BECOMING A WOMAN

 It has been several decades since, but when we lived on Pine Creek, Dad was working on the Hells Canyon Dam project, Mom decided that I needed to be informed on what was to come. She gave me a pamphlet and told me to read it.  Ok.  When I was finished, she asked me what I thought.  I just shrugged, I was eager to go back outside and play with everyone else.  I pretty much forgot all about it.  In middleschool, all the girls had to go watch a film in Health Class.  Again I failed to understand any of it.  Did not ask my girlfriends what it was all about. I was eager to go check out a book from the study hall library and lose myself in tales about teenagers and horses.  I do remember reading the directions on a box of Kotex and while it said the pad could not be seen.  I thought the pad went across the stomach and thought it would be a dead giveaway to lumpiness.  Eventually, I got my first period.  I hollered at Mom who came into the bathroom and showed me where the pad actually went and how to hook front and back with the little elastic belt.  No big deal.  Had a couple of crampy periods but over all went well.  Learned to check for leaks before leaving the house, etc.  Still did not realize that Mom was also experiencing the joys of woman hood.  Could have been a bonding moment.  Later on, I learned all about Tampax and I did not feel that I benefited all that much from the experience.  My girlfriend, Judy, did not remove the cardboard outer cover and found it to be painful.  Oy!  In the mid sixties and later, I was on birth control pills.  I adored knowing exactly what Wednesday when I would get my very light period. That nonsense went on until 2005-6 when menopause occurred.  Yay! Never had a hot flash or cold flash.   Just stopped, Hooray me!!!  If I had ever had a daughter I hope I would have informed her and talked with her to say it would be all right.  The one time I complained to mom, she just said it was the nature of the beast.  Thank you so much. And perhaps injected a bit of humor.  I wonder if there are tasteful yet amusing jokes about menarche.   One day when I was a senior, I came in and Mom had the sewing machine set up.  I looked at the pattern and it was a maternity smock.  I asked her who that was for and she grunted ME.  I did not say anything but I should have hugged her and said, you will  love this baby, he will keep you young running around after him.  If you are worried that I might be thought to be pregnant and going to live in California. well you just march that  belly all over town to show them what is what. 

HALLOWEEN

 Halloween:  As a child, most of the treats pwere homemade.  The best were popcorn balls, sweet and tangy with melted marshmallow and apple cider vinegar. The candy was usually fudge, divinity and peanut brittle.  The candy sometimes disappeared to reappear at Christmas.  

Halloween is a big deal in Barrow, Alaska.   Someone from housing would come around and unlock the doors to all the twelve plexes. Then the hoards would descend.  Candy was usually gone fairly early.  No one wore costumes except the kids living in the building.  

One time, I wore a pair of wings at work and promised to grant one wish that involved leaving medical records immediately.  The trick or treaters in the villages did not want to miss out, so they divided themselves in half and took turns to go out and get treats. Trick or treat is pretty quiet here in town, we were among the 25% 

of adults who prestend were are not at home.  The town does have trick or trunk and the school and churches have activities as well as haunted houses.  There is a pumpkin patch across the river in Coos Bay where you can get your fill. I do not know if anyone had made a corn maze.  

I went on a hayride as a teenager sponsored by the First Christian Church.  I remember getting a very painful leg cramp and needed help to finish getting into the ride.  

We did not have to get our treats x-rayed when stupid people put razor bladed in apples etc.  We never wore costumes as kids, we were lucky we got to carry paper bags for the loot.  

O BOTHER

A couple of inconvenient happenings. On Sunday, the washer would not wash.  I called Charlie and gave him the error code E1F3, which meant to him that the water pressure sensor was out.  

I called the local repair guy but his mailbox is full and I cannot leave a message and I will not text being boomer technophobe.  

This morning husband drove Honda to hospital lab and could not get it started to come.  He took a jumper and got it started.   We drove the buggy to the hospital and got the car to Les Schwab.  

Then we drove by Archies Repair and got an addition phone number and I will call later on.  Not sure what lunch will consist of but I made a hotcake, bacon, tea and pills breaky.  Yay! 

SANDWICHES

Let us start at the vry beginning.   John Montague the fourth Earl of Sandwich loved playing whist so much that he did not want to leave the table for a meal in the dining room.  He had a servant put meat between two slices of bread so that he could continue playing.  I hope the meat was nice and juicy held in a linen napkin.  I am sure the mayo, mustard, pickles, lettuce and tomato came later.  Captain Cook also named the Hawaiian Islands after the Earl.  

When Richard and I were kids, we stayed at Grandma Berglunds house.  We were picking fruit at a nearby orchard.  Grandma B made sandwiche for us.  We stopped picking about nine am and discovered that the sandwiches consisted of bread, may and sliced spring onions.   

Then when Dad was working on the Hells Canyon Dam, we lived on Pine Creek.  Mom made peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches.  We called it grease sandwiches because it resembled such,  Mom gave us Pepsi to drink.  If you got it just right you could peel of the mixture from the room of your mouth.  

My favorite sandwich became a hot Pastrami with mayo and dill pickle spear.  There was a deli near Fairchild and I loved to stop in Sparks for the Pastrami there.  

One time Mom and I stopped in eastern Idaho close to where the Hole In The Wall Gang hid.  It was late, they had pastrami and I ordered one.  Turned out to be a fried ham sandwich but I was hungry at ate i as well.  

I really enjoy Reuben sandwichest; there are a couple of variation, Corned beef with Russian and Pastrami with Thousand Island and the usual Swiss cheese, saurkraut on rye. Then grilled.  I like to visit a place down town.  I orered a Reuben and she told me the following story.  When she worked at another place a few years ago the special was Reubens.  A group of five came in, four men one woman.  They all ordered Reubens.  Sorry, all out of Pastrami.  She had thin sliced ham, would they like that instead.  Oh, she made the ham reubens and set them out.  The woman, Karen, started complaining that the ham was too salty, she didn't want hers grilled, it went on an on.  Finaly my friend snapped, "I hate you, Karen!"  There after whenever the men came in, they would order the I Hate You Karen sandwich.  

I forgot about the happy accident BLTT I made when Charlie and I lived on the ranch.  One day I started to make lunch and I did  not have bread.  I did have tortillas.  So I fried bacon, dragged the tortillas through the bacon grease.  Added tomatoes, lettuce an mayo to it and it makes a nifty BLT.  Yummy!!!

A COUPLE THINGS

CULTURE PILL:

When I lived in Barrow, Alaska, the local college would offer free course.  I took on about literature.  The instructure lived in my building, I gave a small old book written by Daniel Defoe titled, "Travels with a Donkey".  I am certain he invented an early version of the sleeping bag.  

When I lived in Barrow AK, the local college offered free classes.  The instructor lived in my building.  I gave him a little old book by Daniel Defoe titled Travel with a Donkey.  I am pretty sure he invented an early version of a sleeping bag.

At any rate, the class was local and very interesting.  We first watched he original Frankenstein.  We also watched a later edition starring Robert DeNiro as the monster. At the end of the class we were challenged to write any we liked about Frankenstein. I wrote a sequel titled "Big Man.  The book ended in the Arctic, seen as an exotic local circa 1812.  The ship burned however Frankenstein escaped to an ice floe.  He used the salt water to heal his burns and ate what he could catch from the sea.  A party of Eskimo hunters found him and decided to take him home with them.  He recovered and soon learned Inupiaq and shared meat.  He once drove off a polar bear with his roar.  Eventually they returned to Utkiagvik (Barrow).   No one minded his scars, many hunters were worse off.  The children loved him for he was very tall.  He married and named the first five children after his victims back home.  After that his wife named the rest of the children.  His leather notebook labeled Victor Frankenstein still exists where it can be found in the local library. 

Then we were introduced to Latin American authors.  We read "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  It has six chapters and is about a courtship between two young people.  As I read it in the fifth chapter one of the paragraph sounded very familiar.  I started looking backwards.  I finally found a duplicate paragraph in the second chapter.  The paragraph was identical.  They were on a steamer along the river, it described the surroundings perfectly, the sounds, the smells.  I was puzzled.  The teacher suggested I write a letter to Marquez,  I did so,English and Spanish.  I never heard from him.  I have often wondered if he wrote other Easter Eggs in other books but I have never read them.  Has anyone else read them and if so did you find any Easter Eggs ?  

Then we read a short story titled "The Third Bank".  It was about a grieving woman asking the local Priest to find her husband.  He was astounded.  She reported that he left in a single person boat.  She begged the priest to bring home.  The priest told her that it was impossible.  We were supposed to figure out what really happened.  Someone suggest that the man's one person boat was actually a coffin and he was dead and could not return.  

My friend, Patrick Pendleton participated in a murder solving thing, He had a lot of fun.

COUNTING

 Numbers and I have always had a love hate relationshiop.  I had to repeat eighth grade general math.  Ugh.  I remember knowing my numbers as a child, my Aunt Ollie had me ask Central for three numbers but I kept reading the numbers on the dial.  In the first grade, we had a test write out number one through ten.  I remember asking a classmate how to make a six.  Later on when learning to read a clock, I always got them backwards.  The only times I performed well at math was algebra felt like telling a story only with numbers.  I got a good solid B for Geometry because I typed up the theorems using blue and red ink. As far as checking accounts are concerned, always remember the bank decucts before it credits, therefore you may NOT have enoiugh money in the bank to cover that thrice bounced check.  Um hmmm. Fortunately, Kindle does math like a genius.  Thanks Alexa. 

BUS RIDES

 Bus Rides I have taken.  When I was little Dad was working in eastern Oregon.  For some reason Mom needed to return to Emmett.  I think she may have been pregnant with Richard.  So Dad put us on a Bus to Ontario.  I remember smelling the very strong smell of onions.  Moms parents probably pickes us up in Ontario.  I do not remember if we took the bus back. Dad probably came and got us.  

During school there were lots of bus rides.  One of the more memorable one was the bus driver pulled over so we could listen to one of the Freedom Seven flights.  The other more memorable one was to attend the 1965 A1 basketball championship in Pocatello, we won and I screamed myself hoarse.  Lots of fun. 

Next was a bus rideMare Island To Reno, Nevada.  I was to meet Sue my first roommate.  The ride was memorable in that a drunk couple got on, got drunker, argued and were kicked off the bus somewhere along the highway. Got to Reno an met a handsome cousin of hers who had hemophila and took factor 8.  

The next bus ride was the summer I moved to Petalum.  I took the bus from Petaluma to Santa Rose to enroll in the college.  I was not working yet so did not attend.  I wish I had after I started working.  

After I married I was asked to be escort on Vickies senior trip.   We went to Disneyland although it was not long after the big quake.  We saw freeways knocked down. The driver got us there and back and did a very good job.  I had forgotten that there were very few places to sit down in Disneyland.  

The last bus ride was when I decided to go back to Idaho.  I borrowed two hundred dollars from Tony and gave them a beautiful seascape.  The bus ride was uneventful I cauhgt the Grayhound in Philo and rode it to Novato.  Over all the buses seem to attract odd folk.  But an inexpensive way of travel.

MEMORIAL DAY

 Today, I was thinking of all my relatives who served. Great Uncle Al served in the Coast Guard.  His brother Isaac was in the Army.  He got the flu around 1918 and died.  They are both buried in St. Cloud, Minnesotta.  Charlie Berglund did not serve during WWI or WWII.  He stayed at home, farmed and raised his family.

My father served at a Volunteer and was in Alaska, Kodiak and Matanuska valley.  My Uncle Carl was in the Air Force and served in Japan. Uncle Paul was in the Air Force.  My first husband, Mike, was in the Army in Viet Nam and discharged with schrapnel and a Purple Heart.  My present husband, Tim, served in the Air Force and was mainly in Texas.

My Mother's brother, Tater, was in the Army and served in Europe.  He was wounded and recovered in England and hated English food. He helpe free POW camps.   Grandma Horn showed me the telegrams from the Army and his Purple Heart. 

My husbands Father, Vester, joined the Army in 1943, he served in Hawaii as a medical corpman, which is a close as a Seventh Day Adventist can get to being a military objector. He spent some time in the brig for refusing to pick up cigarette butts on Sabbath.

My brothers, Richard and Phil both served in the Navy.  Richard spent two terms in Viet Nam; once on a gun boat in the Mekong and a second one as a Dog robber.  He loved the sheer chicanery of that job.  Richard stayed in twenty years.  Phillip was in about fifteen years.  He worked on Raytheon equipment then and when he left the Navy he worked for Raytheon and traveled to Spain and Italy. 

Gentlemen, thank you for your service.

OWIES 2024

Well, I have learned a couple of things due to recent events.

Last Tuesday, I turned wrong at Davita and extravasated.  The needle punched into tissue and was very ouchie until the maching was turned off. Got immediate swelling of right forearm.  I was taken off about two hours early.  So Vicks Vapor rub applied to bruise works surprisingly well. Heparin will be held until this coming Thursday.  Now it only itches and is UGLY!

Then last Wednesday, I got a can of beans out of the large drawer.  I turned backward to it to push it shut.  My lovely wool socks were no good.  Gravity won, I crashed my right hip on the edge of the drawer.  Tim and Carolyn got me up.  Plans were made to empty that large drawer and put goods in pantry. I now have left over quart jars and lids are now stored in that drawer.  I have to add several more canned goods to the pantry from the cupboards below the microwave.  Yay!!!

Also Phil called today to march me one more time to replace printer driver. Viola!! It now prints, Now I can blog and print to my hearts desire.  It is a good day Thaank you brother !!!