My apologies to all of those German speakers out there who probably noticed my spelling error “Guttes” which means good (for Guttes Neu Year).   That is the proper spelling as I typed “Gottes”  which means God.  It’s tough using a German keyboard as the way the letters are arranged are not the same as on the keyboard that we all learned our typing skills.  I wouldn’t mind being in the P.I. about now as the weather should be great whereas here, in Germany, in the Bayischer Wald, it is cold and foggy.  Hope you enjoyed your ex-pat night out and all went well.

Bob

Thus year was was the fifty year anniversary of  the speech,“I Have A
Dream”.

T’was also  the anniversary of great national sorrow.

We ate in the large multi purpose room and the high school kids came
down and ate there also.

Of recess and noon hour, I recall a crowded  chaotic playground.

I was just one of many quiet, shy farm kids who rode home to do
chores every day after school. I was a bystander.

The  summer of ‘63, Dad received word from his brother Emil, a foreman
of a plastering crew for a  major construction company.  A prison was
being build  on the coast of WA.

Dad needed to work out, as crop insurance and farm programs were
pretty much non existent.

My parents made arrangements for our farm and bought a different car
to make the trip.

Mom put away her  favorite  recipe books and other treasures  in  the
spare bedroom. Dad nailed plywood across its  curtained entrance.
Someone was going to “winter” our cattle and live in our house.

Mom packed only  clothing and necessities into the new 1963 two- tone/
brown and cream Biscayne  station wagon.

Our family left early one morning.   We left behind, the best  part of
our family; Skip the  family border collie, Byrd our first riding/barn
horse, and  all the “Bossies” i.e. cattle.

Dad drove  steady across prairies and winding roads through mountains
across Montana, Idaho and  Washington.   It was hot dusy dry trip, but
the windows rolled down kept us somewhat comfortable.  We’d never
heard of  air conditioning.

One of us girls would say, “Dad I need to stop”.

__perhaps fifty miles later he’d pull over.  Mom got a can for
emergency use.

My little brother stood  on the back seat.  Dad’s rolled down  his is
window and propped his arm out.

The 65 mph  breeze was powerful in the back seat.

Never eating out,we ate food mom had prepared for the trip in the car
or at public picnic areas, slept in motels with cooking facilities.
And, finally we stopped for an overnight  visit with Dad’s navy
friend  George and his family in Montana.

(I continue to honor dad’s memory with a Pride Dairy package to
George each Christmas. George  is now 90)

Any ways back to my tale.

Finally, we arrived to Uncle Emil’s country home at rural Marysville
on a Sunday.  There was much excitement upon seeing our cousins who we
were to stay with.  Dad went to work with Uncle Emil early next
morning   Mom  and Ann began searching  for rental houses.  We cousins
enjoyed reconnecting.  As a  North Dakota country girl,  I was not
familiar hearing the latest pop singers, but my cousins were well
acquainted with their names and what they sang or played.

“She loves me Ya, ya , ya “

A comfortable three bedroom house  was found at the  steep cost  of
$100.00 a month.   Our frugal mother was told by Mr. and Mrs. Hansen
we could move in at the end of the month.   The Hansens were the first
Seventh Day Adventists I ever met. Wonderfully, kind and humble was
reflected in their personalities.

During the end of summer and early fall, Mom and Ann canned fruit,
cherries, plums, pears from fruit trees and gathered strawberries from
the field behind “Emil’ and Ann’.   And we kids played. We all had
wonderful escapades.   Janice and I searched an old abandoned attic
for lost treasures.  All that climbing over rickity floorboards was
futile, no gold, just an empty attic box. On the weekends we gathered
around a fire pit in the yard and more uncles and aunts drove up from
Seattle.

So on weekends,

“With a love like that, we knew it could not be bad”………

Shoultes Country school started with ! classroom  for each of the K- 6
grades. I found  myself  down the hall from cousin Janice in Mr.
Gadwa’s self contained sixth grade classroom.

Mrs. E. came and taught the specials in the afternoon.

She taught us to  sing “Fair are the meadows, fair are the
woodlands…….and I began my day dream of  my ND home.

1963-1964 was a year of  lessons.  Some in school and some  societal.

A listener, I would tune in, focus and listen as  my dad and Uncle
Emil  talked about interactions of the crew on the job. It seemed
their was some opposition from the crew toward another plasterer,

a former German soldier.

My love for reading had been sparked by beloved Mrs. Conroy. I
burrowed into books.  Holey buckets! At this school I  could check
out  five   to six books every week!   And, Mr. Gadwa would drive bus
with our class into the big  town school to check out books from the
library. I would read 8-10 books each week.

I  used books as my escape missing farm life.

On New Year’s Eve, my parents and Ann and Emil were invited to “the
Skerdes.”  I believe that was one lesson I heard  from Cliff and Emil
Metcalfe about, treating people fairly. ___

Otto was former German soldier who fought on the side of
Hitler……….His wife had been a P.O.W. of the Russians during the
war._____perhaps a “comfort woman”?

My listening skills became more keenly fine tuned.

Sometime,after Christmas vacation 1963,  five black children  from a
family enrolled at Shoultes.   They were the only black children in
school. Curious.

_I  had never seen or known a black child before.  The very  next
day at noon recess,  I was  leaning against a wall reading my latest
borrowed book,  when,  six boys from my 6th grade class surrounded the
black fifth grade boy.

They  were each at least a head taller than he, they  circled, began
taunting  and demeaning words.  N________r

One  reached out  and touched his hair , and commented  something
about “brillo pads” another,swipiped is finger to his his skin and
commented “ does it come off?’……..the verbage continued along with
more cruel laughter.

Without thinking leaping,  I found myself  in the middle of that group
of  boys. I pushed to stand in front the fifth grader.

Making eye contact_____ words flew out of my mouth, looked each in
the eye as I said,

“Did YOU choose your skin color?”  “Did YOU pick your eye color? “
“Did YOU choose your parents?”  “ Did YOU choose to be born whe way
you are?”

LEAVE him alone.” because he didn’t choose either!”

I pushed through the group of boys and walked back to my book I’d
left next to the brick wall.

I don’t believe those boys bothered him again, the rest of that year.

I never learned the black boys name.  I never went home and told my
parents.

(Both of my parents are now gone, and I never shared that with them)

At school, I’d  just  find another book and slip it under my one of my
subject books, and read__

Sometimes I’s miss recess because it was too engrossing.

Although,my grades suffered, I never let them go to far down. I was
content to be average.

As I recall those fifty year of memories,  and the lessons learned.

My only wish  is I’d had more courage through my 7th-12th years.

THEN I smile, and thank God for the gifts I have received from my
parents..