Have Truck Will Travel

Once I had Pat (our new neighbor) to run around with, we went and did a lot of things. We only had one car and Dave needed it to go back and forth to work. If I needed the car to go shopping or appointments I would get up early and take him to work and then have to go pick him back up. Well, Pat and Dick had two vehicles. Dick drove his motorcycle to work and Pat had a pickup with a camper on the back. We loaded our kids in there and went lots of places. Even in the summertime, we had a lot of low clouds or high fog what ever you want to call it. In other words we didn't have as much sunny weather as people farther from the ocean did. We would pack up the kids and a picnic lunch and go across the Golden Gate Bridge to a beach near Sausalito. Our housing area was pretty close to the bridge and by the way it is not gold it is a brick red. The prettiest and most impressive bridge over there is the Bay Bridge. It is a double decker bridge, the upper part goes one way and the lower part the other way. It is the bridge that connects San Francisco to Oakland. The kids would play in the sand and run in the surf. Pat and I would just soak up some sun and enjoy the peace and quiet. It was just beautiful and we would spend the day there.

Training Course in Ft. Benning Georgia

Dave came down on orders for a special training school in Ft. Benning Georgia and would be gone several months. While he was gone I was going to take the kids and fly into Springfield Missouri and stay with my mom and dad until his school was over. Dave would then pick us up on the way back home to California,after his school was finished. Mom and dad were so excited about this, they hadn't been able to see our kids that much since we were in Germany for three years and then in California for three years. They did come see us right after Laura was born in Ft. Ord California.
Then Dave had a change of mind, and he called and said he wanted me and the kids to come to Benning and be with him for the few more months he had left. I told him no, that I would just be sitting in some hotel room all day with the kids while he was at school and then for his few drinks at the NCO club. I also told him that my parents would be so disappointed if we didn't go to their house.

I finally gave in though because he rented a small apartment in Columbus and they had a swimming pool for us to use while Dave would be working. Mom and Dad were disappointed of course but they came to Georgia to our little apartment with us for a nice visit. They went to the pool with us every day and watched the kids swim.

One afternoon Laura and Danny were out on the front porch when there was a very loud crack of lightening. It scared mom, dad and me inside the apartment and terrified the kids especially Laura. She screamed when it cracked and my folks and I both jumped up and ran to her. She was okay, just very very scared. The next day at the pool it started getting cloudy and she started getting so scared that we had to cut our swim short and take her home. To Laura, a cloudy sky meant a large scarey noise. She was two and a half and it was hard to make her understand that it wasn't going to lightening while we were swimming. She was afraid of a cloudy sky for quite some time after that.

A Little About Laura

Laura was a very friendly and outgoing little girl. She made friends very easily and warmed up to just about everyone. She always had a bunch of friends. She was a very happy little baby, hardlly ever cried. My dad had even commented upon leaving from a week's visit that he had not heard her cry at all in the whole week he was there. Her needs were taken care of and she was very contented. As she got older she would approach anyone and everyone, there was no such thing as a stranger to her. She did seem to prefer men when we were in a setting that she was exposed to both men and women. I didn't like the "approaching strangers" part of her personality and really had to keep an eye on her when we were out in public or she would be sitting on someone's lap. She learned that this wasn't a good thing to do as she got older of course.

Her favorite things to play with were her doll George and the baby buggy. We lived in a six plex and had carports across from us and we were also at a dead end. This was ideal for little kids to play because anyone driving up there was going real slow. I would prop our front door open so she could come in if she wanted to. She would push George up and down the sidewalk in the buggy. She also had a good selection of trikes and tyke bikes and assorted ride on toys and wagons ect.

When she was inside she would sit for a very long time playing with her "little people". I had bought her a couple of the Fisher Price L'il People playsets. Each set came with a few little people and a few pieces of furniture or other accessories. She loved them so much that I got her the Fisher Price Dollhouse for her next birthday. There was a lock on our bedroom door that would let the door open a few inches but not all the way. I was in the bedroom wrapping her dollhouse when she opened the door that few inches. I thought I had jumped up and blocked her view of the gift, however the next day on her birthday she asked me if she could open her dollhouse. lol

We didn't have Barney like the kids of today have. We had Sesame Street and the Electric Company and Laura just loved them. When they were on she was just mesmerized. She would sing along with all the songs and particularly liked Big Bird. She also liked a show called the Banana Splits. (I think that was the name of it.) Danny liked this one too.

I would often go next door and get Monica to come play with her. They played so nice together and I preferred having them in our house. Laura was a year and a half younger than Monica and I just needed my baby girl close by.

Now this one might surprise someone, from a very young age she already loved babies. She just couldn't keep her hands off of them. This did eventually become a little problem. As she got older she would try carrying the little kids around. She wasn't big enough to do this safely. One mother in particular would get very upset when she saw Laura picking up her little one and would come knocking on our door to let me know about it. This is actually the only thing that I can remember that she ever did that I had to punish her for (between the ages of two and six).
She simply could not resist loving and holding these little kids. She told me when she grew up she was going to have lots of kids.

A Little About Danny

Danny was a fairly quiet little boy. He played sports as he got older (he started with baseball at age seven I think) and when he was in a game he would play hard and put everything he could into it. When he was in normal play outside, he went to it with all the gusto he could muster. However, in a crowd, he was more comfortable to be quiet in the background. He was very slow to warm up to anyone, and made friends cautiously. Throughout his whole childhood, he never had more than two or three good friends at any one time.Keep in mind that we moved a lot and he had to readjust to new schools and new kids every few years. This is difficult for anyone to do, and it was harder for him because he took a long time to pick his friends He was very uncomfortable in a group.

I am just writing about when he was under eight or so for now. This is difficult to do because so very many things happen in a childhood, but I am for now trying to pick out some of the highlights about his young personality. My mind is really racing trying to do this.

His favorite things to play between ages two and eight were with his tonka trucks, hot wheels, little army men. He loved to be outside on the run, he played a lot in the woods beside our home at the base in San Francisco. They had forts and clubhouses and who know what all stems in a child's imagination. He had two very good friends and they were kind of like the three musketeers. Their names were Anthony and Lee. Funny that I would remember this. For his birthday party he just wanted to invite those two boys, he did not want a group of kids to come.

He and the "guys" thought they were Evil Knevil. They built ramps and jumped their bikes. I didn't really like this because I was afraid he was going to get hurt (remember all the stitches he has had already) and because it was bending the rims on his front wheel. It is one of those things he shouldn't have been doing and he knew it, but that I just chose to ignore. Picked my battles I guess. It just wasn't all that important.

When I started this I was going to write a little bit about Danny's personality and then about Laura's. However this is getting a lot longer than I intended so will write some about Laura in another blog.

Seventies Fashions

The seventies were a lot of fun in the fashion world. It was full of bell bottoms, mini skirts, short shorts and go-go boots. I, of course, was always in style and enjoyed this decade for a lot of reasons. I had all of the before mentioned items and especially loved my white vinyl knee high go-go boots. I was really quite amused when I found my little two year old Laura a pair of white boots also. She was so cute in them and got a lot of comments.

I did a lot of sewing in the early seventies (well actually I did a lot of sewing longer than that). I enjoyed sewing and was quite good at it. I made most of Laura's clothes when she was little, mostly little dresses and short sets. I made her and I dresses out of the same material once and we really looked sharp although my son still teases me about this. I made him one shirt to match a play set of Laura's but found that button holes were too hard with the old machine I had so I didn't make him anymore shirts. I think Danny was glad about this. lol I did make Laura and I skirts and tops to match some years later to wear when we went to Germany again. It was a seventies thing---what else can I say.

The guys wore a lot of plaid polyester jackets and solid colored leisure suits and the boys had hush puppies for dress shoes. They also sometimes wore white belts and shoes. Danny and Dave both had the white belts but no white shoes. Dave wore his white belt with his light blue leisure suit. Danny's dressy outfit was solid colored pants and a houndstooth sport jacket. The jacket was big enough on him he was able to wear it a couple of years. He only dressed up so seldom that I felt it would be a waste of money to buy him more dressy clothes.

It was fun to be fashionable in the seventies.

Long Walks And The Smith Family

Our new home on the San Francisco base was right on the edge of the housing area. We could cut through on a path between the tennis courts and the woods and be in the outskirts of the city. In fact Danny's school was very near that area. We quite often took long walks through that area just looking everything over and enjoying the sights. We also did a lot of talking on these walks. We just strolled along slowly, we weren't in any hurry because we were going nowhere in particular. Walking slowly also gave Laura's short little legs a chance to keep up, afterall she had to take a lot more steps than we did. We would usually stop at a little diner and have a soda or an ice cream cone. After the refreshments and the rest, we were all ready to head toward home.

About six to eight months after we moved in we got new neighbors. The Smith family moved in next door to us. The couple was Pat and Dick and they had two little girls named Shannon and Monica. Shannon was Danny's age and Monica was about a year and a half older than Laura. Danny would have liked it a whole lot better if Shannon had been a boy because we ended up being very close friends with Pat and Dick. The four kids were together many times because us four adults would be playing pinochle at the house. Pat and the girls also became part of our walks and other outings we would take. Monica and Laura played real nice together and there was rarely a problem out of any of them.

Childhood illness's

To tell this story I have to date back to '66. When Danny was only a few months old we had to put him into the hospital with bronchitis, the hospital was in Frankfort Germany. So to visit him, I would take a military bus that had a route up and back to the hospital every day. He was in there for just a few days but it seemed like an eternity to me.

Then one day I was sitting in the infirmary (military doctor's office) with my baby boy on my lap. Danny was probably about six or seven months old at the most. I was in the infirmary for me, I had an appointment to talk to the doctor or something. I know it couldn't have been for a check-up or I wouldn't have brought Danny with me. As I was waiting I was watching Danny break out in little red dots. I noticed it at first on his little neck so I thought it was just an irritation from something. But the longer I sat there the more that rash spread. By the time I went in to the doctor's office it was pretty much all over his body. It was the measles--thankfully not the more serious kind.

When I was seven or eight months pregnant with Laura, Danny caught the mumps. The doctor was a little more worried that I might catch them since I could not remember if I have had them. I did not catch them and Danny got a lot of tlc (tender loving care) and ice cream to help him recover.

Then when he was in the first grade, his school mates shared the chicken pox with him and he shared them with his baby sister. It is nice to share and quite frankly it was good to get them over with for both of them. Laura caught a "better" case of them than her brother did, really quite pitiful because her body was so little and the breakout seemed even worse .

Whenever my kids got sick (colds and flu) Danny would get strep throat and Laura would get serious ear infections. When I say serious, I mean that if we didn't catch it in time and get her on an antibiotic, her eardrums would perforate. This is an excruciating pain that no one except hardened criminals, especially child predators, should have to experience. (opinion of the author) . It was here while we were living in San Francisco that Laura got tubes put in her ears. This made a world of difference in her health even though she did continue to have problems throughout her childhood. Danny got his tonsils removed while we were in San Francisco also and it did cut down on the throat infections.

I think this brings us up to date on most of the accidents and health problems up until and including 1972.

Pinewood Derby and the Cubmobile

It was about the second grade that Danny joined the cub scouts. One of the first projects he did was to make a race car with his dad for the pinewood derby (racing against the other boys cars.) He was given a kit for this that included a block of balsa wood, sandpaper and I think it must have included the axles and wheels. The two of them put a lot of work in to this, it had a lot of carving and sanding to be done. Danny painted it red and put a number on it---I can't recall the number but I wouldn't be surprised if it was #1. The cars were raced on a real cool track at a Pack meeting (this is when all the dens of scouts get together). He didn't win, but didn't expect to. His reward was the memories he made with his dad making it.

A few years later all the dens of scouts made a cubmobile with the dad's. This was a regular size go cart. Danny really liked working on that and was looking forward to race day. He was in Den #1 and they won all the races that day. It was so exciting. Each scout in the den would ride it down the ramp and into a haybale placed in a designated spot. We all had a good time that day.

Allergies

It was around this time that Danny came in from playing outside with a swollen face. You couldn't see his nose at all except the nostrils. Under his eyes and across his upper face were all puffed up as if he had been beaten on. Keep in mind now that this is after three sets of stitches and having a t-shirt torn off of him at school (and he was only six or seven years old). My first response was "who has been beating on your face!" When the answer was no-one, I loaded him up and took him to the emergency room. It was an allergy reaction and he was given some medication that helped a lot. We had him tested and he was allergic to just about all grasses and weeds---with the real culprit being fresh mowed grass.Even though he wasn't tested for it, he was/is allergic to cats also. He would mess with and play with any and all cats or kittens his friends might have. He would come home with his face all swollen up again. I still can't imagine that the pleasure of playing with a cat is worth having your face swell up. I never have liked cats anyway

George

Laura's first baby doll was a little rubber doll, with arms, legs and a head that would move. There was no added hair---it was of the rubber also. This little doll came with a diaper, and was wrapped in a pretty little pink blanket--it even came with a bottle to feed the baby with. No it did not really drink anything and didn't go potty. She just loved this doll so much. When asked what she was going to name her dolly she said "his" name is "George". She had decided right off that if the doll had no hair it must be a boy. I don't know where or how she came up with that name because we didn't know anyone named George except my dad. She may have heard my mom call my dad George and just remembered it. Who knows, doesn't matter, his name is George. lol

Through the years she received several more dolls, but George remained her favorite. She got a Raggedy Ann doll that she didn't necessarily want, in fact she didn't even like it. "I" liked it and thought she should have one. She did have one ragdoll similar to Raggedy Ann that was a blonde with a blue dress on. She played with this one okay but not Raggedy. She did get another doll she just loved also, it was her Baby Crissy. Baby Crissy was a beautiful redhead (baby doll) and you could make her hair grow and put it back short. However, George remained her all time favorite.

Bedtime and the Orange Crayon

When we were moving to San Francisco from Minot we decided not to take Laura's crib. We figured that it wouldn't be long before she would be going into a big girl bed anyway. Dave's folks put the crib up in their attic, awaiting any future nieces or nephews.

Danny had some bunkbeds that we bought for him in Minot. Laura used her crib through that year. We bought her a bed when we got to San Francisco. Most people would have bought the nearly two year old a youth bed or a single bed. We decided to get her a double bed so if she wanted to have a friend sleep over (in the future) there would be enough room. We also had a bed for any overnight guests we may have.

Laura was so little she couldn't even get up into her bed. We had to lift her up on it when we went to tuck her in. One night when Dave and I were going to bed, we found her sleeping on the rug beside her bed. She was so darned cute. She obviously had gotten out of bed for something and then couldn't get back up.

Whenever it was Laura's naptime, I would put the safety gate across her bedroom door. She would just call me when she was finished napping. One day she seemed to be "sleeping" quite a bit longer than usual so I went up to check on her. She was a very busy baby girl, she had an orange crayon and had colored lots and lots of squiggles and loops all over the back of her bedroom door. This artwork was from as high as she could reach, clear on down to the floor. I had her help me clean it up and she never colored on anything she wasn't suppose to again. It seems to me that I also put her crayons up a little higher. lol

Danny's Second Set of Stitches

I had to go back and re-title a post in May that I had said was his second set of stitches. The one with the cut on the knee in his pool was his third set of stitches. This is the second set--- a cut above his left eyebrow while we were living with Kathy in St. Louis. We had taken Darren for a checkup to his pediatrician. Danny was sitting and playing around at a little table and chair set in the waiting room. He slipped off of the chair and hit his head on the edge of the table. Now one would think that since it happened in a pediatrician's office, that he could fix it right? Wrong!! He wasn't equipped to do stitches so we had to take him to a nearby hospital emergency room.

So my little fellow had three sets of stitches by the age of five. I was within a few feet of him for two of the accidents above his eyes (the first set was up close to his hairline). There is just no way you can prevent an accident like that from happening. When he got the cut to the knee, I was inside the house with Laura but could see the kids playing in the water.

So now the saga of Danny's stitches has been straightened out. Maybe these three accidents were a premonition to future accidents---ya' think?

First Grade and the Peach

Shortly after moving to San Francisco, the kids had their 2nd and 6th summer birthdays. We celebrated both birthdays with cake and ice cream and a few gifts. We just had a family party, just the four of us. The only gift I can remember is Danny's Snoopy lunchbox because he would be starting school in a few weeks.

Yes, in just a few weeks I was to put this small 6 year old boy on a bus to go off of the base to a public San Francisco school and trust that somehow he was going to return to me. I wanted to keep him home all safe and warm under my care. This is the first time in my parenting days that I was traumatized. There were to be several more through the years, but this was devastating to me. When the dreaded day came I walked him down to the bus stop a few blocks away. Now this was a walk that he was quite capable of doing himself, but not today!!! lol I did put him on that school bus that day, and I asked the bus driver how in the world was he going to get him home. He assured me that they have been doing this for many years and they never lost a child yet. Of course I worried and stewed about it most of the day and I was at that bus stop to meet him when and if he ever got home. It was nothing short of a miracle to me that he did return home.

One day Danny came home from school with a large bulge in his pocket. I asked him what it was and he pulled his ripped tee shirt out of the pocket. When I asked him what happened he said that a peach boy ripped it off of him at recess. I inquired what a peach boy was and he replied that he wasn't black and he wasn't white, he was a peach.

Move to San Francisco and the Oakland Zoo

Dave come back from his second tour in Viet Nam in early summer of '72. Our next assignment was in the Presidio of San Francisco. We had a little time to get everything ready for the packers and for Dave to see his extended family before we headed west again.We had to give our dog away, it broke our hearts but we felt it was the best decision for the dog. Dave had heard that there was little to no yards in San Francisco and that he wouldn't have anyplace to run around and no place for us to walk him to do his "thing". As it turned out, we did have a yard but he would have had to be on a chain because it wasn't fenced. We had a large woods right out beside us.

Our quarters were very nice. It was two story with the bathroom and three bedrooms upstairs and the living & dining rooms and the kitchen downstairs. If I had to pick something wrong with it, it would be that the only bathroom was upstairs. One of my first purchases was a safety gate to put across the top of the stairs at night. I was afraid that one of the kids, and in particular the baby, would get up in the middle of the night and turn the wrong way and fall down the stairs. She navigated them pretty well during the day, afterall she was going on two years old. lol Most of the time she was downstairs with me.

The first family fun thing we did together was to go to the Oakland Zoo, across the double decker Bay Bridge. They had a small amusement park so we put the kids on a few rides before going to look at the animals. The first ride we saw was the carousel (merry-go- round). So the kids and I got on, Danny of course was a big boy and was able to get on his horse with just a small boost to get his foot in the stirrup. I lifted Laura on her horse of choice and stayed there to be sure she didn't fall off. When the ride was over, Danny hopped off and was ready and eager for the next ride. Laura, however, hung on to that pole with all her might. She didn't want off and the only way she was going to come off was if I physically forced her to. I told Dave that she wasn't going to get off so give me a couple more tickets and he could go put Danny on a few more rides. After all the rides we went over to the petting zoo and had a great time. It was a wonderful day.

Triangle Trips and the Traveling Playpen

Since we lived in California for two different three year assignments (Ft. Ord near Monterey and the Presidio of San Francisco) we did a lot of traveling when we took a vacation (military leave). We would go from California to North Dakota and to southern Missouri) It made for a very long trip and a lot of driving. This started when Laura was not quite a year old and Danny was going on five. We built up the floorboards in the back so they were level with the seat. Then I put quilt over the top of all of it. They had a "traveling playpen" to move around in and weren't as cramped up as they would have been just sitting in the seat. This was a very long time before the seatbelts came out. Some of these trips were across the deserts of California, Arizona and New Mexico. This was also long before the cars had air conditioners. When we left Fort Ord, we had a car seat for Laura. This carseat was similar to a booster seat, it was just a small chair that hooked up over the back of the seat. It had a low back and very little padding. Laura would sit in it so nice and never fussed at all, she wasn't a fussy baby anytime. She would fall asleep and her little head would just hang down and bob around and it looked pitiful to me. When I would take her out of the seat to lay her down more comfortable, she wouldn't sleep at all. I even switched places with Danny and got in the back with her. She was so tired and I thought that if I layed down back there with her she would sleep. She layed so sweetly beside me but never did go to sleep. When she eventually got put back in her seat she would go to sleep, and even though it looked pitiful to me---she must have been comfortable or she wouldn't be sleeping.

The Rabbit and the Dart gun

Danny had received the "coolest" toy from his Aunt Sandy for his 5th birthday in August of '71. At first I thought how ignorant this was to give a small boy a dart gun especially with a baby girl toddling around the house. There were definitely some house rules set down about it. I explained to him that although it is a toy, it could seriously injure someone if one of the darts would hit a person---especially if it would hit them in the eye. He could only play with it when Laura was taking a nap or was put to bed at night. He was very careful when playing with it and never aimed it at anything but the rabbit. The rabbit is the cool part. It was a brown wind up rabbit that would run (slowly) around in a circle and you were suppose to try to hit it by shooting the darts at it. It was about the size of a real medium sized rabbit. I don't know why I thought this was "blog worthy" but there must be an underlying reason I suppose.

His other favorite toys were hot wheels, Tonka trucks and Jeep, and a small train set he had received for Christmas. He loved his little two wheel bicycle (with training wheels). In the spring the man down the street took the training wheels off of it for him. He knew that Danny's dad was in Viet Nam.

North Dakota Winter& Laura's Ears

We had a lot of snow that year the kids and I stayed in Minot, North Dakota. It was very very cold. I had to have a tank heater installed on my car and had to plug it in whenever I was not using it, or else it would freeze up. I had an extention cord stuck out our front bedroom window to plug it in to. By pulling the car up far enough to plug in the car, left a lot more driveway to shovel. This was a very strenuous job--that snow is heavy. Danny came outside with me a few times to help me shovel. He had a small shovel to use and he worked just as hard as I did. It was so cute to watch him because at least half of the snow he shoveled fell back where it had been when he went to dump it out. My brother in laws (two of them) came over a couple of times but mostly I was on my own with it. I kept some of it cleared by driving back and forth over it when I was coming and going.

Danny went to Kindergarten every afternoon Monday thru Friday. Laura and I would drive him down there (it was seven or eight blocks). Then we'd go back home and she would take a little nap and I just had some nice quiet time. Then we would drive back down and pick him up from school. I learned to drive fairly well in the snow and made it around town alright. There were only a few days that I wouldn't go out and drive in it because I thought the roads were too bad.

We had quite a time that year with Laura's ears. She would get ear infections so bad that pressure would build up behind her eardrum and it would pop. This is extemely painful. Every time she got a cold it would go to her ears. Doctors started just putting her on an antibiotic whenever she got the cold, to ward it off before it got so bad. Many of nights I sat and rocked her while she cried in pain from her ears. I would cry some too because I couldn't do anything to help her--it just took time for the medicine to start working. In months to come, we had to put her in the hospital to have tubes put in her ears. This was a fairly new procedure at the time, and the doctor had to do some talking before I would put my baby girl in the hospital to have this operation done. I'm glad they talked me in to it because she was so much better after that.