Garbage Service and Composting

I mentioned that we didn’t use the garbage service here for part of the time we’ve lived in Ashland. Actually it was for quite an extended period. We stopped the service when we took Laurel back to ISU [Iowa State University] in 1977 and then went on our trip around the periphery of the country, and didn’t resume the service until my heart attack (June 1991).

During this period the compost bin took all the kitchen refuse (including bones although these aren’t recommended for composting), all garden debris was either burned in the fireplace or composted, and all paper, including newspapers, was burned. This left a certain amount of residue which would accumulate in the three garbage cans we’ve acquired over the years. I’d make a trip about once or twice a year to the Sanitary Service dump with this residue and leave it for a small fee.

I adopted this procedure after my previous method of catching the garbageman on his weekly round and getting him to take the residue for a little emolument. I increasingly got the impression from the garbage collector that he viewed this sub rosa method as somehow unethical so I stopped it.

The primary reason for resuming the service was the expectation that after my heart attach that I wouldn’t be up to some of the yard chores that I’d previously attended to, like the periodic trip to the dump. The way it has turned out, about six months later, was that I could have resumed our previous practice. I find that I have a hard time keeping the weekly can reasonably filled, even with trying to sort out extraneous material from our belongings and disposing of it via the garbage can. However I also find that it is easier and simpler to have the service, even though under used, so I guess will continue it.

Firewood, Stoves, and Heating

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I’ve sort of digressed from our trip to Eureka but I’ll digress a little more. The couple who took us looking for huckleberries we seldom see anymore. They were quite active in the local Methodist church when we first arrived in Ashland and we got to know them rather well. The husband worked in the local post office. He had at the time an old pickup and a chainsaw and a couple of times we went up in the mountains to get firewood from a logging slush. Even at this date (10–15 years later) I have a couple of remaining log chunks that I use for setting potted plants on, on the patio, during summer months.

He was really a congenial person, his wife somewhat less so, and I regret that our paths diverged. The wife tended to be more conservative in religious matters than he, and eventually they drifted off to a local Lutheran church, I think Missouri Synod. This may have occurred because the younger of their two daughters married a man from that church and she joined there. I thought to myself what a way to regress theologically — Methodism is bad enough but Missouri Lutheran is outright awful. Perhaps not as bad as the Catholic church but almost.

I encountered my erstwhile wood gatherer at the local grocery store not long ago. It was after my heart attack and surgery and I mentioned I’d had [double bypass] surgery. He said he’d had the same operation about two years ago and he had seven bypasses. I hadn’t even been aware that he’d been ill.

During our early time in Ashland we had other sources of firewood which we used. One was the discard pile at what was then the McGrew mill about a mile from us. Anyone was free to go there and take away whatever was wanted. Since then McGrew went through bankruptcy and the mill was purchased by Croman; their operation us more sophisticated and I think they convert any scrap logs to chips for sale. This practice is actually one that developed after we arrived in Oregon, at least to the extent that it is now used.

Then there were some small manufacturing companies on “A” Street that made such things as surveying stakes and these would periodically put up a sign saying free firewood. Another source was buildings which were being razed; some of the wood pieces recovered from an old barn near Highway 66 and Tolman Creek Road I still have and I use them for various purposes.

The wood which we recovered (Jean helped me) was also the source of the wood I used in constructing my woodshed. I say woodshed since, although it was made originally for this purpose, it has been used instead for storing various miscellaneous stuff. A good part of the wood from the barn was used for firewood however.

When the old Ford garage downtown was torn down, all the building was simply hauled off as debris; I looked on with envy at all the firewood going to waste. I suspect that the construction company didn't want the bother or the potential liability. The garage was on the site of the motel that replaced it; the company that built the motel was very well organized. The motel went up faster than any other building project I have ever watched.

Shortly after we arrived in Ashland I bought some old mill ends that lay on a property that belonged to some official in the local Mormon church. These had been collected for use by indigent Mormon families but had never been needed. Then someone else bought the property and decided to dispose ot eh wood and clean up the property. Then I later bought some wood from Parson Pine products, a local wood products manufacturing concern; I got a large pickup load for $10 and have used it for kindling etc.

The wood which I scrounged I transported partly in the trunk and partly on top of our ’69 Plymouth. We had a car-top carrier that fit this car so that transporting wood on top of the car was feasible. Since disposing of that car in 1984 when we traded it in on the Mercury I haven’t collected any free firewood though I still see signs for it occasionally. One of these is the Shakespeare Festival when they dispose of scenery from their productions when the season closes in late October or early November. I have rooted around in the large dumpster to which they consign this material but the discarded material was never very good for firewood etc.

Our home here has a fireplace both upstairs and downstairs. Early in our stay here we bought a stove and had it installed downstairs on the fireplace hearth. When we bought it there were only a couple of places selling such stoves in the valley; now there are quite a few and the requirements for new stoves, and for the use of them (to avoid air pollution from particulates) have been enacted, and stiffened.

One reason for putting the stove downstairs was heat for Laurel who spent most of her time downstairs. I wonder sometimes if we were remiss in not sensing that it tended to be cool down there to be sitting around. Another instance of not being perceptive about the needs and wants of out offspring.

In recent years I have purchased firewood for the fireplace, and this plus what I have recovered from various pruning jobs around the yard has kept the fireplace supplied. Jean likes to have a fire in the evenings so she can sit and read and keep warm in front of it. Over the time we’ve used it here in Ashland I’ve developed a way of laying the fire so that it will burn rather slowly for the three hours or so when we want it going. The way I do it isn’t perfect as sometimes it burns too slowly, but almost never too fast.

In developing means to dispose of garden debris (during the time we didn’t have garbage service) I even went as far as devising a way of wrapping up small twigs in several sheets of newspaper and tying it in sort of a roll, like a log piece. These I burned in the stove downstairs, not in the fireplace. I’ve sort of discontinued this now that I’m gardening in a somewhat more lackadaisical manner.

Mostly what I’ve used to stoke the stove downstairs (when I’m downstairs at my desk in the colder months) is old newspapers. In recent years we have subscribed to three newspapers — the Wall Street Journal, the Medford Mail Tribune and the Daily Tidings — and the discarded newspapers accumulated rapidly and of course during much of the year they aren’t used up at all so they accumulate even faster. We could dispose of these to recycling except that often there seems to be a glut in the old newspaper market; I sort of feel that using them for fuel for warmth isn’t such a bad way of getting rid of them.

Our supply of old newspapers was enhanced when I was collecting the old San Francisco Chronicles and Los Angeles Times from the college library. This would practically double the supply we had from subscriptions. I’d leaf through the two newspapers for the crossword puzzles, pictures and any articles that might catch my eye. This source of old newspapers stopped when I had my heart attack and subsequent surgery, I couldn’t collect them as I did before and now that I am recovering I don’t seem to have the time to go through them. The last stack that I picked up is actually still lying on the garage floor. The day of my heart attack I had picked up a rather large accumulation at the library — in fact it was when I was carrying a bunch of the papers from the library to the car that I had the sensation of distress that was a forerunner to the attack itself.

We actually don’t burn a lot of wood in the fireplace. In recent years I’ve bought a cord of wood about every other year. For awhile I bought the firewood from a retired logger down at the end of Faith Street near Highway 66. Then he died and I’ve just called up someone advertising in the paper.

Eureka and Huckleberry Pie

Then there were the trips we took on which I checked out various rural properties — I don’t know just when we made these trips but I suspect it was before we acquired the old Joe Johnson farm or the half of dad’s farm after the settlement of his estate when mother died. After this I think my urge to own some farm property was satisfied.

I recall the trip, with the girls along to the 10–15 acre ranch near Turlock; it is remembered as the watermelon ranch as that was the only crop still in evidence. It much have been in the fall of the year when everything else (it appeared to be a small truck farm operation) had been harvested.

A more reasonable investment would have been the alfalfa farm in the vicinity of Chico. This was considerably larger and would have been a more profitable and more easily managed property. But in the end nothing developed — though I was interested enough to take some color slides. These are probably still tucked away in the boxes of slides we have, which we haven’t looked at in years.

When we married Jean had a 35mm camera which she had purchased second hand from Henry Kingsley at work. We used this for several years and we have some slides from the trip we took to Yosemite when Muriel was small. Some of these have deteriorated over the years but are still mementos of various trips. Later we bought and used a Japanese 35mm camera, a Ricoh, which we lost when the ’69 Plymouth was stolen in Golden Gate Park in 1978. This was replaced by another camera, which I think can take either slides or negatives for prints, but which hasn’t received much use.

The leads on possible rural land investments resulted from perusal of such catalogs as those put out by United Farm Agency. I think I continued to received these even after we were here in Oregon but they have now stopped coming. Even those I received while we were living in El Cerrito contained listings of Oregon property, much of it in the northwest corner of the state. Associated in my mind with such property was always the possibility of these places as being places for retirement.

One time Jean and I took a driving trip to Eureka to check it out for retirement potential. On that trip we did not take the girls along. We made the trip at a time when the Cold War and the threat of a nuclear attack on the U.S. was more prominent in the public thinking, and I had decided that the least vulnerable area in the U.S. would be northern California or southern Oregon. There would be virtually no military or population targets worthy of notice and in addition the prevailing wind pattern would be generally west to east and would move radioactive clouds away to the east. And of course the area had no upstream targets so it was safe from the standpoint.

At the same time we did not want an area that was too isolated and with no potential for survival as to shelter and food. So we made the trip to Eureka to check it out as a potential place to move to (even before retirement). I rather liked Eureka and the area around it, having had ever since my days in San Pedro and my first experience with the sea cost (out at Point Fermin) an attraction to the seashore. It does have considerable rain and cloudy weather which did not appeal to Jean but such a climate has a certain attractiveness to me.

The Eureka area economy is of course largely based on logging though there is some agriculture — dairy farms and the like, I suppose mostly for local consumption. The economy has in recent years been depressed and will be more that way in the future, but that does not affect the livability of the area, assuming that there would be income from other sources.

Near Eureka is Arcata with Humboldt State College which I suppose like SOSC in Ashland brings events of cultural interest to the area. Eureka is an old town so there are interesting old buildings in it, such as the Carson mansion. The waterfront with its fishing boats, piers etc. is an area that fascinates me, as it provides many opportunities for sketching and the like.

All in all, I think I could be happy and content in Eureka.

On this “scouting” trip we turned inland from Eureka and took the road to Redding. It was on this leg of our journey that we stopped for an afternoon snack and I had my introduction to huckleberry pie which as ever after been a favorite of mine. The place we stopped was a small town beginning in W (Willow Creek?).

After we moved to Ashland Jean and I made a short trip over to the coast and our route took us past this town, whatever it was. We tried to find the place where we had had the huckleberry pie previously and couldn’t so we stopped at another restaurant for lunch. On inquiry of the waitress who served us I found out that the place we had stopped at before had burned down, probably shortly after we had been there originally.

The first piece of huckleberry pie I had was definitely of a reddish hue and Jean says the huckleberries she had as a child were like this and that she understood the local Indian tribes gathered them for sale. Later on, here in Ashland, we’ve had further contact with huckleberries, but these seem to be a different variety as they are both larger and more purple or blue than red. These huckleberries grow in the forest at the higher elevations (I used to think they only gre in the wild but I’ve seen the plants advertised for sale in local nurseries so I think they can be grown under cultivation also).

We have picked huckleberries a couple of times up in the Cascades, but never successfully as to amount. Mostly what we picked was enough for a pie or two. At least once we went with a couple from the local Methodist church, the husband had leads on places to go to find them. We found some, but not in the abundance that I had expected.

Another time Jean and I went for a hike along a forest trail starting at Four-Mile Lake up off Dead Indian Road and we chanced upon a small stand of huckleberries. We weren’t prepared for picking but I think we had a paper bag with us in which we had carried our lunch and we picked enough berries for a pie I guess.

The trail to Four-Mile Lake is a nice hike and once we had Palma along with us for the walk; I think it was on that occasion that I made a couple of sketches of a well-known local mountain (I can’t recall the name right now) with Four-Mile Like in the foreground. I have since used the sketches for ink drawings of the scenes.

On the way to Crater Lake from Medford there is a Becky’s Cafe where the road leaves Highway 62. We’ve stopped there several times and the cafe has a specialty of huckleberry pie in season; we’ve often treated ourselves there. On one occasion (I think we had Palma and Dave along while they were visiting us) we stopped at the cafe both on the way to the lake and on the way back and I, at least, had a piece of huckleberry pie both times. It seems to me that Palma may have also indulged herself in this regard.

More Vacation Trips

There were also weekend trips or simply daytime excursions that we made with the girls. Included were visits to Placerville where a cousin of Jean’s mother lived (first she and her husband lived in a home somewhat on the outskirts of Placerville, later after her husband died she was in some sort of nursing home in Placerville itself). I seem to remember we had a meal or two at their home; it must have been when the girls were quite small.

Along the coast we visited the house at Sea Ranch that Frank and Marion West had; on at least one occasion we stayed overnight.

Then there was the trip to Fort Bragg and the ride on the “Skunk”Train to Willits and back.

We also made trip to the Santa Cruz area and I believe we spent a week’s vacation once in a rented cabin near Felton. On this or some other trip we visited the Wilsons from whom we had purchased 411 Bonnie Drive — they had bought a home in the area.

And there were visits to the beach at Santa Cruz. Once we spent a vacation week at the home of a Margaret Johnson, a longtime acquaintance of Jean’s. She was a maiden lady, a schoolteacher I believe, and she offered us to stay there while she was off on a trip somewhere. She lived close to the beach south of Santa Cruz.

Then there was the vacation week we spent at a cabin that belonged, or had belonged, to Ray’s brother Ralph from Fresno. I say had because when we were at the cabin Ralph may have already died and the cabin belonged to Marie and his sons. I never met Ralph — I believe I met Ray’s brother Al once and of course we met Fred several times.

Disneyland and Babysitters

Over the years the girls visited Disneyland twice, or it may have been that the first time it was only Muriel and Palma. The first time I was certainly along as I remember, late in the day, that we considered some sort of “ride” for the two of them, perhaps involving donkeys. One of them didn’t want to try it, the other did, but right now I can’t remember which.

It was at a motel nearby to Disneyland that Laurel’s little furry animal “Foxy” was left behind — it had probably been pushed under a bed and escaped our notice. We never went back for it.

Another time our trip to the LA area was coordinated with my going to some technical meeting in downtown LA (probably an AIChE meeting); during one day Jean and the girls went to Disneyland — I think the Ritchies joined them there.

One time Jean and I left the three girls with Mrs. Pyle as babysitter and we went to LA where I was at an AIChE meeting. Late the first or second day Mrs. Pyle called that one of the girls was sick, so we left hurriedly and drove all night to get home. It was I seem to remember a rainy night and it was not a very restful trip back. The illness, whatever it was, wasn’t serious as it turned out.

Mrs. Pyle was one of several babysitters we used over the years — she was perhaps the favorite one of our daughters. She was an elderly lady (actually one of her sons lived across the street from us with his family — down the block two or three houses) who needed the extra income. When we first knew her I think her husband was still living — most of her babysitting for us was after he died.

As I mentioned, [the girls] liked “Pyle” as they called her. On one occasion she was going to make something in the kitchen, with the girls assisting — Jean had salt in the canister marked sugar and Mrs. Pyle had to try to remove all the salt she’d added, which I guess was still in a position to be retrieved. I think the project was ice cream.

She really played with the girls which is probably the reason they liked her. For example she let them play with or comb her hair and I seem to recall there was also a game where she let them “shave” her face

Another babysitter was Mrs. Crescenti — “Senti” to the girls. It was less convenient to use her since she didn’t have a car (Mrs. Pyle had an old Chevrolet I think). Mrs. Crescenti was a rather short plump lady, rather different from Mrs. Pyle who was taller and quite thin. To control her weight Mrs. Crescenti usually had only one meal a day.

On occasion we also used one of the two Pezzaglia girls for babysitting, and we also used a teenager from a couple of doors away (the Nordine girl) quite often. Though relatively young she was quite capable and reliable and was conveniently close.

Chicago

On one of our trips back to the Midwest as a family we flew to Kansas City, visited Verner and his family (I think on that trip they took us to see the Harry Truman library) and then we rented a car and drove to Chicago. On the way we stopped at the college town in Missouri where Winston Churchill gave his “Iron Curtain” speech, and we also went to St. Louis and went up the arch.

In Chicago, we arrived just at the late afternoon rush hour, quite an experience, and we stayed at a downtown motel for a couple of nights. We took the girls to the Field Museum, and I think this was a place that really captured their interest.

One evening we had supper with my cousin Eugen and his wife Dode (Dorothy?). They lived in a high-rise apartment in the downtown area — he worked for an advertising agency in the city. I was I recall an elegant dinner and the whole family enjoyed it. Eugene was all his life a talkative extrovert and people were attracted to him. ow I have sort of a mixed regard for him. As a child I was in a way envious of him, — he seemed sort of glamorous and involved in strange places and doings. His visits to Gowrie (mostly I guess while his father was at seminary in Rock Island) were occasions to look forward to.

Uncle Serenus finished his seminary training more or less at the bottom of the Depression, and since he was no prize as far as his ministerial capabilities were concerned, found it had to get a “call” to a congregation. Actually I think it ended up in some sort of controversy if he was really supposed to be serving at the congregation he ended up at — some other minister thought that he was entitled to the post.

Anyway when the time came for Eugene to go to college (I think they were in Fresno at the time) his parents didn’t have the necessary funds so uncle Carl helped him, wither outright or by a loan. I think he was in the army during WWII but started his career in the advertising field thereafter. He seems to have been reasonably successful. I saw him only one other time since childhood days — he visited us in El Cerrito when he was on a business trip to San Francisco in connection with a [beer?] company advertising program.

His marriage to Dode seems an odd one — she was quite a bit older than he — sort of like a second mother. She was however a congenial person the one time I met her. Eugene and Dode always did a lot of traveling, but mostly outside the U.S. — they didn’t seem to report on their annual Christmas card any trips within the U.S. borders.

After he retired he and Dode moved to Canada (where she was from) and they lived there till she died some years ago. I believe he is still in Canada. One Christmas he indicated he was moving to a retirement facility in North Carolina but they he was ill and apparently changed his mind, and presently is in some sort of retirement place in Canada. He was as I recall a cigarette addict so his illness may have been connected with that.

After we left Chicago we drove to Iowa for further visiting before returning to California.

Yosemite

While Muriel was still quite young, probably less than a year old, we made a trip (the three of us) to YosemiteValley where we stayed several nights at Camp Curry. I think it was my first trip to Yosemite. Then we drove over the Tioga Pass Road to Tuolomne Meadows where we spent a couple of days. The Tioga Pass Road was unimproved at that time — just an unpaved, un-gravelled one-lane path through the forest.

It was cold at night at Tuolomne Meadows, I think we were in some Sierra Club cabins, and one night at least we took Muriel and had her in bed between us. This was of course long before I developed my interest in sketching and water-coloring, but me recollection ow is that there is a lake on the roadthat is really a picturesque, high mountain tarn that would be a good subject. We stopped at the lake and I think we have a color slide or two of it.

From Tuolomne Meadows we went down the Lee Vining Grade to Bishop on the east side of the Sierras. This road also, at the time, was relatively unimproved and for a person like myself who hadn’t done much driving up in the mountains it was a rather tense drive. I don’t recall now what our rout was from Bishop back to the Bay Area.

My recollection is that I’ve been in Yosemite twice since then. Once it was Jean and I, along with our three daughters and we came from Bishop, then Tuolomne Meadows and through the valley. That was the trip that Jean instructed the girls to lay down their books, stop reading and look at the scenery for awhile. I’m not sure the instructions did much good, all three of them were not interested in what we were passing.

The other time was when we took my mother on a sight-seeing trip when she visited us in El Cerrito after my father died. This memory is rather vague but I think we stayed at the Ahwahnee facility in the valley the night we were there. I wonder if we may have taken her down to see Marold and Jeanne later on. I don’t recall if we had our daughters along — I have no memory about them at all.

California Missions

While I am writing about vacations I should not forget to mention our stops at the California missions. Jean had the idea that these visits would be educational and well as entertaining to our daughters. She divided the missions into three groups and we intended to concentrate on one group for each of the daughters. The reaction of our daughters was one of at best marked disinterest and they still remark with amused regard of their parents’ efforts when the subject comes up.

The missions were in various states of repair and renovation. I guess most of them were in disrepair and abandonment more or less at some time in their history. I found the restored missions of less interest than the one (I think near Soledad) which was totally unrestored. It was on one visit that we stopped at an antique store and we acquired a restored old chair with red upholstery — I managed to rearrange things in the trunk so that we could take it with us directly.

Family Vacations

Our car was new that year but it did develop a minor trouble on the way. A small piece of sand got into one of the rear wheel bearings and while it didn’t impair the car’s operation it was an annoying click periodically when the wheels turned. When we were in Gowrie I took it into Art Soderbeck’s Plymouth garage and had the bearing replaced. Then there were several car agencies in Gowrie, all with repair facilities — quite different from the present state of affairs when I don’t know how much repair work if any is done.

Although we would many years use at least part of the vacation time for a trip back east to see my parents, we also made many trips around California and spent time at various places just to let the girls play and for Jean and me to relax. One place we went several times was the Meeks Bay Resort on the California side of Lake Tahoe. We would have a cabin on the shore of the lake and it was an ideal place for the children to play in the water.

How we learned of the place I’m not sure but it may have been from our next-door neighbors the Weeks (Claude and Grace) who I seem to recall had a summer cabin there. In fact I think we looked them up one when we were there. Claude had an oil station on Fairmount Avenue not far from us and as he did automotive repair work we often used him for various work that needed to be done as well as periodic service work.

I recall one than Jean’s dad’s big Chrysler had a dead battery down at the El Cerrito Plaza — why he was there I can’t remember but it may have been a Masonic Lodge meeting. Anyway he called up and asked me to push him to get him started. It was a job for the yellow Plymouth to push the Chrysler and I had to do it in low gear. Afterward I couldn’t get it to shift up into intermediate or high gear. Claude fixed the car for us; I suppose he had to replace some parts in the Plymouth’s gearbox.

I was a little irked that Jean’s dad didn’t offer to recompense for the repairs on the Plymouth.

Another place that we visited several years for a week during the summer months was the Lair of the Bear, a family camp up in the Sierras off Highway 50 that was operation for the California alumni association. The accommodations were tent cabins as I recall with toilet and bath facilities separate. Here meals were served and there was some evening entertainment and organized daytime activities. I believe there was a swimming pool.

I suppose it was a reasonably good vacation experience but I really didn’t enjoy it, and besides it was really chilly getting up in the morning in the unheated cabin. It was also not a particularly friendly place, people tended to sort of separate into cliques. We did meet one family that we have kept in touch with over the years — the Kennys — who lated moved to Canada in Ontario, and whom we visited there in 1977 when Jean and I had our driving tour around the periphery of the U.S.

On one of our stays at the Lair, Ray and Alta happened to be camping near the lair in their trailer, and we looked them up for a visit. During that period Ray was still actively fishing from time to time, mostly stream fishing. Earlier on he and a dentist friend went salmon fishing in the ocean on the dentist’s boat, but this activity ceased when Ray started to get seasick when out on the boat.

Ray belonged to an organization called the Rod and Gun Club during the period when our daughters were young, and this group would on occasion go “clamming” over along the coast in Marin County. I recall these excursions with fond memories. The clams at Bolinas or Tomales Bay were the horse neck clams that required a lot of digging. These were large clams and Ray would taken them back and “clean” them which was putting them in a bucket of water with cornmeal in the water and the clams would irrigate the sand out of their systems, replacing it with cornmeal. After this had gone on for a day or so the clams would be harvested for their meat. Jean would use our share to make a kind of clam pie that I always enjoyed.

We also went clamming for the smaller cockleshell clams at another location, a rocky beach which was their habitat. On one of these occasions I saw one of the “clammers” break open one of the small clams and eat the clam meat raw. I don’t think I could, or would, have done that.

Sometimes the clamming trips were family outings but I think sometimes Ray and I went alone. I can well remember on one of the cockleshell trips seeing the well-bundled-up girls sitting on the rocky beach eating the picnic lunch we had brought with us. As a fisherman, Ray was interested in trying to get our daughters into fishing and through him we got two of them probably Muriel and Palma, fishing rods. But they didn’t have much interest, probably we were not very often in a situation where they could be used.

About the only time I can recall when they were used was once when we spent some vacation time at Mammoth Lakes in the eastern slope of the Sierras. On that trip we all went “fishing” at one of the mountain lakes, but no fish were caught. I tried my hand also but with no success. We still had the fishing rods when we moved to Ashland and we finally disposed of them to a local family.

I don’t think it was the time we went to Mammoth Lakes, but sometime or other we also made a trip to Death Valley. On this trip we visited “Scotty’s Castle” in the valley. This is a privately owned enclave in the public area (park or monument or whatever) and was staffed and operated by as hard-eyed and mafia-like group of individuals as I think I’ve ever encountered. We talked to the ranger on the way out and I got the impression that the park service would have liked to have had them out of the valley.

It was on this trip that we stopped at an “antique” store where I saw old Musterole bottles for sale — this had been my dad’s remedy for his “sick headaches” and the sift of the jugs was quite nostalgic.

We stayed at a motel in the valley and it was here that the shower room had a little aperture in the ceiling — it looked like access to a crawl space above the room. Our daughters started to play at throwing a wash rag at the opening and succeeded in getting one through it do that it didn’t come back. It was on the trip to Death Valley that we also visited the parents of Jean’s friend Bea Willard where they lived in Lone Pine. That was their winter residence, in summer they had a cabin in the Mammoth Lakes area — we also visited them there at one time.

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

While I was unmarried, my vacation time was for the most part spent on trips back to the Midwest to visit my parents and other family members. During the war years I’d typically ride the old Challenger train over the CP, UP and CNW tracks between Los Angeles and Boone. It was relatively easy to get accommodations on this train whereas the more prestigious trains were more difficult (and one’s plae more apt to be “bumped” by some higher priority traveler). I didn’t try to fly of course, for one thing I’d never flown at that point and such travel was even more chancy.

After the war I tended to switch to the better trains such as the City of San Francisco et al. I recall when Vivian and Aunt Laurine visited me in California in 1946, I accompanied them back to the Midwest and the leg of the trip from Denver to Boone was on the City of Denver.

After Jean and I were married we tended to use the train in the earlier trips back easy, but gradually shifted to flying. I guess the first flying trip back was when Muriel was a little child. The trip back was coordinated with a business trip for me. I remember the flight back when Jean, Muriel and I were together — it was via Kansas City and the Kansas City–San Francisco part of the trip was on the old Constellation aircraft. That was a night flight, one of the few that we took such.

In 1958 we bought the yellow Plymouth and that year we took two trips in our new automobile. The first was south and I think we got as far as San Diego to see Marold and Jeannie who were living there in their first house, after Marold finished his navy career, schooling and was starting to work. The second was a more ambitious trip and took us back east, on one of the few times we drove. I must have saved up some vacation time since I think we used three or four weeks for the trip.

The drive east started off on what is now I-80, then it was Highway 40 I believe. Our route took us through Nevada and in Elko we met briefly with Jean’s dad who was off on one of his driving trips alone — Jean’s mother refused to go along on these excursions of his. It was indeed a coincidence that our paths crossed — we knew of the possibility but I at least hardly expected it. We had stopped at a restaurant for an afternoon snack and sometime during the stop, Jean’s dad’s big Chrysler pulled up.

Our route next took us to Estes Park where we came in over the high road to the west of the park. We stayed at a cabin provided by Jean’s friend Bea Willard who showed us around. I can remember Paalma and Muriel being entranced by the chipmunks — in Palma’s childish phraseology the “chickimucks.” I can still see her reaching for them. On one of our hikes we took along the potty chair as part of the hiking gear — I can recall carrying it.

Our trip took us to Gowrie of course, but I think we also got as far south as Joplin to visit Clarice and family.

The return started across the plains of Kansas and there was the long remembered stop on a hot dusty afternoon at Dodge City, Kansas. That was when we encountered the apply dumpling dessert (with ice cream) that became a later staple of our dessert menu. We passed across Colorado directly east to west, just about the middle of the state. The two things I remember about this crossing were the Black Canyon of the Gunnison — a deep narrow canyon into which in late September when we were there the sun hardly penetrated. The other was passing over the Contintental Divide. We had of course passed over it on the way east but going west it was more clearly marked at the roadwide.

The last night on the road we stayed at one of the less elegant motels we have stayed at over the years at Delta, Utah. The next day we traversed the whole 700 miles to El Cerrito, the longest driving day we have ever had and one which Jean said she’d never try again. We were really tired when we finally got home. We had sort of expected to stay at some place like Placerville but nothing seemed to turn up so we just kept driving.

Laurel's Arrival

I have a rather clear picture of the evening when Laurel was born. It was a Sunday (I’m pretty sure) and we must have taken Muriel and Palma out to the Rosels that day and left them for a week (two weeks?) star because they weren’t on hand. Jean and I went out for supper at a restaurant in the El Cerrito Plaza — it was opposite a candy store (perhaps See’s) and either during the meal or thereafter we commented on some of the customers going to the store.

It was during the meal or shortly thereafter that Jean experienced her first labor pains so we went directly to Alta Bates. Since these were the first signs, and thinking back to the time involved in Muriel’s and Palma’s births I expected a long evening and night at the hospital. This was not the case however and Laurel was born by nine o’clock or so. I think it was the easiest birth of our three daughters for Jean and it was a birth without medication. Laurel was the smallest at birth, a little shy of seven pounds — Muriel had been close to eight pounds and Palma was several ounces over.

It was a great help to have Muriel and Palma at the Rosels during the time of Laurel’s birth and first days at home. A day or so before they were to come back home, Palma was running, fell down and scuffed her knees. That is about the extent of my recollection of their stay but I well recall other times when they were at the Rosels when we were visiting there as a family.

Once I recall Ray filled a bucket with some soapy water and gave the girls am old-time pup to play with. He showed them how to put the hose in the water and then to move the plunger up and down. I can still see Palma busily working the pump, with her little arms stretched over her head as she raised the plunger up.

These afternoon visits to the Rosels were often on Sundays and I’d help Ray with pruning jobs etc., such as the grape vines on the arbor between the house and the garage. Once I remember Ray uncovered some moles in the back of their lot on one of these occasions and his showing them to the girls. Then after supper there was the drive back, after dark, and the process of getting everyone to bed.

Young Palma

The circumstances attendant to Palma’s birth are less clear to me. I do recall that Jean went to Alta Bates but when she arrived there nothing transpired for some time and she walked in order to start the birth process going again. I think that finally she was given something to induce labor. I believe that this was along toward evening and that the birth occurred about mid evening. Muriel must have been temporarily with Jean’s sister in Walnut Creek — I have no recollection of her on the scene when Palma and Jean came home from the hospital.

There are several happenings in Palma’s early life that are indelibly etched in my memory. Perhaps the first of these is her “reading” ’Twas the Night Before Christmas for the assembled family one Christmas Eve. And I remember her reading the abridged version of Black Beauty that she knew by rote long before she could read.

Then there was the time when we were on vacation with my brother Verner’s in Rock Island and she strayed off with her doll and buggy. That was surely a scary experience until she turned up. I wonder if that may have been the start of her reluctance to be alone. I seem to recall that it may have started, according to Jean, once when she woke up from a nap and Jean wasn’t around to respond to her call. At any rate she was very averse for a long time to being out of sight of either Jean or some familiar person. This extended to being left at Rhythm School [pre-school] although I think she finally accepted this.

Vicissitudes of Parenting

As I look back at our child-rearing I can’t help but feel that we lacked understanding and empathy at times for our three daughters. Perhaps it was just the press of other activities, such as household tasks or the attention given to work at Shell, but too often I think we didn’t sense what was turning over in those little minds. Since Muriel was the first I think she was the most disadvantages in this respect — sje passed through all the stages of infancy, childhood and teenage years first and it was new to Jean and me as well as to her, so we suffered from obtuseness of outlook and perception.

I look back on a few incidents and I just sort of melt inside now at what she faced from us and circumstance. Once with Muriel during the time was was being toilet trained I was sitting alongside her as she say on the potty. She was not producing (with Muriel’s holding capacity at the time this was not surprising) and my function I guess was to impress on her what we wanter her to do. In response to my psychological pressure on her she finally came out with “I can’t” in sort of a plaintive voice that I can still hear and which cut me to the quick then, and the memory of it still does. This little being, not being able to satisfy her demanding patent, giving voice to her desperation.

Then there was the time when Muriel was going to go on some sort of skiing outing with a church group at Epworth. We had arranged to rent what seemed the appropriate attire, which include ski pants etc., but also included these big clunky ski boots. She had these one, and I think we should have sensed that, while they might have been the right thing for skiing they weren’t the footwear for this outing. She had no basis for assessing the situation and her parents had unthinkingly placed her in a position where she was awkward and out of context at best. I don’t recall how the situation finally developed, but looking back I just feel that we didn’t consider adequately what she was facing. Then and now, I just wanted to put my arms around her in an encompassing embrace and ask her forbearance for what had been done to her.

There were happy times and incidents of course — playing endless games of Parcheesi or other board games, reading and re-reading the favorite stories, seeing them playing in the sandbox on the patio or on the swing or glider set, going to the playground down in Oakland and watching them slide down the corkscrew slide endlessly.

Muriel Arrives

With Muriel we actually made two trips to Alta Bates. The first time we went nothing transpired so Dr. Aitken sent Jean home. She [Muriel] was born on the second visit, shortly after noon on August 25, 1954. There actually was an unseasonable light rainy spell in Berkeley to herald her arrival.

Jean and Muriel came home from the hospital after the usual several days and it seems to me that Jean’s mother was on hand for awhile that day but mostly it was I coping with making baby formula for the first time along with well the other rather unfamiliar household tasks, as well as those specific to the homecoming. By the end of the day I was exhausted and Jean still remarks how I snored that night.

Jean had borrowed or obtained in some fashion a bassinet and Muriel slept in that her first months. Often during our evening meal she would be in a wakeful, fretful period and we would have her in the kitchen beside us, where we would be moving the bassinet with one hand and eating with the other.

I recall that when Muriel was born she had little tufts of hair on the top tips of her ears — I guess these little tufts soon disappeared as I have no recollection of them later.

Girl babies sometimes have a slight flow of blood, similar I suppose to menstrual flow, shortly after birth. I (we) were unaware of this so when it occurred with Muriel we were considerably perturbed until reassured by the pediatrician. The latter was one Dr. Brown, who both lived and had his office in a house in north Berkeley, sort of at the point where the Alameda and the old Grove Street (now ML King Street) meet.

Brown was really a character, but he loved children and was very good with them. He was one of the homeliest men I think I’ve ever seen — he was called “Old Hatchet-Face” by his colleagues in the medical profession and indeed the description was rather apt. One of Brown’s recommendations was that orange or other citrus fruit should always be eaten first, on an empty stomach, so that the body could best use and assimilate the vitamins etc.

Jean’s expenses at the hospital were I think covered by Shell’s medical plan, but I’m not sure about this. I think both Dr. Aitken’s bill for care during pregnancy (I think it was about $100–$150 for the care through the delivery) and Brown’s package deal for the first year of care for Muriel were our responsibility — at least I have no recollection of submitting a claim to Shell for reimbursement. At that time medical insurance coverage was just starting to be used; nowadays much is made of the need for it — then most people just did without and made do as best as possible.

One of Jean’s recollections of Alta Bates, from her first birth experience there as well as subsequent ones, was the wonderful meals that were served. It was when Muriel was born that Jean met Lucille Piehl, who was in the same two-person ward as Jean. Lucille was also having her first child, Marybeth, and this chance meeting led to a long-time acquaintanceship between our two families. The Piehls lived for a long time in El Sobrante; we sort of lost track of them when they moved to Napa. They had subsequently two boys, John and Billy. Billy, the youngest, was one of the most appealing little boys I have ever encountered.

Muriel and Carl, December 17, 1954

I have various recollections of Muriel as a young child. She was an inquisitive child and it was necessary to keep a close eye on her or she would be “getting into things.” I suppose it was when she started crawling or toddling around the kitchen that Jean resorted to tying the cupboard handles together so that they couldn’t be opened. And she spent time in the playpen — over the years we had two different pens. The first one was the larger and we acquired it secondhand I think. The bottom needed replacement which I made, but what I made did not fold up as the original had so it wasn’t as easy to transport. Later we disposed of it I think and purchased a smaller one.

I can still see Muriel standing in the first, larger playpen just beyond the door into the dining room and adjacent the living room table (one of the items that Jean brought with her). It was from the dining room table where Jean had been sewing a shirt as a Christmas gift for my brother Vincent and had left the buttons for the shirt that Muriel reached and proceeded to swallow at least one of the buttons. We recovered it (them) and they graced the final shirt.

It was at a later time that Muriel scratched her name on the tabletop of this same dining room table. Muriel was walking as I recall before she was a year old and some time when she was a toddled we took her with us when we attended an open house given by a Shell visitor from Holland who was about to return to Holland. The visitor had rented a bric-a-brac–filled house during his stay and I spent the time we were at the open house following her around and steering her away from all the little items she was attracted to.

It was with Muriel that Jean obtained a little harness with a little leash attached to use when she had her with her outside the house. I can remember “losing” her when we were in Capwell’s in El Cerrito plaza; I suppose this was before Jean had found the little leash.