Dad:
Leisure
When I was young my Dad would read to us. Mom read by herself.
Dad read Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Caruso to us. When we got older the only thing that I can remember that we did for leisure was to read. We'd all read by ourselves. My sister read comic books. I would read all kinds of things. Dad would take us hunting and fishing. Once in a while Mom would go with us. That ended the time we went up the Carson River and backwoods into the mountains. On the way in Mom warned us about not driving through a bunch of rocks that were on the road. Dad didn't listen to her and drove on and knocked the oil pan off of underneath the car. Mom was really torqued. Dad had to walk into town. He was able to catch a ride. He was looking for a way to fix the pan. The drainage lip on the pan was bent and all of the oil drained out. Dad worked very hard at trying to repair the lip. He soldered all around it. He also bought a thermos plug that is used as a stopper for bottles. We were way back in the mountains for 2-3 days while he fixed it. I went fishing while he worked. Carol played around the camp. Mom "sort of" forgave him. We started home. On the way we drove over some sage brush and it wrecked all of his hard work. Then he took the stopper and put it in the pan and IT WORKED! It only took about 10 minutes. Then we drove all of the way home. That was the last time Mom went with us. Dad and I went deer hunting a lot. We really enjoyed it. We didn't usually take drinks. (Dad would drink his coffee.) If I was getting thirsty my Dad would tell me to put a stone in my mouth and suck on it. It would delay my need for water. Usually on Sunday afternoons we'd all go for a ride together and look for birds. Red winged and yellow headed black birds. That was an enjoyable time. We usually sang.
Dad read Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Caruso to us. When we got older the only thing that I can remember that we did for leisure was to read. We'd all read by ourselves. My sister read comic books. I would read all kinds of things. Dad would take us hunting and fishing. Once in a while Mom would go with us. That ended the time we went up the Carson River and backwoods into the mountains. On the way in Mom warned us about not driving through a bunch of rocks that were on the road. Dad didn't listen to her and drove on and knocked the oil pan off of underneath the car. Mom was really torqued. Dad had to walk into town. He was able to catch a ride. He was looking for a way to fix the pan. The drainage lip on the pan was bent and all of the oil drained out. Dad worked very hard at trying to repair the lip. He soldered all around it. He also bought a thermos plug that is used as a stopper for bottles. We were way back in the mountains for 2-3 days while he fixed it. I went fishing while he worked. Carol played around the camp. Mom "sort of" forgave him. We started home. On the way we drove over some sage brush and it wrecked all of his hard work. Then he took the stopper and put it in the pan and IT WORKED! It only took about 10 minutes. Then we drove all of the way home. That was the last time Mom went with us. Dad and I went deer hunting a lot. We really enjoyed it. We didn't usually take drinks. (Dad would drink his coffee.) If I was getting thirsty my Dad would tell me to put a stone in my mouth and suck on it. It would delay my need for water. Usually on Sunday afternoons we'd all go for a ride together and look for birds. Red winged and yellow headed black birds. That was an enjoyable time. We usually sang.
Front Porch
When I was in the 7th grade Carol and I would sleep outside on the porch in the summer. It was really warm inside because we didn't have any air conditioning. When I was a freshman at Carson High School Carol went in the house. I stayed out "for as long as I could". I ended up staying out all year. I hadn't planned to stay out that long. My Dad suggested that if I put canvas over my blankets, I would stay warmer. Dad put some sort of a blind over the porch screen so that the water wouldn't come in. I had the "blind" up in the summer and down in the winter. I stayed there all year round for 3-4 years. Mom made sure that I made my bed every day.
Work
When I was about 14 we put a new furnace in our home on Spear Street. We were changing the furnace from coal to oil. All of the work had to be done under the house.The crawl space under the house was pretty tight. I hated this job. We could only crawl on our tummies. The tubing was in four-foot lengths and had to run from the furnace to all the rooms in the house. We had to tape every junction and all of the elbows while under the house. We made holes in the flooring of the house in order to connect the elbows to the heat vents. Every joint had to be connected. We worked on it from when Dad got home in the evening from work and all-day Saturday and Sunday. I remember it as the least favorite because I remember only working and not playing at all. I lost my temper and told Dad *"I have got to go out and play". I ran out the door and went over and played basketball with Bruce Couch.
Later, during the remodeling of the house, we tore out lathe and plaster walls and put-up wall board. We changed the living room and the dining room into one room. We tore out the wall between the kitchen and the pantry and the wall between the kitchen and the back porch. We remodeled the bathroom and put in a shower. All of these remodel "jobs" required a claw hammer, a wrecking bar and more. Dad didn't know anything about electricity. It was trial and error. Dad figured out how to get the electricity to the back porch and kitchen. We put in a new electric stove. We put in some paneling. (The remodeling was a huge job.) The back porch was my bedroom before we remodeled. I moved down in the earthen basement (which had been a coal bin). My old bed room became the dining area and a sunroom. We also waterproofed the shingles on the roof. The roof was very steep, we had to tie a rope around our waists (the rope was tied off on the other side of the house to prevent us from falling). We had to spread a substance like tar over the roof to water proof it. After the roof was finished, we had to paint the outside of the house. We had to build scaffolding so that we could stand on planks to paint the house. (I didn't do much painting.) Mom painted the lower portion of the house. (Where she could reach.) We also had to cut down old elm trees. We cut up the trees for fire wood. We used the wood from those five big old trees in our fireplace.
All of this work combined took us about six years. I spent my childhood to teenage years working with Dad. I only had to work on Saturday and Sunday for four hours after I had reminded him "I had to be able to play". My Dad, Woody, was amazing. He was a very hard worker, he was very smart, most of the time he was slow to anger but if he got mad, LOOKOUT!, he was really mad. My Mom, Lorraine, was just the opposite. She was quick to anger but got over it pretty quickly. Bill says he inherited both of those qualities. (sigh) My Dad taught me many things during this time. I used those skills throughout my life.
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