we’d been looking forward to for the whole week.  Sunday I went to Larry’s church in Turlock with a friend.  Larry was there of course.  I felt like a princess with two boys wanting to date me.  I really liked Doug.  We were becoming good friends.  His dad was a lawyer I think and I don’t know what his mom did.  He was not like anyone I’d ever known from Hughson.  This whole dating thing was fun.  Getting to go places with people my age, with friends who owned cars, bowling or to movies we chose.  It all felt very grown up.

As much as I liked going out with the gang from Ceres, I never did again.  I’m glad I realized Larry was a better pick for me.  He went to a church like mine but in a different town and his family lived and worked on their farm like my family did. When we talked it was as if we’d known one another forever. 

At some point during the evening Larry told me what Ron had said about me.  We both laughed.  I think Larry thought it was funny but I might have laughed because it made me nervous.  I did laugh out loud when Larry told me Ron was his cousin.

A funny thing about our first date was that between the time Larry asked me out and the time we went out the following Friday I went from having hair down my back to having a very short hair style.  The first instant Larry looked at me it was obvious he noticed.  He didn’t complain about it that night but he started complaining about it after a few dates.  I let it grow out again.

 

We went to a basketball game at Turlock High.  After the game we, like everyone from the game, headed toward Main Street.  We drove up Main Street and out Lander for a few blocks just to the old Penguin Ice Cream Drive In, turned and headed back toward the high school again.  Now it seems silly but there were lots of kids doing it and it was kind of fun.  We were “Dragging Main.” 

I felt so good that night.  Larry treated me like a prize and I loved it!  When we neared the corner of what is now Golden State and Main Larry asked me if I wanted to go to Latifs for a snack or if I wanted to stop at the Caroline Hotel.  I could feel my heart stop beating!   

I was not familiar with Turlock although I had been to Latifs a few times with my family.  The Caroline Hotel was just across the street from Latifs.  I didn’t realize there was a coffee shop on the bottom floor of the Hotel.  Larry was simply asking if I wanted to eat at Latifs or in the Caroline Hotel coffee shop.  When I realized what he meant I was greatly relieved.  We had a good laugh when I told him my mom made me bring a dime, which was in my shoe, in case I needed to call home.  It had run through my mind that a hotel would have a pay phone and I was about to use that dime to call for rescue.  To my delight, Larry remained a true gentleman.

Larry gave me my first kiss as we turned onto Sante Fe from Geer Road.  It was just a quick little kiss.  It was perfect!  The whole night had been perfect.  In those days girls didn’t call boys and I was sure hoping he would call again.

Book Entry 66: 1965 My First Single Date

        We were fifteen and sophomores in High School.  While there were a few “couples” most of my friends began dating in groups.  My friend, Linda Hampton, had moved to Ceres.  She lived on a street where two of the Ceres High boys lived.  Linda and I and those two boys double-dated several times.  We mostly went to movies and the A&W drive in for treats.  

        Linda dated Paul Caruso and I dated Doug Heim.  Paul and Doug were good friends.  We had a lot of fun together.  Unfortunately the only thing I remember about those dates is Doug had a little “gizmo” on his dashboard shaped like a torpedo that would automatically dim his headlights if there was an oncoming car with lights on after dark. 

       I had several girlfriends who attended the Turlock First Baptist Church.  Sometimes one of my friends, Jean Leach, would come pick me up and take me to the BYF meetings on Sunday nights.  I played the organ at my church in Hughson so I never got to miss Sunday morning service.

        BYF (Baptist Youth Fellowship) was fun.  One of the leaders was Wally Sanford.  He was a good Bible teacher and a great youth leader.  He could take a joke when the kids played them on him and he could joke well too.  The Turlock church had Turlock kids so BYF turned out to be a place to meet new kids my age.  

       The first week of January a boy named Ron Chandler asked me on a date.  Mom was good friends with Liane Beauchamp.  Liane went to First Baptist in Turlock.  I didn’t know it but mom called Liane to check up on Ron to see if he was a “nice” boy.  Liane gave him the okay.  We went bowling at Divine Gardens in Turlock the following Friday night.  This was my first time on a date that wasn’t a double-date.  I was more than a little excited and more than a little nervous!

          I learned a lot that night.  The first thing I learned was boys don’t like their dates to win at bowling!  I won the first game.  I was having fun but a friend of Ron’s who was bowling a couple lanes away made a comment when he saw the scores and I could tell from Ron’s reply he was less than impressed.  Being the dutiful date I let him win the next two games.  Bowling is certainly a game I couldn’t fake being good at but I could easily make sure I didn’t hit too many pins!

      

       After bowling we went to the old Turlock A&W Drive In.  I remember Ron ordering a Root Beer for me.  Then he rattled off something like a Root Beer add vanilla, add cream, double scoop of chocolate float.  He looked at me when he was ordering and I’m sure it was to see if I was impressed.  I wasn’t.  It sounded ridiculous and looked even worse when it arrived!

          When we got back to my house I expected Ron to turn the car off and walk me to the door like Doug had always done.  He didn’t.  He turned the car off and we sat in the drive-way for about half an hour.  I didn’t know him so I didn’t know what to talk about and he didn’t know me so he didn’t know what to talk about.  After what I thought was an uncomfortable amount of time he got out his door, went to my side of the car, and opened the door for me.  

The step up to our back door was about fourteen inches high.  It was a slab of cement probably about 5 foot across.  I was close to the door and Ron was close to the edge of the step.  I felt uncomfortable.  Ron moved close to me for a kiss, I gently placed my hands on his chest, gave a gentle push, and down he went.  He fell off the step and landed on his butt on the sidewalk! 

I think we were both embarrassed.  Ron was embarrassed because I’d refused to kiss him and he’d fallen.  I was embarrassed he thought he should get a kiss!  He stood up red faced and said, “I can’t believe I am going to have to tell everyone I didn’t even get a kiss.”  I had the screen door opened so I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and pulled it shut.  I thanked him for the fun time we’d had.  I didn’t think he would call again and I hoped he wouldn’t.

The next time Larry saw Ron he asked how our date went and Ron told Larry I was a cold fish!

Book Entry 65: 1964 Donkey Basketball

I was thrilled to be in high school.  It seemed my friends and I were so grown up.  I thought having a locker was great, although I was always afraid I’d forget my combination which, by the way, was 31-3-36.  I was afraid then I couldn’t remember it and now I can’t forget it!  

My freshman year our varsity basketball team split into two groups and played a game on donkeys.  They did it in the gym, on that precious gym floor we all had to take our shoes off to walk across.  I couldn’t believe donkeys were going to be allowed on that floor!

During the game one of the boys fell off his donkey and began having a seizure on the gym floor.  Whispers quickly went threw the crowd letting us know the boy had epilepsy.  The attending doctor and a coach stayed by him until we was able to walk to the bleachers, everyone in the crowd clapped, and the game continued. 

The seizure would have probably happened anyway but that was the end of the Donkey Basketball games at Hughson.  I thought that was too bad.  The boy who had the seizure was embarrassed it had happened but even more embarrassed the games would not be allowed again.

Book Entry 64: 1964 Miss Pretzel of the Parsonage

My brother Phillip with Miss Pretzel

Pastor Hull and his wife gave me a little Dachshund.  I don’t remember just why they were giving her away or even if she was theirs.  Her official name was “Miss Pretzel of the Parsonage.”  Because of her name she must have belonged to Pastor Hull or another Pastor friend of his.  I do know when she laid down and curled up she took the shape of a pretzel so her name fit her well.

“Pretzel” was registered and able to have puppies so mom took her to a family in Denair and left her there all night to “get married.”  She was so cute when she started getting fat with puppies until the day I noticed her tummy had gotten so big and was hanging so low that her nipples were actually dragging on the ground when she walked.  When I showed dad I thought he’d cry.   

When mom decided the time was getting close for the puppies she asked dad to make a nice soft bed in the outside garage.  A few days later dad woke me up early in the morning  excited to say Pretzel was having her babies but she was having a problem. 

I ran outside with dad where we found Pretzel squatting half way between our back door and the garage.  She held that position for a moment then ran for the house, leaving behind a brand new puppy lying on the cold ground.  Dad scooped it up, tore an opening in the sack, and began to massage the puppy.  Right away the puppy began to squirm and make little noises.

Dad handed the puppy to me and headed for Pretzels bed in the garage.  When he came back to me he was holding a cold stiff little body.  He said Pretzel cleaned the sack off and just left the puppy.  Dad ran into the kitchen and grabbed a dish towel, held it next to the furnace in the living room to warm, then wrapped the puppy in the cloth and started rubbing and rubbing.   

Mom had joined the excitement and given me a shoe box lined with cloth to put the puppies in.  After what seemed forever, but was probably only 2-3 minutes, the puppy dad was holding began to make some little whimpering sounds.  Dad face beamed.  He kept rubbing and the puppy continued to get louder and louder.  We put both puppies in the shoe box.  I sat by the furnace holding them to keep them warm.  Pretzel didn’t want anything to do with her puppies.

Dad said if I wanted to I could stay home from school to help with the puppies.  He said it was “a matter of life and death.”  Boy oh boy, did I ever feel important.  I really felt like I was needed for the day.  Pretzel just lay on the kitchen floor for the next hour or so till the milkman came in.  He delivered milk twice a week.  He would knock on the back door and if someone was in the kitchen, he’d step in to put the milk on the counter.

Pretzel never liked the milkman.  That morning was no different.  She got up and ran around the kitchen table barking and raising a fuss.  As soon as he left she laid in her little bed (dad had brought in from the garage) and had another puppy.  Once the puppy was out she got up, laid somewhere else, and watched dad clean it up and put it in the shoe box with the others.  About every 45 minutes for the next couple of hours she’d do the same thing.  After having a puppy she would leave and let dad clean it.  She’d keep her eye on the shoebox and on dad.

                   

I lined up the puppies in the shoebox in the order they had been born.  The first one was the biggest.  Each new puppy was a little smaller than the one before.  By the time we got the last puppy, the sixth one, our shoebox was full of fat, wiggly, noisy puppies.  When the puppies were all cleaned up dad put them gently into Pretzels bed.  Pretzel went over to the bed and got in like she’d been in total charge of the whole ordeal.  Believe it or not she took perfectly good care of the puppies after that.  We left these puppies at Lyngs Pet Shop in Modesto.  One of the puppies was bought by a Spanish fellow who was playing at Modesto Junior College Concert.  That puppy went to Madrid to live.           

The next year we had Pretzel bred again.  She was hit by a car about two weeks before she was to deliver.  She didn’t do much after that but eat and rest.  She had five puppies in this litter.  She had dad clean each puppy just as she had with her first litter before she was interested in the puppies.

  We were all afraid having the puppies would kill her but she made it through the process.  After they were born she seemed to have very little energy.  She was just able to eat, feed, and clean her babies.  As the weeks went by we could see her becoming less active.  I guess something inside her must have been hurt when she was run over.

Pretzel had weaned her first litter at 7 weeks.  She weaned this litter at 5-6 weeks.  We had homes lined up for each of them and allowed the puppies to leave.  Pretzel died two days later.  My dad insisted she was a good mom and lived long enough to be sure her puppies could survive without her.

Book Entry 63: 1963 Learning to Drive with Dad

During these years dad I would go to choir practice at church every Wednesday night.  On the way home dad would have me sit right next to him.  He would work the gas and break but I got to steer the car.  Oh what fun that was!  It gave me a thrill to turn the car from one road to another. 

Dad would speed up at the turn to the railroad crossing.  He’d ask if there was a train coming as he stepped on the brakes just as the car was directly over the tracks.  That was before there were arms and alarms at the crossing where 7^th street crosses Sante Fe.  The only way to know if a train was coming was to look and see.   He thought it was funny but a couple of times it really scared me. 

We would laugh real hard together.  He always made me promise not to tell mom he’d let me “drive” the car.  I don’t really think she would have cared.

We’d finish off our “choir” nights by racing into the house and watching Bonanza with mom and the boys.

Book Entry 62: 1963 Camping Tuolumne Meadows

       

      Pam Aldrich invited me to go camping with her family at Tuolumne Meadows.  Along with me her brother and sister each took a friend.  Pam’s parents were very relaxed campers.  I don’t remember going on any hikes we just stayed around camp but there was plenty to do.  We fished, swam in the river, took walks to a nearby supply store, and played with one another.  

         I shouldn’t say we swam in the river because each night the river would swell with what snow melt happened the day before.  It was really cold!  When we would wade in it only took a short while for our legs to begin aching they were so cold. 

          When we came back to camp one afternoon after playing at the river we found Mrs. Aldrich making jello.  She had mixed it and put it in a Tupperware bowl.  She had gently but firmly put it between to big rocks in the little creek running next to our campsite. At first I thought she was crazy but by dinner time the jello had completely set. I’m not kidding when I say that water was cold! 

            Tuolumne Meadows is part of Yosemite.  It is the top part!  The view is nothing like in the valley.  There are no huge mountains to look at as we were close to the top of any mountains around.  It was certainly just a beautiful but totally different.

        We all went fishing several times during the week.  I remember one particular day I wasn’t catching any fish at all.  I was tired of trying.  I found a quiet little spot where the river was hardly moving.  I found a comfortable rock to sit on and put my line down in a quiet little pool littered with leaves and little branches.  I wanted to just sit and pass some time, I was ready to back to camp but didn’t want to say so.  Just as I sat down I felt my pole give a tug.  It seems some poor fish was hiding and resting in the same place I chose.  He turned out to be my best catch of the whole week measuring about twelve inches. 

        I took my fish to Mr. Aldrich.  He made a big deal about it.  Maybe he knew I was tired and he wanted me to feel good.  It worked!  I felt proud.  When we had dinner he pointed out to everyone my fish was sticking over both sides of my plate.  

        That night when Pam, her sister, her sister’s friend, and I were in our tent for the night the boys decided to scare us.  At our campfire that night they kept saying they saw a bear in the shadows but we never saw it.  Once we were in our sleeping bags and the tent was zipped shut they started breaking twigs, grunting, and trying to make scary shadows on the tent wall.

         The trouble was they were probably about eleven years old and when they hugged one another to make a big bear shadow they would giggle!  Their growling was hilarious.  All of us in the tent were poking one another to keep from laughing out loud.  When one of the boys saw a shadow in the trees he said, “Hey, you guys I think I really do see a bear!”          

         We couldn’t stand it any longer.  Pam unzipped the tent and we all ran at the boys screaming there was a bear in the woods.  Those little boys raced to their tent, didn’t make a noise the rest of the evening, and never mentioned what they’d done when daylight came the next morning.  None of us mentioned it either realizing it was a great joke but the boys hadn’t been old enough, or brave enough, to carry it out.  We didn’t want to make them feel silly but for the rest of the week when they weren’t around we were merciless in things we said about them!

        It was another wonderful week of a wonderful summer!