Do you remember lying in the grass in your yard or in the meadow watching the clouds go by? Idaho sky is the brightest of blue in summer. I lived on a mountain top close to the clouds. The hay smelled so sweet, the vetch and elderberries are always in bloom in my memory!
The cotton ball clouds would float by, my imagination would give them shapes. Sometimes they would be castles high in the air..sometimes trees or animals.
In those high meadows I could be anything I wanted to be. I could out run "Superman!" I could out hide "The Shadow!" Even as a girl I could out shoot "Marshal Dillon!.." I had no "yen" to be the lovely "Miss Kitty!"
She worked in a bar, even though the good marshal cared for her and she was respected through out the town, she was still a "dance Hall girl!" As such she was not "Quality!"...He might have parked his horse out front all night.....and rented a room, but Ole' Mat Never married "Miss Kitty!"
Most of the Good ole' Radio Characters were MEN! No one wanted to emulate "Lois Lane" she was to stupid to stay out of trouble and to near sighted to see who it was hiding behind that pair of glasses!....
"Our Miss Brookes," Never got a date...Who was a girl to look up to? Even "Blondie" was married to a lazy bum who wouldn't get out of bed in the morning!
All in all, it is no wonder our generation became very independent....they went from those role Models to "Rosie the Riveter" who worked to support all the men at war. Our Mothers learned that trousers were comfortable....and they could do more than the laundry! They learned to be partners with their men instead of dependant..A lot of men resented it completely! A lot of men embraced it! Unfortunately my Father was NOT one of those!
Dad was a man who believed the best way to keep a wife was"barefoot and pregnant!" When he found he had a very independent daughter who wanted to do everything the boys could do....and DID! I don't know what he thought!
Be aware I never owned a pink ribbon for my hair. I never knew what a pair of "Mary Janes" were! I only got "hand me downs" from my BROTHER; I had no sisters!!!
I probably NEVER owned more than three dresses in my child hood! My socks were always half up and half down and I always had a scab or two on my knees! I could fist fight, ride a horse, and never owned a girls bike till I was 10...I abandoned it for a motor bike as soon as I got a license at 12!
Dad taught me to run a big cat.He taught me how Operate farm equipment with the boys. Mom taught me to crochet and sew and Grandma taught me to pray!
I taught myself to read. Without books I would have been lost in the world of "Spin and Marty!" And "Howdy Doody!" There was no place for me. I was to young for "The Nelson Family!" and to prudish for Elvis!
By the time I was a teen I lived with a transistor radio in my hand! It went with me where ever I went...I was unhappy as I could be, because I couldn't hear it over the roar of my trail bike!
If you have never rode a motor bike full bore into the south end of a bumble bee who was going north! You have Never had a face big as a basketball from his sting....A fat lip that would put a Ubangi to shame! You just haven't lived!
My older brothers were 12 and 13....one had a day light only license and one could drive at night. The two of them earned and bought a flat bed truck by logging in the woods around our hills. They did their own mechanic work, cut the short logs, hand loaded them and drove them to the mill! (Can you imagine your 12 or 13 year old doing this?)
When Dad signed for the ole' lumber truck he did two things....He enabled the boys to get their logs to the mill, and he created the scourge of our hill! As mechanics they were no great shakes! The road was narrow, curvy and gravel! They were young and used both sides to keep that old truck loaded and on all fours! To be going up that road when they were coming down was to take your life into your hands! Sometimes that truck had brakes....Other times they just brought her off the mountain in low gear on compression....It had some REAL grades too! I think that was about the time Grandma started teaching me how to pray!
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