by Pam

Earliest memories


I have only a few memories of the house on Bronson Dr.  I remember taking baths and Mom telling us to get to the back of the tub while she poured more hot water in.  Evidently we didn't have the luxury of a hot water heater other than the stove and a tea kettle.  At the "new house" Roger and I took baths in the laundry tubs while the upstairs was being finished.  We took turns in the tubs - one had a scrub board that was fun to play on but there was a large pipe that I always banged my head on when I was on that side.  I remember Dad coming home from work through the basement walk-out door while we were in the tubs.
He always looked so happy to see us.



I seem to remember a birthday party (probably Audrey's) and playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Pretty sure I didn't do well.   Mom & Dad bought us a swing set - who knows how they afforded such a thing.  My memory is that it was not put together before it was time to go to bed but Dad continued to work on it.  I have a fuzzy memory of Kay waking me up early the next day and telling me if I hurried I could be the first one to swing on it.  I wonder if that is when my love of swings and rocking chairs started.



Then there was my best friend Diane Johnson.  I think we went back and forth a lot although I don't remember much about it.  I do remember one day when her little sister, Darla, was left in the car for a few minutes and she managed to move the gear shift and the car ended up at the end of the driveway against some trees with a very scared little girl inside. Some boys lived in a house one or two doors down from us - I think it was the Dawsons.  My favorite place to go in the neighborhood - that I remember anyway - was the Mustonens.  I don't remember why that was, but that's the memory.  Mom cut his hair and they would sometimes give Mom a gift.

We had Little Golden Books and to this day when I see one I remember Roger and I trying to position ourselves like the characters inside the front cover. Check one out when you can to see how impossible this was.

More later.

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by Pam




Building Materials

Roger and I loved playing in the sand in the back yard.  We had the whole yard - not just a sand box.  Roger had some cool graders and a scoop shovel that we used.  One day the swimming pool was being emptied and we decided to dig a river complete with dikes and extra overflow ponds to use if the river went over its banks.  We were busy with construction when Kay brought the garbage out to the burn barrel (remember those!)  She stepped in a pile of dirt we were using and Roger called out "Hey! That's our dam material!"  Kay came unglued and told him not to ever use that language.  Having lived a somewhat sheltered life in a nice Lutheran family we had no idea what she was so upset about.  We needed that material as our river was about to overflow.  I still don't know what was wrong with her that day.

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