Excerpts from a letter sent by Dale to "the next generation" several years ago.
David was the youngest of our family, so he got to be teased a lot more than he deserved. We all came out to Kansas to visit Grandpa Jones's family. Our cousin Judy had a friend named Trudy. We told David that she was another one of the cousins. Actually, Trudy was a Mexican American, and no relation at all, but David just believed us. (By the way, Trudy now runs a Mexican restaurant in Wellington, and several of us ate there with Uncle Bob last year.) I remember other things about David, but I think he'd better tell you the stories about the eggs and spontaneous combustion!
When Mom and Ray got married, Sue was in sixth grade, I believe. Our family had been given lots of food, since there were so many kids and not much money. We had powdered eggs-which were okay if you like scrambled eggs. We had "cracked wheat"-which is a lot like oatmeal. We had flour-and Mom had learned to make bread, and we all liked pancakes. We had cornmeal and rice-which made good breakfasts. But we also had something called bulgur, which was a very strange cereal, pinto beans, which probably make good chili, and canned meat, which isn't good for much of anything. So, when Mom and Ray got married, we didn't want to waste the rice on them-so we threw pinto beans instead!
EDIT: A few years ago, when I was trying to eat a high-fiber diet, Aunt Kathy decided to help out by buying some bulgur. It's just as nasty today as it was when we were kids!Grandma Kasl's Dad came out to visit us a lot when Sue and Norman were in elementary school. At Christmas time, we would put on plays about Jesus' birth and sing Christmas carols to go along with the action. Sue and Norman were usually Mary and Joseph. Gary, Cathy, and I were kings and shepherds. David was too big for Jesus, so I suppose we made him a junior shepherd or little king. Anyhow, Grandpa Wilkes always liked our skits, and he thought Norm and Sue were very good little actors. So he bought us a record of Annie Get Your Gun by Doris Day and Robert Goulet (among others). He wanted Norm and Sue to sing the song, Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better. It's a funny song, where the girl is trying to prove she's just as good as the guy at everything, and the guy is trying to show she's not. It would have been very funny to have gotten them to perform it, but by then they were getting to be about third and fifth grades, and I was afraid they would be too embarrassed, so I never had them do it for Grandpa. So, that's something I remember about them that never happened!!
I just talked to Norman on the phone, and he made me promise not to tell anything bad about him, so I can't tell you about the note he wrote to Mom when he was in first grade. But if you see him, be sure to ask him about it!
When Gary was in elementary school, he was already a good athlete. He was bitten by a dog when he was in fourth grade, and we couldn't find the dog. Now, when a dog bites someone, the dog has to be checked out for rabies. If the dog is okay, then the person who was bitten doesn't need any shots. But if the dog is not okay, then the person who was bitten needs to get a lot of shots. If the doctors can't find the dog, then they like to give the shots just to be safe. So, when Gary was bitten, and we couldn't find the dog, Mom called the paper. A photographer from the Seattle Times came out and took a good picture of Gary in his Little League outfit. The paper published the picture of this cute boy and asked if anyone had any idea which dog bit this cute fellow. If the dog couldn't be found, doctors would have to give this nice little boy a lot of shots. Well, who could resist? They identified the dog, and Gary didn't have to get shot.
Gary was nearly as easy to tease as David. One time-and I'm not too proud of this, either!-I convinced him to jump off the roof of our house in Virginia. He tore a ligament in his foot, which is very painful. Fortunately, he healed well. He also managed to get a rock stuck in his ear. Grandpa Wilkes was something of a magician-he would show us a coin, then make it go through his head by putting it in one ear and pulling it out of his mouth. By the way, there's a trick to this-the coin didn't really go through his head!! But Mom thinks that Gary didn't know this was a trick, and that he tried to put a rock into his ear to come out his mouth. Anyhow, Gary was having trouble hearing people-especially Dad-and when the doctor examined Gary's ears, he found the rock.
Cathy and I went to school together most of our elementary years. Our friends were usually in the same families, and we even went to church with the same groups of friends in those days. When we lived in Virginia, Cathy and I and the neighbors often played horses. That is, we pretended to be horses. We set up jumps in the back yard for us to go over-and we were pretty good. We couldn't quite jump the fence (about 42 inches high-a little over a meter for those of you who've learned metrics), but we could do about three feet. Gary was able to keep up with us pretty well. When we first moved to Virginia, we discovered how good Cathy was with language. The first day we lived in our house on Gladstone (Mom and Dad called that street Happyrock and Merryboulder-many of us still play word games that we learned from our parents-and some of you do, too!), we met a boy down the street who talked with a very strong Southern accent. "Y'all wanna play with me? Ah live over they-ah!" By suppertime, Cathy sounded just like him. It irritated Mom that day, but I've always been impressed with how quickly Cathy could pick up an accent. I wonder if she's ever done anything with that skill?
You've already heard about me talking my brother into jumping off the roof, and how we played horses. I think my best memories, though, are of playing with the family. Sometimes things got a little rough. Dad would start off being our horse, and we'd take turns riding his back. Then he'd trap one of us between his legs-like a scissors grip, perhaps. So we'd all try to free the trapped one-and two more would get caught instead! Sometimes things would be calmer-we'd play a table game together, or cards. Those of us old enough to remember such times are pretty lucky. We'd also go to the beach together wherever we lived. We'd get buried in the sand-well, not completely, of course! In Virginia, Dad would be our diving platform; we'd get on his knee, then he'd cup his hands under our other foot and fling us up and out. And one day, after a big storm along the coast of Virginia-only one beach house was left standing-we gathered conches. Conch shells are the kind people put to their ears to hear the ocean; but these weren't just shells; the conches still lived in them! We boiled 'em, pulled the innards out (how gruesome!!), and used the shells to decorate our garden walk.
If you'd like to add your own memories or suggest some new categories, please contact me.
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