When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #19

Story #19 - The race on bikes – Glass in my head – ouch!
Have you ever had a bicycle race? It’s so fun to peddle as fast as you can and win at a race!

My dad thought competition between his children was healthy. He loved a good race! We had a circular driveway that went around the front and back of the house. I was about 8 years old. I loved riding a bicycle! I did not have a girl’s bike. I rode a boy’s bike. The driveway that circled our house was dirt and it had small rocks in it. I was very competitive. Everybody likes to win, right? Right! I was peddling as fast as I could and I was ahead of my twin brother Gayle. I made one small mistake. I took my eye off of the driveway in front of me and as I was going around the curve I looked back to see how close behind me my brother was. The next thing I knew I had a bad bike wreck! I lost the race! My brother rode past me on to victory!

I was wearing shorts. It was summer. My bike was on top of me and I was ground into the dirt and rocks! My hands and knees were badly skinned and bleeding. There was blood coming from my head. I was crying and screaming like a typical little girl. My dad and oldest brother Geoffrey came running over to me and picked the bike off of me and carried me into the house. I remember having dirt in my mouth and dirt all over me! My mom cleaned me up. I had a small piece of glass stuck in the right side of head above the temple (ear area). She picked it out with tweezers. I also had tiny bits of rock stuck in my knees where they ground into the dirt. I was a mess! I remember my mom washing my wounds and it just hurt so bad. The soap stung on my hands and knees. It took a few weeks to heal up from those scabs. I remember one knee had a scab over the whole kneecap. Every time I walked the scab would crack open and bleed a little bit. I still have the scar on my knee where I had that large scab. I couldn’t ride a bike for almost a month. Just as soon as I could, I got right back on the bike a rode it. I didn’t look back anymore when I raced. I learned my lesson the hard way!

I remember one more accident I had. This time I was about 10 years old. We had a cotton field across the street from us. Before they raised cotton on it, it was just an old dirt field with a dirt road shaped like a big horseshoe. My brothers and I would ride our bikes on it. My dad bought an old Cushman scooter. It was white and old and clunky but so much fun to ride! The tank held about one gallon of gas. I don’t remember having to shift gears on it. I just remember it having a gas throttle on the right handlebar and a left foot brake. We all took turns riding that thing around the field on that horseshoe shaped dirt road. I kept going faster and faster. My brothers told me that I better slow down going around the curves. Well I forgot to slow down this one time and as I went around the curve, it went over on its side and I had my leg pinned under the scooter and I couldn’t reach the gas throttle on the handlebars to turn it off and it was too heavy to lift up so I could scoot out from under it. So, I just had to sit there until they came to help me. While the scooter was down on its side, oil had spilled on the motor and it made a small smoke cloud coming from the scooter. My brothers came running down the road and yelling to me, “Are you alright? Are you okay?” They were really worried when they saw the smoke as they thought the scooter was on fire and I would get burned. When they got there, I was fine. The scooter was heavy and I couldn’t push it off myself. They turned the scooter off and lifted it off me. They were relieved I was okay. I remember I wanted to finish my turn but they wouldn’t let me. They let me ride behind them and they took me home. They said that I couldn’t ride it anymore because they thought I would wreck it and ruin it. I told dad when he got home and he said I could still ride it! See what a tomboy your grandmother was!

When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #18

Story #18 - Say goodbye to the pool…

Well, all good things sooner or later come to an end. Right? Right!
You would think that having a swimming pool in your back yard would be fun forever and you’d never grow tired of it! That’s not exactly true. The first two or three years we swam in it all the time. Then after awhile we kind of lost interest in it. We would swim in it, but then it just sat. We ran the pump when we used it and to save, we wouldn’t run it as much when we were not swimming in it. When the summer is hot, the color ‘green’ likes to grow in the pool. We would have to clean in. When we had not been in it for quite a while algae grew on the walls and that was yuck and not fun to clean. So the pool was emptied. I can relate to that as we have a Jacuzzi in our yard in the home we now have. The first three years it was used a lot and then it got used less and less. It got down to about once a month if anyone got in it.

Douglas and his friends used it the most. But when he left for college, it sat a lot. It cost money to keep it running and buy the chemicals to keep it clean. So we emptied and it’s staying empty!

Now what? --- Now that our swimming pool was emptied.

It was just an empty pool. My dad decided to turn it into a storage room. He had torn down the little barn by the pool. My mom wanted to landscape and improve the look of our backyard. So down came the little barn! My dad dug out steps to go down into the pool. That meant he had to dig into the front of the pool to make steps to go down to the floor level. He poured concrete steps. He put a door on and also a roof. It was cool in there. He also wired it with a light switch and a light to come on. It was pretty dark in there with no light! When he first built the swimming pool he had also built a wire fence along the back of the pool and then put concrete stucco on it to give privacy to the pool when we used to swim in it. Well, that fence was starting to sag and it also came down!

One day I went to get something out of the newly converted pool – now a cellar – and it always was kind of creepy to me. I only liked to go out there when it was broad daylight. Well we found a few ‘black widow spiders’ and they are poisonous. After that, I never went in there anymore by myself. I hated spiders!

If I had a spider in my room, I would call my mom, “Mom! There’s a spider in my room! Can you come and kill it for me?” She would kill them for me. She would tell me, “You know, you are a million times bigger than that little spider. It’s probably more afraid of you than you are of it!” Somehow that did not give me any comfort. I was still afraid of them. As I got older they didn’t bother me anymore. I killed them myself.

As far as our backyard getting cleaned it. We did work on that one entire summer and it was much nicer looking! It also meant my brothers and I had more yard work to do to keep it cleaned up. It was amazing that after a little bit of rain those darn weeds grew so tall and so fast! My very ‘least favorite job’ as a kid growing up was ‘picking weeds!’ I hated it!

Hip Grandma Hoola Hoops!

Hoola Hoop or Hula Hoop?

Who knows how to hoola hoop?

I bought a hoola hoop as I heard it was good tummy and hip exercise. I could use that! I took Kirsten's picture because she is a much cuter model! Sorry I cut top of her head out of the picture!

The first time I tried to make the hoola hoop go around, it took about 3 tries. I actually got up to 58 times! I'll be 58 years old in September so I at least wanted to make the hoop go around that many times! Well two weeks later I decide to try it out this morning. The first two tries I got up to 25 times around.

Ahem! Drum roll! Your attention please! Granmda hit a new high record today! 758 times!

Wahoo! How about that! I was going for 100, then 200, then 300 then I thought, maybe 500, I got up to 758!

This hoola hoop has mineral water in it. Back when I was a kid, the hoops were just hard plastic. What's with the softer plastic and water filled???

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know, I can still hoola hoop! :o)
Love ya!
Mom :o)

When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #17

Story #17 - The Dive off the barn roof and NOT into the pool – is she dead?

This is another story about our wonderful swimming pool!

Do you like to dive off the diving board or off the side of the pool? It can be a lot of fun!

My dad had built what we called a small storage barn. It was like a one room house. We kept our stuff stored out there. It was about 7 feet tall and 12 feet square. The roof only had tarpaper across it. My dad had not put the shingles on it yet. The roof had a slight pitch so that rain or snow would run off. My two older brothers, Geoff and Douglas, about ages 10 and 12, got the brilliant idea that they could run and jump off the roof and dive ‘into’ the pool! On the sloped outer edge the roof was only 5 feet tall. The little barn was about 4 feet from the edge of the pool. They would climb up on top of that roof and then run and jump into the pool! That was fun! I was about 6 or 7 years old and my twin brother Gayle and I could climb and run and jump off the roof too!

The first time I tried it, it really scared me! Wow! I didn’t know if I would make it into the pool. It seemed like I was up too high and the pool too far away. But my brothers encouraged me to ‘go ahead and jump!’ I finally did it! I went down into the water and didn’t quite touch the bottom of the pool and then my worry was to get back ‘up’ out of the water! I was so scared but at the same time triumphant that I did it! After a few more times it just got easier and easier. It really was fun to run and jump off into the pool! We liked to see how big of a splash we could make! Well…my parents weren’t too happy about the water being splashed ‘outside’ the pool. Water was expensive and that was wasteful! When you are a kid you don’t think about how much water cost or that you are being wasteful. You just know how much fun it is to see that water splash!

My brothers were in the pool and I was on top of the roof ready to jump into the pool. Only this time I didn’t make it into the pool. There was a loose gap in the tar paper about 2 feet from the edge of the roof and as I was getting ready to jump up and into the pool, my foot caught and I fell downward. I landed on the concrete sidewalk. Splat! I don’t remember anything for a moment. Also, there happened to be two cinderblocks lying on the sidewalk and my head barely missed those two blocks. I also just missed the one-foot wall around the edge of the pool. I had landed face down smack on the sidewalk. I tell you my guardian angels were watching over me that day. I could have broke my neck and died. My head could have hit either the cinderblocks or the one-foot high wall.

I remember my brothers around me saying, “Is she dead? Is she alive? She isn’t moving! Oh my gosh, somebody go get mom!” They picked me up and threw me into the pool! I guess they thought that would ‘bring me around.’ I went limp and started to sink. Then they grabbed me. The next thing I remember was that I was lying on my back on the sidewalk and my mom was standing over me. “Diana, are you all right?” I moaned and I don’t’ remember what I said! She checked me all over. Apparently I was okay and had not broken my neck or any bones, so that was a huge relief to everyone! She carried me back into the house and I did not go anywhere for the rest of the day. She called the clinic and talked to the doc and he told her to watch for a concussion and see if the pupils in my eyes were dilated bigger. That’s all I remember. I just know I had to lie down and take it easy. They fixed the gap on the roof and we continued to jump off the roof!

My poor mom, I think about all the things we did and the accidents we had and how she had to manage us all day by herself! Good grief! What a fantastic mom! Looking back on my pool accident, first aid tells you ‘never move the victim until you are sure nothing is broken.’ If I had broke my neck or back or anything, picking me up and throwing me into the pool would have been so bad for me or I could have died from being moved. It amazes how the Lord watches over us!

I’m sure my children reading this will gasp in horror over the accident. I guess I had nine lives. I think over all the dumb things I have done and the accidents I had growing up, but this one probably was the worst!

Grandma and LaRue Bake Cookies!

Grandma & LaRue bake cookies!

On Friday, June 27th, I helped LaRue bake Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. Mmmmm! They were so delicious! LaRue is quite the little kitchen helper for just being 4 years old. I measured the ingredients and LaRue dumped them into the bowl. She and I mixed the cookie batter together and she and I took turns using the cookie scoop to drop cookies onto the cookie sheet. That cookie scoop was hard for her to squeeze with her little hands but she did it 'all by herself!' When we were all done she said, 'Let's clean up Grandma!' She 'wanted' to do the dishes! LaRue is very helpful. She does not like being messy! She likes her hands to stay clean. I think that's why she loves doing dishes! It keeps her hands clean! I enjoyed the time LaRue and I spent together this afternoon baking cookies!

Tillie loves ice cream!

A picture is worth a thousand words! As you can see from the picture Tillie loves ice cream!

We were eating Tillamook Udderly Chocolate ice cream. Mmmm, good! She would have a mountain of ice cream on her spoon and try to fit half of it in her mouth! She would pick up a fistful and put it in her mouth. I kept telling Lisa, "Oh my goodness, I would have an ice cream headache! My hand would be frozen. Look at her. It doesn't bother her in the least!" She ate a bowlful!

When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #16

Story #16 - The Swimming Pool – I nearly drowned – those darn boys!
Do you like to go swimming? Isn’t it the best fun!

My father built a swimming pool in our back yard. I was probably about 5 or 6 years old when it was built. Living in southwest New Mexico it got very hot in the summer. It was not uncommon for the temperature to hang around 100 degrees in July and August. It was a dry heat. If you were sweaty from working, you just stood still and the hot sun would bake you dry! There wasn’t any humidity in the air. The pool seemed huge to me at that age. When I was older I realized it wasn’t that big. My dad and brothers helped dig out the big hole. It was probably about 5 feet deep and 15 by 25 feet in diameter. He over-layed it all in concrete. Now that I think about it that must have cost a fortune back then! He built a one-foot high wall around the entire top edge of the pool to make it a little deeper and also we could sit on the sides. He built a three by three-foot pump area and the filter kept the water clean. He also had a sidewalk of concrete paved around the entire pool. Let me tell you in that hot sun it burned our bare feet. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time standing on that concrete! It sure was nice though when you wanted to dry off. We would lay our towels down on the hot concrete and we would be dry in no time!

We had so much fun playing in that pool! My dad had some old inner tubes from car tires. We pumped those up with air and then played on those in the pool. You could bend them and sit on them like ponies and we had a ball! We tried to pull each other off of them. One day my father brought home an airplane tire tube. At 6 years old that seemed HUGE! Six kids could sit on that tube. We had so much fun with that. Two of us would stand up on the tube and keep balanced and someone else would push us across the pool. We would stand on the wall edge of the pool and dive through that tube. What fun! Well my brothers were all sitting on the tube with their legs dangling through the middle of it, the hole, and I was swimming under the water. We would swim back and forth under the water across the pool. We would dive for things. We kept our eyes open. That wasn’t good because they would get red from the chlorine in the pool. Well I was swimming under the water and had to come up for air. When I tried to come up my head bumped into the bottom on that huge tube. Then I would move and try to come up again. I bumped my head again on the tube. I was running out of air! I made it over to where the ladder was and came up. I gulped in enough air to gasp for breath. Then I screamed at the top of my lungs at my brothers. “You’re trying to kill me! You want to drown me!” They denied that! What was I talking about! They didn’t see me! I ran into the house and told my mom what they did. She came out to investigate. My brothers honestly told her that they did not know I was under there and did not see me. Well I was sure they were trying to drown me! She told us all to be more careful and LOOK where they were going. I can look back on that now and realize they were just having fun and not paying attention and probably didn’t feel that little bump under the airplane tire tube. It was big! They were kicking their legs to get the tube to move across the water. Well after that happened I was a lot more careful when I was under water!

On a side note—we would get brown as Indians from swimming in the summer. My dad said the only white patch we had was where our swimsuits covered! Our hair would bleach out white blonde from the sun. We must have looked funny with our very blue eyes, blonde white hair and very brown skin! The town where we lived had a population that was 60% Mexican, 40% Caucasian.

When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #15

Story #15 Chores – The paper bag and the tumbleweed

I mentioned in story #14 about having to do chores. I hated chores! My brothers were not too thrilled about them either. I’m sure you’ve heard your parents tell you that chores teach you responsibility. I heard that too. I also told that to my kids. It does teach you responsibility. It also teaches you about teamwork and working together.

My older brothers had to mow the grass and all of us had to ‘pull weeds’. Yuck! My mom would pass out a paper bag and we had to fill that paper bag with weeds. Then she would look to see what kind of a job we did and if we did a good job, ‘we were done!’ If we didn’t do a good job, we worked longer and she saw to it that we did a better job! We had this one weed called ‘goat heads’ and they were thorny little buggers. They spread out across the ground and then they would bloom pretty little yellow flowers and those flowers turned into a little flattened thorns. They hurt like the dickens if you stepped bare foot onto them. If they were dried thorns, they stuck into your feet and you would have to pull them out. Ouch! It was dry where we lived, and when it rained, the weeds grew like mad! These were mostly the weeds we had to pull one particular day.

In the summer, we usually started out early in the mornings around 8:00a.m. to do our chores because it got too hot by 11:00a.m. and then you pretty much stayed in the shade, if you could find some, or stayed indoors. My twin brother Gayle got done awfully fast and I was still working on filling my paper bag. Our bags would hold about one gallon of weeds. He didn’t like pulling weeds any better than I did. I couldn’t imagine how he could get done so fast. He sat in the cool shade while I worked. My mom came out to check on us and asked Gayle why he was sitting there not working while the rest of us were. He told her that he finished! She told him to bring his bag to her and let her see. Sure enough there were weeds and it felt a little heavy. So she poured out the bag and what do you suppose she found? A tumbleweed with a few rocks on the bottom of the bag and a few weeds on the top and the tumbleweed was in the middle. How very clever! Only mom didn’t think that was very clever at all. She made him pick ‘two bags’ of weeds for being dishonest and lying to her! Gayle could be sly and sneaky only this time it got him in trouble! I didn’t share his same talent. It never occurred to me that you could cheat when doing chores! Gayle wasn’t too happy about getting into trouble and picking twice the amount and he didn’t get done as quick this time. I was just glad I didn’t do that and I hurried and got my bag filled and sat in the shade and watched him!