SET THE WAY BACK MACHINE

Does anyone remember this.  We were living in the Great Lakes 12 wide and it was parked where the larger store now resides.  One day I came home from school and there was a large gray thing lying on a plate on the table.  I asked Mom what it was. Cow tongue.  What are you going to do to it.  Boil it, peel it and grind it up for sandwich spread.  She did, added Mayo and salt and pepper.  It was delicious.  I would have added onions and garlic but such spices did not exist in the Berglund house hold.  Back in the day people did not own home freezer.  You had to rent a locker in town.  Whenever Dad had a steer butchered it was mostly hamburger. rpasts and T bone steaks.  They never used the heart and occasionally calves brains, Gag. It tastes like chicken.  Nope.  Also the liver, I an a non taster and love liver.  However mom baked it for an hour and the onions were delicious, the liver was tougher than whange leather, what ever that means.  

Another time, there was an assembly and Mel Blanc came and did various voices and he was charming.  I told everyone about it.  The girls had met him and he performed for them as well.  Cool.

Also that same year I came home and Mom was sewing something.  I picked up the pattern and it was a maternity top.  I asked who she was making this for and she grumped ME   I wish I had hugged her and told her that this baby would keep her young.  There was also the advantage that her big belly would stop speculation after I left about me. l Of all Da Noive.  Then the folks bought Grandma Berglunds house near the high school.  Pretty sure the Great Lakes was part of the down payment. The only house the folks every completely paid off. 

TWO MORE BARROW STORIES

 Today I want to talk about Lois Anderson, Kuspuks and Bingo.

Lois worked in housekeeping the hospital. One day she wore a Kuspuk and I asked if she made it.  Yes. Did she use a pattern.  No. she measured her fist three times on my shoulderl.  A couple of weeks later she brought in a Kuspuk with a small flower pattern on blue with orange rick rack, all seems were raw.  I gave her my knitted had that Mom had made. I was thrilled.  I asked if she would make another if I bought fabric and rick rack for her  Sure.  Mine had sea shells on it and wrinkled like crazy.  My kuspuk washes perfectly never had to iron it.  I gave the sea shell one to Janice, my boss lady who I knew once it was washed would NEVER see an iron.  Heh heh heh.  I loved Dillingham.  

One day Lois told me a story she was going to save for the radio after she retired.  It is very high status to relate how many jobs one has held during their life.  One nice summr day Lois and her sister decided to go to Bingo. She dressed with a lightweight jacket an they walked to the hall.  They got their cards and sat down.  The door was open but it was still warm.  After a while Lois unzipped her jacket and slipped it off her shoulders.  The gentleman calling the numbers gave Lois a big old smile.  Her sister glanced over at her and hissed, " Lois! You are only wearing your bra!".   Hee

LIMERICKS

 I can only remember three Limericks: The first one is from Barbara Whelan. God Bless her, I miss her she was a wondeful.

First; Under the spreading chest nut tree, the village idiot sat, amusing himself by abusing himself and catching the stuff in his hat.

Second was: A young lady named Jill, tried TNT for a thrill. They found her vagina in North Carolina and bits of her tits in Brazil.  

Third was: A girl from Dekaktur left in a freighter.  She was had by the master, a total disaster, but the crew all made up for it later.  

TELEVISION

 

TELEVISION:

My earliest memories of TV was when we lived in Boise on Clover lane behind the Old Soldiers Home. I remember watching Flash Gordon, Those shows scared me and I would hide in the hallway and peek around the corner. Flash was always in trouble. I also watched lots of Our Gang Comedies. Those stories always had a plot. A granny who is very poor finds out that she gave away her stocks papers to the kids so they could tie them to their kites. They had an adventure following a giant into a cave and discovered treasure. Then someone played truant and everyone else got to go to an amusement park. They were always putting together some kind of transportation involving a mule. At one time of the kids was looking at an artichoke and said, “It might choke Artie but it won't choke me”. Darla was the object of affection by Alfalfa who sang. Spanky was the chubby kid getting into trouble.

Other TV shows were Miss Mary which I found boring. The Merry Milkman was ok. There were not many cartoons. Of course there were lots of I Love Lucy episodes. Favorite viewing night was Sunday there was the Ed Sullivan Show and Walt Disney. One of the favorites was Fess Parker playing he part of King of the Frontier Daniel Boone and Buddy Ebson was his side kick. The merchendise even sold a fake Coonskin cap. We were not indulged. I like the bad guy, Mike Fink who had a long boat which was propelled on the river by pushing oars. I remember a trick rifle shot involving shooting holding the rifle backwards over his shoulder and using a mirror to aim.

The next wonder was that on a trip to Petaluma dad told us that TV lasted all evening, did not stop at 5 pm. Yay.

The most channels Boise had was ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS. Commercials consisted of Ipana Toothpaste, Hiawatha carpets and See the USA in your Chevrolet. Very unlike infomercials and big Pharma. Ugh.

Some of my favorite early shows were Rod Serlings Twilight Zone, The other one and Mission Impossible. I was looking up the stars on Mission and Leonard Nimoy was Paris. I do not remembe him at all.

BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY

 

BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY

When I returned to Emmett, Idaho as a displaced housewife, I had a young son and no apparent aspects. We lived with my folks for a while. I worked in Emmett at the Dewey Apple Orchard. I took an apptitude test at the local employment office. The Masters of Social Work told me that I qualified for three jobs; first was as an OSHA imspector, no thanks people were shooting at them. As a nuclear technician, no I would have to move to eastern Idaho. Last was as a medical records technician. There was a two year degree at BSU. Oh, tell me more. While waiting for school to start, I worked at Carnation potatoe plant on night shift.

I signed up for a small scholarship of two hundred dollars. By the time I registered I had gone from sixth place to first to get the money. That paid for books. I qualified for a Basic Education Oopportunity Grant that pain for tuition. I took a full load. I found a full tilme job at St. Al's in medical records on night shift. I found an apartment near a 24 hour child care center. Perfect. I had lab for biology which was a pain time wise, I was looking for shortcuts to save time everywhere I could. That was three hours a week. I was lucky for medical terminology. She gave new word list and test on Fridays, so Iws able to skip Monday and Wednesday class.

One of my favorite classes was that of Introduction to Western Civilization. The teacher loved psyching people out. The first thing he asked was what grade did we want Huh/

For instance what would we do in class for a grade Perhaps read the book and do a project. Okaaaay. I chose read book, do project. We never even opened the book or took tests. While working in medical records, a doctor asked me to pull a chart for a prisoner who was famous for swallowing sharp objects and then having surgically removed. His path report read in part ….And a partridge in a pear tree. So I decided to contact him to see if he wanted to visit our class room. No he was not interested. It was the easiest A ever made. The grade curve in Biology was such that my B held up well enough to get me on the Dean's List. Woot!

One of my class mates, Elvi Antonssen asked me to house sit. Nice. Everything was working well until my last semester when I had to have three two week long visits to different places and there just was not room for Charlie. I asked Mike if he would take him for my last semester and he agreed. I would be there right after school ended. I chose the VA hospital, Caldwell Hospital, a short visit at a Long Term Care Facility and at Walter Knox Memorial Hospital. I loved all of it. I got Charlie and worked at St. Al's for a few months before getting the director job at WKMH. Thank you everyone for all the help.

BUS RIDES

 

BUS RIDES:

My first bus ride was when I was about two or

 three years old.  I am sure that Richard was

 with us.  Dad was working in Eastern Oregon 

and Mom had to return to Emmett for some 

reason.  So we took a bus.  The main thing 

I remember was when we were nearing Ontario 

there was an over powering smell of onions. 

 Phew!

Next bus rides were the routine school bus 

rides when ever we lived out in the country

 sides.

One very special bus ride was one to eastern

 Idaho to attend the 1965 Basketball 

tournament which Emmett won for their 

division. I screamed myself hoarse.

There was one memorable bus ride when we 

lived near Riggins.  Mom found us a Church 

Day Camp to attend.  Away we went, all six 

of us. One of the ladies thought the girls 

were my daughters.  We all did the macaroni 

and glue art project. I remember some one 

asking about religious preferenes.  Not a

 problem attended plenty of Sunday school here and there.  I am sure the lady was d by my eccumenial leanings.

When I lived in California, my first roommate

 took a trip back east.  She had me take a 

bus from Vallejo to Reno wher we met.  

That was fun. The trip up was unremarkable 

except for a black couple who were drunk and 

argued.  The bus driver finally had them leave the bus at some point.  There are always intereting folk to be found on a bus.

Then I took a bus ride with Charlie from 

Philo,CA to Novato.  We were scheduled for a 

trip to Idaho. We rode on a helicopter to 

SFO and it was noisy.

Before that I was chaperon for Vicky on her 

class trip. We weny from Novato to Disney. 

This was shortly after a big quake that 

brought down freeways.  Once we got close, 

the driver very carefully got to the Happiest

 Place.  It was fun.  I forgot how few places

 there are to sit down in Dinny land.

I got got we had a bus system in Barrow, 

you 

could look on the Eskimo channel to see how close it was.  Hop on drop in a token, away you go!! Occasionally the driver would say where were by saying “ And here is the Blue Hotel. Jail” Every one laughed.  

If I ever hit the lottery I would start a l

ocal bus service for Coquille and to Myrtle 

Point for free. Wheeee.

MOMS STORY

MOMS STORY:

I guess Mom got tired of me talking all about Dad stories.  I had talked about the time he ran away from home at age eleven and took a lenghthy journey, the time he and Carl burned the neighbor farmer hay stack and the time he went AWOL and got away with it.

 So she told me that she once stolen five pounds of sugar. Oh, do tell I purred. She was on a date with some one, not Dad. They had gone dancing. There may be been the itty bitty aount of liquor consumed. The went to the Ola Store.  There was a very bit stack of five pound bags of sugar.  She decided to steal one and put it in her coat pocket...deep pocket.  I asked her what she did with it. She put in her mothers pantry.  Grandma Horn baked a lot. She usually made pies and routinely kept one hundred pounds of sugar and baked bread and kept one hundred pounds of flour.
 

I wish I had asked her if she had committed any other girlish indiscretions. I know that she droppd out of highschool and worked in a bakery an then at the local five and dime, I think it was Sprouse. She boarded with lady who owned the store. She was very independent. The sugar was taken well before WWII and rationing began. I remember her telling me that she was painting the bedroom when they heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor. She said she got her first pair of nylong after she married. Her wedding shoes were leather, brown and heeled. Ellen has them. I remember her telling me that Dad gave her a Pink Kimono which came from Uncle Carl as he had been stationed in Japan. She said she made it into a dress. I do wish she had kept the Kimono. So did she. If anyone has other memories, please share.