THE WAY I REMEMBER IT - 3 - Grade School

 Continuing with random thoughts from my younger years.  Tales from Lower Lodi grade school.

I don't think there were ever more than a dozen students at one time in my country school Lower Lodi, school district 73 in Custer County, NE.  When I graduated from the eighth grade we went to Broken Bow where all graduating from 8th grade were in a commencement exercise.  It seems like I was in the top 20 of the county, but can't recall how many graduates there were.  Ann and Robert Vollenweider (pronounced Volenvider with a long I) lived several miles south west of the school.  Think Ann was a grade or so behind me.  She passed away in her 40's or 50's several years ago.  Robert was a big-for-his-age guy and somehow got the nickname Beef, Beefy, or Beef Ball.  I can't recall him objecting to them, but it was how I remember him.

      Years later, when we were in High School (he went to Oconto and I went to Callaway) he called me and wanted to know if I wanted to go pheasant hunting with him.  He was driving their early-50 something Chevy pickup.  We drove over to the Redfern Table area and were on a dirt backroad when we saw some pheasants nearby in a field.  He stopped in the middle of the road and we both jumped out.  He was letting me use a 12 gauge shotgun which was laying on the middle of the bench seat with the barrel aimed down at the hump in the floor.  I reached back to get it and it went off.  Can't imagine that it was cocked, or if it had a safety it was off, but anyway, it blew a hole through the floor over the hump and the recoil broke through the cardboard ceiling in the corner of the pickup leaving an imprint of the butt end of the gun.   Of course, the noise scared off the pheasants, so we got back in and was going to go on down the road.  The engine started but was really running rough.  Raised the hood and found that 4 of the 8 sparkplug wires were blasted away and we were running on much less of an engine than desired.  We limped back to his place.  Explained to Charles, his dad, what had happened.  I don't recall whether Dad helped pay for repairing things or not.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

      Another memory of Beef (who passed away several years ago now) was some argument I got into with him during the noon hour when we were outside on the school grounds.  There was a Cedar tree on the south side of the school, near the entrance, and we ended up each cutting a switch off that tree and was jousting or whipping each other with them.  The teacher came out and wanted to know what was going on.  Don't remember the conversation, but she insisted we go ahead and finish what we started---so we had to dart in and out, striking at each other for at least another 15 minutes until the noon hour recess was over.  Seems like we weren't mad at each other when it ended, but were upset with the teacher because we had to keep at it.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

    Beef had the ability to wiggle his ears.  When we were in one of the earlier grades I was seated one row over a few desks behind him.  When he was sure he had my attention, he would wiggle his ears (usually during a quiet study time) and I would laugh.  Teacher came to me and wanted to know why I was laughing, which I wouldn't tell her.  Hands on the desk and ruler slapped across them.  This happened many times.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

     My younger brother, Darrell, was two years behind me.  Remember riding the horses with him some to and from school.  For some reason he wasn't in the photo from last post purportedly taken in 1953.  

Photo at right shows our cousins Kent and Karen Miles (far left and far right) with the four younger kids in my family in 1950.  Of us - left to right, Donnie, Lynn, Darrell and just-born-that-January little sister Louise in the center.

Another photo pulled from the computer archives - my Sophomore High School picture.  This, of course, was past my grade school time, but just found it.  I said these were random thoughts

     Some other thoughts that come to mind.  I usually milked cows in the morning before going to grade school in the later grades and changed clothes before heading to school.  One day when I got in the classroom and took off my hooded sweatshirt I discovered I still had my dirty terrycloth type T-shirt underneath.  Seems like it was a long day that day.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  

      Another time, and this was in high school.  A couple years I worked in the cafeteria so I wouldn't have to pay for my lunches.  When I got to school that morning realized I had on one white band shoe and one black shoe.  The younger kids had a ball pointing it out to me as they came through the line and as I picked up dishes, etc.  I told them it was a new fad going around.   Dumb, dumb, dumb.

     Back to grade school -- I recall some confrontations between the Downin kids - Norman (a grade or two behind me) and Carolyn (in my grade) and the teacher.  I believe the teacher was Miss Patterson, who was a quiet, rather meek teacher.  One time Norman was walking up and down on top of a row of the connected desks that we had at the time..  Another time Carolyn was having a difference with her and the teacher locked them in the classroom (I think during recess) and both Norman and Carolyn were kicking at the door.  The Downins lived over the hill southeast of us- almost a mile drive by the road.  Their dad, Morris, was helping remove some stuff from the basement of the school (this might have been after the school was closed) and the men were trying to break down the big metal cook stove that had been in the room where the teachers had lived many years before.  Since it was going for iron anyway, they decided to break it up.  Morris brought a heavy bar down with all his strength onto a part of the oven--it went right through and ended up on his big toe below.  He had a big bloody swollen toe/foot.  

       Thinking of that basement, when I was in one of the younger grades, we were instructed to make something for our parents for a Christmas present.  They had a sort of a workbench in the basement in the room beside where the teachers had lived.  I got some 1" x 4" pine board, cut it in to two pieces about 8 inches long.  On one of them I had drilled several holes, some of the square that were done with a coping saw.  This board was screwed at a 90 degree angle onto the center of the other board, forming a T when looked at from the end.  A couple of cup hooks were fastened to the top of the backboard to hang it from the wall.  It was then varnished and at the Christmas Program at the school I gave it to Dad.  He looked at it and wondered what in the world it was.  I explained that it was to hang his tools on the wall.  The square hole was big enough to put one handle of the Vice Grips wrench in it.  I don't know that he ever used it.  After he was gone I ended up with it and in 2011 when I was working on insulating the metal work shop building here in town in Clarinda I took the two boards apart and used them to keep the insulation down at the point where the roof met the walls.

I am randomly running out of thoughts, so will pause here.  It is Thursday morning with bright sunshine here in Clarinda.  Daughter Michelle got here from Columbus, Ohio last evening.  We are going to Phyllis' sister Beth and her husband Steve's place for lunch so they can visit with Michelle.  We all leave tomorrow morning for Marengo, IA.

Later, LCM

THE WAY I REMEMBER IT - 2 - Grade School

 We went to Lower Lodi School.  At the time I started, in 1947 it still had 9th & 10th grades.  There were two rooms - I only remember being in the west room where I started Kindergarten in March and recall having to read 5 or so books the last day of school to catch up with my only other classmate, Carolyn Downin who, for some reason had started in September.  Since we just moved in March that is when I started.  We were in the same grade from then until graduating from Callawy High School in 1961.

This photo of Lower Lodi School was taken at a reunion several years after the school was closed, I think.

Not sure when the photo at right was taken, but think it was by Duane Thurman when he was flying.  Lloy and Mabel Thurman (Duane''s folks) lived a few miles south and east of the school and they quite often boarded the grade school teachers.  One who boarded there, Joan Patterson, married Duane.  When I first started at Lower Lodi there were two teachers, I think Nancy Gills was the grade school teacher and Margaret Aydlotte was the high school teacher.  I may be wrong in this memory, but I believe Miss Aydlotte had lost one of her feet to a horse-drawn cycle mower and had prothetic feet.  I believe that Miss Gills and Miss Aydlotte lived in a tiny room off to the south southwest side of the basement.  It was right by the entrance to the Tornado Celler that was same level as the basement, but jutted outside and had an escape hatch outside.

I recall Miss Gills using a wooden ruler on my hads when I spoke out of turn, or some other wrong doing.  Some years, in my lower grades, they had "Fun Day" in the spring and there were a lot of outdoor activities, running, etc. I can't recall if there were other schools involved and/or any parents attended.  I got a chocolate Hershey bar for pounding the most nails into a wooden two by four in a timed competition.  There was swinging a milk bucket 180 degrees vertically without spilling any of the small amount of water in it.  Can't just recall all the other events.  I was pretty young and the older ones had more interesting things.

Various memories (come and go quick-can't hang on to all): riding the horses to school.  We had to go a short mile east, the second half of that was not graveled, then a short distance on graveled Highway 40, then a short mile south to the school. I think that part of the road was graveled.

 Much of the time we carried the little white and greet Armour Lard Can with our lunch in it.                                  Found this photo on line:

There was a long row of tall cedar trees on the west side of the road as we left the highway heading south that ran all the way up to Jim Cornish's place (He was our Landlord) and when there was wind and snow that portion of the road was always drifted with snow. Recall at least one time when drifts were completely from the top of these 15 or 20 foot tall trees across the road--even the snow plows had trouble clearing it.  We had a horse barn at school where we tied the horses inside if it was not good weather.  Sometimes tied them to a fence so they could graze a bit if better weather.  Remember one time I tied Jerry or maybe it was Tony (my horse) to the swing set.  Now that swing set wasn't set  in the ground; it was just on the ground with some frames splayed out to keep it in balance.  Of course, the horse pulled it all over the place and I was advised not to do that again.  We had a hall outside our classroom where we hung our coats and where the "crock" water cooler was.  We took turns in walking diagonally across the intersection by the school to fill a bucket of water at Katie West's farmhouse an bring it back to the school.  Our heat was by an oil burning floor furnace sort of in the center of the room.  In some of the cold winter days it was welcome to sit or stand near it.  There were times in winter that we took our clamp-on skates and went a bit south over the hill to a pond in a pasture on the west side and skated.  Seems like there were some lumps of dirt or cow chips  around the edge, which were impossible to skate through.  Don't remember if we had any games or just skated around.  Recall tracking out some pattern in the snow and some game on it where the ball diamond was.  Also, lying on our backs in the snow and making "snow angels".  There was a tank in a ground level cement square just off the ball diamond that had some sort of gas in it that powered the lights before electricity was installed.  Can't recall what that gas was called.  

In good weather we played anti-over game, using the horsebarn to throw over.  Can't remember the rules.  In bad weather we played in the basement, dodgeball being one of the games where you threw the vollyball across the room trying to hit another student.    One year when the baseball World Series was on Joan Patterson let us sit in her Ford car to listen to part of the 7th game.  I just now looked back through some really old photos on my computer and found several relating to Lower Lodi.

The photos above are from a newspaper article relating to the closing of the Lower Lodi High School.  I will try blowing the article itself up so I can retype it.  Will take some time.

Well, I have been at this now for about four hours and will quit for the time being.  More later, LCM

THE WAY I REMEMBER IT

 With not much going on right now I will start an autobiogrophy 

THE WAY I REMEMBER IT

I am starting this September 25, 2023.  Have thought of doing it for better than 25 years and time to get at it.  I have been reading or listening to a lot of books this summer – around 35 books so far.  Many of these are biographical or autobiagraphial which makes me think I should do it.

The last one I am working on I have about 450 pages read out of 875 of a large hard-bound book about the life and times of a newspaper editor in northeast Nebraska, who started his hometown newspaper in Bloomfield, Nebraska at the time the town was just laid out in 1890.  The author, a distant relative of the editor, recounts some personal memories as well as citing page after page from the newspaper.  This has proven to be a very interesting history of the area.  This is in my “bathroom book” and is only read for short times.

 I am about through with one on Kindle (my “bedtime book”) about a man from northwest Arkansas who was 88 years old when he wrote a book on his life for his kids in 2019.  He worked in a shoe store after graduating from High School, then avoided being drafted into the Army (during the Korean War) by signing up for the Navy.  He later worked in and, along with his wife, bought a printing plant.  Became a Lay Speaker for a church near Springfield, MO for some 26 years; owned and bred hunting dogs.  Just found out, in looking up the history of the book, that the e-edition I am reading was published by his children after he passed away.

Anyway, reading these and many other biographies makes me think that I should get mine down on paper.

I was born at a very young age.  As I was told, this was in the farmhouse some 2 miles south of Callaway, NE on a farm Dad was renting in June of 1943.  This, of course, would be during World War II.   I was the third boy in the family with my oldest brother Roger born in March of 1937 and older brother Donald born in May of 1939.  My mom told me, in the 1980’s, that she had a miscarriage in the middle of the 4 years between Don & myself.  My younger brother, Darrell, was born in December of 1945 and our only sister, Louise, was born in January of 1950.

I do not remember anything about that house, except the day in March of 1947 when we moved the ranch/farm some 7 miles southwest of Callaway (and about 5 miles northwest of Oconto).  I recall being told to get a cardboard box and go around and gather up socks.  Also, there were a lot of people helping with the move and some of the neighbors brought their female dog and I was alarmed that our male Collie dog named "Woofy"  was trying to “jump over” the other dog and I was trying to get them apart.  Some of the men laughed at me.  There was one neighbor with a red 6-wheel farm truck with cattle racks folded up and a lot of stuff piled in it.  Mom had a foot-or-so square, tall yellow cabinet and it was laying on top of the other stuff.  I got to ride in the cab of the truck, though cannot recall anything about the driver.

The place we were moving to was on the edge of a good-sized ranch.  I know there were no buildings at the corner of the property closest to the highway.  It was a mile or so west of Highway 40 that angled south-east to north-west and was covered by river gravel.  That is made up of rounded yellow/tan colored rocks (and is not anything like the limestone rock roads we have here in southwest Iowa where we have lived for the last 53 years.  The buildings from the ranch (some 5 or 6 miles) were to be moved to this site.  Dad had gone down several days before the move and had bought a wooden chicken house (something the size of today’s common portable storage sheds) and set it up the hill a way.  This ground was at the base of a hill that sloped to the south above where the house and barn were to be.  I believe a mover had picked up the barn from the ranch and moved it to its current site first.  Then, they moved the house – which was about 24’ x 28’ with three bedrooms, kitchen and living room.  The day they moved the house, it got dark before they had it set quite where they wanted it and decided to wait until morning.  It rained during the night, and they were unable to move it; so, they unloaded it where it sat.  That was the reason our house was only about 100 feet east of the barn.  The barnyard smells from the hogs and cattle were always there.  Dad said if it was somebody else’s livestock causing the smell it stunk; but if it was your own livestock it smelled like money.  Hopefully, making money, but sometimes like money lost.

Photo at left is of Roger with a Holstein calf.  The house is behind him and the southeast corner of the barn is at the left in photo.

We had an “outhouse” up the hill a bit south of the house for many years.  Digging a new hole and moving it several times.  Going uphill when needing it was not always the most pleasant thing; it was finally moved across the driveway to the northeast of the house on level ground years later.  An indoor bathroom was installed in the house in May of 1961, a month before I graduated from high school.

A well was dug and we got water in the house, to a sink in the kitchen, fairly soon.  A basement was dug out from under the house, using a “slip” that scraped up dirt and then was pulled out the entryway by rope to a horse and dumped outside.  There was a shoulder left about four feet deep in from the foundation of the house so it wouldn’t cave away.  Cement was poured for the floor, but I’m not sure if it was done right away.  Cement was plastered on the walls and the shelf left by that 4’ shoulder and it was relatively closed in.  Many years later, a forced air furnace was put down there as well as a freezer.  Potatoes, watermelon, and other garden stuff were stored on the floor in the northeast corner of that basement.

This photo of farm where I grew up between Callaway & Oconto, Nebraska.  This was probably taken in the 1970's.

 

I will probably take many months to expand on this story.

Hang in there, Lynn

On Sept. 20, 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, set sail

Some of you may not remember (or were never aware of) the fact that 504 years ago today that Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, with five ships and a crew of 270 men, set sail from Sanlucar de Barrameda in southern Spain, on what would become the first circumnavigation of the world. 

The fleet initially consisted of five ships and about 270 men. The expedition faced numerous hardships including sabotage and mutinies by the mostly-Spanish crew (and Elcano himself), starvation, scurvy, storms, and hostile encounters with indigenous people. Only 18 men and one ship (the Victoria) completed the return trip to Spain.^{[n 1]} Magellan himself died in battle in the Philippines and was succeeded as captain-general by a series of officers, with Elcano eventually leading the Victoria's return trip

 Click HERE  for a concise story of Magellan; or Click HERE for a lot of information on it.

Enjoy

First square dance of the season

 74º with bright sunshine in Clarinda, IA aat 12 Noon Monday.  Was 45º when got up and is predicted to be high of 83º today.  Saturday morning it was so cloudy we could hardly see our mail box and could not see the hospital across the street.  Then in the middle of the morning we had a lighting and thunder storm that gave us .2" of rain in a short while.

Yesterday we went to Creston, IA with Patty Steckelberg and Therasa Minard to their Square Dance.  Had pretty good sized crowd--three squares up at times with people still sitting on the sidelines.  Had a family with young kids that were trying -- caller did a lot of coaching for them.

Got this from Facebook -- if you can blow it
up you will see it is made up entirely of very small
lines from pen or ink....amaziing!

Saturday evening we went up to the Page County Fairgrounds where a fundraiser spagehtti dinner was held for local man with a seriious Cancer situation.  There was a huge crowd, and they had one big room full of silent auction items that had to number at least 200 or more items.  There was to also be a live auction of some big items (beef to go to butcher-hog to go to butcher) and lots of other items.

This was photo taken that night of extended family.

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Not a whole lot going on this week.  Will probably post later............LC

SIGNS OF A STROKE:

 SIGNS OF A STROKE:

Carla tripped and fell during grilling. I  offered to call an ambulance, but she assured everyone she was OK and only tripped over her new shoes. She was a little pale and wobbly, she was helped to clean up and was brought another plate of food. Carla spent the rest of the evening happy and joyful. Carla's husband later called to say his wife had been taken to the hospital. Carla died at 11pm that night. She had a stroke while grilling. If her friends knew how to interpret the signs of a stroke, Carla might still be alive today. Some people don't die right away. They often stay long in a desperate situation.

It only takes 1 minute to read the following...

A neurologist said that if he can intervene on a stroke victim within 3 hours, he could reverse the effects. He said the trick would be to recognize a stroke, to diagnose and treat patients within 3 hours, but that's not easy.

Recognizing a stroke….there are four stages to recognize a stroke:

-Ask the person to smile (they won't).

-Ask the person to pronounce a simple sentence (for example: "It's very nice today").

-Ask the person to raise both arms (she can’t, or will only partially).

-Ask the person to stick out their tongue (if the tongue is crooked, twisted left and right, it is also a sign of a stroke)

If he or she has problems with one of these steps, call an ambulance immediately and describe the person's symptoms over the phone. A cardiologist said that if as many people as possible become aware of this, we can be certain that any life — maybe even our own — can be saved.

We send a lot of “garbage” every day through the network, but sometimes you can get stuck with something significant, isn’t it?

If it's this important to you... copy so it can reach more people who might change the fate of those affected by stroke...

Country Music at Monarch Place - near Oregon, Missouri

 62º here in Clarinda, IA at 8:45 am Tuesday.  

Was 50º when I went to the Softub at 8 am this morning.  Cooling weather into fall!

Sunday Patty Steckelberg went with us to a place near Oregon,MO to country western music program with Sharon & Roger Kenaston, Mike Hughes, and Vance & Debra Monday.

This 3-year old building was built about 2.5 miles down a limestone rock road and is definitley rural.  Owner told us they have weddings and music venues.  Is on their 360 acre farm.

These two photos are to the back of the building, where wedding photos are taken.

One evening last week we spent about 35 minutes in a 3-block line of cars to get up to the Lutheran Church where they were holding a free-will donation fish dinner as a fund raiser for the Lutheran School.

Was a good meal of deep-fried fish with corn and cheesy potatoes!

Must share a photo of Phyllis' cousin-in-law Kim Runyan with her grandkids.  They live in central Mississippi and we had visited with them on our way to Texas in the fall of 2022.

At left is latest picture of our Great Grandson David Long.

These photos were sent to us by friend in Kenwood RV.

After having the lot to the west of us empty for the last 7 or 8 years, the park has moved in a mobile home they will rent or sell.  Been a long time since we had a unit that close on that side

Will leaave in an hour or so to make Blood Donation for Red Cross Blood Mobile here in Clarinda.

All for now, LC

Tuesday was Bob Newhart's birthday

 · 

George Robert Newhart (September 5, 1929) is 94 years old today! Newhart came to prominence in 1960 when his album of comedic monologues, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, became a worldwide bestseller and reached number one on the Billboard pop album chart; it remains the 20th-best selling comedy album in history. The follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!, was also a success, and the two albums held the Billboard number one and number two spots simultaneously.

Newhart later went into acting, starring as Chicago psychologist Dr. Robert Hartley in The Bob Newhart Show during the 1970s and then as Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon on the 1980s series Newhart. He also had two short-lived sitcoms in the 1990s titled Bob and George and Leo. Newhart also appeared in film roles such as Major Major in Catch-22 and Papa Elf in Elf. He provided the voice of Bernard in the Walt Disney animated films The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under. In 2004, he played the library head Judson in The Librarian, a character which continued in 2014 to the TV series The Librarians. In 2013, Newhart made his first of six guest appearances on The Big Bang Theory as Professor Proton, for which he received his first Primetime Emmy Award on September 15, 2013.

September 2023

 67º with clear skies here in Clarinda, IA at 11:00 am on Thursday.

Settling into fall-like weather

Had our first, of the season, choir practice last night.  Met at the Methodist Church and also included was the choir from the Presbyterian church, Westminster.  Linda accompanies and directs both choirs.

Will sing this Sunday.

Yesterday was the 119th anniversary of the birth of my dad, Kermit Miles.  He was 39 years old a few months after I was born and 73 years old when he passed away.  So, I  only knew him for 35 years and he has been gone now 45 years.

With no measurable rainfall for quite some time now, the lawn is turning a brown color and mowing is certainly not happening.  Some pretty good size cracks are appearing in some non-grass areas under some large trees.