The Early years as I recall

                                                                    Copyright c 2013 by Ben Thomas

Names, events and dates have not been altered to protect the innocent, unknowing or disagreeable.  These things really happened.  Regardless, it’s how I remember them.   

                              

   Perhaps it all started at the ascent of my naivety back around 7 years old, my older brother Herbie, convinced me that my ears stuck out, were way to big and to top it off there was always lint in my belly button from my t-shirts that he constantly teased me about, the double whammy he was so good at.  

   I would make sure my ears, didn’t matter which one was always pressed back on the pillow when I  went to sleep.  It was sure to flatten them out eventually.  For years I was concerned about that lint.  It took me a while to figure out where it was coming from.

  I should have seen the red flags waving from a couple years before when he ran a piece of lathe into my cheek, just missing my eye and front teeth.  The teeth went  missing anyway, although the dimes did add up.  We were marching along with our pretend rifles (lathe) slung up against our shoulders.  His managed to arc the lathe down over his shoulder just as he came to an abrupt halt with me on his heels. 
  The stitches I remember well, my mother and our neighbor Laurel whisked me down to the local doc for them.  They were holding me down all upset about “it could have been my eye”.  

    By then the adrenaline was really kicking in from their near hysterics, they were making it worse. 
  The last I remember the doc was hovering over me with that curved needle in his hand before I reflexively squirmed and shut my eyes.

 So much for swordsmanship and having a whole lot of trust for my older brother and his ways.  Play was approached with an eye on his mood swings, which I inevitably forgot to watch out for.  

  I was 9 at the time.   A few of my cousins and I (Herbie included, seven years my senior) were having our annual green apple fight in the orchard,  The apples at this point in their development  were a little bigger than a ping pong ball but dense and hard as hell, they could leave a welt and bruise.  

   These games were not for the faint of heart. It usually ran out as a free for all, everyone pitching away at everyone else.  Teams seldom worked, as  mates would turn on each other in the heat of battle, reducing it once again to the more familiar chaos of choice.  

  I developed a sure hit strategy, lop two or three up into high arcs to catch the eye of your opponent then fire away with line drives.  

    When we were not pelting apples and dirt clods at each other we would torment the yellow jacket nests in the ground.  Tactics included gathering at least three to four apples per hand, pick up top speed and run over the nests pelting away our ammo at the hole in the ground, the first pass was generally easy, the next ones were tricky as by now the bees were really pissed off and on the hunt themselves. 

     On my turn (now the swarm is pouring out of their hive)  Herbie was on my heels so when I made my leap over the hole and through the bees he had merely to shove my shoulder just at the right moment that made me land belly down on the hive hole, skidding in the dirt and dust into the even more pissed off bees now that they had a stationary target.

  They got under my clothes.  I got stung 28 times,  Let me tell you..you can run pretty damn fast when bees are stinging you in the ass.  I got the hell out of there.  As I peeled through the kitchen door, I didn’t expect for it to be a “Show and Tell”

  A 9 year old's worst nightmare, my mom’s friend  Betty and her daughter were visiting.

 The Tjomblands, the daughter  Cheryl  was in my class at Fir Grove Elementary, her mother always dressed her to look like Shirley Temple, she never spoke to me after the first grade, maybe she was little shy like me or exhausted from the over primping and holding the pose imposed by her mom.    

       Had  Betty known about prepubescent girls beauty pageants she would have been all over that scene.

  Her Dad Chummy was a deaf dump truck driver for Cobb rock.  I liked him, he was pretty quiet and would tilt his head, fiddle with his hearing aids when you talked to him, mostly he read your lips I think.  He drove tanks in the war, he lost his hearing in both ears when the tanks he was in would blow up, which probably saved his marriage to Betty as she was an avid talker.  Chummy had intense eyes, he seemed to always be watching.

  Betty and Cheryl were both odd. Betty, with Cheryl constantly in tow would always drop  in when my mom had tons of things to do, which was always, mostly to show off Cheryl’s new outfits and hairdos or see if her son Robbie could borrow Herbie’s letter man jacket.

   So they got to witness Mom ripping my clothes off.  

   I was in double shock.  Mom already had my shirt off before I knew what was gonna happen next, the pants ....down they came, the bees, those frenetic little fuckers keep on stinging even if they’re dead.

  The swelling had started to balloon out from all the stings and they hurt like hell.

   Truly, I had never felt so pisssed and humiliated   standing with a two handed death grip on my tidee whitees in front of those two.  Betty finally heard my mom giving her orders to “Get the baking soda for Christ’s sake NOW Damn it Just don’t stand there!”   

  About this time I looked out the door to see my brother with that smirk on his face.  I’ve never trusted him since.  

  Later, I figured he had bi-polar issues or  schizophrenia. layered with what Freud would have called a classic "Oedipal Complex".  He was however diligent in self medicating:   speed, acid, beer, booze, grass, he later claimed to have found Jesus  and got married, no one from our family was invited except mom.  Everyone else was strictly forbidden to even come near, meaning myself, Dad, Judy my older sister and Dan my younger brother. A real no brainer for me.   Soon after he was  back to his old self and commenced beating his wife who so smartly   divorced his ass. 

   Jumping ahead a decade:

  I had just gone through a divorce, Zac and I where visiting mom when he got in my face and asked me if I had been saved?  I  commenced to scream  profanities back in his face about what an asshole he is and always was, if he was such a devout Christian why did he feel the need beat up his now ex-wife, I had witnessed multiple black eyes and facial bruising on her.  He didn't have an answer.  Everyone got upset, just one of the many upsets growing up around him.  

   I was in my late thirties by then and fed up with his bullying ways, fed up with the constant anxiety and tip toeing around this asshole, maybe that was my second epiphany, call his bullshit and bluster with a shower of such outrage he had no choice but to back off, besides I really wanted to hurt him for all those years of torment and he knew it.

   I know I felt a lot better for it.

  I did notice him wiping the spittle I had showered him with off his face.  Must have been traumatic for him, he was on a germ free OCD regime at the time, washed everything countless times over and over and over...this was same time he wouldn’t visit Dad dying from cancer because he thought it was contagious.  I've often wondered how  he could have been from the same gene pool?

   Last I saw him he was rubbing his hands together at the Mad Greek Deli with great relish and repeatedly saying “Payday”! this was in 96 when mom passed away and we were settling the estate. Dan gave him a  check for a third of what he wanted and that was the last we ever saw of him.  I've heard he lives in Coos Bay somewhere up in the hills.  

     It wasn’t always bad, he had homing pigeons and he let me feed them, he’d take them out in his 49 Chevy convertible and let them loose, dash back home and time them to see which ones made it back first.  He had tumblers as well, strange birds, they would fly up to a certain altitude then just stop flying and tumble down to earth. most would pull up but others were apparently caught up in the free fall and simply fell to the earth with a thump and a flurry of feathers.
  Made me think Darwin had a point.

    Funny how things you are meant to do can kill you or someone you love can  break your heart.  I figured it wasn’t money well spent on Tumblers  but I think my brother enjoyed the show.

  The family was at the beach, Tillamook, just visited the cheese factory.  On the way home Dad needed to gas up the car, he put us on the alert for gas stations, this was a smart move on his part, it briefly kept us from bickering in the back seat. 

     Dad had long arms and would make random sweeps into the backseat area if he got pissed, the trick was to see them coming otherwise you could catch his palm with your head. Timing was everything, even so, ducking was problematic as well at least for me, I was in the middle.   One could easily whack skulls if you ducked the wrong way.  Actually, this only happened once after multiple warnings, he missed all of us.     It left an impression.

   But back to the station search, I spotted one that gave away free tumblers with every fill up, I called dibs right off, I figured now I could get a pigeon for free and a tumbler at that. Yes that one! up on the right!  stop there..I couldn’t see where they kept the pigeon coup must have been around back.  I let the guy know I was the one getting the tumbler as I jumped out of the car so when the tank was topped off I was ready! 
  I was still looking around for something to carry it in.  My Dad had rigged an old wire cage to the back bumper on the 53 Chevy when my brother got his first pigeons on a road trip to Kansas City from my Dad’s cousin.  Those pigeons rode all the way back to Oregon on that rear bumper, they had no idea where they were.  After we got home a couple flew the coup and never came back.  Maybe they made it back to Kansas or not, they weren’t wearing heels.  

   Anyway the gas attendant led me into the office pointed to a wall and said “take your pick” There was a certain degree of pride and a little smugness in his voice, apparently tumblers can be many things besides Pigeons.  My brother must have tipped him off.

   I got the tumbler with a sea gull on it.    I don’t remember what ever happened to that stupid tumbler, I may have used it for target practice with my BB gun.  I was pretty quiet on the way home.

  Usually road trips were filled with road games, the alphabet game was very popular.  Mom would wait for dinner to read letters from relatives, which I love to do now.

  Dad was an early riser.  When we were at our beach house in Gearhart that we all helped build, he would get up at dawn come in to wake me but I was already up and getting dressed.  I was listening and didn’t want to miss out, have a little burnt toast and coffee and go for long walks on the beach together, it was a special time I think for both of us.  He didn’t talk much in those days so you had watch closely to  what he was doing if he was making something and he was constantly making things.      He followed the old adage “showing was better then telling” regarding making things, (actually everything)  so you had to pay attention. I loved this approach back then, it allowed me to tweak things the way I saw them in my head.

     This showing “technique” did not work to well with my older brother, he simply refused to pay attention, he was to pissed off all the time and he was sloppy and took little pride.  They usually argued and my brother would finally just leave, trailing curses  till he was gone.  Dad would spit  cigar juice and look disgusted.

   Myself, on the other hand was inspired,  I’ve been pulling things out of my head all my life, things I’ve made and sold , making a modest living at it. I still do it today.  I learned this from my Dad.

      I was playing piano then too. Lessons from Mrs. Randall every other day (weekends off) after school.  They lived in a Tudor style house which always seemed out of place,  Mr. Randall was an attorney in Portland.  Mrs. Randall would have freshly baked bread and homemade jam waiting for me to snack on before my lesson.  I remember looking out her kitchen window watching her cat stalk birds at the feeder eating my snack waiting for her grandfather clock to strike the hour to start the lesson.

    Instead of being stuck with those triangles and stupid rhythm sticks I got to play the piano during grade school assembles and during music class with Mrs. Scott. The piano was on casters so I got to roll it to her next class.   Chores at school were not the same as at home, they implied something special, not everyone got to do them.

  My first piano recital I was  a little nervous, I played my song, then immediately played it a second time, Mrs. Randall saved me when she came up and held my hands, Really just stopped them from moving into the third rendition.  Knowing when to quit can be  a problem.

  

  It wasn’t until years later when Dad had cancer and knew he was dying that he opened up his emotional side and years of very cool things came spilling out with a  smile and tears.  It was awkward  hearing some things for the first time, it forced me to change my view of him, a good note to end on though.

  Dad quit the cigars, everyone talked him out of his cigars.  He could make a  cigar last for days.  Rarely did I see him light one up, but eventually they would turn into stubs and disappear. They were never allowed in the house.  I used to get him a box of "King Edwards" for Christmas.

  He had an old Argus 35mm   camera he would take on those beach walks, somewhere in the boxes are slides of us.  

  I would later use it when I got into photography, I did a stint for the Seaside Signal newspaper working the darkroom and taking assignments then getting them ready to go to print.  I did a lot of my own work in there until I had my own darkroom.  I have boxes of negatives, I only printed a few but won some awards.  By then I had my first Nikon.

  My parents were in way over their heads with my older brother Herb and nothing ever worked. After he got kicked out of Beaverton High School the folks sent him to live in our beach house and finish up his senior year at Seaside High.  He failed, trashed the house and got a brand new VW Beetle to boot.  Rewards for failure.  

       He’s the reason we no longer have the beach house.  

    

  For a while they tried the same useless tactics with me, that is putting the restrictions on me they should have stood fast on with him.

  "No drivers license until you're 18"  was one of them. Trouble was, I was driving a dump truck at 15 for my uncle Don’s plumbing business in the summers.  I was also his chauffeur in his very swank 58 pink Cadillac convertible after work.  He enjoyed his six pack and smokes while I drove that sleek beast back home.  Don convinced my folks that I needed my license if I was working for him.  It worked.

   My 16th. birthday ended with an Oregon drivers license in my hands, 10 days later for $250.00 I drove my first car home, a 1955 Chevrolet 2 door station wagon, baby blue. 6 cyl. automatic.  That quickly changed to a bored out 283, 11:1 pistons, 4 speed, huge exhaust dumps, racing cam, giant 4 barrel holley, tricked interior, topped with a 4 track stereo system.  It was fast, I could smoke my friends 327 Camero, much to his chagrin.

      Don’s wife, my dad’s sister Aunt Jean died of leukemia in her early 40s, then he lost his 6 year old son to cancer right after that.  He was never the same.  It was the first  time I witnessed a grown man cry.  There were many more times  while I drove that Cadillac.  I was young and didn’t know what to say or do, we would split the six pack, I was generally looped by the time I wheeled into our driveway, he often stayed for dinner then.

  Forty seven years later I felt a similar pain and unrelenting grief firsthand when I lost my own wife Pam to cancer.  I don’t think I will ever be the same either.

  Don did go on and raise his three daughters, all are doing quite well.  He never remarried, but has several grand kids. My Brother Dan and I went to his memorial service, I think I told the story of the six packs and driving his Cadillac.

   Years before he and my aunt had two restaurants, I forget the first ones name but the second was “The Faucet” down in Raleigh Hills off Scholls,   We were all in having burgers, really big and really good burgers when a fellow came in wanting to be served but that owed Uncle Don some money from previous meals he hadn’t paid for, he wanted another free meal.   Apparently this had been going on for some time because Don had had enough. I saw him pull off his apron spring over the counter walk out into the parking lot and jump multiple times on this guys car hood until it was completely smashed in then moved on up to the top.  Casually jumped off, washed his hands put the apron back on and just gave the guy a look...the guy left in a hurry, his car didn’t look to good, the fan was hitting the hood cause it was really loud and he had to look out the side window to drive having no head room.  The shit certainly hit the fan.

  My dad and Don were big guys 6.3 and 6.4, 230 lbs. easily, veterans of WW11 and had been in plenty of action even though they seldom discussed it.  I hadn’t noticed it before but my dad stood in front of the guy blocking his exit with his arms crossed while Don was demolishing his ride.

      My dad had a name for these kinds of folks “Scissor Bills”.  Another of his favorites “ He isn’t worth the powder to blow to hell” fit people whose ethical/moral standards were not up to snuff.
  I crossed the line twice with my dad.  The first (around 12 years old) was after an argument with my sister, which ended with me on her heels chasing her down a long hallway, she escaped into her room and locked the door.  The slamming door narrowly missed my nose so I kicked it. It being hollow core my foot went through it, about the time I was extracting  my foot dad wheeled around the far corner of the hallway hearing all the commotion, I was eyeballed right there...I took off running to the other end.  Now, I started sprinting from the middle of the hall, dad was at the far end, I figured I could out run him, make it outside and move off into the fields where I had plenty of room to out-maneuver him.  Nope.. not so, he caught up to me just before the end of the hallway with enough agility to catch my sorry ass with his foot which sent me airborne just as I reached the end of the hallway.  The foot didn't hurt at all, it just lifted me off my feet and with no traction came to an abrupt stop against the wall.
  His words before turning and walking away.."Never do that again"
  To this day I have yet to put my foot through another door. I'll tell you about the second time later, but first:

  My earliest audio memory:  I was about three years old and curious in regard to the chicken feed Mom had set out for all our chickens. After she had gone back in the house  I discovered that by rolling one seed at a time down my ear canal was pretty amazing, it would rumble down and smack up against the ear drum like thunder.  I filled both ears with seed, then made the customary trip down to Dr. Kabiasmum and had them flushed out with water, which was another auditory treat.
  About that same time I discovered my eyebrows and they would come out if you pulled them.  So for a while I went around with no eyebrows.  It's those visceral things that have fascinated me to this day.
  

  My folks had grown up during the depression, Otis, my dad’s dad drove delivery truck for Liberty fuel and Ice, they did Okay.  Mom's folks however moved constantly while growing up, it wasn’t until around 1939 that Walt and Effie finally settled in Buxton, Oregon.  Mom   told me my Uncle Charlie the eldest, quit school after the 8th. grade along with his younger brother Floyd to help work the farm with his folks.
  Walt was an entrepreneur, Lots of great ideas that never seemed to pan out, hence all the moving about. He had the first taxi service from Hillsboro to Forest Grove, the theatre in Forest Grove along with a confectionary store.  Became a farmer and grew hops which he sold to the "Blitz" brewery here in town. Grew vegetables and sold them in Portland aboard his Model T flat bed.  On the way back to the Tualatin Valley he had to go up Canyon Road in reverse, it was so steep,  had two motels on the coast, one in Rockaway another in Taft, then back to farming in Buxton.
 By then my folks were dating.  When Dad made it back from WW11 they joined the ranks of the swelling middle class.   

   At some point I learned my Dad had  supported not only his immediate family but helped support my mom’s two sisters families, by letting one family live in a house we had moved out of, loaning money to buy homes, giving his brothers in law jobs working for him until they got on their feet.  He also helped my cousins buy cars co-signing for them on loans.       It never quite made sense to me that I had to beg him to fill out a college financial aid form   I needed to start college.

   At the brick house in Beaverton (which Dad built)  We would spread the “Spackle” on the polished concrete floor of the basement when my folks would throw a party, there was a lot of dancing and the Spackle would make that concrete as slick as ice if you put enough down. Which is always what we did given the opportunity.  Even after sweeping it up the next day it was slick, you could get a tricycle to spin out with very little effort.   With a makeshift ramp at the bottom  of the steps you could ride a cardboard box down the stairs, hit the ramp,  hit the Spackle and slide for another 10 feet or so.

     This was about the time I got my own bedroom downstairs, I wanted to paint it a fire engine red, that got tossed for a dull beige, I was overruled.  I was getting into oil paint then and drawing on anything I could find.  I had a set of colored pens that went   remarkably well on my dad’s leather ottoman that came with the easy chair.  I did a landscape scene with mount hood and a railroad.   It took a long time to get the ink off the leather, it did leave the imprint of the ball point pen though so it was there minus the color.  It turned into a line drawing.

  I drew constantly, putting things down that were floating around in my head, there was no choice in the matter.  I was driven.  I discovered masturbation about the same time, the drawing took the back seat for awhile but they both eventually came up to a constant Parr.

   My folks actually supported the drawing, if I stayed away from the furniture, luckily they never really found out about my other hobby although they probably suspected.

  This is when my dad took  me to a wall in the basement, it had a white primer coat on it.  8 feet tall and about 15 feet long.  He said “here paint this”.

I had to clarify, What?  I thought it was a chore, “no I mean paint it”, he tended to repeat the exact same instruction over again if you didn’t get it the first time.

  This was probably why he argued so much with my older brother but I understood: I could do whatever I wanted on that wall and I did.  It was my masterpiece, even if it got odd looks from my parents friends.

   The more I drew and painted the better at it I got.     I had such low esteem from years of feeling self conscience about my over sized   ears and pulling the lint out of my belly button (he hammered away at this for years) . 

   One day Mom came home with some oranges  she got at the market, I grabbed one to eat,   it coincided with a day that I made some quantum leaps in my drawings, I thought wow! this is a magic orange it must have some kinda power that is enabling me to do this. (couldn’t really be me) So like any 13 year old I kept the orange with me all the time, this went on for a week or two and the orange was starting to look pretty bad, I knew I was going to lose the orange and my newly acquired powers of the pens , brushes and paints.  

   It was my first epiphany, in it’s simple form, the one I used, went like this: Hmm.. the power is in the orange, so if I eat the orange the power will be in me!

   By now the orange is showing signs of decay.. well it was rotting.  I mushed the rind off anyway and ate it, (my first spiritual experience).

 All the sugars were spiked  with an odd texture  but it was sweeter than any  orange I had had, a sign right?

 Floppy ears, linted up navel, an urge to create and one consumed rotten orange,  (hear Jeff Bridges theme song "The Power" in "The Fischer King" right here)

    I   kissed Cheryl Tjombland when we were first graders on the merry go round at recess, I was a little dizzy and word traveled fast but that was ages ago, everything had moved on.

   I learned to ride on my Dad’s old bike he had as a kid.  The handle bars were swept back close to your knees making slow speed turns nearly impossible.  When I finally had the nerve and confidence to stand up and peddle, the chain would always spin off the sprockets, it just couldn’t handle the extra torque.  It seemed to always  happen on about the forth revolution, the one  you were so excited about cause now you were really picking up speed and all your weight was on the one peddle.......Shit, this is easy.   Heh!.. take a look at me!... Those proud moments when you draw attention to yourself.

   You had already forgotten about the previous incident.  Early short term memory loss,  even to this day I sometimes feel I’m repeating mistakes.

  The peddle, from the top of the arc to the bottom is where the rug was pulled out from under you and it always kicked  up on the back swing throwing your foot off the peddle to drag in the gravel bent over, caught under the peddle, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, equilibrium and balance gone in a flash, that sudden rush of gravity always, always... resulted in jamming my developing testicles onto the massive steel framework connecting the seat to the front of the bike. Going balls to the wall, as they say.  The handle bars with no grips would inevitably gouge into one or the other thigh as you spooled off to dig your palms/elbows/chin grinding to a stop into the gravel.  Training wheels were unheard of and tricycles didn’t count.

   I eventually, after saving money from selling apples down on Allen, picking berries in the summers, after having to buy my new school clothes from my earnings I managed

to get a three speed Raleigh, green frame white fenders with skinny tires and hand brakes from the only bike shop in Beaverton on the north end of the airport.  It was a sweet ride home, I relentlessly shifted gears and learned about the then unknown hazards of locking up the front tire. 

   My mom’s cousin Wilbur and his wife Daisy with their two kids would come by to visit unannounced, usually Sunday afternoon around dinner time.  

  This was a common occurrence growing up in the early years, extended family always seemed to drop by at dinner time.  Mom would always seemingly take it in stride and make do and  room for everyone depending on who it was, only to complain about it to Dad later on even though it was really her relatives not his.  

  Sometimes she would put the kitchen in a holding pattern indefinitely, the meal suspended in a near completed stage drying out or turning to mush.  Thinking back it was an artful game of who would blink first. Foolish, but  it made for a lot of suspense and tension filled the air.  Us kids would occasionally dash in from outside to check if we were eating yet and to see if Butch had made his move. 

    Of course  Wilbur and Daisy knew what was going on.  Usually their dog “Butch the Boston Terrier” would push the impasse.  He had IAS (itchy ass syndrome) (I just now made that up) and they always brought him in the house even after mom told them to leave him outside.

    It was Butch’s affliction that drove him to scratch his ass on Mom’s carpet seeking relief.

Otherwise he seemed well behaved. You’ve seen it maybe..Dog sits, raises his hind legs as far as they will go and pulls himself along with his front legs, tongue hanging out with a look of pure satisfied relief, leaving a trail of whatever mom thought she saw that would almost certainly at times give rise to their exit. 

  Sometimes they would pick up their Que, kids, Butch and leave, returning after a couple weeks, other times they would just toss Butch out the back door and the game would resume.

   I never understood why no one just asked them to leave when the time came. Apparently family did not figure as comfortably into that equation. It always seemed to end on a 50 50 split whether they had dinner with us. Not bad odds for a free meal even though it seemed like leftovers by then.  Part of the problem I think was that Daisy never helped clean up but by then Mom wasn’t speaking to anyone.

   

  Wilbur was a logger, cause he always had red suspenders on and his pants were always to short and frayed on the cuffs . They always seemed to be just getting by.  Daisy, she was a piece of work.  Actually she was an incredible seamstress, even at my young age I could see she had talent.  I had my share of scars learning the danger of sharp tools in my dad’s shop and hot handles in the kitchen and paint stains.  Daisy made all her own clothes, she must have seen herself as an unknown yet glamorous actress.  When they arrived she made an entrance... really... tilting her head so her hat could get through the door sweeping on stage with these crazy over sized hats with three-foot brims and fake fruit somehow hanging on the top.  Carman Miranda would have killed for these things.  Her dresses (I should say gowns) were of matching material, they were as hard to ignore as Butch seeking relief on Mom’s rugs.

  They had a son who committed suicide as a young adult and the daughter married a Mormon, moved to Utah and had something like 10 kids.  I don’t think she ever learned to sew.
  During WW11 Wilbur had served with Bud McCrae, they became   best friends, he later introduced Bud to his cousin Pearl. They wrote love letters back and forth for the duration, After the war Bud and Pearl got married. They lived in Santa Cruz.  
  It was always a fun event when they would drive up to visit family each year, then three girls, two adults in that classic little Rambler "Neopolitan."  

   I was always so impressed cousins Marilyn, Paula and Sharon could run around barefoot on gravel seemingly unphased.

  Our first big family reunion happened in 1965 in our backyard in Tigard. I got to fly over it in my friends  “Russ Fletchers” Dad’s Cessna .  It became an annual event that peeked out in 1973 with over 300 people attending out  in the meadow where my brother Dan now lives with his family in Gales Creek.

  My brother Dan and myself had  possibly dropped some Mescaline, consumed countless joints, possibly hashish, there were  kegs of beer, booze, a prolonged poker game , a giant human pyramid consisting of cousins (I was on the bottom row) , a softball game (I was the catcher, hence the problem of which ball to catch) there was  more than one softball in play so I thought.  There are photos to prove all this except possibly the multiple softballs.

  

   Mom had 9 siblings, Dad had 2, so growing up I had something like 32 cousins, all within a 15 year age range.  Family events were big.  

 

   I was sometimes a picky eater, especially when it came to eggs.   Mom, cooking for all of us was not particularly concerned whether the whites were firm and the yolk creamy, (don’t get me wrong she was a great cook, I still use some of her recipes today) but she preferred scrambled.  She must have been fed up with my whining so one day she said “here.. you do your own eggs, make sure you clean up after”.  I was 10 and had free reign in the kitchen, it took a while but I perfected the over easy egg.  

   Years later a similar scene played out with my own son Zach, he wouldn’t eat the eggs Grandma made, but scarf mine down.  This irritated her to no end.

  Early burns originated in that kitchen, cuts, bruises and blood blisters, by products of my dad’s shop.

  

   I grew up on a small farm, I helped my dad slaughter starting around this same time.  We had about 6 or 7 cattle all the time.  I learned to gut, skin, halve and quarter a cow.  I dug a hole and buried the entrails, after removing the tongue and brain from the head for my mom, the head got tossed in last.  Here’s a hint: Never puncture a cows  stomachs.

  The tongue and brain were the hardest part, having small hands allowed me to reach in the mouth to the base of the tongue and get it all. (This actually helped me spatially pre-visualize later in life, I was scared to death of cutting my fingers off while they were down the bovine throat with that oh so sharp knife) Mom liked to scramble the brains (it must have been a depression era thing, nothing was wasted).   

  I did not partake in either, some consider it a delicacy.  My first attempt at extracting the brain after Dad’s informative instructional guidance  procedural outline: “get the brain and tongue for your mother” was a disaster, (this was a job he disliked so much he pawned it off on me)  Mom got pissed, bone splinters, mushed brain everywhere.  I had taken an ax to the skull, aiming with my eyes closed.   I didn’t puke though,  even when an eye popped out. I got worried she was going to ask for them next.

  Later I approached the whole affair as a dissection, peeling the skin back, popping the different skull plates out (with difficulty) then lifting the brain out just enough to cut the spinal cord. It made a sucking sound.  I got into it. Mom didn’t get pissed. Dad was proud.

   I passed the NRA's gun safety course at 13, a prerequisite to getting a hunting license, I still have the wallet sized certification along with my Dick Tracy decoder.  

  I shot my first deer at 14, a four point buck, I was  on a slope in a canyon by myself, way up the Clackamas  river area, earlier that day I had heard a Mountain Lion and it scared the hell out of me, sounded like a woman screaming.  It took a little over 4 hours to get myself and the buck back to the logging road where dad was waiting, it weighed more than me. Dad stood by while I loaded it into the pick up, “I had brought it this far mys well finish”. he had heard the shots and figured out where I was going to come out on a game trail.  I slept most of the way home.  

   He was uncanny that way, following him on trails through the woods, really trials because we were supposed to be running silent, he could walk up behind you without you hearing, myself on the other hand trying hard to be quiet was all but.  His pace was relentless, I would eventually catch up to him as he paused waiting, but as soon as I caught up, off he’d go in his irritating silent mode. At some point I did catch up and kept on his heels.  After that we hunted together, that is, as a team.   Another  milestone.

  There was a lot to learn from him, somehow I knew I was being introduced to his version of manhood.

   We hunted and fished a lot growing up.  Dad was not what you would call “the classic sportsman”, it wasn’t leisure, it wasn’t sport, it was serious business, for him it was feeding his family. A throw back to an earlier time.  Once it nearly killed him, a small cut while cleaning a deer became infected that led to blood poisoning, a week in the hospital another week home in bed.

  We were fishing the Necanicum river south of Seaside once for Bluebacks, sea run cutthroat trout, he hooked one and instead of playing the fish, letting  it wear itself out he locked the bail turned around and ran  up the bank, the fish literally flew out of the water onto the bank. 

  Later that day I was fooling around not paying any attention to my pole long enough for him to hook another fish he had just caught onto my line.  Myself, I enjoyed playing the fish   out,  but this one was sluggish and half dead already, he never admitted he had done it, but I still have my strong suspicions.

   We deep sea fished out of Warrenton, hire a charter for the day, myself, Dad, my uncle Phil and cousins.  The Columbia bar can be very rough, Dad, being the old Navy guy seemed impervious to the commotion and waves, he would pull his lunch out, his cheese and mayonnaise white bread sandwich and start eating as everyone else was loosing their breakfast over the side.

Then light up his cigar which sent more leftover breakfast into the brink, he thanked us for chumming the waters.

    Dad was a surveyor/timber cruiser for Crown Zellerbach before the war, he worked with his  Uncle Everett. He started working summers during high school. They would spend several months at a time out in the Pacific NW. wilderness traveling by foot surveying timber. 

    He joined the Navy in 1941 and served in the South Pacific, piloted landing craft when they were island hopping Marines.  After the war he got his job back but opted out after the first stint, tired of being away from his new family.

  When I was 15 with a drivers permit Dad let me drive his pick up all the way back from eastern Oregon on another hunting trip, neither one of us bagged anything, my first road trip behind the wheel.

   Mostly I learned to drive a car/truck from my Uncle Don and my Dad.  Mom took me out once in our brand new Chevy Impala, first and last time behind its wheel.  I was making a  turn from asphalt onto Quackenbush the gravel access road to our house at high speed (so mom said) the tires loosening their grip went into a slide, I accelerated and steered where I wanted the damn thing to go, my very first drift!  I was thrilled as the car pulled out of it kicking gravel onto the stunned cows lounging by the fence line.  Mom had turned white and speechless, I, on the other hand was feeling pretty cocky as I whipped that Chevy into the carport.  She never said a word about it, but that was the last of my driving lessons with her. 

   I was about 6 years old when I started driving the tractor and trailer at baling time.  I could not reach the clutch so Dad would come up alongside and slip it in   while I put it into neutral when we had to stop.  I finally was able to do it myself by  bending down backwards  and stretching out my left leg, I looked like I was sliding into home plate dangling on the steering wheel.  First gear was very forgiving, it was driving between the rows of bales that became tricky, cutting corners would wedge a bale up under the trailer axle and toss the loaded bales over the side, which Dad always got annoyed about.  My inclination at the time whenever I was at the wheel of anything was to run into things, not avoid them.  Dan still has that old Farm all tractor, still runs. 

  Prior to baling, the rows of cut hay were rolled into small elongated berms about 4’ wide and endless that covered the entire field, my sister and I would worm our way into them for tunnels or be engineers on huge trains.

   Once every year the bull arrived for a play day with our heifers.  We would sit up on the roof of the shed next to the watering trough for the show.  Early sex education. An aroused inexperienced bull is known to mount the wrong thing, the wrong end or anything handy in it's path.  It’s actions completely unpredictable and entertaining.

  .

      I was sure the world was going to end.... Period.    “The Cuban Missile crisis”   Only a few knew how close we  came until later.       

     My folks talked about it into the night with friends and family all the time.  I would listen in anxiously  from my bedroom.   My mom was stocking up food, which really was nothing out of the ordinary with the canning, preserving, freezing going on all the time anyway,  but still...she was stocking up.  

  There was a  bomb shelter display at the Washington County fairgrounds, I would go out from my 4-H display and check it out.  It worried me.

 Herb, my older brother thankfully was out of the house by then and in the Marines being called up for action. Which caused more anxiety for my folks.  

  Air raid drills were happening at school, the proverbial duck and cover, such horse shit.  One day everyone was herded into the gymnasium showers, I never even knew they were there. But down we went until the all clear bell, jammed in like sardines, all I could think about were those photos of the people in concentration camps. 

    I suffered from constipation during this time, I was running pretty tight, finally Mom found out and proceeded to administer my one and only enema. Thank you very much...

    I was jumpy all the time not only from the uncertainty of life but from my attraction towards girls, Bernice Kwaikosski in particular, she was hot.  I would suffer involuntary erections in class if I thought about her, even when I wasn’t thinking of her,  It had a hair trigger and could go off without any warning, anytime.   We finally got to sort of make out over at my best friends house, Jim Wanless, we passed a lot of notes in school. I sometimes get that same thrill texting. When I got to work in the school cafeteria I would dish out extras for her.  It didn’t last.

  About that time Oregon had an Earthquake, small one,  maybe 3-4 on the Reictor scale, but I thought they dropped the big one when things started rattling around.

  It’s a wonder we all survived.
    I saw the Northern lights that year as well, go figure, all the way from the North Pole they showed up one night.

    In October 1962 the Columbus Day storm hit, my first hurricane.  The Beaverton High School Homecoming game was called off, the big parade through town fizzled out as the winds increased, the feel of things changed as the atmospheric pressure fell on its ass.

   By early evening I was helping Dad anchor  down the grape arbor, (those same grape vines are now up at Dan’s house)  winds were up to 80 and increasing, even leaning into the wind it was hard to stay on your feet.  We finally secured the grapes and making our way back to the house into the wind, Dad grabbed my shoulder and moved me in behind him, I just made  out “grab my belt”, in the din.  I held on tight.  If anything he was a practical man and we had work to do before dark. 

  Shelter from the storm, I felt safe.  

     

  We lived next to a forest, mostly old Douglas Fir.  We called it “Ted’s Woods” after the hermit who lived there in a log hut, who always smelled like a camp fire. (now I know he was suffering from Post Traumatic stress disorder)  Dad said Ted lost his hearing in a tank, he walked with a limp, another veteran from WW11.  Ted had built a  great rope swing for us neighbor kids,  you had to climb up a wooden ladder onto a platform you could launch from. There was a  single lane bowing alley with wooden bowling balls and pins Ted had carved, big logs on either side making up the lane.  All this at the base of large old Fir trees, he kept the under story area spotless, sweeping debris out of the fir needles so it was like a very large soft carpet.  Ted always stopped what he was doing and watched us when we were on the rope swing. He knew our folks.

  He lost a lot of his trees in the storm.  

   It took us about a week to clear our drive way, yard and  road of debris, several big firs fell between our house and the greenhouse, we lost a few of our apple trees as well.  No Electricity for a couple weeks, mom cooked in the fireplace, candles at night. It was an adventure.  The aftermath meant a lot of hard work.  Dan has the 35mm. slides of the whole affair.

      

   Daryl Norton and I were big Superman fans, his family lived in the ramshackle farmhouse down the road before My Aunt Vi (mom’s sister) and my cousins moved in.  He insisted with the right cape we could fly, I on the other hand was a skeptic regarding this theory.  Daryl however, was convinced, so with his mom’s tablecloth carefully affixed his shoulders, (I managed to steal a sheet out of the linen closet at home), we made our way up to the big door in the hayloft of their barn.  With much bravado Daryl insisted he go first,  I was to follow and try to catch up to him out above the Filbert orchard as his wing man after we worked out the finer points of flight.  We had a plan.

  I have to admit and I told him so, he was in good form for the first second or two, that great short run Superman bouncy jump, arms out stretched just before he flies out the window dance.  

   Luckily only one arm broke, we weren’t allowed to  play together for some time, they moved shortly after that.  

    

 Dear Aunt Della and Uncle Chuck.  Della is mom’s sister,   she just turned 93? and lives in Tigard,  the Last of the Burke clan of that generation.

Uncle Chuck loved his beer, his menthol Kool’s and a good poker game.  Della preferred Pall Mall’s.  They collected coupons and would stock up on stuff, providing six of my cousins.

    At family gatherings if there wasn’t a poker game to attend too, Chuck always wanted to leave early.    Even if the meal hadn’t been served he would holler out.. “Della, time to go!”.  A battle of wills would commence, Della usually winning.

  Chuck passed away in 96 or 97, I forget the exact date,  the memorial service was in the middle of the week, middle of the day at St. Cecelia’s in Beaverton.  

   Dan was working with me then as my General Manager from 1996 to 2010 so we both took off work to attend.  We sat near the back of the church.  We were there an hour or so and they still hadn’t gotten to Chuck yet. 

   Dan and I were synced even as kids, maybe because I suggested his name when Mom was still carrying him after Danny Thomas the actor, or it could have been the wagon episodes (I provided the pushing/pulling of the red wagon while Dan held on for dear life!  There was a small steep incline transitioning from the driveway to the walkway at the corner of the garage that was particularly challenging, we would either crash and burn or make it over in a hell bent fashion catching air.)  

  By now we’re getting concerned,  we had already been gone to  long from work and looking at our watches.....then it hit us, we would pull a now classic maneuver ....  To “Pull a Chuck”  knowing he would understand and be smiling at our audacity,  so in tribute to Uncle Chuck we got up and left.  This has proved over and over again to be a great tactic but only used in discretion.