RIGGINS

RIGGINS, IDAHO Salmon river, the River of No Return. When I was a sophomore, Dad worked in Riggins, Lots of weekend commuting. He decided fairly early that we should all move to Riggins. So they parked the trailer in a pasture of the Horn family. We stayed in a nice cabin near a good sized creek. There was no TV reception or radio. We played in the creek, there were apparently otters but I never saw them. We were sent to Bible school, a bus picked us up and were home by early afternoon. One of the teachers thought I was the mother of the girls. I didn't know whether to be insulted or laugh. There was the obligatory pasting of macaroni on paper for The the girls. I do not remember much else. Dad decided that me, Richard and Phillip would be enrolled in school. I was delighted to find there was aan art class. The classes were each two hours long and rotated through the week so that the afternoon was free for assemblies or sports. I saw a beautiful young man who smiled at me and my heart was instantly lost. I actually felt a pang of some sort. His girl was blond and they were the power couple. Art class was fabulous. I used oil paints and I loved the smell of both oil pain as well as turpentine. I do not remember painting anything worthwhile. One project was plaster of paris. I used a half gall milk carton for the mold and carved a native face looking upward. The art teacher was impressed and displayed it in a case. My friend lived in Lucille which is just over the time line where it was Pacific time not Mountain. So folks were used to adjusting the drive here and there. One time we rode horses and it was so much fun, even took off our shirts, the things to see us were birds. Dad picked me up for lunch one time. We met one of his supervisors and a flunky named Herb. I had a burger. Did had something other than the special. The big boss ordered heart and so did Herb the flunky. I loved that experience so much. We all learned to play a card game called Nertz. It is a kind of reverse solitaire. The goal was to put all the cards into the discard pile and yell Nertz. It went very quickly.