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Gene's Family History Page

Genealogy

Actually Dad started me out on this seemingly endless search. The data is currently being stored on the computer with a program called "Family Tree Maker" by Broderbund. So far this program has served all my needs, plus it is also used by several relatives. We now have information about almost six-thousand relatives from our family entered, and a lot of information not yet entered for Sharon's side of the family.

Sharon started doing Oral History tapes as part of her college course work so I have several 90 minute tapes to transcribe. I have 5 of them done so far and will include them here as I find time. Unfortunately most of the aunts and uncles have died who either had first hand knowledge of leaving Norway themselves, or of the stories their parents may have told. Others have now succumbed to the ravages of age and can no longer relate their stories. The moral here folks is "Gather that knowledge while you still can!".

Listening to those oral history tapes has gotten me thinking about "telling my story" for my family in some form. I have very clear memories of my life as a child on the farm so I started by putting some of these memories into a story form I call "Remember". Now I do not pretend to be a writer but you may still find them interesting, if not laughable. There are several others in the works and I like writing (and remembering) them even if you may not enjoy reading them!

Transcribed History Tapes

(Watch for these new links coming soon!)

Agnes
Elmer
Oswald
Syvert
Kilmer
Spencer

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Remember

A collection of memories.

Eugene A. Rodi

The Stories

The River
The Nap
Big Sliver
Allis Chalmers Rat
Stars at the Corners
Blue Water Sailing
First Day At School
"Virus Pneumonia"

The River

It was a beautiful early summer day, one of those days that beg you to lay aside your work and come outdoors. I must have been between two and three years old at the time since training pants were one of the big things in my life just then. As I close my eyes and reflect, it all comes back; the sights, the sounds, even the scent of the air.

It was early afternoon when Mom gathered a few things together, put out her hand and said, "Come! Let's go for a walk." We headed south toward the road that led down through the meadows of our farm. At the head of the road was the gate, a barbed wire fence section that could be opened for passage of farm implements or vehicles. When we got to it, Mom gathered up her flower print dress, pushed down the center wire and stepped through the opening. I, being much shorter and somewhat more adventurous, rolled under.

The road was little more than a pair of paths where the grass grew shorter due to soil pressed by many years of wheels. It wound in a lazy curve from the gate at the farm yard, about one quarter of a mile to a crossing in the Chippewa river, and beyond, to the fields in the southwest corner of the farm.

The meadow lush with the newness of summer, was filled with bright patches of color; wild flowers vying for the attention of bees, butterflies and other insects (all far to busy to bother with the two of us.) A light breeze carried us gentle scents and sounds. Crickets chirped from their hiding places in the grass. As Mom walked, I ran, hopped, and jumped along the way, stopping to inspect whatever caught my eye. Unseen birds sang out their various calls from clumps of brush and Pussy Willows. Occasionally a startled grasshopper would jump into the air and fly a short distance, it's wings making a crackling sound. One of the more cautious birds burst from it's hiding place near the road and flew across the blue cloudless sky crying; intruders, intruders, intruders, .... and all was quiet for a time. Then, since nothing of real importance had happened, the chorus would resume.

As we neared the river, the rolling meadow broke into enticing grass topped mounds of earth formed by years of spring floods and summer cattle paths. These were irresistible to a small boy, and since the smaller ones were also very wiggly the assistance of Mom's hand was required. She declined to stray more than a step or so from the edge of the road however since the space between the more distant, "Cow humps", as I called them, was black with a slick and gooey mud.

When we reached the river bank, frogs dived into the water and sped off in search of safer locations. A painted turtle who had been basking in the sun slipped quietly away at a more leisurely pace.

Soon my shoes, socks, pants and shirt were removed and laid on the grassy bank and I was ready to play in the water. A large sand bar left by the spring run was close to the near shore and the water there was only a couple inches deep. The water ran just fast enough to make soft gurgling "river" sounds as it rippled across the smooth pebbles but not so fast as to carry me away. I was given a little pan or bucket and a big kitchen spoon to dig in the sand. Minnows swam by, but I never caught any. Mom also shed her shoes and sat on the bank with the sun in her face and her feet dangling in the water reading from the latest copy of a magazine.

After much digging and stirring in the sand and water I became aware of a problem, "Mommy!, mommy!", I called! She looked up to see what the matter was and said, "What's wrong?". "There's a frog in my pants!", I cried. Laughing she came over to find the source of my problem. The "frog" turned out to be sand carried by the river into the heavy training pants weighing them down. A quick swish in the deeper waters solved the problem and saved the day.

The time for play was over and a dry towel soon took the chill of the water off. With dry clothes on we headed back to the house. The trip back was less eventful and if I remember correctly, I fell asleep while being carried the last half of the way.

A very good day indeed!

June 4, 1996 EAR

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The Nap

The afternoon was warm, almost sultry. The earth beneath the big trees that cover the gentle slope south of the house was just right for making roads and tunnels, moist enough to hold together but not to the point of becoming sticky. I was about four. The age where trucks, tractors and a patch of good earth meant a full afternoon of the best kind of play a boy could have.

Dad had been working somewhere east of the barn and had just gone into the house. Coffee time, I guessed, and continued my "work". Soon Mom came out of the house and down into the woods. (Any clump of trees big enough to cast a decent bit of shade was called "the woods".) "See my roads.", I said. "Yes! Very good.", she said, "You'll have to come back and finish them later. It's time for a nap now." "Nap!? Noooo!" I was much to old and had much to much work to do to take time for a nap! "Noooo." But she insisted.

The occasional naps at that time were taken in a crib placed against the south wall of the parlor, the room east of the kitchen. The room had been used for many purposes over the years and now contained the crib, a small table, a couple of chairs, and the sewing machine. The shade on the window had been drawn both to darken the room and to keep out the heat of the sun, but it was still quite light and very warm. So, there I lay, still upset that a guy my age was being forced to take a nap and determined that even if I had to lay there, I would not sleep. Eventually determination gave way to warmth and position, and sleep did come. "You can get up now.", said a familiar voice through my sleepy haze. "Get up and we'll go back outside."

Dad stood there in the woods, lean and tall, dressed in his work boots, jeans, heavy leather belt, work shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and the ever present straw hat. His eyes seemed to sparkle mischievously through his thick glasses and the big grim on his face said something was up. I stopped by my road work a little confused that he should be so far down into the trees. "No.", he said, "Come down here." I advanced with Mom right behind. He was leaning up against a tall straight tree. Behind it about four feet away stood another. As he stepped away I saw that two long ropes with a small board at the bottom hung suspended between the two trees. "It's a swing.", he said, "Come sit on it so I can adjust the rope for you." With Mom's help I excitedly climbed aboard. He was right, my feet didn't touch the ground. A ladder that had been leaning against the second tree was brought around and up he went. While Mom steadied the swing the rope was lengthened to the proper height and tied off securely. With a few pushes and some instructions I soon had the hang of it and could manage to move it on my own. "That's right! Hold on tight and pump! You'll have it going to the sky in no time." As part of the swings initiation we all went for a ride on it. Dad sat in the swing first, then in his lap, Mom, and in her lap, me. What fun!

Dad put the ladder away and went off to attend to his other tasks while Mom stayed to watch, and sometimes join in on the fun. Trucks and roads were forgotten for the rest of the day as I learned the joys of a long rope swing. One beauty of this type of swing is that you can go a long ways in a gentle arc but never get very far above the ground. If you lay back and look up, the tree branches and leaves seem to drift overhead in a dizzying array of colors and light. If you are brave enough to let your head hang way back, the ground whizzes by where the sky should be and it gets real scary at the low part in the middle. After you get really good at swinging while sitting you can try standing up, only, it doesn't seem to work as good as one would think. Flying with your belly on the seat is great... until your feet get a little to high in the air and you get dumped in the dirt. And spinning round and round can make you walk really funny.

I'm still not so sure about naps, but long rope swings are great. If you've never had one, or never tried one, and you get the chance, don't pass it up. I don't care how old you are. Once you've tried one it's something that you too, will never forget!

June 5, 1996 EAR

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Big Sliver

The welding shed was a small sturdy building hidden from view by the garage. Its sides were covered with silver gray embossed metal sheets, and the only feature, besides the large door, was two small windows placed midway up the front wall on either side of the door. The humble location behind the main line of buildings and modest exterior gave no hint of the wonders within. When the door was open it meant that Dad was working there, and possibly, I would be allowed to go in.

The interior was filled with an array of shelves, benches, cabinets, tool boxes, tools and supplies. Some items stood on the dry dirt floor, some hung from nails on the walls, and some were up in or suspended from the rafters. Most of what I saw was a mystery but that enhanced the attraction.

Of particular interest, perhaps because I was allowed to play with them, were the shoe repair tools. There was a little stand made of black iron that was just my height. It consisted of a base and a short pole with a tapered top. I could choose from the set of different sized iron "feet" and place one on the top of the pole. (These feet were for putting a shoe on while it was under repair.) They also made a dandy ring when I pounded on them with the little shoe nailing hammer. Since Dad would put his iron work on the anvil and pound it into shape with his two pound sledge hammer, I would do likewise using a stick or bits of wire found on the floor, pounding them "out of shape" on the chosen foot.

Another bit of fascinating work was the patching of tire inner-tubes. First the hole had to be located by submerging the inflated tube in the cow tank while watching for bubbles. Then the valve core needed to be removed letting the air out with a whistle. Next I (sometimes) got to rough up the area around the hole with a small metal scraper, maybe with a bit of help, and paint on the smelly rubber cement. Then Dad would get a "hot patch", a shallow metal can with a rubber patch on the bottom and combustible material inside, and clamp it down tight over the hole. Once that was all in place he would retrieve a farmers match from a tin can on the top shelf and use it to light the hot patch. The patch would sputter and fume like a broken firecracker spewing out red and orange flames and lots of smoke. When the excitement was over the patch was left to cool. After the tube was removed from the clamp, the metal can was pealed off of the rubber patch attached to it, and the patch was stretched to see if it "took". Now the tube was refilled with air for another test in the cow tank. If the job was finished the tube was dried, and the sticky area was covered with powder so it wouldn't stick when replaced in the tire.

Dad's arc welder was also in this shed and much as I would liked to have watched, I was always sent to the other side of the building when welding was in progress with strict orders NOT to look at the arc, "No matter how far away you are"! That didn't mean that there was nothing to see though! For even in the brightness of midday the light from the arc would flair across the under side of the tree leaves and make the trunks stand out in the stark white light. Smoke would rise above the roof and the whole shed would seem to hum and crackle in the process. When the humming stopped and Dad started clanging away with his hammer, it was safe to return until the next piece was ready to be welded.

Enough about the shed. On this particular day Dad was sharpening a sickle bar for the mower on the big white grinding stone. The big round stone wheel was mounted on a metal frame with a seat and a foot treadle that was pumped to keep the wheel going. Above the wheel was a can that would be filled with water. The water would dribble out of a small hole onto the wheel and keep the piece that was being sharpened from getting to hot. My job was to fill the water can whenever it got to low. Since there was a fair amount of time between fillings I found other projects to keep me busy.

I don't remember what my project was but I do remember trying to pull a rough board out of a nearby pile. In the process I got a good- sized sliver in my finger and ran crying to Dad to get it removed. Since slivers were somewhat common around the shed, he had a tweezers handy in one of the cabinets. The sliver was soon removed, but the medicine bottle was empty. Around a farm you "always" had to put medicine on cuts, scrapes, and slivers. I was handed the tweezers with the "big sliver" still in it and told to go show it to Mom and have her put some medicine on my finger. With this new task to calm me, I was off to the house to show Mom what a big boy I had been. By the time I got to the kitchen door I realized that the tweezers no longer held my sliver, and I sat down on the steps to think about what I could do now that I had nothing to show Mom. After several ideas had been rejected my eyes fell on the rose bush growing beside the house. I knew how to solve the problem! Holding a branch by it's leaves with one hand I plucked off a thorn of the appropriate size with the tweezers (the largest thorn in sight, of course) and went in to show Mom. She listened to my sad tale about the sliver in my finger while applying the medicine, and inspected "my sliver" with an understanding nod. With medicine applied and a band-aid in place, I was about to go back outside when she said with a smile, "Now, tell me, is that really the sliver that was in your finger?" Hesitating a little I replied, "No.... but the real one got lost and I had to find one to show you so... so... I got it from the rose bush!" "OK!" she said, "That's what I thought." With that I was out the door and headed back to the shed to return the tweezers and impress Dad with my new band-aid!

August 23, 1997 EAR

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Allis Chalmers Rat

Dad had a large can of Allis Chalmers bright orange paint left over from a touch-up or repaint job. It was a good oil based paint that stood up well to the weather so it was often used to coat and protect the "invention of the day". He had, and still has, a tendency to paint everything that needs painting in the same color scheme, although the color tends to vary with the paint on hand.

Anyway, the paint was kept in the garage and most small tasks were either painted there or on the small bench next to the gas pump just outside the garage. On this particular day the newly assembled iron piece was being painted at the bench. Just as it was being finished a ruckus arose in the chicken house. Dad put down the brush and went to see what was causing such a racket. He found a large rat thrashing around while caught in a trap. This commotion had frightened the chickens who were flying about cackling wildly as chickens tend to do.

We had been having trouble getting rid of the pesky rodents since they had taken up residence in the chicken house. Traps were rather ineffective and putting out poison was risky since the chickens got into most everything. This trap had been placed in an inaccessible back corner and the rat had run headlong into it so that he was caught at his rib cage. The trap was strong enough to hold the rat in this unusual position but not strong enough to kill it.

Dad found some heavy leather gloves, retrieved the rat, trap and all, and carried it over to the paint bench. There he cleaned the remaining paint out of the brush onto the somewhat confused and subdued rat. Not one to leave a good job until it was completed, he went into the garage and came out with two more cans of paint; one green, one yellow. Using a stick of the appropriate size he dabbed green and yellow dots on the now orange rat. This completed he took the rat over near the chicken house and released it.

Within a couple of days there was no sign of rats either in the chicken house or the rest of the barn yard. We can only assume that the rats were so terrified by the "alien" in their midst that they packed up and left for safer parts of the country. As it turns out the Allis Chalmers rat was left behind. We found it at the end of the week lying dead in the chicken yard. The combination of the trap and the oil based paint may have done it in. All we know for sure is that it was not allowed to join the other rats as they fled.

July 15, 1996 EAR

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Stars at the Corners

I was young, to young to know how to read. Mom and I had been out for the afternoon and we were now returning home. I was laying in the back seat of the car with my head close to the door looking up at the sky through the window. There were no clouds in view and the color was a deep blue. As I watched, fine white lines began to make patterns in the sky. I asked Mom what they were and she said that God was writing messages in the sky. Then I asked, how could she be sure that it was God and not someone else doing the writing? Her reply came quickly, "That's easy. When God writes in the sky there are always stars at the corners." When I looked again, sure enough, there was a momentary flash at every corner in the perfect shape of a star.

I never asked what was being written. It didn't matter. Comfort came from simply knowing that God was doing the writing.

I can't remember if it was a dream or if Mom actually said this to me. It seems to be rather dream like so I must assume that it is, but it is also so real that I cannot fully discount it. A few years ago I asked Mom if she had really said this, or if she had ever heard of such a thing. Both answers were no. And yet, after nearly fifty years, whenever the sky turns a deep blue, I find myself watching, longing, to once again see writing in the sky with stars at the corners.

August 24, 1997 EAR

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Blue Water Sailing

I awoke slowly. The clear morning light poured in through the windows and a familiar sound, not yet recognized, stirred somewhere in the house below. I lay in my big bed, right in the middle, with covers snug up against my chin. A light breeze blew in through the partially opened window lifting the sheer white curtains in a gentle swirling arc before they slipped aside to fall back against the sill. Chunk-achunk, chunk-achunk whirred the sound, chunk-achunk, chunk-achunk, chunk-achunk. Oh! It must be Monday! Mondays are wash day.

Now that I knew the source of the sound I wiggled down into the covers a bit further, for the morning, though bright, was still cool and it would be some time before I needed to get up yet. Looking around my sparsely furnished second floor bedroom I got the warm glow that comes from being safe and content. "Big boys have their own room and get to sleep in their own big beds." And here I was!

Chunk-achunk, chunk-achunk. The rhythm reminded me of a song I had heard, "Mammies little darling likes short'nin short'nin, mammies little darling likes short'nin bread". That's all I could remember but it seemed to fit so well. I sang it again and again, softly, so I could still hear the rhythm from below. Chunk-achunk, chunk-achunk- CHUNK... click-click whir. Oh My! It's later than I thought.

I quickly crawled out of bed onto the scatter rug, padded across the gray painted wooden floor, through the door and down the hall to the long straight stairs. The stairs could be scary, but no time for that now. When I reached first floor I headed for the summer kitchen, a large room attached to the west side of the house. "Is it time for boats yet?" "Well good morning!", Mom answered, "Sleeping a little late today?... I have one more load before it's time for boats." "Oh."

The Maytag ringer washer with it's rinse tub stood near the front door of the summer kitchen. We didn't use the room much as a kitchen since the stove in the main kitchen was natural gas now and not wood fired like the one that was the prominent feature of the summer kitchen. The ornate stove stood centered in the front third of the room facing the front door. It was only fired now to make special items like lefsa or large pots of slow cooked soup. On the west wall were long cupboards that reached most of the way to the ceiling. On the east wall stood the long freezer. And the rest of the space was filled with egg cases and other boxes.

I remained, standing in the doorway that led back to the living room, watching Mom deftly feeding the clothes from the machine through the ringers to the rinse tub and again from the tub through the ringers to the wooden clothes basket on the floor. From there they were carried out the front door and through the little porch to the lines outside to be dried. When it was hot out the washer would be out on the porch where the air moved better, but today it was inside.

The light coming in from the porch was a bright green. This was caused by the transparent green covering on the windows. The covering was made up of very coarsely woven yellow cords that made squares about 3/8 of an inch between the strands with a cellophane like outer covering. When you looked out from the inside it gave a green color to everything, but you could see just fine. When you stood on the outside though, you couldn't see anything beyond the green surface. This wonderment I showed to many friends who came over to play. None of us ever figured out the magic of that covering although we all delighted in making silly faces at whoever happened to be on the outside since they couldn't see what we were doing.

That last wash seem to go on for ever so long. I had already found some sheets of paper to be used for the boats. (When I could get it I liked the shinny pages from magazines. They didn't soak up water so fast and would make the sailing last longer.) Mom deftly folded the sheets of paper, turning them many different ways till at last she would turn them over and open them into little boats with a pointy sail sticking up in the middle.

Chunk-achunk, chunk-achunk, click-click whir, finally the last load was finished. Now it was my turn! I could sail my boats in the rinse water until they either fell apart or Dad came to carry the water out. The stick that was used to poke at the clothes in the washer could be used to stir the water around causing the boats to spin in circles or you could blow them across calmer water. Little pebbles or stubby twigs became the sailors who often fell out when the waters got rough.

Another tub of water was occasionally used in the wash process. This one would have bluing in it and was used to soak the "white things" to make them look whiter. This tub was off limits for sailing. Today it was standing out on the porch filled with deep blue water. I had noticed it standing there in the green light on one of my trips out to find new sailors. By then most of my boats had taken on too much water and had returned to flattened pieces of paper, but one that was completely white was still in very good shape. This one boat "somehow" found it's way to the deep blue water. My it looked splendid there! I stood back and just looked at it, boldly white against the blue water, sailing in the green light.

Just about then Mom returned to the summer kitchen and promptly found the boat in the forbidden blue water. It was quickly removed and that was the end of my sailing for the day. She didn't say much though, perhaps she too had seen the splendor of blue water sailing?!

June 25, 1996 EAR

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First Day At School

It was fall. I was four years old and had one more year to wait before starting school. District 73, the one room school located on an acre of land at a corner of our farm, didn't have kindergarten classes and children had to be six by the end of December to start first grade.

The day was bright and warm, and the leaves were mostly yellow. Dad was nailing new shingles on the lean-to shed attached to the north side of the granary. I came along to watch. I wanted to watch from the ladder but had to settle for a tree stump at the edge of the woods not far away. Watching soon became boring so I began to play in the little hollow just inside the woods known as the gravel pit. It once had been a gravel pit, a small one, but now was just a rounded hollow about thirty to forty feet across and less than half as deep. The gravel pit was surrounded by trees that leaned toward the center to make use of the available sunlight. This was a favorite place for school kids to play tag during recess.

I hadn't been there long when the laughing voices of kids running down the paths through the trees between me and the school house could be heard. A game of tag was about to begin. There were three simple rules: You could not be caught if your feet were off on the ground. If you touched the ground you had to run though the gravel pit to another side before you could jump onto or climb another tree. If you got caught, you were "it".

The older kids let me think I was in the game too, but they never really tried to catch me. I guess I would never have been able to catch any of them anyway, so just as well. I had just as much fun anyway. All to soon the recess bell was ringing and the laughing, running kids disappeared back into the woods toward school.

Now it was quiet again, quiet except for the tapping of Dad's hammer and the rustle of the breeze through the dry leaves. Too quiet! Glancing back to see if Dad was watching I started down one of the paths. Since the woods were only about a hundred yards long, I soon was in the school yard. The back door of the school was open, and I cautiously stepped into the entry way. The inner door was almost closed so I quietly pulled it open just far enough to poke my head in and see what they were doing. The kids were all at their desks working on an assignment. Since the desks all faced the front of the room, no one saw me. No one except the teacher!

The teacher knew me and where I lived. She may even have been rooming at our house since teachers often did. As she rose from her desk and started toward me I froze! I wanted to run but I couldn't. When she got to the door where I stood she turned me around and guided me out the back door. Then, to my surprise, she asked if I would like to go to school today too? I nodded yes! "OK!", she said, "But just this one time! Then you'll have to wait until next year!" I was told to sit on the big flat rock that served as the step to the back door. Soon she returned with a paper that had the outlines of a picture to be colored and some crayons. After a reasonable time she returned to retrieve the crayons and see how I was doing. She then asked if I knew the way home and I again nodded yes. I was sent on my way home with a wave and a cheery "We'll see you back next year."

When I got back to the granary Dad had finished shingling the roof and was coming down the ladder. "I went to school!", I said, proudly holding up my picture. I don't remember anything beyond that point but I have the feeling that all was well with my first day at school.

July 15, 1996 EAR

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"Virus Pneumonia"

The short days and gray skies indicated that winter was near. The afternoon had been sunny and evening was coming fast. I was headed out to see what Dad was doing with the sheep when Mom called after me to come back and put on a sweater. I just waved and kept on running. It was my first year of school, and I didn't see a need to waste any of my precious play time running back to the house for a sweater.

The sheep were kept in the yard on the southeast side of the barn, out of sight from the house. When I got there Dad had just finished feeding them so I climbed part of the wooden fence to lean over the top and watch.

A few days later I came down with some sort of a cold or flu bug. Mom was prone to say that it was due to my going out without that sweater. Highly doubtful! To her dying day she believed that illness came from drafts and cool damp weather or at least tried to make a convincing argument for it.

I don't remember much about the illness. I missed much of my first year of school, from that day in the fall until late winter. There were days spent in the Benson hospital. The exact length of the stay eludes me, but it couldn't have been more than a week.

I didn't mind the hospital stay all that much; it got to be a little lonely and boring. I was in a room all by myself. The nurses didn't spent much time there with me. I had played by myself most of my early years so maybe that helped. I remember that the sun came streaming in through the tall windows in the afternoon and that the bed was a long way from the floor. I believe I spent the entire stay there in that bed! It's possible that I spent a lot of the time sleeping.

The one entertainment was the little token-operated radio attached to the headboard of the bed. It had a switch to select between three or four stations and an off position. There was a timer that could be wound only while a token was inserted and, of course, a volume control. It only ran for 10-15 minutes on one token so I was very careful how I used the few that Dad had given me. I didn't care for the talking segments; I still don't. The timer would stop when the switch was turned to the off position so whenever a song would finish, I would turn the switch to "off" until I thought another song might be playing, conserving my precious token time.

During my stay I managed to learn the words and tunes of several songs by heart. To this day I can still sing them. The one I enjoyed the most was "Mare-se-dotes", a funny little ditty just right to entertain a kid in my situation. It was new then and was played several times a day.

Another memory is the ordeal of the bedpan. First, you had to press the button on the cord and wait to see if anyone would ever come. Then you had to answer lots of dumb embarrassing questions. And when you were through, they would never seem to come back and get the darn thing. Finally I wised up and "stored" the thing under the sheets at the foot of the bed. Much better idea!

I suppose Mom and Dad came in to see me every day. I remember them being there at times but little else. It was time to go home again. The doctors never did come up with a good explanation of what was wrong with me. The best they could say was that I had "Virus Pneumonia". No one since has had the slightest idea of what that is. "Just keep him home with lots of rest and maybe it will go away." And so it did, finally.

My time at home was spent in the house with lots of naps. The naps were taken on the red couch that stood against the west wall of the living room, near the kitchen door and the fuel oil heater. The heater had a little window that was used to see the flame. I would lay for long peroids of time staring at the dancing blue flames. One evening Mom was baking in the kitchen and had just taken something out of a bag. One of those crinkly sounding cellophane bags that many foods came in during those days. I called out to her asking, what was in the bag? "Marshmallows!", She said. "I want one too", I replied. Soon she came in with two of the big marshmallows. A little surprised at the sudden extravagance I asked "Why did you bring two?", while holding on to them tightly so she wouldn't think I didn't want them both. With a big smile she answered, "Because you asked for two of them!" I looked puzzled. "You said 'I want one too' so here they are!" Touching first my one hand, and then the other she continued, "One! ... Two!" We both laughed!

When I got to go back to school I was not allowed to go out to run and play with the other kids during recess. The teacher did her best to come up with special activities for me at those times. I think she did a good job since I don't remember being too disappointed. After awhile I did talk her into letting me ring the big hand bell that called the others back from their play. I was to stand at the back entry of the school and ring it long and hard so the kids at the gravel pit would be sure to hear it. One day I got the idea that I would fool the others and ran out to climb one of the young box elder trees south of the school. From the tree I rang the bell and watched as the kids ran passed beneath me without looking up. I was quite proud of myself at such a good trick and walked giggling into school after all the children were inside. There was a rather stern reprimand for my little excursion, but it was worth it. I think I was finally starting to feel a lot better.

September 1, 1997 EAR

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