Streching My Leggs, Testing My Boundries

For a kid in 1959, Logan was just another sleepy town just waiting for something, OR SOMEONE to start the excitement. I suppose that Someonewas me. My earliest memories were of me and my older brother going to the park and playing with other kids. One of the best attractions was the swings. Because I was such a short kid I couldn't get into the wooden swings without a boost, so it became my job to be "the Pusher". Being pusher meant I had to start everybody by giving them a shove and running underneath the other side. After the "Push" they pumped their legs to get "big air". The wooden seats were bolted to chains and under those seats were the ends of the bolts. Now days those swings would never be allowed, but in 1959 kids were allowed to play on anything. One afternoon I was pushing my brother and he was having a hard time getting going so I ran underneath him a second time but I was out of sync, and one of those bolts hit me in the face ripping my nose from lip to eyebrow and knocking me out cold. I came to and I was alone and I brought my arm to wipe my nose and all I saw on my arm was blood- lots of blood! I thought I broke my arm, but I also had a bad headache and was dizzy. Next thing I remember was my mother holding a rag to my face and rushing me to the doctor. By then I couldn't see out of one eye and I thought maybe I would end up with a cool glass eye to show off! As it ended up, all I had was a black eye and a face full of stitches, which was close enough. For a week or so there was talk around town of a kid who got his head cut off, brains bashed out, and was near dead, I became an instant celebrity. When I was allowed visitors I loved it when kids were sickened or girls screamed when I took off my bandages to show them the gash. I quickly became famous, and every summer after that I always has a gash or scab on the first day of school for picture day. My mom threatened to stop paying for them, but I wore my disfigurements with pride. Every Halloween I wanted to be Frankenstein or a Ghoul because it was so easy to make my face look authentic. Summer vacation from school also meant that I could take off my shoes and go barefoot till the fall. I went through bandaids by "bulk" many times wearing one on each toe. June also brought out the root beer. We made a huge batch in a big metal washtub and added yeast and sugar and bottled our own. We put them in the cool dark basement to age. We kids would check them daily, and could tell when one was ready by holding the bottle to our ear and listening for the "hiss". Sometimes we got one with extra kick, and had lots of laughs pretending to be drunken pirates. We most likely were, and even hid a few bottles so they could ripen. I remember one time walking with my brother and sisters to A&W to buy a gallon and the hot road across Main Street melted the tar. We hopped and danced across the road to the ditch and cooled our feet and picked off the tar and rocks. By the end of the summer we had "moccasin feet" and could walk over fire and glass without even a wince. Root beer ruled our every thought-we couldn't get enough. One summer we kids were allowed to clean out the chicken coup and make it into a club house. Parents - please don't ever let your kids have a club house. They are nothing but trouble. We boys named ours the "Tiger Sharks" and underneath the name we wrote in red nail polish " Girls Stay Out!" and tried to make it look like dripping blood. The rest of the summer was a war between boys and girls, and the first one out the door and into the club house determined who got to rule for the day. I quit eating breakfast to beat my sister, and I became even scrawniner, but it was for a good cause. If the cops - or our parents knew what we did in there they would have torn it down, but they needn't worry because by the end of the summer it was in ashes. All of us kids hated grasshoppers. When we caught one we tore the Leggs off and impaled it on a stick and roasted it crisp. We played games of dice, sorry, trouble, poker, 21, and truth or dare- the loser had to eat the crispy bug. I ate lots of bugs. One August day my brother and I took a can of Mom's hairspray and some matches to the overgrown weeds in the middle of the block and used the hairspray to cost the grasshoppers and then "lite em up". We had fun untill we saw a wall of flames next to the club house, and panicked when we couldn't stop them from spreading. My brother grabbed the hose but in my excitement forgot to turn on the water. I ran into the house and yelled for Mom to bring buckets and glasses of water. She took one look out the door and did the stupidest thing ever, she called the Fire Department on her two boys! We heard the sirens screaming and saw a cop car so we ran and hid. Hours later when our club house was gone along with a couple of fences and the entire center of the block blackened, Mom came out on the front porch and yelled " boys- give yourself up, you can't hide forever". The next day we were terrified as we got tearfully marched to the police station for what we thought would be a long stay in Juvinile Hall. I had visions of a chaing gang in my head as we were chewed out by an angry Fire Chief. In the end we had to promise to stop playing with our favorite toys- matches- and had to wash all the fire trucks and white wash the burnt wall of a car dealership, not too bad as we still had fun hanging with the firemen and playing with paint. We kept our pledge to not play with matches and switched to lighters instead. The summer I turned 8 I started to finally grow, and as my legs got longer, so did my desire to wander - and make plans to run away like Huck Finn. That's a story for another day.....

The Early Years

I was born on the hottest day of the year, August 1 1955 at Magadan Army Hospital in Washington. My Dad was away completing Officer’s School for the Army Artillery. My Grandmother had recently arrived to be with my Mom and to help with my older brother. They spent the day making jam, and the heat in the kitchen was well over 100 degrees! My mom asked to go outside and sit in the shade and as she got up to leave – WHOOSH the floor was instantly covered with water. Perhaps this was just the beginning of my love of floods because I was legendary as a kid to find and create a dam so we kids could swim in it. It always ended up with some farmer screaming at us as he tore our dam apart to water his crops or garden. Anyhow, my Grandma called for a taxi to take my Mom to the hospital but realizing I wasn’t going to wait caught the neighbor next door as she too was heading to the hospital to deliver her baby as well. I don.t know who was driving or screaming louder but it must have been quite a ride! Army Hospitals are built to treat Soldiers, and Women in labor or kids were not their primary concern, so in order to save space both of them shared a room, and by the time the Doctor got there both babies were nearly here. The Dr. was an Army surgeon and when he realized the situation was quite vocal with his colorful language skills- thus began my childhood relationship with bars of soap. My mom had one single bar for me and my brother that was the nastiest - foulest tasting- gut retching soap I have ever known. My brother and I agreed to have separate ends and mine had way more teeth marks than his did. My mom said that as soon as I was born the head nurse took me away and it wasn’t till later that night that she returned with the cart and gave me to my mom. My mother immediately asked if they had given her the wrong baby. I was dark-skinned, scrawny, and had a ton of spiky black hair, and the neighbor was Native American. Her baby was white, blue eyed, and blond as snow, and the two of them spent the next three days asking every nurse if they had the right ones. Finally the Head Nurse of the Women’s Ward told them that the “Army doesn’t make mistakes” and they were sure they had the right babies. I found out later in life that the Army does indeed make mistakes – they just don’t like to admit it. I spent the next two years living between Salt Lake City and Hyrum Utah. My Dad was finishing Law School so we often went with mother to Hyrum. My earliest memories of Hyrum were of splashing in the front yard on watering day and chasing ducks. I loved it when once a week a dam was built and the yard was flooded. Us boys always got to swim naked and later in life those skills served us well, but that’s another story. I also remember a cow called “Blackie” who loved to eat the wooden shingles from the garage, and my brother and I spent a lot of time using dad’s hammer to pry some off and laugh as Blackie crunched the boards and chewed them up. Later that summer the vet told my grandmother that Blackie had eaten so many nails that she had to go to slaughter, my dad said it was the most tender meat he ever ate-due to my brother and I feeding him shingles. Soon we moved to Logan, Utah so my Dad could join the family law practice, and moving to the “Big Town” opened a whole new world for me, and adventure was just waiting for me on the doorstep!

All About Me

Let me introduce myself: my name is Lee, but my Grandkids all call me Poppa- so that's what I'm mostly used to. Poppa suits me just fine because I have 12 Grandkids so I'm pretty busy, although I'm retired. Whoever said retirement is relaxing and easy hasn't done it yet because I'm busier now than when I was working. I'm a retired High School Librarian, and after 30 years I have heard it all, seen it all, and pretty much done it all. The reason I started this blog is that I have so many people who have told me that my life has been so crazy and wild that they wanted me to write or publish my stories. I can tell you right now that everything I write IS based on real experiences, in fact everyone tells me it's too incredible to make up anyway. Have fun - along with me as I take you on the journey that is me. I'm 56 and Married- but my wife forbids me to post her name because - well you will just have to read my stories and you will know why. I have three kids, two boys and a girl. As I mentioned above I have 12 Grandkids who are my whole life. I love it when they come to visit and YES I do have favorites (the one sitting on my lap giving me kisses and Hugs)! That's enough basic stuff do you can get an image in your mind of who I am. I promise you that the image you have now won't last long once you read my stories!