CLOVER DRIVE

Ah..Clover Drive. I have many memories of that little home. Shortly before I entered the first grade, our family moved to Boise, Idaho. In particular, Clover Drive. It was a small subdivision located behind The Old Soldiers Home. The house was two bedrooms, one bath. It was located at the end of the street. In back the house was pasture for the dairy herd at the Old Soldiers Home. We never saw any cows in that pasture. The only reason Richard and I did not haunt the place was because there was a big old bull pastured there. Dad assured us that we would be safe so long as we stayed on our side of the fence. Soon after we moved in, Dad took me to my first day of school. As it turned out, I needed to be at a different school for which I had to take the school bus which was fun. Our neighbors to the south of us were Pat and Betty McCoy. He was a meat inspector and she was a pretty plump housewife. They asked Mom and Dad to cat a Siamese kitten for them. It was about two weeks of crazy kitty dashing about. Then the kitten was shipped to it's forever home. There were lots of kids in Clover Drive. We happened to have an old shed in the back that contained a twin bed which stood in as a trampoline. One time a bunch of us decided to put on a show. We went around the neighborhood telling the adults when it would be and we would be charging a nickel a piece. Unbelievably, a few parents did show up and watched a bunch of giggling kids jump on that twin bed and sing, I think. The parents were very polite, if not a little relieved when we finally stopped bouncing and yelling. One weekend my older cousin, Carl, came for a visit. He cooked cracklings over a wood fire built in the backyard. I still like real cracklings. Just past the end of the street was a farm house next to the Boise river. The farmer's wife would ring the triangle when it was time for her husband to come to dinner. One weekend several parents and mine went to the river to enjoy the water. We kids played like crazy. At one point, Richard said that he could swim. Can't. Yeah, all you gotta do is move your arms like this1 and in he jumped. I believe one of the parents spotted him jump and got him out immediately when it became obvious that he did NOT know how to swim. (Which prompted the swimming lessons one summer while Dad worked in Hell's Canyon). Both Richard and I each had a couple bouts of both chicken pox as well as measles. Immunization did not exist in the 50's. If you got it, you got it. I remember lying in a dark room listening to the radio trying to figure out how those little people got inside the radio. I looked very carefully but never did see anyone. I really liked school. Especially painting. I actually had a piece of my work hung in the Boise Art Gallery. It was a giant white rabbit painted in profile on a bed of very green grass. There was a tree trunk on the right with rounded foliage and a quarter yellow sun on the left. I imagine the entire class had their paintings there on display. Probably titled something “First Grade Realism”. I actually joined Brownie Scouts. I don't remember much other than it was from these meetings that Mom acquired the recipe for Chocolate Mayonnaise cake. That and I learned how to sew a tiny felt coin purse with s snap to keep my pennies. One of my favorite toys or maybe much borrowed from other kids, was a pair of skates. I adored skating. Of course there were minor injuries. I got the web of my thumb caught in a little metal rifle when I pulled the handle back. Ouchie. We had a pair of little wooden folding chairs. The back lifted up for folding. Richard lifted the seat while still sitting and pinched the heck out of his fingers. We had television for the first time while living on Clover Drive. It came on about noon and was on until about 5 pm. I remember Dad telling us that we were going to visit Uncle Carl and Aunt Rosalie who had TV that broadcast all day long! I was terrified of one program, it was Flash Gordon. Just about the time he was going to get eaten by the giant octopus, I was peeking at it down he hallway. There was a house I had to walk by each day that a fence behind which very noise German Shepherds barked at us kids on our way to the bus stop. It was very scary. One time on the way home on the bus, just as I was getting ready to come forward to get off the bus, I noticed a couple of dumb old boys talking and pointing at me. As I passed, one of them jumped up and kissed me on the cheek. I got off very puzzled and didn't have time to hit him. Another time, as I walked down the lane, a butterfly landed on my dress. I was enchanted. We stayed at Clover Lane for a couple of years. I am not sure why the suburban life ended but I am pretty sure that Dad lost his temper at someone or other at Idaho Power and quit. Aunt Wanda reminded me that Dad purchased a drag line after that in order to bring in a living wage. We lived on a farm near Payette at that time. We went to school there in a lovely old story brick school house with a lovely safely slide that I never got the opportunity to go down. Dad told us years ago that a man can always find a job. He could not stand laziness. He the army a qualified mechanic and knew his way about any kind of motor vehicle. His passion though was large machinery. He operated caterpillars, back hoes, drag lines but never got to operate a crane. Our favorite toy as kids were cotter keys used to hold the teeth in a back hoe. We thought we had the keys to the kingdom.