I don't know why I can't make that picture so you can really see it & why it has to have such a big box, but...oh well. The couple on the left is Anna May and Al.

If you read my first post, you know that I promised they would not be in any chronological order & this one will be a really good example of that...

The other evening while driving down by the Fairgrounds I was talking to a long-time customer and friend, who lives in Edgewood, on my cell phone --yes, I was using my Hands-free. I had just said "works for me" when I saw a flash of lightning, heard her phone crackle & then go dead. She called me later & said that the lightning had been really close; knocked out their phone, caused a circuit breaker to "break" or whatever they do and there was smoke coming from somewhere. Fortunately no one was hurt & there was no real damage, but that made me think of a freak accident that killed Al, Anna May's second husband. (John, her first husband was a soldier in WW2 and they were divorced after she found out what kind of a scoundrel he was.)

Al was Elsie's dad and she must have been 9 or 10 when they were married, making me 8 or 9. The first time I met her they were at our place for dinner; while everything was being prepared, we were going to go outside to play. I got her coat out of the bedroom, she took it from me, said thank you and slapped my face. I never did find out what that was all about and never again had anyone slap me upon meeting me.

After they were married, they bought a house on the west side of the 1st road west of Five Mile Lake. One day in January, 1951  Al was under the house working; my dad was supposed to be there helping him, but my mother had called Anna May to tell her they were running late--in case any of you had wondered, I came by it honestly--so Anna May went back to doing the dishes. She had just turned from the sink, Al grabbed hold of the pipes under the house to pull himself out when a lightning bolt struck a transformer on the east side of Five Mile Lake. He was instantly electrocuted, as would Anna May have been if she had not turned from the sink. At that time there was a little box inside the house that the phone wires ran through and theirs was a melted mess stuck to the wall. His funeral was Friday, January 13 and there was a terrible blizzard in the area. Grandma & Pop French, the couple shown in the picture with them--Jerry & Cozetta--and our family were the only people except Anna May and Elsie who made it to the funeral. It stayed so cold that winter that his casket (with him in it , of course) had to be kept in cold storage for several weeks before the ground at Cathlamet thawed enough to bury him. I can remember wondering why they had to pay for cold storage when it was so cold outside.

Thinking back about Al makes me think that every child deserves someone like him in their lives; he always made me feel good about myself and I'm sure he did the same with the other kids as well. I remember one time in the care after he had picked me up to spend the weekend at their place, he told me that I would grow up to be a beautiful woman--now I never gave Elizabeth Taylor a run for her money, but I never broke any clocks either.

He was the one who made sure we went to the Puyallup Fair and bought scones for us. At Christmas we could always depend on getting a book of Lifesavers from him.

Now I know that it's hard to believe life before ballpoint pens--I know my grandkids can't believe life before computers! I learned to write with a pencil and then used a stick pen & an inkwell until the 5th or 6th grade when I could use a fountain pen--it actually had a little "bladder" that I filled with ink, so I didn't have to keep dipping my pen & didn't have nearly as many blotches on the paper. Well, when I first saw the ballpoint pens, I really wanted one, but my parents told my we couldn't afford one. Al gave me a TRI-COLOR pen for my birthday. It would write in blue, red & green! What an exciting gift! I probably was more excited about that than many kids are today over an iPod or cell phone.

This is a picture of my mother and me on Graduation Day.

I mentioned clocks and they have also changed a lot since I was growing up. I got my first watch, a 21-jewel Bulova when for 8th grade graduation. It had a black silk band and a gold case. For high school graduation I got a suit and set of luggage--no it wasn't a hint for me to move away, we did, in fact, move to Chicago as soon as school was over that year.

Don't know what made me think of a couple of stories about Grandma French's brothers, Stuart (left) and Victor, but I did.

Stuart was the quietest man I ever knew. I don't believe I heard him utter 100 words in my entire life time. His wife Eva, on the other hand, talked more than anyone else I ever knew. Kirwin (Fern's husband) told me one time that they took her to the airport, she was telling them a story while walking down the ramp away from them and when they picked her up a couple of weeks later, she continued with same story right where she had left off!

But this was about Stuart--one time he and Victor were over here visiting Grandma French & Pop and Anna May and my folks took them to a wrestling match. Of course all of the crowd was screaming and hollering and Stuart cupped his hands together and said "boo."

The summer before I turned 16, Victor & Peggy had come over to see Herb and Chris, who were both in the service then--probably about to ship out. I think Chris was stationed at Fort Lewis and Herb was stationed at Fort Lawton, a used-to-be fort in Seattle. 

At that time there was a big amusement park in the north end of Seattle, called Playland. We all went to the park and Herb & Chris somehow convinced their dad, Victor, to go on the roller coaster with me. They had fooled him into thinking they were going to go on as well, but were waiting for us when we got off. 

Being a smart-aleck teenager, I made sure we sat in the front & kept my arms up in the air for almost the entire ride.I believe that's the only time I ever heard Victor cuss. He would chuckle his trademark chuckle each time we went up a hill, but going down the other side, he would mutter "blank-blank s-o-b."I can still remember laughing until my sides hurt! And Herb & Chris, of course, had a good laugh because they had again put one over on their dad.