Personal History - Culture Crash

Were there any fads during your youth that you remember vividly?

I wasn't aware of the world outside of my own family until I was ten years old, even though I watched television as a kid. It didn't start to really affect me until then.

As a true child of the '80s, these weren't all the fads to be had out there, but these hit me personally on the deepest level:


Recording music off the radio

When I first discovered rock music in the 1980s, all I had was the radio. Fortunately, the radio came with the tape player/recorder. Putting two and two together, as so many others did, I embarked on my first obsession - bootlegging music.

I had to time it just right - the DJ would talk and talk and talk. Sometimes they would talk over the beginning of the song, and then the song was ruined and you had to rewind right back to that moment and start over. Sometimes you got lucky, and the radio identification jingle would play, and then the song would start right up, and you hit the button at just the right moment, and then voila! The song was yours.

 I made about a million of these sorts of tapes, just like Star Lord's in Guardians of the Galaxy. Played them incessantly. They were always a grab bag of songs you really liked, and some you got tired of and just fast-forwarded over them. Being able to push a button and go straight to the beginning of a song, when CDs were invented, was a huge step forward.

You know what though? My biggest guilty secret is that, in my car, I still have a cassette tape player. I bought that car, just for the cassette tape player. And I still play and listen to those cassettes in that car.

Star Wars

A monster hit from the beginning, and a big, big deal in a nerdy home like mine. I wrote one of my first short stories when I was ten, and won a free movie ticket when I entered it in a local school contest. What did I spend it on?

The Empire Strikes Back, of course. The perfect movie for people with daddy issues.

My experience going to these three movies was like no other movie experience I've ever had. The audience was so invested in the story, it was electric. And even today the story continues.

Big hair

I tried. Heaven help me, but I tried. My big thick hair fell flat as a pancake. So I was left to wonder and wish that my hair would do that. I hadn't yet discovered hair salons or perms at that point.

My first perm was in middle school, that my mom did on me, the day before school pictures.

Yep, it was that bad. And immortalized forever.

Rainbow shirts

In the sixth grade, suddenly everyone on the bus wore these T-shirts and sweatshirts with a huge rainbow on them, that went sleeve to sleeve.

I wanted one so, so bad. No luck. Broke parents. I'd tried approaching my father for pretty, trendy clothes already, and got burned by the experience so badly, I wasn't about to ask again.

Might have to buy one now, just to bring me full circle someday.

Torn sweatshirts off the shoulder (Flashdance)

Never saw the movie, but everyone wore the shirt. I tore my own, and wore them at home, but I didn't dare go out in them. Mom woulda hadda fit!

Acid wash jeans and jackets

Any kind of jeans, but especially jeans with names on them, were popular when I was a kid. Jordache and Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, super tight. Tight enough to hug every curve, but not so tight as to make muffin top. I remember Brook Shields' jean commercial, where blue paint poured onto her naked legs, and right before the camera hit the censurable area, the paint turned to blue jeans.

That was my goal. That tight.

I still love jeans, but I don't care anymore whether or not my jeans have a name.

Acid wash jeans were even better than regular jeans. I had, not only acid wash jeans, but a long acid wash denim jacket I wore for a long time, until my mother started wearing it. She wore it when we went to the David Bowie concert. I think, after that point, it was hers.

He-Man

Lots of good shows in the 80s. He-Man was a regular one I watched. My siblings and I loved all that silly, campy fun of it. Had no idea about the gay overtones at the time. My 'gaydar' was still in development (and truly, hardly ever developed at all).

Jelly shoes

Loved them. Never had a pair, even though they were mega-cheap even back then. Might have to go and find some online and buy them now, even though I'm ages too old for them.


Valley Girls

The movie 'Valley Girl' came out in the 80s. Again, never saw it, but saw the ramifications of it all around me, especially from the song by Moon Unit Zappa.

Even played with some of the catch phrases, until I realized the constant repetition of the word 'like' was going to destroy the English language, and I backed off.

I can walk any day down the college campus where I work, and hear the continual fallout from this trend. Once I counted how many times I heard the word 'like' in passing conversations. Twenty times! In a single afternoon! (sigh)

Madonna

An extension of the Valley Girl craze that took on a life of its own. Again, since her style was so shabby chic, I could recreate it pretty well with Goodwill clothes, so I pretended at being her (in her first reincarnation) a large portion of my teens. Gave it up when she got gross about it.

Penny loafers

Loved the whole preppie thing - but couldn't afford it myself. The jackets with the crocodile on them, the sweaters draped over the shoulder with the sleeves rolled together in front, the rolled-up straight-leg jeans, and of course, the shiny penny loafers. If I had the choice, I would have dressed like this. Then my Lady Di nickname would have made more sense than it did, I guess.

Personal History - It's a Good Thing That Winning Isn't Everything...

What were your favorite childhood games?

Marbles

I was never an accomplished game player, but I loved to play. I just couldn't win all that often.


As a young kid, marbles came into vogue. I knew it had rules, and my brothers could play really well, especially my oldest brother . I more kept the bag of marbles, and between games, pulled them out to
a) run my fingers through them - they were so smooth to the touch, and
b) let them roll around in the light and stare at the changes.

Marbles were a major sensory experience for me that felt very satisfying, even if I didn't play very well.

Board Games

Ditto with board games - I loved them, but seldom won them. Monopoly had a lot of counting involved, but I loved imagining the alternate world happening in my mind, and the stories that the cards told me. Same for Game of Life, and Chutes and Ladders. I'd play them for hours, never caring if I won or lost. If I won, I didn't celebrate hard, in order not to hurt the other person's feelings. If I lost, then that was my natural state when it came to games, so I was used to it.


Parcheesi took me to another world, with all the twisting and turning of the game pieces. Othello had mesmerizing patterns that erupted across the board, that eventually filled my eyeballs with black and white. 

Chess and checkers - not as interesting. And again, I hardly ever won, so I only played those at times of utter, abject boredom. I had a teacher in elementary school who promised us $50 if we could beat him at chess. Might as well have promised me the deed to the Taj Mahal. It wasn't going to happen.

Duck Duck Goose

Active games were fun whenever I was part of a group, at home, school, or church. The suspense of Duck, Duck, Goose got my adrenalin going. Sitting in a circle, waiting to spring as each person got pronounced a duck, and suddenly I was the goose. But then I had to stand up and run, and by the time those two things happened, the other person was usually safely back in my seat.

Red Light Green Light

This one was the stuff of nightmares, especially if you ended up being the one calling out 'Red Light!' and "Green Light!'. I loved being in the crowd, chasing the lone caller. Don't remember ever winning this one, though. Ever.

Dodge ball

Oh my gosh but how I loved this game as a kid! Standing in a big circle of people with bouncy balls who were out for blood, and they throw the ball at you until you get hit, at which point you either throw the ball yourself, a casualty with a jealous ax to grind, or you just watched.


But winning was kind of important to the other kids, so I ended up a spectator a lot of the time. Least likely to be chosen, and since I was tall and nonathletic, often out first. I used to sit on the sidelines and imagine I was the last one standing, and no one could touch me. Dodge ball really brought out my Walter Mitty tendencies. Same for kickball.

Broomstick Lawn Hockey

My brothers and I would make up games sometimes - pretty risky ones - out of whatever we could find. Like Broomstick Lawn Hockey. It consisted of a bouncy-ball on the front yard, a plastic broom for each kid, and a rule that no one could swing their hockey stick above their waist.

A rule which was, not too later on, broken. Many, many times, as the game heated up.

And, of course, one of my brothers hit me in the face, with the hard plastic edge of their broom.

And then the bleeding began.

I'd never bled before like this - I could feel it streaming down my face. I ran up the front stairs of my house (we had a lot of stairs), and I could see my hands covered with blood. She opened the door, and dragged me inside, alarmed. Had blood in one eye by then. Pretty sure I would die of my injuries (I was maybe nine - ?).

Turned out I had a small cut, just above one eye, the scar of which is still slightly visible today if you know where it is. I had no idea how the head likes to bleed until that moment.

Any Game in School or Church

If you got a game instead of a lesson at school or church, you were the luckiest kid alive, and it didn't matter how stupid the game was - we were excited to play it.

Hangman was a favorite at church - drawing the gallows on the chalkboard, and then guessing the word (usually drawn somewhere from the scriptures, to assuage the guilt of the teacher) before we drew the entire person hanging from the gallows.

I actually did win several games of hangman. :-)

Personal History - Favorite Toys

What were your favorite toys and what were they like?

Dolls

I had a lot of rag dolls, even into my teens. My mother wouldn't allow Barbie dolls, but I did get some more traditional dolls that wore international outfits.


Didn't matter. They all ended up naked anyway.

My husband gave me a big blue teddy bear when we got engaged that I still have in my closet today.

Rocking Horse

This wooden or plastic rocking horse, tied to a large metal frame with springs stretched to each end, made the best toy ever. I'm lucky I didn't crack my head open, trying to push those springs to their utmost. I would try to make the horse's nose touch the ground in front of me, and then lean back as far as I could backwards, to make him 'sit'.

Eventually I grew too heavy for my horse. A very sad day.

Bike

My seventh or eighth Christmas went down as the most amazing, as well as the saddest. We got bikes for Christmas, my older and younger brother, and me. At last, transportation! Something other than just my feet!

The only problem was, my father wanted to go out and learn to ride bikes that day - on the snow and ice of winter.

We went to the elementary school playground down the street, and I was terrified. My feet couldn't reach the pedals, and I knew I would fall if I tried to ride my bike that day.

My older brother, who was 9 or 10 at the time, took off riding right away. A couple of pushes from my dad sent him on his way. My younger brother, on a smaller bike, also rode that day.

But I didn't. I refused to get on the bike, and my father yelled at me in frustration, until I teared up. I went home unsuccessful, walking my new bike the whole way.

But I didn't give up on it. I eventually grew into it instead. When my brothers would take their bikes out and ride, I followed behind them, sitting lower on the bike than the seat. It wasn't the most comfortable ride, but it helped me gather my courage and eventually learn to ride from the seat level.

Video Games

This new thing called video games started becoming a thing around age 10. First, arcade games sprung up everywhere, but we couldn't play them as often as we wanted because...well, broke. Most of the time.

Then Atari created home games. My dad bought a machine and our first set of games when I was 12, and it fascinated the entire family, but my brothers more so than me.

We played Pong, essentially two sticks and a little square ball that went back and forth, like table tennis. Then the games quickly grew more advanced. There were chances to win badges for high-score playing, and I won a couple of badges for Space Invaders and some other game I can't remember now.

After that, I lost interest, but my brothers and my dad went on to one new game system after another. Just didn't catch my interest the same way it caught theirs.

Personal History - Poverty, American-Style

Do you remember not having enough food to eat because times were hard for your family?

Our family had four children in it, and my father made $8/hr grinding lenses in a glasses store when I was young. Finances grew desperately tight.

My mother gardened and canned, and made our food fresh mostly. Just getting the raw materials to cook with must have been a huge challenge.

If it wasn't for my church, and the extensive welfare program they developed, I believe starvation might have been in the cards for us. We visited the Church storehouse more often than we went to regular stores, and the storehouse continued as a regular fixture in our lives up until about 6-10 years ago. So grateful for that, as painful as it was to take a handout.

I Remember Eating Pets...

My father loved animals, and we raised all kinds. At one point, we raised rabbits. I named my rabbit Princess. The boys named their rabbits after themselves.

Big mistake.

One morning I woke up to find a ghoulish work going on in our kitchen. My father decided that we couldn't afford the rabbits anymore, and we needed to eat them. I don't remember if he or my mother tried to prepare us for this - the shock I felt at the sight of our pet rabbits hanging from hooks on the wall, having their skin removed, and the head of my brother's rabbit in the trash, staring at me, with blood trickling from its eyeball...I yelled at my dad, and he sent me to my room.

Later on, we had rabbit stew for dinner...a very quiet dinner. I was distraught, but I ate it anyway, since there wasn't anything else.

My brother Peter took it better than I did. He asked, 'Is this Peter we're eating?' When my mother said yes, he said meekly, 'He tastes good.'

I know now the kind of pressure my father must have been under to provide for such a large family. Still, the emotional impact of that moment took a while for me to move past.

...And Hiding Food...

Our household grew to eleven people. My five brothers, my sister, my mom and dad, and my father's parents. Grandpa and Grandma fed themselves, but the rest of us ate a lot of carbs - pasta, pizza, and sugary treats whenever we could get our hands on them.

Food moved fast in our house. You had to hide something if you didn't want to eat it right away. If my brothers got their hands on it, no amount of labeling would save it. I would strategically store things in the back of the fridge, or the bottom of the chest freezer under other things.

Sometimes it worked.

Eating Weeds

My mother gardened a lot when I was a kid, so I tried my hand at it when I got older. Not too good, but not terrible. We did get a lot more vegetables when I did. Some of my friends at church helped me figure out how to grow herbs, and that came in handy several times.

Then I tried eating plants in the yard that turned out to be edible - purslane and henbit. Free food, and it sautes up nicely in cooked dishes!

...And then I couldn't anymore...

There came a period of time when, for some strange reason, I felt almost narcoleptic. I found myself conking out for these 2-hour naps in the middle of the day. If I didn't sleep, I couldn't function.

This wasn't good, because I had small babies. I had to contain them in a play area, and sleep on the floor wearing a helmet so they couldn't crack my skull with their small, hard heads.

Trying to figure out what was wrong, I went to Dr. Weil's website (a brand-new thing back then in the early 2000s) and learned about high-fructose corn syrup

I removed everything I ate that had high-fructose corn syrup from my diet, and the need for heavy naps went away. Great news!

But our food budget skyrocketed, and we had to buy all-new products. Bad, bad news!


I couldn't eat unhealthy food anymore, but couldn't really afford healthy food either. I wanted to feed the kids better, but couldn't afford to, and I think that hurt me emotionally more than anything in those early years.

But I'm a big believer in teaching by example whenever possible, so I did the best I could.

People would move, and we'd take their food storage off their hands, which helped a lot too. Cooking is a great skill to have when you're trying to feed a family. Hubby has a degree in professional cooking and baking from his college in Baltimore, and he taught me most of what I know.

The Result Today

Today, I'm still struggling with my sugar habit, but working on it. Haven't had a Starburst or a can of soda in over a decade - most of the HFCS in my diet is completely gone.

Trying to eat less, and practice meals as meditating, but that's a work in progress as well.

I have these moment of 'mom victory' sometimes. My kids eat vegetables and don't think anything of it. Youngest daughter can cook better than I can, and puts veggies on every pizza she makes. Oldest girl can't cook much at all, but she does know about adding protein to her meals to balance them out.

Once a few years ago, my hubby and my youngest son went out to get Slurpees from the local 7-11. I'd never bought my kids a Slurpee ever, even though I practically lived on them as a young child.

My son bought a small one, and couldn't finish it. He said it was so sweet it made him feel sick. How do people drink this??? he asked me.

Wins like this help me know that my hard work 'ain't been in vain for nothin'. Woot woot! :-)

Personal History - Mother Goosed Rhymes (and Grandmother, and Great-Grandfather, etc.)

Do you remember having a favorite nursery rhyme or bedtime story? What was it?

My mother, when I was little, gave me a book with zebra stripes and really old-fashioned pictures on it, with 'Mother Goose' on the front of it. Poetry became part of my life from that point on.

She and my father also presented me with a book of more 'grownup' poetry and wise sayings when I was eight, at the Sizzler, along with my journal. I perused that book as well.

I don't remember one poem or another becoming my favorite, nor do I remember any particular bedtime story, but I have poetry memories.

When I go through a particularly emotional time, I tend to break out into metered rhyme, and write poetry. It really does make me feel better.

Poetry Runs In the Family

My great-grandfather did this too, as did my grandmother, and my mother, and now my youngest brother and I. It's in the genes.

Each person's poetry came out different, just as each unique person wrote the poem.

My great-grandfather's poetry is simple and straightforward, and probably the best of all of us. He had a real gift, a lot like Robert Frost.

My grandmother's poetry ranged from thoughtful to wacky.

My mother's poetry is mostly sentimental memory poems, very similar to her favorite poet, Edgar Guest.

My brother's poetry tends to run longer and more epic, with family and spiritual themes.

And me? I favor the thoughtful stanza, limerick, or the haiku, nearly always with a touch (or a heaping shovelful) of humor.

One of my bucket list items is to compile and publish a book of all the family poetry one day. Hoping I live long enough to do it.

Personal History - A History of Reading

What kinds of books do you like to read?

Almost anything and everything. I've read since I've made memories. I knew how to read before I went to kindergarten, which I found both a great advantage and a significant disadvantage. But books have always been my friends, sometimes more so than people.

My first book that I remember talked about nature and leaves and trees, and it had a very soothing fuzzy green cover. My hippie tree-hugger tendencies probably go back that far as well.

Dr. Seuss

I used to go to the Salt Lake Public Library with my mother, a huge white building (who knows how big it actually was?) and I would climb a flight of stairs to get up to the children's books. Dr. Seuss books were far and away my favorite - he was an early kindred spirit of mine. My all-time favorite was Bartholomew Cubbins and his 500 Hats. I don't know how young I was when I first read that one, but I'd wager pretty young.

E. B. White

Another kindred spirit was E. B. White. His books depicted a world both gentle and cruel - the real world -  and went right along with my love for nature. My mother gave me his three classics - Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan - for Christmas when I was 8 or 9, and I devoured them all. My favorite one was The Trumpet of the Swan. I loved Sam and his calm, observant ways. The way he wrote in his journal inspired my own writing and pondering.

Recently I found myself at the library during a book sale, and discovered all three of these books again, about to be trashed. I adopted them and took them home - E.B. White books should never be without a loving home.

Tom Swift novels

I remember reading these back in the Quince Street house, when I was six or so. My mother loved yard sales, and most of what she bought and brought home were books - big boxes of them. She must have brought them home in one of those boxes.


I loved the picture on the back, of a young man looking out into space, and all the stories about riding in rockets and saving people and getting saved himself. Haven't read them since, but those stories laid a strong foundation for my later lifelong fascination with science and science fiction.

Encyclopedia Brown

I think I discovered the Encyclopedia Brown books in school. It fascinated me to see someone so young act so smart. But the mystery genre itself frustrated me mostly - I could never figure out who the wrongdoer was, and seeing how obvious the answer to the puzzle was in retrospect made me feel...well, dumb.

Harlequin novels

Yes, I blame my mother to some extent, but no one put a gun to my head to read the books. We both went through a thick phase of Harlequin romance consumption, and there were boxes upon boxes of them in our home. Some of them made quite an impact on me, and I can still remember parts of them and grew very familiar with the romance genre. I left it behind mostly when I married and (finally) moved out though.


Arthur Henry King

For this, I also have to blame (and thank) my mom. I found his book 'Abundance of the Heart' in her prodigious collection of yard-sale books when I was 14 years old. This book seemed to say the things I'd thought before I thought them, and I struggled to understand what he talked about - things in literature, history, in connection with my faith.

I re-read it over and over every few years, and I brought it with me into my own home. Today, the book is scribbled over and the cover's falling off, and I can see the history of how I gradually came to understand what he talked about. More than once, I longed to bring him back from the dead just for one day, to ask him the many questions I had about his work and philosophies. He is the father of my life of the mind.

And my oldest boy wants a copy now. :-)

J. R. R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis (and the Boy Who Lived)

Once my mother read 'The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe' to us out loud as teenagers. I think she meant to read his entire Narnia series to us, but we lost momentum after 'The Magician's Nephew'. I went on ahead to read the rest of the books (those two she read multiple times more). I loved their Christian imagery and fantasy elements mixed together.

'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' came after. We watched a lot of TV in our house growing up, and the Rankin Bass version of the Return of the King came on - I loved it, so I read the book. That was often my pattern - when I saw a show on TV I liked, I invariably found and read the book right after, and usually loved the book more.

Except with 'Star Wars' and 'Star Trek'. The books sucked.

AND except when 'Harry Potter' came along. There, I saw the first movie, then read the first book. Then I chewed my way through each book BEFORE the movie, and loved them equally in their own way.

Personal History - Chores: The Good, the Bad, and the Really Disgusting

Was there a chore you really hated doing as a child?

Washing the dishes disgusted me, even as a small child. Not because of the dishes themselves, but because the dishes sat in this brownish-green water, full of food and slobber and who knows what else.

I watched my mom fill the sinks with fresh water, and then wash and rinse each dish. The wash water grew foul very quickly, and then the rinse water more gradually. At some point, both sinks looked equally dirty.

My little girl mind couldn't figure out how dishes could get clean in water that looked like that. Mom told me she saved water doing it this way.

But I didn't buy that argument, because it didn't register on my little-girl mind that we paid money for water use. I think I might have understood more if she pointed out the economic impact of her decision, and how we needed to save money.

Or maybe it wouldn't have. I couldn't stand that grody water, and whenever it was my turn to wash the dishes, I ran the water instead of filling the sink.

I still wash dishes that way today.

 
My second worst chore was the scary chore - first of all, it could only be done downstairs, in our creepy basement where my grandparents lives. They weren't creepy, but those dark rooms downstairs, with only small muddy windows allowing in any light, had me looking around every corner.

We owned one of those washing machines that was one step above scrubbing clothes in a washtub - which we also did sometimes - I saw one a couple of decades later in one of the Smithsonian museums (yes, it was that old.)

It had the spinner-style washbasin. I couldn't take my eyes off it while the clothes swam like fish back and forth inside.

Afterwards came the terror.

The roller.

It was my job to feed the clothes through the roller, and put them in the basket to take them out to dry. My fingers stood constantly in danger of this machine, or so it seemed. The thin clothes made it through all right, but then the thick blankets would cause the roller to snap apart with a loud BANG!

Loud noises frightened me terribly back then, and whenever I ran clothes through the roller, I knew the inevitable BANG! was in my future. Just never knew when.


Did you like any of your chores?

Hanging out the laundry possessed a certain magical quality to it.

I was shorter than the clothesline, and hanging up the heavy stuff made my little arms hurt, but when we finished, the result entranced us - especially the sheets.

When still slightly damp and waving in the wind, nothing cooled your shoulders like running alongside the hanging sheets. My brothers and I would run down the rows of laundry...and then the clothes fell down...and then the yelling started...but it never really spoiled the fun of a good load of laundry waving in the breeze in our backyard.

And it smelled terrific on top of that.

Personal History - (Almost) All Good Fun

What did your family do for fun when you were a child?

Going to the park
Playgrounds meant great fun - climbing, swinging, kicking and tumbling. A playground had been built almost across the street from us, and we went there. The monkey bars at Washington Elementary School beckoned every recess (and we did have significant amounts of recess back then.)

A park downtown, called Liberty Park, was also a place we loved to go. It had a lot more space to run around, and great playgrounds.

Lagoon
The closest amusement park to Salt Lake City couldn't compare to Disneyland, but we didn't care. Lagoon had the coolest haunted houses that I could almost tolerate (my tolerance for horror of any kind was notoriously low from a young age), and the best roller coasters (I remember the Wild Mouse ride, that felt like it would dump me out every time it turned the corner), and the World War I flying ace ride (I always tried to get the Sopwith Camel, like Snoopy's plane), and a swimming pool that seemed to stretch out forever.

The last time I went back there, I'd just turned twelve, and the years didn't make any difference. It was still super fun (and the boys were much cuter as well). Actually going to Disneyland later in life still didn't change my mind about this place. The local carnivals have a charm of their own that the mega parks can't match.

Television
Mostly our entertainment consisted of our little black-and-white TV with the rabbit ears and the tinfoil, that eventually grew into the color TV with the rabbit ears and the tinfoil. Eventually just the TV remained.

The problem with TV consisted in the ephemeral nature of the shows - you had to live your life around the television, instead of the other way around. When the TV Guide showed up with the schedule of all the shows, I would sit with it and circle when each show came on, and what time I had to be there. If you weren't there, you missed the show, and no replay existed. It was just gone.

This was most tragic around Christmastime, when A Charlie Brown Christmas came around. Nothing, and I mean nothing, interfered with Charlie Brown shows, and the Christmas one was most sacred. The years I missed the show, for one reason or another, were so sad. As soon as video came along, I figured out how to record that show, and I never missed it again. :-)

Visiting Linda Shirts and her kids
The Shirts family emerged first in my consciousness as people I knew outside my home. My mother and Linda grew to be best friends (and still are friends, even today). Their similarity to us drew us together, I think...we were both young families, either mostly boys or in Linda's case, all boys. We played together a lot at their house, just down the street from ours.

They had a chain-link fence, and a wonderful horse chestnut tree in the front yard. You couldn't walk barefoot in their front yard when the horse chestnuts fell, because their husk grew some wicked spines that would poke your feet. But we would pick them on purpose, not waiting for them to fall, and pry them open and pull out the horse chestnut, which was like a beautiful brown and smooth stone, like the color of a horse.

I don't remember ever roasting them or eating them, but I loved to collect them in my shirt and just run my fingers through them over and over. Very soothing feeling.


Bikes
My best Christmas ever was the bike Christmas. There is no feeling in the world like getting transportation with a big ribbon on it, that's yours.

It took a couple more years to learn to ride it, since I was afraid of falling over. The seat was too tall for me, and my feet couldn't reach the ground, but I was too afraid to tell my dad about that. So I waited until I was taller. While I waited, I would sit down on the metal part in the middle, and push myself around with my feet.

There was a big parking lot down the street, near where the Conference Center in Salt Lake sits now, that had a little bit of an incline and we could go around in circles. My brothers, who could already ride their bikes, would ride around and around in circles, and I would ride more slowly behind them, gradually getting used to the speed, always keeping my feet ready to hit the ground in case I lost control.

I was not about to fall off that bike, and I never did.


Movies - Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi
I shared my dad's love of movies, and he taught me in the ways of the nerd.

When I was six, we went to see a new movie called Star Wars. We arrived at the movie theater in downtown Salt Lake, and the line of people waiting to get in circled around the block. I'd never seen anything like it before - but I was six, and I didn't get to go to the movies much.

We waited in the line, and I marveled. Once we got to the ticket booth, the ticket person told my dad all the tickets were sold. We had to come back again. Disappointing in the extreme.

We did come back again, and Star Wars was amazing.  Couldn't wait to see the sequels when they came out, and my dad took us to see each one. The first trilogy film that I remember, and when...I won't spoil the ending if there DOES happen to be a human being on Earth remaining who hasn't seen these movies yet...the climactic end of Return of the Jedi came, the crowd whopped and yelled and applauded. I was sixteen, and I'd never seen a reaction like that from a movie before. Never seen its equivalent since.

Swimming - near-drowning
We loved to swim at the Wasatch Gym - I think that's what it was called. A heavy smell of chlorine filled the air that I associated strongly with that place. We could smell it every time we walked or drove by that place.

I almost drowned there a couple of times when very young - saved on both occasions by my dad. My fear of underwater noises, combined with my fear of the ocean after watching Jaws at age six - made it several more years before I successfully learned to swim, but we always loved water, and playing in the shallow end.

Personal History - Siblings and their New Glorious Nicknames Part Two

If you missed the first installment of this one regarding the older three kids, click here.

HeartBreaker (my fourth brother)

By the time HB rolled around, I was getting sick of brothers, and babies. Being the only girl, the business of taking care of the babies often fell to me, and living life as the outnumbered gender...well, it sucked.

Still, HB and I had a good relationship. At this point, I was so much older that we were not exactly peers, but I wasn't the parent either.

HB grew up gorgeous - he looked like a male model, complete with the lazy smile and the long eyelashes. He and my dad clashed even worse than I did, and home wasn't the easiest life for him. When I moved out, we lost touch a little bit.

My current favorite memory of his is as an adult. My father passed away last year, and the whole family gathered for the funeral. We stayed at his house, back in the woods, and I had some time to talk with him again sitting on his front porch in the evening dusk, as well as getting to know his two boys a little bit. Catching up was a very nice thing, and seeing how good a father he is, and how well his boys are growing up felt very satisfying.

Plus, the rarity of having all the kids together again in one place really added to the experience...and nobody got bombed the next day! (Which is another story for another time...)


TomGurl (my one and only sister)

Finally, my wishes for a little sister ended up in the right heavenly department, and TG came along. There was a ten-year difference between us, but still I hoped we could finally talk ribbons and hair and twirling and all the girl things I wanted to have around that no one else appreciated.

What'd I get? A total tomboy, who never wore dressed, wanted her hair cut short, and ran with all the boys.

Still, she got better as she got older.

My favorite memory of her was when I was an adult, and she was still coming on teenager. We shared a room at one point, and slept in the same bed. Somehow, one night, we ended up in a poke-war, and couldn't stop laughing about it.

Weird, I know. It was more fun than it sounds.


StuckOnYou (my fifth and final brother)

This poor kid didn't stand a chance. I was more mother than sister to this one, and what he wanted, more than anything in the world...was someone to pay attention to him.


He followed us around. He got into everything. I felt bad for pushing him away so much, and tried to play with him whenever I could, but baby stuff just wasn't that interesting to a boy-crazed 12-year-old.

My favorite story about SOY (and I have to admit, this one might be over-told, but I still love it) was the day he disappeared, and nobody noticed.

We were going about our business, when our neighbor pulls up to our house in his truck, and brings us SOY, who's wearing nothing but a diaper and very unhappy.

Turns out no one would take him to the store, so he set off himself. About three years old, with a nickel in his hand for the ice cream cones that cost a quarter at the time, and dressed in nothing but his diaper. Our neighbor found him and fortunately recognized him, and brought him back home without his ice cream.

The incident scared my mother (and me) at the time, but I admired his gumption, and to this day, I still think he might have made it if he weren't intercepted. We were free-range kids to the core.

Personal History - (Best) Memories of my Brother and Sisters, and Their New Fabulous Nicknames!

Can you give any memories of your brothers and sisters? What are their names?

After years of keeping journals and family history, I've collected a lot of memories, good and bad.

I'm only interested in preserving the good memories anymore. The bad ones refuse to go away anyhow, and no point in encouraging them to stick around longer than they have to.

Overall, I grew up in a good family. My five brothers and one sister were very close with each other, although I did notice that we sort of fragmented at some point, and the four older siblings grew closer to each other in a group, while the four younger siblings did the same, with the fourth kid sort of bridging both worlds. Kind of an interesting dynamic.

Since I haven't asked their permission to share these stories, I'm making up names to protect the incredibly guilty here today. If they're reading this, feel free to refute my memory, sucky as it is, if you remember different.

Bubbagumpkin (my oldest brother)

First brother, little sister who stole his mommy from him...our rivalry approached legendary levels. Still, he could be quite useful in a tight spot.

Once, when I was 12 and really stupid, our church planned an all-day hike for the teenagers in Zion Narrows, a really tight canyon path.

Thirteen miles, they said. It'll be a snap - take us a day to hike, and we head back home. I was stoked - this was my first Church activity with the big kids, and going to be something I would never forget.

Well, it was indeed something I would never forget. Something that I'm glad I lived to never forget.

I ate my lunch about one hour into the activity, sure I'd gotten to the halfway point. We went on to hike for another TWELVE HOURS, through really rough terrain, and deep water that kept knocking me off my feet. The boys ran on ahead, while the girls struggled along behind, often without adult supervision.

About six hours in, I found myself totally alone, fighting for my life in this canyon somewhere in Utah, and beginning to panic.

A path led up one side of the mountain, and then went down to a ledge. I hopped down, and found myself up against a wall of rock, balancing on a boulder, up to my armpits in fast-moving water, right next to a waterfall.

And I couldn't swim!

I never prayed harder in my life than I did at that moment...when, a few seconds later, my brother, who decided not to hike in because of an ankle condition, and another adult leader came around the corner in front of me, coming in from the end of the trail. Michael waded into the river, and stretched out his walking stick to me, so I could get across safely.

I forgave him every dirty trick he ever played on me in that moment...at least, up until that moment...

Lil' Elvis (my next brother)

I named him Elvis here, because I think he secretly IS Elvis - he could do a really great Elvis impersonation as a kid. A really entertaining one, at the very least.

My favorite memory with him is still the ghost episode - one late night I'd finished up watching a movie in the living room of our last home in Bowie - I was in high school. On my way back to bed, I heard a sort of thumping noise in the computer room, behind some doors with wooden slats.

I peered through those slats, and saw what looked like a huge black figure behind the doors, but I couldn't tell for sure.

I opened one side of the door to find myself face-to-face with this huge black figure that blocked the light from the streetlights outside. Did my dad leave a blanket on the curtains again?

I put my hand into the room, only to feel another cold hand reaching for me...

I jumped about three feet, and so did Elvis. We scared each other.

Our house had some intermittent ghost sightings over the years, and we both thought the other was a ghost.

BlessYourBeautifulHide (my third brother)

This brother was a massive nerd gone good. All of us (the first three of us) struggled with weight problems as children and teenagers, so we just assumed we were a jolly giant family.

Along came BYBH, who started into that same path, but somewhere around middle school he discovered girls AND weight training, and sharply diverged from the 'jolly giant' model we'd established. A rogue child...but he was so good-natured we couldn't say anything bad about him.

When he turned 12, another big church activity came up. The all-night-long dance marathon.

I was a sucker for these, and swore that I would win. I would outlast everyone and win the big prize. Such was my pattern that I still couldn't see it, even though four years had passed since the Narrows trip.

We started out, and I broke out my best moves. Little BYBH, still in the family dumpy phase of his life before girls and weightlifting, started stepping from side-to-side, the easiest and least-interesting dance move ever, but with a determination that wouldn't quit.

Ten o'clock came. Eleven o'clock. Towards midnight people started dropping out, but BYBH kept to stepping, side-to-side.

One o'clock, and I was sweaty toast. I gave up. Little brother kept on going.

Guess who won?

He went on to win many other honors in his life - college, a great career, beautiful family, black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and admittance to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Prince of a guy (and I'm not just saying that because I use him whenever something goes wrong with my computer...)


Will upload the last three tomorrow...