Baked Broiled And Blown

Well I haven’t done any posting lately. Look at the title of this post and that is exactly what happened to me. We were baked, why because we had no power. Broiled because it was so hot (ninety eight degrees with one hundred per cent humidity and blown because we had a tornado which did a lot of damage. Not to our house, thank goodness but all around us. The tornado was a F4 but it jumped up and down along the highway that runs right by our house.
We had no power or water for two days. That’s a long time when it is so hot. Once again we were so blessed. We have a camper that was full of water and had an air conditioner that saved my life. We bought a generator that kept the camper running as well as our refrigerator and two freezers.
We brought our little bbq into the screened in porch and grilled our food. I even used the microwave in the camper to heat some water for my in-laws. They were way ahead of me. They had old pots on their grill heating up. They had water they were using sparingly. They say water runs down hill. They live down hill from us.
We had nickel to quarter size hail with the storm. The trailer we live in has a metal roof. It was so noisy I was hysterical. I have never been so scared in my life. The storm had been raging all night long. The lightning was non stop.
So that’s why no computer, phone service was limited to one phone in the bedroom that doesn’t need electricity.
I wonder how I made it when I was a youngster with no air conditioning. The answer to that is, just fine.

A New Posting Game

I was looking through my scrapbooks this morning thinking how many of you actually remember who these people are or were. So I decided to have a guessing game. Of course, this will eliminate a lot f readers that are not from Cherokee, Iowa. But I decided we might do this once a month or so. Hope you enjoy doing something different!

The Sun Always Makes Me Sneeze

When Joan and I worked across the street from each other we would go have coffee in a little café across the street from Salisbury’s Studio where I worked in later years, it may have been called Casey’s.
Sometimes she would come to the studio and pick me up and sometimes I would just walk over to the café and she would be there. On the times when she would come to the studio she liked to hang around a little bit. Photo studios are very dark of course, for developing pictures. Every single time Joan and I would go outside she would sneeze.
I always laughed at her and she said she had an allergy to sunshine. There is a condition that actually does make people sneeze when they are in the sun. Now she lives in one of the sunniest states in the United States. I should ask her if she still sneezes in the sun.
It’s funny how your memory works but I was looking through my scrapbook and found a picture of Jo and she was frowning and underneath her picture I labeled it as “the frowner.” As I think of it, it was probably because of the sunshine.
The other day Joan asked me if I had a picture of Miss Pannhorst that taught fifth grade. I told her no, that I didn’t remember having one of her. Well, I did, so along with the “frowner” here is a picture of Miss Pannhorst.

Cod Liver Oil And Milk

When I was in elementary school, we were given cod liver oil pills and a box or a glass jar of milk, I think in the afternoon. It was kind of fun to have a break. I liked to take the pill and pop it with my teeth and chew on the “skin” of it and wash it down with milk.
Cod liver oil helps the human body especially the young folks grow up to be strong and healthy. I think that is interesting because just at this time we are hearing so much about fish oils are the healthy oils for us. When you look up cod liver oil it contains the omega-3 fatty acids, preformed Vitamin A and Vitamin D and numerous other things. It helps build strong bones in children, and also is good for a child’s brain and nervous system. That was sixty years ago. Do you think that they really knew what cod liver oil could do? I don’t remember hearing about “don’t eat this, don’t eat that.” I remember my mother using lard for frying and for pie crust. Lard is extremely hard on our arteries of course. We know that now, not then.
Just another grade school memory.

A Sunny Day In April

It seems to me, and of course, I might be wrong, roving reporters used to rove!! They kept townspeople in the newspaper all the time. I have a scrapbook full of little clips that I will attempt to show you. The problem with that is that you have to either scan them or take a picture of them to produce them on the computer. You also have to take into account that these newspaper clippings are forever old and have faded the memories along with the printing ink. What I am attempting to do is apologize for pictures that are not sharp and clear.
Here is a picture of me, Virginia Sutton, Muriel Conley, and Beverly Timmerman from left to right. We were all sitting on the merry-go-round soaking up the sunshine on a beautiful day. The picture of Lincoln School is an archived picture. As I remember it though, the stone it was made of was Pipestone rock that was pink. To me it was a beautiful school. I believe we were in fourth grade.

The Train Ride

When I was little and in my young twenties, the train was a very popular mode of travel. You didn’t have to watch for other drivers, didn’t cost much, and it was very comfortable. If you were going a long ways you had a choice of getting a berth so you could sleep or you could sleep in your seat. They had dining cars where you could eat sometimes, fancy meals or you could carry a sack meal with you.
My mother and father traveled by train frequently to visit my grandparents and my mother would take the train and meet me at the depot in Cleghorn and we would travel together to Sioux City to meet my sister. Then we would go out for lunch or shop. It was great fun.
Little folks were always told that they needed to act grown up and be ready for school because they would get a train ride when they started Kindergarten. That was not necessarily propaganda. All the kindergarten classes would get on board the train with their little sack lunches and ride to a little town outside of Cherokee. Help me out here, folks, maybe Marcus or Meriden? Anyway it was a short trip, but it was such fun.
My stepfather worked for the railroad for many years and so did his son. One night his son had a dining car brought to Sioux City to treat my mother and her family to a royal feast. Once again the white linen table cloths and napkins, fancy china etc. My mother loved it, it was very nice.
I wish you could see each little face in this picture, but this is a picture of the depot as it was when I was in kindergarten.

The Lewis Hotel

You know we take every things for granted now days. I have heard that quote over and over, but you know who ever started that very memorable sentence was so smart. The thing I am talking about today is “going out to eat.” We do it all the time, more than we should, probably according to our waistlines and heart conditions, but regardless of that, it is not a big deal to go out and eat.
I have told you many stories about growing up on the farm, and eating fresh produce and raising our own meat. I told you about moving to town and how my brother and I loved it. I have told you about going to church every Sunday.
Today I am going to tell you about the first time I every went out to eat. It makes me so mad I cannot remember why we did. We just did, or there was an occasion I can’t remember, but what I do remember was that it was traumatic to me and even more so, my mom laughed at my shyness.
We went to the Lewis Hotel for lunch after church this particular Sunday. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. All the tables had white linen tablecloths and napkins on them. The tables were set with crystal goblets and small candles in the middle of the table. The ceilings were so high that you could hardly see the hand crafted squares of crown molding. It was so beautiful.
I was just horrified because the hostess seated us in the middle of the dining room. There were tables by the windows I just couldn’t understand why my mom and dad decided to sit where everybody could watch us. I told my mom everybody was watching us and she laughed and said maybe they were thinking the same thing because I had been watching them watching us. Regardless, what a memorable day, the food tasted like sawdust because I was so nervous, but once again another memory from my childhood.