57 Laurelwood or Bust

Boarding school was not the kind of place that it implies. Most kids I know had a good time at boarding school. Some may have balked at attending in the first place, but it would be the exception for them not to continue the following year. The friends made at boarding school stay with you for life.

With that said there is no one that I know that did not look forward to “six-week leave.” As I lived to far from Laurelwood to go home, it was nice to catch the school bus into Portland to do some shopping when it dropped the kids off.

This particular leave I rode the school bus in to Portland, just to look around, and do some shopping with my roommate Don Ringering. It was a Thursday and we poked around Portland for a few hours, and as it was starting to get dark decided to head back to the school.


Laurelwood was out in the country and I mean county. There in fact was no single road to Laurelwood. You could as it were take up to a half dozen or more routes to get there and each of these had at least six road changes.

So here we were on the Sunset Highway waiting to get a ride on the Beaverton Tigard Freeway, which would take us to Farmington Road, which would take us to the Hillsboro Highway for one mile, where we would catch Bald Peak Road, which would take us to Laurelwood Road and to Laurelwood Academy.


After waiting and waiting what seemed forever, we at last caught a ride in a cool looking Plymouth Golden Hawk. This was a hot looking car back in the fifties. A friendly looking guy sat behind the wheel, with a big smile on his face and asked us if we would like to hop in. We didn’t waste any time escaping the inclement night and with the vague hope that he might at least take us to the next road. He was probably in his thirties and it seemed to our amazement quite happy to take us all of the way to Laurelwood. This surprised me as it was quite out of his way. During our ride however, he told us that he worked for some agency that dealt with troubled youth. I realized then that his passion for youth might be the reason for his kindness.


We had a good visit during our ride to Laurelwood, and the ride ended far to soon as I thought the Golden Hawk was a pretty neat car. I noticed later that he came by the school from time to time to visit our English teacher Miss Burton, so there was more to this random encounter and his seeming kindness then met my eyes.

56 Uncle Gig and My Cousins

Being born with a lot of Uncles and Aunts was one of the blessings of having a mother with a lot of siblings.  I always considered Aunt Florence my favorite aunt, but Uncle Gaylord, or Gig, as us kids knew him, was by far my number one uncle.   I remember visiting Uncle Gig and Aunt Laura every time we went south for a summer holiday.  He liked us kids and used to goof off telling goofy jokes and saying and doing funny things to make us laugh.

My oldest memories go back to when he and my Aunt Laura lived in Vancouver.  But before that my Uncle canvassed door-to-door selling religious books off and on for most of his life.  He could sell a book to anyone, and he loved doing it.  Even though he did other things for a living from time to time his love for selling seemed to be his main passion until he passed away in his late eighties.  He could sell the proverbial refrigerator to an Eskimo.  As a matter of fact he used to load his car with books and drive to Alaska, not coming back until he had sold them all, and some I suppose to the odd Eskimo.

He had a strong faith in God and believed that everything that happened was directly the will of God.  Several times he stayed with my wife Sandy and I in the little town of Sidney and went door to door for a month or so at a time.  I remember on one occasion when he missed the ferry because he couldn’t find his keys, but without any hesitation he said it was because God did not want him to catch that ferry.  In the meantime he continued looking and sure enough found his keys in time to leave on the next ferry.

My Uncle had a wonderful and realistic way of looking at life.  One day when we were talking about cars he told me the following story.  He said, “Bob, you know how a person hates to get that first scratch on a new car.  Well I was visiting someone when just as I was about to leave I noticed this little rascal walking all the way round my brand new car with a nail in his hand.”  And I asked him, “What did you do?” And he said, “Well after that, I give every new car a good scratch as soon as I drive it home from the dealer, and then I can relax.”

His acceptance of life was amazing.  Back in the thirties and forties when canvassing, you would be invited to stay at the last house of the day, and of course given supper.  My Uncle was very strict about his diet but he never presumed on his host and ate whatever they set before him.  While staying at our house he would eat anything that Sandy fixed, and never a word of complaint.  Sandy could burn the entree and he would eat it as if it was a gourmet dish.  I remember when a Chinese friend of ours brought over a special Chinese New Year’s delicacy that even Sandy wouldn’t eat.   My Uncle and I ate the whole thing.

One summer my folks dropped my sister Dawna and I off at my Aunt and Uncles to make a few bucks picking berries with my cousins, in the many fruit farms around Laurelwood Academy.  How I hated that summer.  I learned that I was not a good berry picker.  If my life depended upon it I would have starved to death.  Picking strawberries was the worst job I ever had, it just about killed my back.  I could hardly stand up, after even a few hours.

Of my Uncle’ four pretty girls I only got to know Joyce, Gaylene and Barbara.  Betty Lou was quite young and Richard was even younger.  I never really new Richard until recently as an adult and it really wasn’t until he took Sandy and I out for a beautiful brunch in Sequim.

I can’t say that I disliked my Aunt Laura but she always meant business and probably was the reason my Uncle kept his feet on the ground.  She was very organized and made us kids toe the line.

When we came to visit we were only there a few minutes when invariably we would be given a task to do.  So it was always best to stay out of the way and be inconspicuous.

One time when we were all quite small my mom and dad were taking Gaylene and Joyce with us after dark.  After riding a while Gaylene said she had to pee.  That was not good.  If you had to take a pee it was not when my dad was driving.  He may or may not stop.  Well this time he finally did, but after much pleading on Gaylene’s part.  We were out in the country some place in Oregon and it was a pitch-black night.  Gaylene hurriedly got out. All is quiet; suddenly there is a squalling like you have never heard before, and then it fades quickly into silence.  Dad got out with a flashlight and with a little searching found Gaylene who had fallen down a steep bank with her pants still around her ankles.  I don’t need to say that she wasn’t “a happy camper.” 

55 Slow Down, You Might Get Run Over

Working at the Door Factory at Laurelwood was hazardous in more ways them one.  The factory had many powerful wood shaping machines and trim saws for shaping the doors.  There was also the lacquering of the panels, which means that fume hoods and various masks with filters had to be used.  If you were not careful you could easily lose a finger or even worse your hand.  Such as the time that Donna Morrison lost part of her finger in a saw.

The closest I ever came to getting hurt was the time I shorted out the glue machine, which really shook me up, but it was no match compared to the first year that I worked the evening shift in the Door Factory.

Don Ringering and I had just gotten off shift at nine o’clock and were leaving the factory having just punched out.  The shortest way up to the Boy’s Dorm was via the loading bay and by a Semi that was parked there with the trailer sticking out to the very edge of the roadway.  The road came very close to the factory as it ran through the Campus.

We both took off running as fast as we could, to see who could be the first one to the dorm.  Don got a head start and off he went past the Semi, across the road, and on up the hill to the dorm, with me not twenty feet behind, running flat out.  The night was pitch black and as I crossed the road, I suddenly smacked into something that stopped me dead in my tracks, and not figuratively.

I realized moments later that I had actually run into the side of a car that was driving by.  I was extremely lucky to only get my arms and hands bruised and fortunate that my leading leg was not broken as the car left quite a lump on my shinbone, which caused me to limp for a few days afterwards.  Don and I could just as easily been hit square on, instead of just getting missed.

A few weeks later I was talking to a friend that I knew at Laurelwood, and after comparing notes she believed it was she who I had run into.  At the time she felt something hit her car, but saw nothing, so went on.  All I can say again is that it must have been an angel.

54 A Hitchhikers Guide for the Brave

Dorm life when you are only eighteen can be a challenge but if your roommate is easy going like Don Ringering was you become good friends.  This was during my second year at Laurelwood so I was very pleased when he invited me to go home and celebrate Thanksgiving with him. His folks lived in the small town of Madras in eastern Oregon where it hardly ever rains and I believe his mom taught grade school.

Don’s folks like mine, did not have much money so to stretch his resources even further we hitchhiked to his home.  We had it easy getting into Portland as the school always took a bus loaded with students into the downtown so the students could make various connections, usually a bus.  Back then it was unusual if anyone flew because of the cost involved.

Our challenge now on this very cold day with a freezing November wind in our face was to see if anyone was traveling to Madras.  Getting out of Portland was not the challenge but trying to catch a ride once we were on highway 26 heading toward Wapinitia Pass, was a different story as car after car went whizzing by and I new we were in for a rough night.  What made things worse I did not have a very heavy jacket and the wind felt like ice.

The spot we were keeping warm on highway 26 was making me uncomfortable and I was getting quite anxious for a ride as we had more then a hundred miles to go and car after car kept roaring by without even slowing down to look.

About this time however an old Chevy panel truck screeched to a halt and Don immediately started to climb in.  One look inside the car and I immediately decided this was not for me, and my concern bordered on terror as I realized Don was serious about catching a ride with them.  Not wanting to be left behind, I reluctantly climbed in and sat beside him on a suitcase in the back, all hunched down.

As with most panel trucks made by GM, this one had only two bucket seats.   In the back were several suitcases including our own and not much else.  What made this scary was that the three men, who picked us up, sat in the two bucket seats.  George the guy in the middle really sat on a wadded-up coat jammed between the seats, in a semiconscious state.  Bill the driver was very friendly and after introducing himself and his two friends assured us that he had not tasted a drop of whiskey that day.  Tom the guy on the right was the most talkative and every fifteen minutes or so would offer us whisky to drink.  When we would refuse he would say, “God bless you my son, never take a drink I am so proud of you.” And this he did repeatedly for the duration of our ride.

As George was too drunk to hold the bottle himself, Tom kept pouring whisky into his sagging mouth until he was totally passed out.

And Bill repeatedly assured us that he had not been drinking as he was the driver and a driver should never drive while drinking.  But as he was traveling the speed limit and didn’t seem to weave too much I felt we might still escape this adventure alive.

This was soon to change however as Bill finally caught up to a large Semi that was struggling to make the summit at Wapinitia Pass.  I could see that Bill was beginning to get a little antsy and I knew at any minute he would pull out to pass.  My worst fears were realized when he finally pulled out in a vain attempt to pass the Semi but he could no more then just keep pace with it.  After what seemed like eternity, he finally made it half way up the length of what seemed to be the longest trailer that I had ever seen, when suddenly a big Semi shot around the corner coming straight at us.  My heart was in my mouth, my knuckles were white and my breath completely stopped, but Bill was still holding to his course, the eternal optimist, with more faith then a saint, believed that he could still make it.  The diminishing distance between the approaching truck and us was a thing of terror.  I had at this point resigned my self to our impending doom, when Bill suddenly realized that his love for booze was worth staying alive for, dogged the brakes just in time to duck behind the Semi, and escape sudden destruction, as the Semi went roaring by.

What happened after that was so anticlimactic that I really don’t remember too much of the weekend.  In Don’s home church there was a preacher putting on a revival, which leads me to believe that God is never to far from any of us, especially in times of potential calamity and He enjoys the many opportunities to intervene in our lives.