Part III of the Continuing Saga of the
Dungans……
Ever go on a road trip with Garland? Believe me, this is not something you really
want to do, ever. By the way, this just
seemed like a good place to bring this up, right after talking about gas
stations. First of all, Garland
smoked. A lot. Secondly, he was a pig, what we call in
Spanish, un grosero, as in uncouth,
ill mannered. He had a bad habit of
‘hocking oysters,’ which means he would clear his throat very loudly (and
grossly), working up a great big gob of (what was it we used to say? Oh, yeah, “Great Big Gob of Green Greasy
Gopher Guts”) this truly viscious and viscous phlegm. Now, he always drove with his window open,
and his left arm out the window. Once he
had this gift for the road ready (we, of course, sitting in the back seat knew
this was coming, and were already preparing ourselves), he would first turn his
head to his right, and shout, “Duck!”
This was our signal to do just that.
Then he would turn his head back all the way to his left, and send that
mess of easily-mistaken-for-road-kill-if-it-ever-gets-to-the-road gooey, slimey
phlegm hurtling out his window, most likely to splat on that side of the car
(shudder). Then, he would turn his head
back to the right, and say, “Unduck!,” and we would.
Garland’s favorite beer (and, here he
actually showed some class, if not taste) was Miller High Life, which of course
only came in clear glass bottles. I seem
to recall that there was a deposit on empty beer bottles in those days (a
nickel for empty milk bottles, three cents for soda pop bottles, and maybe a
penny for beer bottles), but that made no difference to Garland. As he drove, he drank (surprise). As he emptied a bottle, his routine was to
fling that bottle, not just simply out his window, but out his window, over the
top of the car, aiming for the right side of the road, as far off the road as
he could get it. Wasn’t that considerate
of him? His other goal, of course, was
for that glass bottle to shatter loud enough so that we could hear it as we
drove (merrily? Very seldom) along.
OK, we left off with us living up in the
Rattlesnake Hills, above Prosser. I
believe we stayed there in the Rattlesnake Hills long enough for me to get
through second grade, and then moved to another ranch sometime in 3rd
grade. After getting this far, Mike
remembered some more details, that he has graciously provided in order to set
me straight:
Meanwhile, we had yet to move from the
Rattlesnakes, down to the next place on our list. This was to an area, way down close to the
Columbia River, near a little wide spot in the road called Roosevelt. This is where Mike, Pat, Dennis, and I all
went to a three-room school for one school year. There was a ferry across the river there, to
Arlington, Oregon, which was the nearest place with such refinements as a
restaurant. That ferry was important,
because the second year we were in this area, Mike had to ride that ferry
across the Columbia River every day to attend school in Arlington, Oregon,
because our little school only went so far, and the nearest high school (heck,
maybe it was only the 7th grade; what do I know?) was across the
river. And, of course the proximity to
Oregon was a big plus for the old man, ‘cause they didn’t tax booze, beer, and
cigarettes as much as Washington did at that time. And, I seem to recall no sales taxes. After seeing the map whose link I shared,
Mike has offered these memories of this place/time:
From this place, I recall the big events
were monthly trips to town, Goldendale, for the grocery shopping. This always happened on a Saturday, and part
of the adventure was that mom would take us all to the library, where we each
got our own library card. At some point,
I went through a series of books for kids, that all had the same basic
cover. This was burnt orange in color,
with black lettering, and these were biographies of famous Americans, going
back to Ben Franklin and George Washington, to Andrew Jackson, Davy Crockett,
Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln (did you know he was born in a log cabin?),
Ulysess S. Grant, Thomas Edison, and so forth.
We learned that everything American was good (and not just because we
had saved the world twice), and everything that was not American was pretty
much bad.
By the time I was in fourth grade, we were
in a town again, and my father was working in another sawmill. This is where my brother, Dennis, and I had
some of our greatest times.
But, I also experienced one of my more
traumatic school-related events here, as well.
Not long after we got here, in fourth grade, I don’t recall the
teacher’s name, but one day she started in on a verbal rant, saying “John, how
could you? “You have lied, and you have
done……..” - this horrible thing, and that horrible thing, and I just could not
believe that she was talking about me.
It had to do with a paper we had written and handed in, and all I knew
was she had one in her hand, and she was looking at me, and just ranting………I
was terrified, mostly because I had no idea what she was talking about, and did
not know what I could possibly have done, not to mention I had never had anyone
talk to me in such a manner. I was also
scared totally out of my mind. I didn’t know
what else to do, so I bolted. Jumped
right up, and ran out of that room, out of that school, and all the way home to
my mommy, crying my eyes out…….well, this was one of the few times that she
ever got involved in our schooling. My
mother took me back to the school, and to the principal’s office where we
learned that the teacher in question was not even talking to me or about
me. There was another John in that class
(how could I know? I was new), only he
spelled his name Jon, and it was he that she was so upset about. Maybe that is when I learned to not put much
trust in teachers (forgive me, Blanca).
Other than that experience, Dennis and I
both had pretty good times in Goldendale.
We had free run of the town of Goldendale, which was the county seat of
Klickitat County, and had both the Klickitat River and the Klickitat Creek
running along edges of town. I remember
a great big old tree just outside the back door, onto which somebody nailed
some boards, to make like a ladder, so we could climb way up into its huge
limbs. And, the back yard had a large
cleared area, obviously done for a garden, but we turned that into a huge play
area for playing with all our cars and trucks.
We had roads, and gas stations, and all kinds of buildings and
stuff. I remember that the name brand,
Structo, figured prominently in the toy trucks we played with (before Tonka got
so big, Structo trucks were the tough trucks).
Old D cell batteries were the gas pumps at our gas station, blocks of
wood served for buildings, a piece of wood was used to ‘grade’ our roads, and
so on.
Fairly early on, we did have our one and
only childhood fight, with someone other than each other. I have no recollection of the cause, but
there was a large family who lived just up the street from us – the
Rileys. One of those damn Rileys was
another boy, about the same age as Dennis and I. For some reason he did not like us, and while
it was Dennis who took most of his verbal abuse, I somehow got involved. So, he took us both on at once, and beat us
both very quickly and easily. That took
a while to live down, and eventually I think we achieved some sort of truce, if
not better, by becoming friends.
We rented the house on West Broadway from
the ‘rich’ old widow, who lived right next door, in a more modern, well
equipped house. This was Mrs.
Bridgefarmer, and she also rented rooms in her basement. I recall one of the renters there was a
Chinese man and his son. The man was
employed as a cook in one of the local restaurants for a short while. This was my first contact with a non-white
person. Just a bit of culture shock was
involved.
Out back of the house, and very close, was
a separate building on the property that was likely old enough to have been a
carriage house at one time, or a stable, but we called it the wood shed. It was – as I recall – at least two rooms,
quite old, with upainted, and seriously weathered wood. The floor on one side was just dirt, with the
accumulation of many years of wood chips, and shavings form wood being cut for
burning in either the wood cook stove, or a wood stove for heat, all that we
had in that house. That building was our Cavalry Fort and/or the Sheriff’s
office for whenever we played Cowboys and Indians.
Most Christmases were – to say the least –
disappointing times. Not much in the way
of gifts for anyone, the Old Man usually was not home as evening came on (he
was likely in a bar, pissing away his paycheck), so the anxiety level always
grew. The family tradition was to open
gifts on Christmas Eve, and we had to wait for him to come home, all the time
worried that when he did, he would be in a bad mood, and that was not
good. Too many Christmases were ruined
by his lashing out at one and all (but, of course my mother took the brunt of
his drunken anger), and what we had all too often was the classic scene of
crying, frightened kids, and crying, bruised wife and mother.
However, on at least one Christmas, Santa
did come through for me. I desperately
wanted a two-gun holster, with Mattel Fanner 50 pistols, ‘cause they looked
like what Hopalong Cassidy wore. (Here’s
what a Google search turns up on these awesome ‘toys:’ http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=fanner+50&aq=0&oq=Fanner+50)
And, I got them! Even got some
caps to shoot with them. Wow, that was
so cool. At one point Dennis, I think,
got a Red Ryder BB gun. Or, Daisy. And, on reflection, I think it was a pump
action, instead of a lever cocking action, so that would likely make it the
cheaper of the two types, I bet. Here is
a pic of a pump action type BB gun, similar to what I remember: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.pyramydair.com/images/Daisy-No.25-DY-Model-25-Rifle_lg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.actionwholesaler.info/search-900_Action.html&h=94&w=400&sz=14&tbnid=Tx_PbiklToLm1M:&tbnh=29&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dimages%2Bof%2BDaisy%2Bpump%2Baction%2BBB%2Bgun&zoom=1&q=images+of+Daisy+pump+action+BB+gun&hl=en&usg=__7eE9YDRSs3odc_pHzGzdGZXMJAI=&sa=X&ei=vdgpTZK3JsGB8gb-goj_AQ&ved=0CCEQ9QEwAg
We (Dennis and I) also played all up and
down the creek, swimming in pools in hot weather, playing cowboys and Indians,
Army, whatever we saw in the movies on Saturday afternoons. John Wayne was naturally everybody’s hero,
but since he couldn’t possibly make enough movies to satisfy our need for him,
we kids looked forward to Saturday matinees, when we got into the local theatre
for only twenty cents. We got a quarter
to spend, so that left a nickel for (usually) lemon drops. Those movies included coming attractions (we
called them previews), a news reel (short), at least one cartoon, the feature
movie, and then a second movie. There
may also have been an episode of one or more serial that everyone looked
forward to. And, just about every kid in
town was at that one showing.
We also played baseball with a
friction-tape-wrapped ball, and a very old and weathered bat, in nearby
pastures using cow patties for our bases.
One of our favorite places to play was near the city dump. There were some large rocks overlooking the
dump itself, and up in the rocks, we found what we thought were caves. We’d go through the junk when no one was
around, and find ‘treasures’ that we took up to our cave, and used to decorate,
or furnish the cave. I also loved to
play in the wrecked cars that were parked on a back lot at the local Ford
dealer (or, maybe it was the Chevrolet dealer).
That was the closest I ever expected to come to a newer car. Dennis and I also became Boy Scouts in
Goldendale, and attended the meetings in the basement of the Public Library, a
dusty, cluttered area.
Sorry, but since this is again running
long, we’ll take a little break here, and continue the report of the sojourn in
Goldendale in Part IV…….
No comments:
Post a Comment