Personalities and what I like

Question: What personality trait do you admire most and why?

I would have to say I put a lot of credence in honesty. I can handle most anything other than people not telling the truth. If someone lies to you once, then it is hard to believe anything they tell you after that and anything they told you before comes into question. Everyone embellishes stories, which I can overlook. But to out and out lie is hard to ignore.

I do love someone that is open, someone that doesn't seem to take time to phrase their sentences right. Maybe because I am like that. I am an open book. I don't usually hedge around things, unless I feel saying it outright will do damage is someway. I always try to tell it as it is. Sometimes I come off rude and abusive, I suppose. But I do like people that you know where you stand with them.

I also love someone who is funny. I love to laugh. If someone can tell a great story, I love being around them. I guess that is why all my family members are big jokers. They know they can get around Mom by just being funny or telling a silly joke. It usually works, too. That is not a bad thing, because it can really lighten the load when things get tense.

Engagement

Question: How did you become engaged?

Gil and I had been dating for several months, exclusively. We spent all our free, awake time together. We went to the beach before work when I worked afternoons, we went to his parents house and listened to music, we ate our lunches together at work. We were always together. I knew before he asked me that we would someday marry. He was going to school and working full time, so I figured we wouldn't marry right away, but that we would become engaged soon. I even told my roommate that I knew Gil was going to ask me to marry him. That was a week before he actually did.

We went to the beach one afternoon. It was a little cold, so we just parked on a cliff overlooking the ocean and sat in his car talking as we watched the sun start to go down. Inside the car was a warm setting. We sat there talking; talking about the future. Then he asked me. I do not remember exactly how he did, but I remember my answer. I told him I knew a week before that he was going to ask me. He did not have a ring to present, but the sincerety and love he showed was more than enough for me.

We were married about a year later on March 29, 1969.

We have been married 43 years now, so I guess it was a good match. Don't you think?

Music, music, music

Question: What kind of music do you like?

My most favorite, admired, adored, beloved, cherished, dearest, revered music type is church hymns. I love to sing the hymns and the wonderful Primary songs that I learned in my youth. I often use them to get me through something that is unpleasant or difficult or to just lift my spirits on a dreary day.

Now if I want to get my housework done, I love the songs of Broadway, especially Andrew Lloyd Webber's songs. I have a best of CD that really gets work done quickly. Or sometimes it gets me dancing and I forget about working.

I love folk music: John Denver, PP&M, the Kingston Trio, Woody Guthrie songs, the Weavers and so on. They are so inspirational. They sing songs that make you think, often political in nature. I wish we had more of that type of music today.

I love Country Western. Patsy Cline, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Garth Brooks. There are very few artists in the genre that I don't like or would listen to. I love them especially when I am alone in the car. I get to singing along with them and could just see me with a full back up of guitars and a fiddle singing in the Grand Ole Opry. Tee hee.

Blues, not so much. There are some songs I love, but for the most part I do not listen to the blues much.

I love big band era songs. Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and so on. My mother's type of music, which surprises me at times.

Rap is deplorable. Cannot stand listening to it.

Most of the more modern songs I just do not listen to much and do not have a desire to. I do not feel they tell the stories that the older music tells. I also have a hard time understanding them. It seems the beat is faster and they pronounce the words less clearly, so it is hard for me to know what they are even saying.

I must say I have a song running in my head most of the time. Often it is a Primary song or hymn. Often it might be a jingle from a commercial I have heard. Something is always going on there.

Gil plays the guitar, banjo, uke and mandolin. I love the music her performs, which is usually folk music.

Enjoyments then and now - are they the same?

Question: What things do you enjoy doing today that you also enjoyed doing as a child?

I learned to read and then had a book in my hand often. I love(d) to read! Reading takes me to places that I would probably never go otherwise and allows me to me wonderful characters. When I finish a book I always feel very low because I have lost friends that I have spent a lot of time with and will miss. That is why I will often read the sequel, if there is one, to any book I read. I have found, though, that most sequels never meet my expectations.

I also love to create things. When I was very little, I was often found making mud pies. My mother was not happy with this endeavor. I loved working with that medium and would try to "bake" it so I could keep it. Mud does not harden well, though. It breaks when you try to move it. Now I don't use mud, but I do like to create. I like to see a finished project and see what I can do to create it in my own way. I purchase patterns for many things, but I seldom follow them.

I love to make up stories. I have always been a dreamer. I still think the stories in my head are better than anything you would see on TV. Perhaps someday I will write some down and see what others think.

I honestly don't think people change all that much in their make-up from when they were kids. They just change the way they approach things from then.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

Question: What did you want to be when you grew up?

I always wanted to be a mom. I couldn't think of a better occupation to be. Someone to take care of the kids, to make dinner and sew costumes. Seriously that is what I wanted to be.

In high school they wanted us to discuss with our counsellors what we wanted to be. I stated I wanted to be a psychiatrist. I had read a book about them and thought they were fascinating in that they could decifer why people did what they did. That is what I wanted to be. My school counsellor actually called my mom in for a discussion. He felt that I was being unrealistic in my goals. Unbelievable.

What made the discussion worse is at the end, he stated I should strive to be a nurse. That was a good profession for a girl. Not being a doctor.

To add insult to injury, my mom stated I should take business classes because the best I would ever be was a secretary. A secretary! How dare here. I had much more lofty goals. Lo and behold, what was one of the jobs I held? A secretary. I was also a teacher's aide, an assistant to an elected official, an assistant Clerk/Recorder who managed the office, a Business Services Officer for a Probation Department in charge of a multi-million dollar budget and finally and quilt store owner. See I could have been a psychiatrist if I had not been discouraged.

No one should tell someone else they cannot be something they want to be. They should encourage them to strive for their goals. If they fall short, that is something they have to deal with. But don't discourage them.

What was I doing when President Kennedy was shot?

Question: Where were you and what were you doing the day President Kennedy was shot? The day the first man landed on the moon?

What an easy question, as far as President Kennedy is concerned. I think anyone from age of 12 and up remembers where and what was going on at the moment we learned of him being shot.

I was in Bonneville High School, on the stage in our auditorium. I was a Sophomore and the student director of Our Town. Many of us in the play had drama class that hour and were staging the production. I heard something coming over the loud speaker, but we couldn't make out what they were saying because we were being quite noisy in the cavernous auditorium. I got a chair and stood up on it to turn the speaker up louder. Since it was up as loud as it would go, I put my ear next to it and repeated back to others what was being said.

At first it was the principal stating President Kennedy had been shot, which I reported. Then they put the mic next to the radio, and we started hearing the actual news. Everyone on the stage went quiet as I repeated back what was being said. Finally someone opened the stage door into the hallway and we all could hear better. I stepped down and we all stood in stunned silence as we listened to the news.

Finally the teacher requested we all return to the classroom, which was just across the hallway. By the time we got there, girls were starting to cry. I felt a lump in my throat, too. I loved President Kennedy.

Finally it was decided we would be sent home. It took some time to organize the busses to come and get all of us. Very few of us lived close enough to walk or had cars to take us. We all just kind of stayed in our classrooms listening to the broadcast of the news until we were informed the busses were pulling up.

School was out the rest of the time until the day after his funeral, as I remember it. I remember even my mom having the funeral day off. We all sat in front of the TV watching the procession take place.

Since that day, I have read most articles in major publications and many books about President Kennedy. I loved him as a president and as a man. My loved for him as waned some after learning of his liaisons with other women, but I still think he was a good president.

My heart goes out to his family for what they went through and for the press following them even to this day everywhere they go. All that is left is his daughter, Caroline.

The other part of the question was where were you when the first man landed on the moon. I honestly have few memories of that event. I remember it happened. I remember reading about it and talking about it at school. What a momentous occasion, but nothing specific of where I was or what I was doing comes to mind. Age, you know, plays tricks on us. Or is it because so much happened during that time that I just don't remember it? Who knows.

Food preferences. Seems an odd question.

Question: What are your food preferences? How did they come about?

That truly does seem like an odd question to come up during a journal entry. But there it was.

When you think about it, it is not so odd. Food does help make you what you are. So why not ask the question?

I love food. I use food to make me happy and to console me when I am down. We just came back from Mom's 90th birthday party celebration. When asked what we did, it was noted that it all was surrounded by food. We went here and ate this; afterwards we went there and had fresh water clams; we went to Anne's and had steak and so on. It was fun, but food was definitely at highlight at each event - except the quilt show we got to attend while we were there.

So food preferences. Growing up in southeastern Idaho, our food choices were not as great as my kids had it growing up in California, the bread bowl of the world. In Idaho we ate a LOT of potatoes. They were readily available and cheap and often free from local farmers. Vegetables consisted of green beans, peas, yellow squash (yech), corn on the cob and such. Fruit was mostly apples and pears and berries. My memories of dinners were some sort of meat, always a pot roast on Sunday afternoon. With the meat we had potatoes, never rice or noodles, and green beans. Occasionally bread would be served, but it was usually sliced, white bread. Lunch at home was usually sliced, white bread sandwiches of bologna or peanut butter and jelly. Breakfast was cereal during the week and bacon and eggs on weekend. Always. Snacks were limited. We were not allowed to have sodas at all. That was a treat to be saved for family get togethers only. Ice cream we had maybe, if we were lucky, once a week. Popcorn occasionally. No candy unless we saved and bought it ourselves. Cake or pie usually accompanied Sundays repast. That was pretty much it.

Let me tell you about our school lunches, though. This was in our elementary school at least. We had these wonderful ladies that came into our school kitchen, which was in a building right across from my first grade class and again my fifth grade class. They would come early in the morning and make bread, usually dinner rolls. They would serve turkeys with mashed potatoes and gravy or macaroni and cheese and jello or roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy and on and on. I LOVED to eat at school. I always ate at school during my first eight years. I would savor every bite. I could not believe we got such good food, especially seeing what is served in todays school lunch rooms.

I was a slow eater. I was often the first one in the lunch room and always the last one out. I often missed the recess part of lunch because I was slowly eating, and enjoying, my lunch. The lunch ladies would come and sit with me to hurry me along. I often was late getting to class afterwards, too. I didn't care. I LOVED my lunch time. The one thing them hurrying me up did was I was encouraged to eat really fast, which I still do today, which is not good either.

You probably think I was fat eating meals like that. Well no I was not during that time. I am now and have been my entire adult life, but not then. Then I was skinny as could be. A friend told me one time that when I walked into class the first time, she thought she had never seen anyone so skinny. That was because when I wasn't eating, I was running, biking, skipping, whatever. Then I could eat like that. Now I still like to eat like that but I don't do the running, biking, skipping, so it stays with me.

In high school, french fries was the lunch I preferred. We had a little shop across from school at both Bonneville and Pocatello high schools. I never had enough money to buy a real lunch, but I always had enough to buy french fries and a soda. That is when the weight was a little harder to keep down. During my senior year, I thinned back down because I never ate lunch.

After graduating from high school from Cody Wyoming, I was working at Western Union. I had the opportunity to come to California for a job with them and took it. Food in California is another thing all together. Californian's have meat and potatoes, but they also have oodles of noodle dishes, vegetables and fruits that are relatively cheap and very fresh. I was introduced to such things as broccoli and brussel sprouts, asparagus and kiwi fruit. Yummy. Now I will try many new things and seldom eat just meat and potatoes.

My husband will eat anything, absolutely anything. One of my favorite stories about him is him eating quiche. I loved to try different recipes. I have a million or so cookbooks and use to spend a lot of time reading them and then trying the recipes I would mark to try in them. I love cheese and thought quiche sounded wonderful. I made it one night and loved it. It was just the two of us; I guess it was before we started having kids. Between us we ate half the quiche. When we were done, I said how wonderful I thought it was. He would usually agree, but he said nothing. So I pressed him on what he thought about it. He said, "Please, don't ever make that again." He hated it. But he ate it and ate more than one helping. He taught me through the years to try it. Because of that, I eat things now that at age 18 when I came to California I would have never attempted.

I love food. I love all kinds. I love all American food, but it is not my favorite. I love Italian for its yummy sauces and pastas. I love Chinese for its blend of veggies and meats. I love Thai for its veggies and heat. I love Indian food for the curries and spicing they do. There is an English pub here that I love to go have breakfast at. It is called the Fox and the Goose. We have a local Lebanese restaurant that I love and would go to every week if possible. It is the Maloofs restaurant. I love it all. When asked where I want to go eat, I usually say wherever because I can find something yummy anywhere - except McDonald's. I hate their food.

Child rearing philosphy - hmmmm

Question: What is your child rearing philosophy?

As you go through life your philosophies change as you age. Had I been asked to put this information down when I was actually raising my children, it probably would have been greatly different than it is now. I will try to put down what I believed then and now.

I was a strict enforcer of time frames for children. I felt, and still do, that children should have a schedule and hold to it as close as possible. There are times to relax that schedule, but when all things are running "normal" then try to adhere to them. I believe breakfast, lunch and dinner should be at about the same time each day. A child can almost tell time by how their stomach feels. It gives them comfort to have that stable time frame in their lives. I believe it also helps them stay healthier than if they go long periods between meals and it definitely cuts down on snacking in between. Along the same lines, I believe the family should be at the table each meal with no TV present. The TV is something that was added after raising kids. We often had it on during dinner. It was disruptive at times.

Bed time is a more stringent time frame that should be adhered to. Children need to have a set time each night to go to bed. It can be flexible for special events or for summer time. I believe, then and now, a child should be put to bed, not sent to bed. A story should be read or told; a discussion of their day could be had; a tickling session, as long as it doesn't disrupt the child from falling asleep shortly thereafter, could be had. Make going to bed a fun and one-on-one time whereever possible. It does two things. One it gives the kids a stability again that you strive for in a child's life. It also gives you a time that is yours. If a child stays up until you go to bed, when is your time of the day. Now all that said, teens are a different breed altogether. That strict time frame is more for young children, up to junior high school level. Once they are in high school, I was much more lenient, though they did have a settle down time of 10 p.m. on school nights even then. Bed time was more up to them.

I was fairly strict in other ways. I said no way too often. Now I would try to structure their lives in a more learning, giving atmosphere. I would let them do things that their stretched their minds in a curious fashion. I would also not let TV or video games be a major part of the family life. I would set certain times and shows that could be watched. I would emphasize reading a lot more.

We were a family that went places together a lot. Children learn by doing. We camped and travelled and went sightseeing. They didn't always want to be there, but I think they learned to appreciate what we did and where we went. We often would take what we called short cuts home from places to broaden their horizons. Sometimes it was not so short; actually it was never shorter. It gave them a different outlook of their environment. I believe it showed them there are many ways to do something--even just going home.

I included church in their bringing up, but I forced it on them. Now none of them feel church is important in their lives. I wish I would have handled that different. I would have included more prayer and done family home evening every week instead of rarely, like we did. I would have encouraged Gil to be more a part of the church activities, though it was hard with his work schedule.

More than anything, I would have shown and said how much I love them. I would put my arms around them more than I did. I love my kids. I love how they turned out. I love their families now. They are all good people and are doing well in this world. I guess Gil and I did okay when you come right down to it.

My childhood home(s)

Question: Tell about the house you lived in as a child. Do you remember the addresses or phone numbers?

Well I can start out first with the last question. I do not remember the phone numbers. I seldom remember my cell phone number that I have now. I don't know why but numbers and I are not good friends.

I have two homes that are dear to me from my childhood. My first was on South Water Street in Idaho Falls Idaho. I do not remember the number. I did not remember it was South Water until I Googled it. I remember we lived near a park and across from the park was our church that I was baptized in. I think if someone took me there, I could take you to the house [if it is still there, of course].

That house was a neat house. It was an older home. It only had two bedrooms and one bath. Of course since there were three kids, we all slept in the same room. From what I have been told, we all slept together in the same bed. I know that was problemmatic from my siblings. I was the youngest and Mom always placed me in the middle. I also was not totally potty trained and would occasionally wet the bed. Needless to say my brother and sister were not happy about that.

We had a porch on the front and just a stoop at the back door. We had a nice backyard with a garage that faced the alley way. Behind all that was the railroad tracks. I remember the train and how powerful it was when it went by. I loved to sit in the back and watch it go by. Dad was worried that I was too interested in the train and someone would always come into the backyard when a train was passing by to keep an eye on me. I don't think I would have ever left that yard to see it closer, but I did stop everything I was doing when one went by.

We lived there from the time I was two until we moved into our own home in Ammon when I was six.

Two strong memories from there were one when I stepped on a bee. Dad fixed a bowl of mud for me to stick my foot in to take out the poison. I sat on the back stoop with my foot it in for a long time. The family had their dinner while I sat back there. It made me sad that they did not wait for me, but I loved having my toes in the squishy mud.

The other memory was coming home one day and running up the front porch only to be greeted by my mom yelling to go to the back door. "Don't come in this way," she yelled. "Go around. Get away." I just stood there looking at her. Soon Dad came around the house carrying a broom and told me to get away. He ran up onto the porch. Then I saw my mom's concern. There was a bat on the front screen door. Dad knocked it down and stepped on it. To this day, I fear bats. My mom was really freaking out that day.

The other house I remember really well was our house in Ammon. The numbers of the house was 2330, but for some reason I cannot remember the street name. Odd, but that is how my memory works these days. Afterall that was in the 1950s.

To me it was a huge house on a huge piece of property. When Gil and I went back to see it thirty years later, I saw a small house one an average size property. Funny how kids visions of their past is different from reality. The house was only a two bedroom with a den that could be closed off into another bedroom. It also only had one bathroom. My brother got the den. Anne and I got the other bedroom. It did not have a dining room like our house on Water Street did, but it had a big kitchen with room for our dining table.

After a while Dad built out the basement to have two more bedrooms, a tv/rumpus room and a washroom and pantry. I got one of the bedrooms downstairs after that, as did Bob. Anne had the one upstairs and when Kris came along, they shared that room.

They planted a weeping willow to the north of the house. It was small. When we saw it again in later years, it was finally big. Big enough to swing from it by then.

We had a huge garden in the back, which we harvested enough vegetables to be canned for the winter months.

The rest was all grass. I mowed that grass often, so I know how big it really was. It was huge!

I loved that house.

We moved from there the summer before I entered seventh grade. We moved to San Diego for a year. We moved back in the spring of that school year. We stayed there until after my sophomore year in high school. Then we moved to Pocatello for my junior year. Moved to Idaho Falls for part of my senior year. Moved to Cody Wyoming for the second semester of my senior year. Not a lot of stability during those years. I wouldn't give up my experiences in each school, though. I guess it didn't hurt me any to move around so much.

I loved living in Ammon. It was a great, small community. It was very religious oriented. The church was a big part of all our lives. All the teachers in our school were Mormon. All the activities in the community were school and church combined activities. I loved it all.

My sisters, Anne and baby Kris, in the front room of our house in Ammon in 1960.

Position in family

Question: Were you the oldest, youngest or middle child?

I was the youngest child for ten years. There were three of us. Parents should never have just three children. My brother and sister were and always will be best of friends. I am just that other person that had to tag along with them, the one bringing up the rear, the one that Mom and Dad told the others to "keep an eye on."

I used to say a prayer daily that my mom would have another child. I used to pray for a sister, but then I got desperate and would pray just for a sibling. I wanted someone I could be best friends with, that I could hang out with.

Guess what prayers are answered. The year I turned ten my mom had a beautiful baby girl. Her name is Kristina. Wow! Did our world change. I loved her from the get-go. She was my answer to a prayer.

My mom was 36 years old. I don't think she liked having a baby when she was that old. All of a sudden her hair was too grey, she was too old, she didn't want people to think of her as a grandma to this child. Mom started dying her hair an auburn color to look younger. Anne, my oldest sister, seemed embarrased that Mom was pregnant "at her age." I am sure that did not help my mom's outlook. Other changes came that year but not because of the baby coming; they were on their way long before then. More later.

My brother, Bob, and Kristina.

With the birth of Kris, I was then a middle child, with youngest child tendencies. That means, at least to me, I still expected to be treated like the youngest, the cutest, the more darling. Well that was gone because there was this beautiful little baby that took the attention of us all.

She was the greatest, though. She was born with black, black hair. It all fell out and the new hair that replaced it was almost a white blond. She has maintained that blond hair even to this day some fifty years later.

The birth, as stated above, moved me into a middle child position. One of responsibility. One that had to help more around the house. One that got to take care of the baby once she was not so breakable. I grew up some during those early years. I learned what it was like to take care of another life. I was given responsibilities that I had never had before. It set me in good stead with the neighbors when I let them know I could baby sit. They knew I had experience. I started babysitting for others when I was eleven. I loved that as it gave me money for me to spend without asking.

When I was twelve, I started making my own clothes. Simple things at first. By the time I was in high school I made almost all my own clothes made using the money I made baby sitting.

Now the down side for Mom having a baby when her previous baby was 10 was that at 18, I moved away. I moved to California to follow a job that was offered to me. That left this baby that I helped take care of alone, with no siblings at home. She instantly became an oldest child with youngest child upbringing. I think that was hard on her. I have always wished I would have stayed around longer to help her through into her teens at least.

It is was it is.