These are the stories from my childhood. I hope one day to have enough to write a book so these are filed under that books’ title.
February 6, 2022
“Mo- o – o – om, Porter said balls!” My high-pitched, tinny wail comes through the speaker of an old tape recorder. “Mo- o – o – om!” In the background you can hear two year old Porter quietly chanting, “Balls, balls, balls, balls” with each word spit out like its own note on a tom-tom drum. He isn’t yelling; he’s just saying the word over and over. Porter knew, even then, how to push my buttons.
My parents and grandparents sent tapes back and forth for years as a way of personalized communication. Some tapes were recycled and recorded over, but some are still out there floating through family members. I can’t wait to listen to them. They detail the price of fuel, bread, and chronicalize the news, weather, and family happenings at the time. Since I have taken it upon myself to write about my life back then, it will be great to have some tangible history to write into my stories.
Memories are often different depending on the person remembering it. I remember having a conversation with a friend who was going over something we had done together and she and I have two completely different views on what happened. I have my own memories, which are crystal clear, and she has her own which, by her own admission, are a little muddled. It does not change the fact that she has been having those muddled memories for years, changing the way she sees life and her perspective. I feel fortunate that I have pretty vivid recall and am able to remember things clear back to when I was a year old. I don’t have many from that time, but they are there and have been verified as real by people who were adults at the time.
I hope that you will enjoy my memories as I get them written down. I have new ones all the time and hope that I can write them all down before they are gone.
February 7, 2022
The Calf
My early childhood was spent in the wild forests of Forks, Washington. Before they were logged, the old growth forests were dense with vegetation, rich with colorful hues, and teeming with wildlife. The very real life and death dance of nature took place with both wild animals and domestic and my siblings and I had a front row seat to watch it unfold.
The massive trees were the playground my older brother and I played on every single day. Our farm, the Funny Farm, was located on the old Mary Clark Ranch. Mom, Dad, and six kids lived in the old six-bedroom farmhouse. (There would eventually be nine children) We had horses, cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks. We had turkeys once, but that went horribly wrong when they began attacking the smallest of us and they were dispatched and eaten.
Each spring, the small herd of cows would deliver their calves. The milk cow’s calf was safe in the barn, but all the others were left to roam with the open range herd. It was not uncommon to lose a calf or foal to cougar or bear. The losses hurt but were accepted as part of the free fodder offered by free range grazing.
One year a pretty, little white-faced Hereford calf was born. It was beautiful and we loved to watch it bounce and run around its mama. It was about three or four weeks old, when it vanished. The cow came in with the herd, bawling her head off. Her udder was huge and uncomfortable. We went out looking for it, but the range the cattle used was massive and we couldn’t possibly cover all the miles they walked, so it was considered lost, and life went on.
I was around seven and my brother nine when this happened, and we were very familiar with the forest. We played in it daily and the loss of the calf didn’t change anything. Early on a sunny spring morning, we set off to explore. We looked for “cool” things like massive Amanita mushrooms, varmint holes, deer rubs, elk sheds, and bear and cougar scratches on the trees. We used vine maples like amusement park rides, bouncing high off the ground on our own and riding wild, elliptical circles when someone else helped. We had contests as to who could climb the highest on trees that were sometimes 60 feet tall or more. We walked out onto the heavy limbs of the trees and bounded onto the limbs of other trees like squirrels, giving no heed to the fact that we were so high that a fall would probably kill us.
We were using old rotting logs as part of a game of parkour, not touching the ground when we both heard a strange noise. We both stood stock-still, and the noise came again. We knew all the familiar sounds of the woods and this sound was not one of them. Vaguely aware of the danger of interrupting a prey animal’s dinner, my brother issued a hand signal indicating that I should stay put. I ignored him and hit him from behind when he stopped to look back to see if I was still there. We both almost fell off the log.
The old log we were on angled up, so the further along the log we crept, the higher off the ground we got, giving us a false sense of security that we were safe from whatever was down there. As we got closer, we got down on our hands and knees, so that when we arrived at the end of the log, we lay belly-down and peered over the end.
There, in a “pen” created by tree roots, vine maples, and several “nurse”logs, was the missing calf! It had been gone for over a week and presumed dead. It was a sorry sight but was lively enough when we tried to approach it. My older brother told me to stay with the calf and he would go get help. He took off like an arrow from a bow and I was left alone with the calf.
The calf soon became emboldened when it understood that I wasn’t going to eat it and before long it was sucking thirstily on my fingers. The poor little thing was frantic with hunger, and I got bashed by its fuzzy little head as it expressed its frustration that my fingers weren’t producing any milk.
My brother came back after what seemed like an eternity with our mama in tow. She still had her apron on and was looking both frazzled and excited. Her eyes shone with pride and happiness that we had found the calf, returning lost funds to our meager coffers.
I continued to play with the calf, petting it and allowing it to suckle my fingers. My brother and Mama began trying to create an opening so we could get the little calf out. By now, the cattle herd had gathered in a nearby clearing. Most grazed on, but the mother cow would occasionally look in our direction and bawl. We were deep enough in the woods that I don’t think she could see us, but she knew something was happening.
No chopping or digging implements had been secured during the rush to go get mama, so in the end it was decided that we should lift the little bugger over the main “nurse” log that faced the clearing. I am not sure how much help I offered, but the calf was lifted out and my brother and mama help herd the calf toward the clearing. When the calf saw the cows and realized it was free, it bolted out into the clearing.
The image in my head is that of the brightly lit meadow, sun shining through the trees in rays, and the calf running hard with its wee tail sticking straight up, white tip looking like a little flag. The calf’s mother did a bovine double-take, roared out a strangled bawl, and sprang away from the herd to come greet her long-lost baby. It was so emotionally and visually beautiful, the reunion made me and Mama cry. Soon the calf was enthusiastically suckling, and the cow was just as enthusiastically licking the calf. Shivers of delight ran through the calf’s body every so often as we stood and watched the hungry little thing nurse greedily.
After watching for a time, we walked Mama back to the farm, then turned and ran back to play in our forest playground, wondering what new treasures or adventures lay out there just waiting for discovery!
March 1, 2022
Forts
I can do anything I put my mind to. I can say that with authority. I have made Big Hunk knockoff candy bars at home. I have cross-stitched an 11 X 8-inch portrait of the family dog. I have constructed a stall in miniature for my pony. I built a sleigh from nothing but an image seen on Pinterest. So, if I really want to do it, I do. I believe that it is in all of us to do anything our interest leads us to, but I was fortunate enough to have a childhood that created this ability. My childhood was one of exploration and games, playing outdoors the majority of the time and limiting electronics inside. If we wanted to be entertained, we read. The occasional one-hour radio program was thrown into the mix, but they were a special treat. Basically, I was raised with emergent curriculum, which is a learning style created by a child’s emerging interests.
My siblings and I were raised without running water or electricity. The house was too small for all six children, so we learned to play outside. One summer, we spent the whole time outdoors, sleeping in a teepee at night. Playing outside revealed the world to us and taught us more that any classroom might have. While I cannot write down all the little nuances of what we learned, I can tell you what we did, and you can extrapolate what was learned from that.
Forts
We lived in a world of forts. Tree forts, ground forts, forts built into old tree trunks, forts made from piles of hay or bales, and forts created from piles of tires. If we thought it, we built it. No one ever told us we couldn’t. If it was structurally unsound, it fell on us. If it was below ground and had no drainage, it filled with water. The industriousness of our creations was astounding when we look back on them, but our projects lasted days, weeks, even months sometimes and were limited only by our imaginations. Our parents only concern was our usage of family resources. Tools such as hammers, saws, shovels, and axes didn’t always make it home. Nails were expensive. If tools were reclaimed or we couldn’t use nails anymore, we found ways around it, fashioning tools out of sticks and boards or using string or twine to secure our roofs and walls.
Tree forts were one of our favorites. We could peg a “tree fort” tree from a mile away and dreamed up all manner of structures. Maple trees were the best because of the way the branches grew out of the trunk. We had some tree forts that were 40 feet above the ground, carrying the initial pieces up the tree by handing it up to the person above you, then scampering around them to get above so they could hand it up to you. When a sufficient base was built, we would stand on the platform and haul the lumber up with a rope. Ironically, they almost always included a “safety rail” so we didn’t fall off when we played up there.
If a grand stump was found that could fit three children, usually an old growth logging remnant and usually in a state of decay, we’d tear off most of the rotted wood and begin our fort transformation. We would cover the top and designate a “door”, often a spot between two old roots, and use an evergreen branch as a door. We would create shelves and sleeping areas, designate a “toilet” outside, and move in. I am sure that Momma noticed missing dishes and other utensils, but these made it back, because we couldn’t eat dinner without them! Lunch was eaten in them, and many meals were dreamed of in these dwellings. Our older brother once showed us a stump so large that five adults could stand up and walk around in it. Apparently, he lived in it one whole summer when I was a baby.
Our most complex forts were combinations of tree, stump, and ground forts. The most elaborate fort we ever built was near our little farm in Quilcene. We found a stump that was nearly above ground once we had picked and shoveled all the dirt from its major roots. Three of us could squeeze in there but it was a tight fit, therefore we usually designated someone as “lookout”. We dug foxholes and trenches, one of which ran the length of nearly 60 feet and was deep enough to crawl through without being seen from either side! The dirt from this trench was piled between us and the neighbors, like the trenches from old war pictures. From our positions there, we covertly watched the happenings of the new neighbor, a retched monster of a man, his wife and stepdaughter. He made the alarms in every one of us go off, so he became our enemy and we, his adversaries.
This multifaceted fort ran parallel to the dirt track that was the road to the whole neighborhood. From there we could see any cars that came and went, and the construction of the neighbor’s new house. In all the years we used it, no one ever knew we were there.
We had tunnels going into and out of the stump that were burrowed into the ground. Any superficial areas that remained troughs were hidden from sight by covering them with branches and ferns. We had four pit fall traps to catch intruders that were two and three feet deep and three pit traps with spikes at the bottom to capture food or maim bad guys. (We never did.) The stump was stocked with pilfered goods like a flashlight, a hatchet, binoculars, and a BB gun. In the summer, fruit was packed in from the “old farm”, an old homestead that was ¾ of a mile northwest of our place and had an orchard that grew apples, pears, and plums. Ropes were used for lines to use as pulleys, a clothesline, and a rudimentary zip line. All lines were hidden from the “enemy” when we left at night.
Many hours of spying took place on that fort compound. We honed our ability to use binoculars and took pot-shots at the neighbors’ dogs and cattle with the BB gun. (I am not proud of this except that it pissed his cows off and made them too onery for him to handle. We were on hand one day to see one of them run him over.) Hatchet skills were honed, and knot tying studied; we made frequent use of the battered copy of the boy scout handbook we used to learn new things.
Mention of the fort was forbidden other than to tell Mom we were going to the “fort”. We worked on this fort for two or three summers, so it was a labyrinth of holes, trenches, hiding spots, tree perches, and the stump. When we finally showed our father, he looked stunned. Apparently, he had no idea of the scope of our excavation as we guided him through the area, helping him avoid the traps. He couldn’t fit into our stump but was able to peer through holes and see most of the inside. The look on his face said he was impressed, and I am sure he relayed what he saw to our mother as she took inventory and we had to return the flashlight and hatchet. That was fine with us; the axe worked better, anyway.
We didn’t really know what was happening in the neighbor’s house, but we knew he was a bad person. His stepdaughter was “weird” and the object of our ridicule and jests; had we known what was really happening, I know that we would have tried to save her. I did try when I was 16 years old but was foiled by a lousy school counselor. The things we did see from our spy positions were cruel and disturbing and made us even more suspicious of his “badness”.
After a 30-year career in Veterinary Medicine from kennel work to office management, I am now a preschool teacher at a Pre-K that uses Emergent Curriculum. I have been quickly able to adapt because, as I have discovered, my brothers and I were teaching ourselves through trial and error in the Emergent style. If something interested us, we stayed with it until it was learned. That interest led to the next, so we never stopped learning. We have all become very capable and very crafty adults.