The Early Adopter

In 1953, upon the birth of my baby sister, our family moved from the apartment above the Dahl House to a new house on the west side of Drury Ave, next to Middents' and kitty-corner from my grandmother’s. The financing for the new house came from the Veterans Administration, my father being deemed a poor risk by Lowry State Bank. My father’s family had resided and owned the hardware business in Lowry since 1916; his uncle owned a thriving Lumber Yard; 4 Hoplin boys had served in the US Navy in WW II - but I guess surviving the depression bank closures made Iver risk averse. As a last resort, the VA came up with $8000 at 3% - highway robbery.  

Dad had done a lot of work with contractor Emil Pearson from Elbow Lake. Emil's crew built the new house @ 249 Drury Avenue in classic post-war architecture, 1½ stories with a roof pitch that limited the upstairs to 2 bedrooms + a ½ bath, but plenty of linen closet space in the hallway between the bedrooms and storage space under the eaves. The south bedroom was my very own, a place to retreat to with my books, baseball cards and APBA. The room had windows to the south that turned it into a steam room in the summer. Air conditioning consisted of an oscillating fan in the window.  

The main floor had a large room off the kitchen that served as living and dining room. There was a large picture window on each side of the front entry.  We only ate in the “dining room” when we had “company”. Normally meals were in the rather cramped kitchen at a classic chrome tube and formica table. The kitchen was circled by soffits and my Swedish mother had them painted in red script - “Välkommen till vårt bord” and “Giv oss i dag vårt dalig bröd”. The back entry off the kitchen was larger than the front entry to accommodate boots, coat hooks and the upright freezer holding the vanilla ice cream.

Left-handed gun

The living / dining room floor had dark green linoleum and wallpaper in floral horrendous. But the dining room did hold a prized Duncan Phyfe table and chairs.

By 1957, the living room had been decorated with a Setchel Carlson TV in the corner.  In ‘57 every TV was American made. My father served 3+ years in the Navy in the Pacific in WWII and held a life-long antipathy to all things Japanese. I once bought a Honda vehicle and it was reviewed with stony silence. In the 80’s, he bought a new TV - a Curtis-Mathis. It was the only American television maker left.

In the computer business, a customer who is willing to take a chance on early edition products is called an “early adopter” and the success or failure of a product, and even a company, may hinge on how well their adoption fares and whether they are willing to speak well of their experience. This term also is applied to those, usually young males, who must have the latest electronic gadget, whether phone, tablet or video game. I appreciate clever and useful gadgets as much as anyone, although I generally fall in the “early majority” category. I have a Mac, an iPad, an iPhone, a Chromebook, an old Windows 8 laptop and Apple TV - excessive, do you think?

My father was definitely an early adopter, but in a different realm and era. Many of his adoptions were to test advancements in his field of business - hardware, plumbing, heating, electrical.  He was one of the first to replace cast iron soil pipe with PVC, to use bakelite electrical boxes instead of steel and he had a book on research around possible improvements to the toilet - splash patterns and such. He led the effort to design the Lowry sewage treatment "holding ponds" employing the gravity of Hedlin's hill south of town; getting natural gas lines in place in Lowry and converting furnaces to its use, and on and on.

One of his great pleasures was to get into the basement of buildings to check out the mechanical, be it the "Ralph" in Grand Forks, Si Melby Hall, Central Lutheran, a McMansion or the Notre Dame Golden Dome.

In the home improvement area, my mother was the unwitting assistant in many of these experiments.  She would occasionally return home to find her house had been “modified” without consultation.  

One time she found her refrigerator was gone, replaced by a lovely "harvest tone" wall-hanging refrigerator, designed to eliminate the bending associated with your upright models. But you had to have a kitchen that could accommodate what, in space terms, was the equivalent of another set of kitchen cabinetry. In our small kitchen it took up a wall and was just the right height for the corner to align with my forehead. However, this unit eventually found its way into the perfect home and is still in operation 50 years later. They don’t make appliances like they used to.

Many appliance innovations were first tested in Hoplin household - flat top ranges, various types of refrigerators. But no dishwasher - kids needed chores. My father was convinced the trash compactor was going to be a winner. I think this thought was rooted in WWII conservation practices where everyone cut the ends off tin cans and flattened them for the war effort. But there weren’t many people who were willing to invest in a device that produced cubes of trash ala the junkyard car smasher.

And we had an incinerator in our basement! All burnable trash went up the chimney. Between that and the compactor, who needs a garbage truck. We also had the first built-in vacuum in the county and perhaps in all of rural Minnesota. Throw away that "Hoover", replaced by outlets in the wall you could plug a hose into and the dirt mysteriously zoomed to the Twilight Zone. 

And a "rotor" for the TV antenna. The antenna sat atop a tower that rose above roof level on the south side of the house. Reception from the Twin Cities TV stations was iffy at best and turning that knob to rotate the antenna seemed magical. But it rarely made much difference.

Another time mom came home and found she had “electric drapes”. She could now open and close the drapes on the east-side picture windows with the flip of a switch. That also didn’t take off like gangbusters, but it was pretty neat.  

On the rare (one) occasion that we took a winter vacation, dad would rig up a red light-bulb in the front window that would come on if the house temp fell below 50. Arnie Gunness could just look out his window to check on our house. Mother would ask if he could find a different color bulb.

Dad’s service truck was custom, fit with toolboxes and ladder racks and was a model of efficiency, although he didn't have time to be neat, so one of my monthly jobs was to cleanup and help restock this truck. Later he had the luxury of both an electrical and a plumbing truck - made life much easier. He once bought a yellow Ford truck. Uncle Dave said it looked like a lemon - which it turned out to be. Dave said he was expecting something more in a "baby diarrhea" color. From then on, every new truck was "candy-ass" red. (Car dealers should adopt these color names.) This progressive spirit did not extend to automobiles. In fact, we didn’t have a car until 1960, and that was Uncle Dave’s cast off '57 Buick. We went everywhere in the Ford pickup.

He also used his siblings as guinea pigs, once installing a new-fangled "exhaust" toilet in his brother's home. It would take in outside air and expel it and the collected fumes along with the effluvium. I guess lifelong experience had informed him of the location of greatest need for this invention. I'm not sure why this is not now a national building code requirement.

Fear

As a 10 year old in this small town, I don't remember being particularly fearful and I can't imagine a safer place than 1950's Lowry. I didn't suffer from any of the "boogey man" type fears. But danger is exciting, although we largely imagined it or discovered it through our own stupidity. But there were some things that unnerved me that I couldn’t admit, convinced it was only I the cowardly lion.  

Sunday School Program

I think Sunday School teachers had a little “since I had to do it, you do too” venom in them. Every year about Thanksgiving time, the St. Pauli Sunday School teachers handed each of us a slim strip of paper imprinted with a bible verse or a poem or a stanza from a hymn and told us we would recite this from memory at the Christmas program. It was pretty easy in your own living room, but up in front of a full church with all the expectant adults looking only at you and the other kids expecting - and most surely hoping for - a crash and burn, it was another thing altogether. Some of the fastest, most unintelligible sentences ever spoken happen at Sunday School programs. Later, I didn’t really take to speech class either. Over time, with progressively less quavering, I was able to conquer this phobia.

Heights

The schoolhouse had four classrooms, home for eight grades. The 7th & 8th grades had the best room of course and it was on the second floor next to the cloakroom and had egress to a fire escape. You went out the fire escape door to the south onto a small landing and then made two right turns to get to the stairs that followed the west outside wall of the school house. It scared me senseless. Even a trip up a ladder to paint the side of the house had me wobbly.

The school playground had a couple sets of swings with a 2” pipe supporting framework.  As a demonstration of strength, I think, every boy at some time or other had to sling those swings over the top support so they wrapped around like a roll of chain. To undo the swings, you had to shinny up the angled supports, slide across the top support to get to the swings and unloop them. It scared me senseless. I generally decided I didn’t really want to swing that bad.

Another test of courage was to climb to the top of the water tower. There was an enclosed ladder leading to a walkway circling the base of the tank - about 75’ off the ground.  It scared me senseless. I think I made it to the second cross beam once and retreated. Most every Halloween, the fire department guys would climb up and cut down the effigy that the braver sorts hauled up there, thinking they were the first to think of the joke. My problem wasn't genetic. My dad had the job of changing the light bulb at the very tip top of the tower.

The Thompson boys lived in the “Lowry Flats” east of the post office and they kept pigeons in the loft of a garage just to the south. Once in a while, each time to my chagrin, I climbed that ladder to check out the pigeons. A steep ladder, pecking birds, dusty straw, bird shit and feathers. What fun.

Swimming

Some wise person said “swimming is staying alive in the water”. So it was for me. Each summer we were bussed to the Starbuck beach on the west shore of Lake Minnewaska for two weeks of torture called swimming lessons. Is “anti-buoyant” a word? I had about 12 oz of fat and while everyone else seemed to take to the “dead man float” like an actual, I sunk directly to the bottom, what was, I suspected, really what happens. Dog paddling to the diving tower was a near death experience each time. I was positive I would drown and this forced me to learn the back float, although it required furious tread water movements to keep my nose above water. But swimming was like school, no matter what, every year a promotion - from beginner to advanced beginner to intermediate - and that’s about it for me. No life guard ambitions whatsoever. Maybe I wasn't the only one with the aversion. Once a few of us decided to bug out of lessons and walk the 6 miles home on 114. Really bright, hiding in the ditch when the bus came by. A half-dozen boys with a "great idea" maps roughly to the same IQ level as one guy with a baseball cap on backwards. Some memorable retribution from that escapade.

Bible Camp

Luther Crest Bible Camp on Lake Carlos doesn’t sound like it should strike terror but .. my mother volunteered as the camp nurse for the week and took me along as a camper. The problem was: I was a just a kid and the camp week was for teens. First night initiation was a pillow fight which sent my glasses flying to the far corner of the cabin with me crawling along the floor in desperate search, gripping my de-feathered pillow. For the rest of the week I felt like a batboy or perhaps more aptly, a blocking dummy. Future years' camping was with kids my own age and was more fun - except for the swimming part (see above).

Girls

Girls were a strange unknown species to me and until Peggy came to town I managed to ignore them. But Peggy was dazzling. The fact that her name was spelled with an accent mark made her even more exotic. With half the people in town having a name ending in “son”, this was like having Bridget Bardot in town. Of course I could never talk to her. Fear of the opposite sex was even higher on the aversion scale than that verse in the Sunday School program. But I suddenly came up with lots of reasons to bike the 3 blocks to Bobby’s whose house just happened to be across the street from Peggy’s. Then suddenly she was gone. It seems her noble father was an embezzler and the FBI had dropped by to cart him away. Bye bye Peggy Sue. I was sure it was my fault. I was in mourning for a week or more and swore off girls forever.  

Failure
I am a first born and thus the "practice child". There is no manual for parenting so the first kid is a training ground. Lots of trial and error. The result is a kid who strives to meet parental expectations and to achieve perfection and (so I'm told) bossy. This is a life-long incurable affliction and NASA's "failure is not an option" motto is ingrained. The 2nd kid benefits from the mistakes made on the first and is well-adjusted, cheerful, generous and trusted. e.g. with the first born, everything is compulsively sterilized; for the 2nd, eating from the dog dish warrants a "cut that out"; the 3rd gets lost in the shuffle - I defy you thirders to find a picture of you, yourself alone in your family album. The youngest is of course spoiled, carefree, easy going and the family comedian - and will answer to most any name. You get to 4 and parents understandably get mixed up. If you're an only child, you have all the bad characteristics of a first born in addition to those of the baby of the family.

The Bomb

I was aware of the Cold War, the Berlin crisis, the Hungarian revolution, Sputnik and all that but I don't really remember obsessing about the atom bomb*. Fear of the Russians & Khrushchev's bluster was at its height in the late 50's and Popular Mechanics even published plans for fallout shelters. I always thought that concrete cave beneath our back steps on the southwest was a bomb shelter, but I guess it was more suited as a tornado shelter, where it had an outside chance of success. I do remember "emergency drill instructions" at school, perhaps in the Weekly Reader: get under your desk, kneel down with your head between your knees and with your arms over your head - and, there's a slightly off-color punchline you probably know.

Hell

Pastor Schey was not the fire and brimstone type but a few Sunday School teachers were. I didn't like my chances.

*I just read "Ike's Bluff" by Evan Thomas, and I should have been worried. President Eisenhower's warning against the "Military Industrial Complex" was/is well-founded. He actually termed it the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex, but dropped the Congressional for political reasons.

And Loathing

A fear episode demands a companion "and Loathing" episode. But at 10, I don't remember loathing anything, except for perhaps the New York Yankees.

U of M

I guess I was vaguely aware that the University of Minnesota was actually an institution of learning, but as a 10-year-old, I believed its main purpose was to field athletic teams. Prescient. And I was pretty much unaware that there were collegiate sports besides football, basketball and baseball.

Giel

Nagurski

I was an avid follower of the Minnesota Gophers football team ("Golden" Gophers was later, an attempt to beautify a rodent mascot). The Gophers had a legacy of national championships under Bernie Bierman in the 30’s and 40’s, even a Heisman winner in Bruce Smith in 1941 and legendary players like Bronko Nagurski, Gordy Soltau, Bud Grant, Paul Giel, Bob & Pinky McNamara. (Aside - how does someone get a nickname of Pinky in the McCarthy era 50’s?). 

Stephens

Hollis

In the 50’s & 60’s, under Murray Warmath, the Gophs were often Big 10 contenders. Warmath, a crusty Tennesseean, was an early recruiter of black athletes, among them Sandy Stephens, Bill Munsey, Bobby Bell & Carl Eller. In 1960, Minnesota, ranked 3rd in the country faced #1 Iowa in a game that featured for the first time - at least for the Big 10 - two teams with black quarterbacks, Stephens and Wilburn Hollis. (Interestingly, the first black played in the SEC in 1967 and not until 1971 at Alabama.) Minnesota won that game and were declared National Champions but lost to Washington in the Rose Bowl. The next year the Gophs returned to Pasadena, defeating UCLA on January 1, 1962 for their only Rose Bowl win. No appearances since - a 53 year drought.

Minnesota football was almost never on TV so I “watched” the games through the sound of Ray Christianson’s voice on WCCO - and the 'Murray Warmath Show', a weekly TV show with film clips from about 10,000 feet of the previous week's game. I would never miss the Saturday afternoon game day radio broadcast. I suppose I have my great Uncle Dave to thank for this, since he had pictures of those glory years national championship teams on the hardware office wall and I had similar hopes for this current team. On fall Saturdays, it was me, Ray, leaves and smoke. In '57, standard procedure was to rake the leaves onto the curbless gravel of Drury Ave and light them afire. That pleasant, burning leaves smell wafted Lowry on fall Saturdays.

Memorial Stadium & Williams Arena

In the '50's, Minnesota wiped the field with The Ohio State and were often favored over Michigan. But for me the most important game of the year was always Minnesota vs. Iowa and the battle for the pig - Floyd of Rosedale. More importantly, this was for family bragging rights. My mother was from Iowa and had several siblings there and an Iowa win meant eating humble pie. (Of course, we never indulged in the sin of pride when Minnesota won.) In ‘56, Minnesota, going into the Iowa game, was favored to win the Big 10 and go to the Rose Bowl. In those days, Orange, Sugar, Cotton & Rose were about it for bowl games. It was the Rose Bowl or nothing for the Big 10, always facing the Pac 8 champ. But the Hawkeyes shut out the Gophers at Memorial Stadium and went on to win the ‘57 Rose Bowl. Agony.

In the winter, we had basketball and the same Ray Christianson voice on the radio. The basketball team played in "The Barn", the ancient Williams Arena. But with predominantly Minnesota kids, the Gophs were usually stuck in the middle of the Big 10. Minnesota teams did not challenge until black players like Lou Hudson, Archie Clark, Mel Northway arrived on the scene. When I was at Augsburg in the 60's, I had a friend who was a Gopher trainer & occasionally I got to sit on the end of the Gopher bench with my eyes at floor level because of that raised floor. Strange experience watching a basketball game looking at knees and ankles. Interestingly, in the 50's, the Gophers seemed to be the farm team for the Minneapolis Lakers NBA team, as several graduates quickly transferred to the pro ranks: Whitey Skoog, Dick Garmaker, Bud Grant, Chuck Mencil - and Vern Mikkelson from Hamline University! The NBA did not have quite the panache of today’s game, with games played in the Minneapolis Armory or the Minneapolis Auditorium.

Minnesota baseball was a lot harder to follow because the games were not broadcast on radio, so I had no recourse but the Sunday Peach section of the Minneapolis Star. (The sports section was printed on peach colored newsprint, making it easy for me to pick it out of the big bundle.)  Under Dick Siebert, Minnesota fielded teams that regularly went to the College World Series and won it all in 1956. Paul Giel, Jerry Kindall & Dave Winfield went on to play in the Majors. Major League Baseball was my 1st love (see Baseball episode) but it drew me in at any level.

Actually, I loved all sports. I was up for almost any sporting event: Lowry Town Team baseball, Glenwood football and basketball, freezing at the ski jumping competitions on the Glenwood Hill, a Miller's game at Nicollet Park ... you name it.

I am still an avid, albeit much more cynical, fan of college athletics. It's obvious that NCAA Division I football and basketball is all about $$ and regularly exploits athletes. 

Time to walk the talk. Support those Division 3 teams!

Mailbag

One of my hopes for this serial was to elicit Lowry stories from readers. So far, the response has been sparse - but I remain hopeful. If you haven't noticed, there is a comment opportunity at the bottom of each post. Or if you want a personal chat, email me ussbb62@gmail.com. 

In any case, it is a cheap blogger trick to post reader comments when you're facing a deadline and you're not ready. So ... here’s "2014 year in review". To protect the innocent, commenters shall remain anonymous.

General

"Why not go in 5 year intervals to the present, sharing the evolution of Lowry through your ever- changing lens?" 
[Reply:  Uffda, nay]

"Just read it and brought back a lot of good memories. I found it through Gordy Wagner via Allen Cooley. I was amazed at the accuracy of your blog. Brought me right back to Lowry."

[Reply: The accuracy is debatable. I am relying on my memory and that is getting to be less and less reliable. It is always interesting to me how threads of people connect. ]

"Just wanted to let you know how much I have enjoyed your blog about Lowry in 57 and, although we left the area in 1965, I have memories of just about everything you have written about.  Please keep up the great job and know that it is appreciated.  I'm looking forward to future topics and hope you will cover Chippewa Creek, sledding at Bunker Hill, and Lake Malmadahl."

[Reply: Just like Dilbert.  People send ideas and the blog writes itself.  Keep 'em coming.]

The Fifties

"You're sharing a different world from mine in the 1950's in an industrial city in northern England. Housing was in short supply: my first home, in 1951, was prefabricated, shipped from the USA. I still have my ration book."

[Reply: I have my grandmothers WW II ration book :-)]

"Noted the juxtaposition of Flip Wilson, Milton Berle & J Edgar Hoover in the youtube slideshow"

[Reply: All comedians, I think.]

That 10 Year Old
"Read this on the bus, giggling."
[Reply: It's the handsome kid in the Davy Crockett tee or perhaps the cutie with her tongue out.]

Memorial Day

"When I used to live in DC I was only 3 metro stops away from Arlington. I would go there by myself once a year and just walk. My mother took me there when I was young and it left a lasting impression on me. In the back of the memorial there are many monuments and other items that are not on the usual tourist trap maps. They included the mast of an old ship, some cannons and a few statues but the rest of the memorial is fairly spartan but the silence, simplicity and structure speaks volumes. I used to sit on the hill under a big oak tree and watch as the new graves were being dug for Iraq-Afghanistan as this was 2005-08. I can still remember the emotional gravity the place carried. Happy Memorial Day."
[Reply: I've visited Arlington but once. It is a sacred place that demands silence."

"You probably don't remember but I gave the Lowry Memorial Day Address in, I think, 1961. "

[Reply: I suspect I was at the ’61 Memorial Day program, but I don’t remember it, except for the honor guard and the spent shell casings. I do remember an Andrew Engebretson speech, not sure what year that would have been. Send me a copy of your speech if you have it.]

District 30
[Reply: I believe the Lowry School episode was the most read 2014 posting, but no comments? Chime in!]

St. Pauli

"I just read your “St. Pauli” and felt like I was right back there with all of the experiences.  I did not have perfect attendance at Sunday School when I got to be a high schooler as I did not want to get up on Sunday morning after a school dance. On one occasion my teacher, who will remain nameless, asked me “where would you rather be when the Lord comes, at a dance or at Sunday School?”
[Reply: And you chose?]

Saturday Night

"I asked what was coming up on the next  blog and it was 'Baseball' and then…'Saturday Night in Lowry'. I started laughing and made some remark like…boy, that’s going to be a short one!  He assured me there is plenty to write about."
[Reply: I am - Defender of Lowry Honor]

Town Hall

"Superb.  Joey is featured!"
[Reply: I am eagerly anticipating a reprise of that duet when cousins gather]

"There was a jail cell in the basement. Does anyone know of anyone who might have occupied it?"

Dahl House

"This place was owned by my mother's oldest brother Jim Robieson. I believe it was before WWII"
[Reply: Cafe genealogy?  Help me out people.  ->Jim Robieson->Moellers->Julia Carlson->Leo & Blanche Dahl   ->?->Cookie Branby->?

"I remember the cafe, but never as the Dahl House.....the coffee cups w/ the names of the regulars engraved were a highlight (I think Snella has Ole's)....  It was later 'Cookie’s Cafe'."
[Reply: If I would ever advance to the '60's, there are some interesting Cookie's Cafe stories too.]

"The supper hour was very interesting. Always there was Iver Engebretson, Ben Rice and Iver's brother-in-law - I forget his name. Some of the early waitresses were Audrey and Shirley Person, Rosella and Luella Olson and later on - me. In about '49 I started working there, first as a dishwasher and later on as a waitress. I worked there until I graduated from high school in '52. One of the faithful waitresses was Emily Christianson. Blanche & Leo were very special people and I loved working for them. I think I worked nearly every Sunday for 2 years. Sunday dinner was a big event there. Dena Bremness, Director of Nursing at Glenwood Hospital, would come with 3 friends and have dinner nearly every Sunday. I always enjoyed having her table because there was always a tip - 20¢."
[Reply: Priceless]

Mischief

"So much delightful and relatable guy stuff. Will anyone of the fairer gender get a chance to even this out with a chapter of her own?"
[Reply: There's a standing invitation to guest bloggers - subject to my editing of course."]

The Melting Pot

"That was interesting."

"Wow! I would note the the tribute to Robin Williams under "Mork"....."

304 Drury Avenue

"Correction. The clothes chute did run through the bathrooms."

That was fantastic! Were the Hoplins ahead of the curve with all the improvements, gadgets & improvisations? Or was that par for the course in those days?"

[Reply: Highly unusual.  Most people had out-houses & kerosene lamps]


"I don't think it's possible to be too detailed, as far as I'm concerned. I'm getting insights into a ND farm house (homesteaders from Norway, late 1800's) and my own 1904 Minneapolis home. Thank you."

"I own the house at 304 Drury now. I really enjoy reading about it's history."

Berry & Toombs Furniture & Undertaking

[Reply: Top comment of 2014]

The Funeral Business
"Thank you David."
[Reply: I still think Oliver should have named it the 'Hoplin-Berry Funeral Home'. It was originally "Berry & Toombs" - I'm not making this up.

W.C.T.U

"I even think I went to some summer Sunday School activities at the Gospel Hall. I sure remember the mating season. Also, a couple of the regulars at Chan's Cafe had a great time during the festivities."
[Reply: Although you have spiked my curiosity, perhaps it is best to leave it at that.]

"I noticed AGITATE was the first watchword.  I will be watching with glass in hand :-)"
[Reply: You can't just cherry-pick the things you like to do. It's Agitate-Educate-Legislate"]

"I did attend services at the Hall and I believe we ladies sat across the aisle from the gents! Today I know the sacredness of wine!"

"I too remember the meetin' house days.  It wasn’t the going there that was so bad it was the fact I always ended up having to wear my mother’s dress because nothing else was allowed.  Uff da."

"Going to Gospel Hall Sunday School was humbling, but a peak experience was attending W.CT.U. summer camp with cousins Beth and Janis through Ben Wade Covenant. There was a song w/ the refrain "one little, two little, three little, brain cells....".  No kidding. "

[Reply:

"It is all coming back....slowly, however, due to advancing age and alcohol...."

[Reply: The 4 Hoplins. Glenn, Paul (2nd row far left)  Miriam, Esther (2nd row middle right. Miriam behind the girl with the hat, Esther behind and to her left.  Who are the others? Tall boy with the tie is Alexander Leslie. Bert McIver in the back. ...]

Holidays

"It was funny"

"Was the house you would not enter on Halloween Hank Brandt's home."
[Reply: Yup]

"I had never heard of the prank of wearing fire department gear and detouring cars down to Starbuck. That is priceless. I do not remember hanging anything from the water tower or throwing toilet paper from the railing. I did, however, climb up to the top of the tower where the light was located -- a chore of changing the bulb was left to your dad. It scared the heck out of me but I was committed to do it."
[Reply: Gary was Gary Thompson of course. I couldn’t remember his partner in crime. You sound a little more rambunctious - and braver - than I. I never could get up the gumption to get to the water tower railing.]

"We used to tip over outhouses on Halloween. I remember that one place we went to had a double house. The owner was going to surprise us and he got in the outhouse to wait for us. Well, we heard something in there so we tipped it over with the door to the ground and he could not get out. We did tip it back up and then ran like hell."
[Reply: For better or worse, by '57, there weren’t that many outhouses around to tip.]

"I also loved the 'The Iowa cousins had him up in the manure spreader stomping it down so they could get a full load.' Never heard of that one. My dad and his gang once put the depot's outhouse on a flat car and it ended up in Enderlin, ND."
[Reply: At least they didn't raise pigs. I’ll have to ask Doris if she remembers the outhouse on the flatcar story and find out about her water tower climbing exploits.]

"I'm surprised that you kids did not work on local farms. I was in the mid-grades and was driving a horse team for Anton Teigen and his helper Ole Boe. After that every summer helping out -- bundle crops, thrashing, plowing, spring toothing, etc. Really enjoyed it.  Had to walk to the farms and got breakfast, lunch with two minced ham sandwiches and coffee, dinner, lunch with 2 minced ham sandwiches and coffee. If the farm was too far way the farmers would probably pick us up. Loved working on the farms."

[Reply: The only farm work I did was after I married a farm girl and helped with haying and did the milking for a week while her folks traveled to a wedding out west.  Amazing that Tim would trust his lovelies to such novices.]

Motivation

These words from James Salter have kept me going.

“There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.” 
― James Salter, All That Is

[Final Comment: How many blog postings have you read that include "uffda" - twice?]