Random memories of life in Georgia

We moved from Farmington, Utah to Warner Robins, Georgia when I was 5 years old. My dad was a logistics planner for the Air Force. I didn't know what that was for the longest time, but he would look at a project and figure out what needed to be done to accomplish it and who should do it. (I could use him to help plan my choir program!)

When we first moved to Georgia we rented a house. It was really ugly and had these brownish purple walls. Linda didn't come with us at first, she was finishing a semester at Weber, but I remember when she did come we shared a bedroom and a bed. I remember her telling me that she was engaged to get married and showing me her ring in bed one night.

After a while, probably 4 to 6 weeks, we moved into our house. It wasn't very big, especially compared to the lovely one my dad had built for us in Farmington. I don't think my mother ever like that house, so I'm not sure why they bought it. It had a huge yard, it probably sat on 3/4s of an acre. The house was probably not much bigger than Amy's house now. We had 3 bedrooms, 2 baths (one was off the master bedroom and it was bigger than the one Amy has, but not by a lot) a living room and a kitchen dining room. There were 4 children living there on and off, although Linda and Kurtis only lived there a little bit.

Some random memories of the house include:

Doug, Devn and Kurtis playing jokes on each other. Stuff like things falling off partially opened doors, and short sheeted beds (you take the bottom part of the top sheet and tuck it into the top of the bed then you make the bed like normal and when you go to get in, you can't because your legs don't have any place to go.) ice at the bottom of the bed, locked bedroom doors with booby traps, pajama legs sewn shut and more. I think my dad was also involved in a lot of this. Kurtis was the master though. No one could pull a prank on him, he always, dismantled them without getting caught. When Kurtis got engaged they tried to pull lost of pranks on him, but it didn't work.

We had the most wonderful "Winnie the Pooh" records that I would listen to at bedtime every night. They were read by the man who plays Samantha's Dad in the series "Bewitched." This was long before Disney corrupted the stories.

Devn used to tell the most wonderful bedtime stories. He would make them up and they were awesome!

I remember playing with Doug on our long, long driveway. We would ride bikes (I'm pretty sure some of this was teaching me to ride a bike) and we would play "King of the Mountain" on piles of pine needles that he had to rake from the yard. (These pine needles were about 6 or 8 inches long and would come in little bundles of 2 or 3).

I remember the 3 boys wrapping a package for Daddy for Christmas, it was a pair of cuff links and they put them in a box that was as tall as Kurtis and probably a foot square. They stuffed it with news paper and daddy had to dig through the whole box to find the cuff links. I thought this was hilarious!

I remember learning early on that if I wanted to be in on the jokes I had to keep quiet. It was a great privilege to be told what was going on.

I remember my first piano lessons, playing with the boy across the street, learning to shuffle cards, walking barefoot all summer, even on the pine cones. The family behind us was Catholic and they had little girl who showed me all kinds of things about being Catholic. We had a ditch in the by the street and I remember we were going to dig under the street to the other side of the road. (I think we only ever made it about 8 inches in the Georgia clay) I remember catching almost dead flies and operating on them to help them get better (weird, huh?) I remember learning to roller skate on the street (it had quite a steep hill at the top, then leveled out around my house. I remember walking through back yards and running around playing, climbing trees. I remember getting baptized and practicing in my parents bedroom with my dad. Although I had to wait several weeks to get baptized because my dad was in the stake presidency and we had to wait for a weekend when he was home. In those days, ward conferences were 2 days with 2 general meetings on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. It was a good place to be a kid and a good time. It wasn't nearly as dangerous for kids to wander around as it is now.

I remember that one day I left with my friends and we went to a park that was quite a distance away and I didn't tell anyone where I was going. When I was finally tracked down part of my punishment was to ride home in the car with Doug driving. He was learning to drive and I was terrified of riding in the car with him. Daddy spanked me and I was grounded for the rest of the day. Mother used to spank me sometimes, but it wasn't a big deal. But when daddy spanked it hurt!

I remember that we had a tree in the back yard where they had tied a rope so my brothers could climb up it. One day I climbed to the top of that rope when no one was around. I don't think anyone ever knew that I did that. It was probably a good 20 feet up. When I got to the top it scared me and I climbed down and never did it again.

We had a barbeque in the back corner of our yard and Doug and Devn used to melt lead back there and make balls about the size of marbles. Then they would build towers with the "American Bricks" that we had (precursors to Legos) but they had slanty roof pieces that they would put inside the towers to make a track for the lead balls to roll down. They played with those bricks all the time as well as with Army men.

I remember going to elementary school and I remember when one little black girl came to our school when I was in first grade. She was older than I was, but I remember seeing her in the playground and no one would talk to her because she was black (schools were segregated at that time.) I was too scared to talk to her. She didn't stay at our school very long.

I also remember that our principal had a paddle with holes in it like a peg board. I was scared to death he would use it on me. I would never have broken a rule though, but I knew some kids who did get "paddled."

I remember that the high school kids came and performed "The Fantastics" and that Devn was in it. They did it in the cafeteria. He was also in "The Music Man" in High School, I think he was one of the traveling salesmen and he also might have been part of the quartet in the town.

I remember a lot of scouting activities, my dad was the scout master and I always wanted to go with them. It never seemed fair to me that the boys got to do scouting and the girls didn't. I was a girl scout for a couple of years, but the program was never as good.

I remember my brothers making the most amazing Halloween costumes from stuff around the house. Headless men like Icabod Crane and scary monsters. They were very creative! I also remember them doing "Smother's Brothers" routines for ward parties. We listened to the "Smother's Brothers" records a lot. We also listened to "The Messiah" a lot.

I remember Kurtis playing the first movement of "Moonlight Sonata" a lot and VERY loud.

I remember that when we first moved there we had a maid, because that's what all the officers wives had at the Air Force base and my dad worked for a general so of course we had to have one too. She was a black woman named "Annie" and I thought she was really cool. She would come once or twice a week to do ironing and laundry, I don't know what else. I remember a couple of time she smoked in the house and I kind of liked it. My mother was furious though and pretty soon she stopped coming. I don't think my mother ever liked having a maid anyway, she liked taking care of the house herself. Annie had a very strong southern accent and she and mother had difficulty communicating at times.

I know mother and daddy went to a couple of things at the officers club on base and that mother hated that kind of thing, but they felt they had to. I know there was a cocktail party or two and I remember watching mother dress for those. Years later when I had to go to some of those I understood better why mother hated them so much.

Wow, lots of random memories. It's okay if you got bored. I was going to tell the story of the flying squirrels, but it seemed that I needed to set the stage first. It's coming.....