Oct 23, 2022 --- Inspired by a Memory

Goldfish

By:  Carrie Keiser

I put the handful of goldfish crackers on the table and slowly placed one in my mouth. The first goldfish after a long time always brings me back to a tiny apartment in Phoenix, Arizona. Ah the days of the freshly married, broke and far from home trying to figure life out at 19! When you’re broke ya eat strange cheap things. We ate a lot of rice and tomato sauce, fresh bread that rose in the sun on the walk in front of our apartment door, and goldfish crackers.  

Every time I take that first goldfish on my tongue, it’s like I’m transported for a few seconds back in time…. Sitting on the edge of our bed enjoying the air conditioning.

Moving so far from home and learning to depend on the person you’ve chosen to spend the rest of your life will grow ya up (hopefully). We had many fun experiences living there, playing catch in that hot summering fall of 1993, a few ice hockey games, we attended and a NBA game Phoenix Suns versus Seattle Supersonics (who are no longer a team), a trip to some little movie-set town Tombstone (rode a camel, panned for gold and held a rattlesnake skin) we also made a trip to Montezuma’s castle. 

So while it was a time of lean means, it was also a time of new adventure, learning and growing that I visit with a small cheddar flavored cracker.

That Time I Was an Accessory After the Fact

By: Ryanne Leavitt

There was this time when we had some friends come over to visit and we all decided to walk the seven miles to town to buy some candy.

Carrie, I think you know where this one is going.  I don’t remember how old we all were or even how long they were visiting, but Holly and Char had come over to play and hang out…we must have been 8 or 10…correct me if I am wrong.

After playing games and listening to music Holly said she had some money and we all got this great Idea, lets walk all the way to Frenchtown to Broncs grocery to get some goodies.  We didn’t, at the start know just how much money she had or where it came from, but candy always sounds like a good idea, thus off we went.  

Most of you know what that walk looks like, down the hill and out on to the frontage road, then on to Louisel Lane…to avoid all the cars.  Oh it was a loooooong walk and we all were getting ever so tired, but the knowledge of candy at the end of the journey egged us onward.  

Finally 4 hot and tired girls made it to the store, and then Holly pulls out the money and tells us all to get what every we wanted.  We all stood there staring, wide eyed at the 50 in her hand.  Seeing the shock on our faces, she told us very matter of factly that she had found the money fair and square.  That was good enough for us and we promptly went about buying all the candy we could.  

The walk home was all up hill but we hardly noticed as we stuffed our faces, munching  all the sugary goodness.  We walked and ate and laughed all the way home.  It was going just swimmingly, that was, until we got home.  there we were confronted by parents, gaping at the mother-load of treats and sweets in our hands, pockets and bags.  That is when we were all bombarded with questions and we quickly all threw Holly under the bus…Where did the candy come from? We bought it with money! Where did the money come from kids? Well, Holly found it!  How much money did you find Holly? I found it!  It’s mine cause I found it in the dryer at home!  How much money did you “find” Holly? And a very sheepish Holly said in a much quieter voice, “50 dollars”.  And where did you find this money again? After being asked that question by her mom a few times she finally fessed up that she “found” it in her brother pants pocket.  

As all of this was going down, that sweet goodness started turning my stomach a bit sour.  The realization hit like a ton of bricks, she hadn’t actually just found some money. NO, she had in fact had stolen it from her brother Wayne.  

When the truth came out, Holly was seriously reprimanded and told she would have to pay it all back to her brother.  She didn’t find that a fair resolution since the rest of us had helped her spend her ill gotten gains.

A Walk, A Lollipop and A VCR Player

By: Colleen Holmquist

Once on a Friday Maja and I walked to the post office. She likes to check out the “reduced for quick sale” deals at Broncs Grocery. So on the return we stopped there, found some veggie deals and proceeded to the checkout line. As we waited, I noticed a strip of lollipops hanging from the candy display and my mind wandered back to a bedroom-turned-tv-room with boxes of little wrappers and loads of stickers with flavor names.

Let me back up a few decades.

There was a time before flat screen TVs, before streaming, before DVDs and home theaters, before YouTube and RedBox; it was a time of network tv, when watching a movie at home without commercials was a novelty; a time when a trip to Play it Again Sam’s was an adventure for the whole family. Everyone spread out and canvassed the entire store exploring the rows and rows of movies on video cassettes; vying for the final choice of a movie the whole family would watch. On Tuesdays you could get a cheap rental.

In those early days you rented not only movies on cassette but the VHS player as well. Back at home, after struggling to connect all the cables to correct ports on the rear of the massive CRT (cathode ray tube) television, while someone else popped popcorn with an air popper (microwave popcorn was not a thing), the cassette inserted, the lights off, someone pushed the play button—sometimes the rewind button if the last person forgot to rewind it before returning it. The tape began, Except for the sound of munching popcorn, everyone was quiet watching with rapt attention until the movie ended and the credits started to roll.

It was a bit of a pain renting a machine and lugging it back and forth every time we wanted to watch a movie. How much better if only we had our own VHS player... 

Mom formulated a plan to make money and involve the whole family. The Hill and Shearer families in town started a lollipop business. They needed people to put labels on wrappers. Mom would pick up the boxes of labels and wrappers and everyone still at home would park themselves in that bedroom-turned-TV-room and label away. The goal of our own machine motivated us. There was some friendly competition as we challenged each to work as fast as we could. I don’t remember how long it took or how many labels we applied but we soon saved enough money to buy our own VHS machine. That was a day of anticipation and excitement.

I miss those times when watching a movie in our own home was still an event; one we planned for and debated who got to select the title and then we all packed into that tiny room to watch it together.  

 

Story Slingers

Oct 29, 2022

Magic Childhood

By: Myrna Flynn

Summertime arrived with the long awaited trip to the Lesser Farm. A Few miles out of town, off the highway to the left, is a narrow, washboardy road that twists its way up the hillside. At the top is the rutted, dusty lane, filled with potholes that leads to the homestead.

The house sits on a grassy knoll. its weather-blackened boards bespeaking its age, like a grandmother welcoming her brood, beckoning the visitors from town.

Out in the farmyard, the grizzled old barn, covered with fading red paint, smelling, invitingly of warm milk and musty hay, promises hours of fun, behind its aging doors. On to this tranquil scene bursts shouting, laughing children, Lois, Cary and me. We charge down the slope and enter the barn. Scampering past the milking stalls and into the back, where we plow our way through the loosely piled hay catching a faint watermelony wife of new mown grass. We clamber up the ladder to the loft, grab a rope which is hanging from one of the massive beams and instantly we are transported into the steamy, sinister jungle of Tarzan. Suddenly the jungle becomes the Barnum and Baily Circus and we are on the flying trapeze above the three rings. The cheering crowd is amazed and awestruck by the daring feats of the seasoned performers, as we each take a take a turn soaring out over the center ring. Reality returns, as I swing out over the hay and let go of the rope plopping down on the hay. Lois grabs the rope next. Swinging out, she joins me in the scratchy, itchy cushion. looking up, we see Gary. With an impish smile on his face, but savoring the metallic taste of fear. He is clinging close to the top of the rope, lets go of it, does a summersault and flies down, landing almost on top of us.

The fantasy trip are over. the barn is once again a home for bovines. The loft a platform for holding bales of hay, odds and ends and discarded tools. The dangerous denizens of the jungle once again are cats, mice and cows; the admiring circus fans are only chickens scratching disinterestedly in their non-ending quest for food. The day is done. The farmyard is brightened by a glaze of beautiful sunset, marred only by the haze of dust being raised by the car in which my brother is taking us back home.

The magic place is forever etched in m y memory to be savored in the random moments from the child I was to the person I am now.

Story Slingers

prompt: memory inspired story

Nov. 2, 2022

Daren Flynn

SWITCHBACK

The road was short in distance but long on travel time. It was slow going because the road zig-zagged its way up the side of a mountain from the river to the rolling tableland above. The starting point of this unnamed road an unmarked turnoff from Clearcreek Road , which followed the Clearwater River, for a time, upstream from Kooskia. At some earlier time someone, for some reason, decided there should be a road that a person could drive on up the nearly vertical mountainside at that place. That person's wish was engineered into reality and anyone brave enough, who had sufficient reason to tackle the tortuous, snakes route, was free to do so. (Snakey is not really a proper description, but tortuous definitely fits.) The road turned back on itself, changing directions so abruptly and so many times, that it was impossible for a car to negotiate the direction reversals without stopping, backing up, and then going forwarding the opposite direction. And when backing while executing those direction changing maneuvers the driver had to be adept starting the car's forward motion on a steep uphill slant, as there was very little space between the car's rear wheels and the edge of the sheer drop.

In other words, that engineering marvel was a series of switchbacks and short straightaways with a vertical wall on one side of the car and drop off on the other until the next direction change, and then the opposite view was presented to the car's occupants. The view, if you were on the side of the car facing the wall was not so bad, but the opposite side presented a scary look almost straight down and could make it a little hard to breathe while your heart pounded so fast you might think it would explode. That is if you were a kid and you were not used to steep, narrow mountain roads. But to a seasoned adult driver like my dad, it was just a road like others he had driven when growing up in the country. 

After successfully passing the test of uncounted switchbacks a harried driver, not accustomed to back country mountain driving, would break over the bluff and see a rolling prairie with a much appreciated normal roadway.

That road, with its switchbacks, rolling prairie, and an almost highway, led among other places to a ranch house located on a knoll overlooking a barn and other outbuildings. It was the ranch operated by my grandpa and Uncle Charlie. The view in very direction was awesome and the hearty welcome we received was even better. I remember just one trip to that mountain ranch to visit my Dad's parents and brother, but I will never forget that zig-zag, switchback road. Another thing about that visit that will also remain in my memory forever is my first horseback ride. Grandpa had a paint horse called Chief. He took my brother, Lonny, and me to the barn, saddled the horse, then put me in the saddle and lifted Lonny up on behind me and told him to hold on to the saddle. He then led Chief up the hill to the house so mom and dad and everyone else could see us two young cow pokes. That was well and good until grandpa let go of the reins. Chief apparently thought that was the signal for him to go back to the barn. He took off on the run. I don't know if he was actually galloping or what, but that was a wild scary, bouncy ride. I managed to stay in the saddle by gripping the saddle horn with both hands and Lonny left deep fingerprints on the back of the saddle and stayed atop the loose racing equine. When grandpa and dad got to the barn they found us right where Grandpa had placed us, high on the back of the steed while Chief calmly munched hay from the feed trough.

We had many more visits grandma, grandpa and Uncle Charlie, but not at the ranch. They lived in a house in Kooskia for our other visits.

Grandma always prepared great meals which were another memorable highlight those visits. There was a garden out back and a chicken house. I remember helping grandma gather eggs which she would punch holes in at both ends and blow the yolk and egg whites into the frying pan so us kids could have the empty egg shells to play with and a good breakfast of bacon, eggs and biscuits.

A given at every visit was the music. Dad would play his fiddle, Uncle Charlie played his banjo. Sometimes grandma would play and autoharp while grandpa usually just listened, but sometimes played the spoons or even danced a jig. 

Some years later, when I was 16 years old and a newly licensed driver, I was allowed to drive a good portion of the trip to Kooskia. Dad had confidence in my driving but I'm not so sure about mom. A portion of the trip was along the Clearwater River. The road was kind of narrow, two way, and close to the river and in places where you thought guard rails were necessary there were none. During that part of the driveI think mom was pretty tense.We got to grandma and grandpa's okay and had another good visit. Luckily they were not at the ranch up the mountain and there was no zig-zag switchbacks for me to cope with.

I will forever remember that switchback road and looking down the mountain side of the car window and being a little afraid but, ad the same time, having confidence in dad and knowing he would not let us go crashing down to the bottom of the mountain.