117 Don’t Wash The Sheets; It’s Just For To-Night

The last trip back to Walla Walla from GMG Logging was one of the more memorable events during my days as a college student. We had left our car with my parents as my dad had said he would take it in for an engine overhaul in Campbell River, while we were away at camp. The extreme dusty condition of the logging roads during the previous summer in Idaho had ruined the engine causing it to blow out a quart of oil every hundred miles.

It was with a sense of relief that we took off in what we thought was a trouble free car and another year a Walla Walla. We were soon to awaken to the contrary as we had only been a little over an hour and were just approaching Marysville when the engine started missing so badly that I had to stop along the freeway. I was quite frustrated knowing I had just spent plenty of money for a supposedly trouble free car and now what. I lifted the hood but could see no lose wires, or anything that needed fixing, so I got in the car and luckily it started. The engine sputtered on in fits and starts until I finally pulled off at Marysville where we just managed to coast to a stop near an older looking motel.

It was now dark and I was not a happy camper as here I was with a wife and two little kids, a broken down car and maybe a place to sleep. The only thing left now was to hope that the man who owned the motel could put us up someplace for the night as his no vacancy light was turned on.

An older looking gentleman answered the ring and greeted me with a pleasant smile. When I asked about a room he confirmed that he was full, but when I explained that I was stuck in front of his motel with a broken down car and a wife and my two little kids his face softened and he said he could give us his bed as his wife was out of town and he could sleep on the couch. “Wonderful,” I just about shouted, that is until he stated, “I’m not much into making beds as my wife is the bed maker around here, and if you don’t mind using the same sheets that my wife and I have been using, the bed’s all yours.” In view of the fact that we were on a very limited budget we said yes and climbed into bed with our cloths on. We did take our shoes off however. I can’t really remember where the kids slept, but it was still better then a night with them in a car and I don’t remember them complaining.

If I remember correctly the kind-hearted gentleman gave us breakfast the next morning as well as recommending a shop that could fix the car, just up the road from where he lived.

A phone call for a tow-truck and a coupe hours in a shop and we were soon on our way to Walla Walla.

It seems that the incompetency of the shop that had fixed our car in Campbell River was beyond normal comprehension. They had not only installed a set of new points incorrectly, so that a wire came lose, but they had also hooked the car battery up backwards. Boy was I relieved that it was only a simple fix, but I sure wouldn’t recommend the shop that had done the engine overhaul.

Life has its ups and downs and I suppose we are better off in the long run if things don’t come too easy. We can be thankful however when someone comes along from time to time to ease some of the stress and I will always be glad for the fine old gentleman who gave us his own bed, dirty sheets and all.

116 Those Old Cherry Picking Days

Oh for those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer those days of soda and pretzels and beer, except that I am a teetotaler, but I will never forget those summer days up at Bill’s place and picking cherries in Bill’s cherry orchard. We never got a lot of cherries picked but they sure tasted good. I guess that answers a lot of questions, the important one being why so few cherries in the bucket and so little money, but you gotta love those cherries. I guess I should speak for my self, as I’m sure Sandy has a different story.

I never spent much time in Bill’s orchard with Sandy and the kids except on the weekends because of my work. Sandy and the kids however lived for July and cherry season so they could spend a few weeks in Bill’s orchard each year picking cherries and having a great time.

You might think that the greatest danger to cherry picking would be maybe falling out of the cherry tree and breaking an arm or a leg, but one day something far scarier came slithering into the cherry orchard and had everyone up a tree, cherry tree that is. It was a big old rattler, and if you weren’t already in a tree you sure headed for one. It wasn’t long however before Bill came over and dispatched it forthwith and things quieted down, but the tranquility of the orchard was never quite the same after that as everyone now had thoughts of a rattler behind every clump of grass.

Cherry picking was a lot of fun and a neat way to add some variety to the summer but it was also a great way to make a few extra dollars to supplement the family income. From the time the cherries were in season ending with tomatoes in the fall I would be hauling fruit down from Keremeos to sell out of our garage. By now the fun had somehow left and it was just plane work, but with three kids in private school and long trips to visit family, we had no trouble spending the extra money.

Those days are now gone but the memories of the times spent in Keremeos picking cherries in Bill’s orchard will always remain in our memory and are what give life it’s meaning and pleasure.

115 You Shake My House; I’ll Shake Yours

If you are a rocker, you need a guitar to “shake it and make it,” but if you are a roofer, you need a fro to “shake it and make it,” for the best roof bar none, was a cedar shake roof. Bill Mason and I were not rockers as neither of us could play the guitar, but we were soon to start shaking, as each of us was building a new house and we were aiming for a premium roof of cedar shakes.

When I told Bill Mason that I was making my own shakes and I knew where I could get number one premium cedar free, he was onside. I told him if he would supply the truck and the muscle I would supply the saw and the cedar, so off we went one weekend to the Upper Klanawa, in the Franklin River Division of MacMillan Bloedel.

After checking in with the head ranger at the camp we headed off up the Klanawa where we found two beautiful cedar logs in old slash, that you would die for, if you were a shaker that is. One was six feet in diameter and about thirty six feet long and the second one was four foot in diameter by about forty two feet long, together they filled Bill’s truck with premium cedar bolts, but I never worked so hard in my life cutting the logs into blocks with Bill splitting them into bolts and the both of us hauling them out to the road and onto the truck. We worked like dogs until dark, but went home feeling that we had really scored.

A few months later however we realized that we still needed another truckload as I had finished my house and it was obvious Bill’s house would have only half a roof. Now that might not be as bad as it sounds as he lived in Keremeos where it hardly ever rains, but the winters can be touch and go.

What better time to go after more shakes then on a Thanksgiving weekend in October with what looked like perfect weather. So off we went with both of our families for a camping weekend and a little shaking up the Klanawa.

There was a lovely Mac and Blo Campsite, south side of the Nitinat, where we planned to camp with our families over the Sabbath. The campsite was a pristine spot with a beautiful sand beach surrounded by giant Sitka Spruce trees. Some of these trees were gigantic as the campsite was in a west coast rainforest and moss was hanging from all the trees.

Saturday was a lovely day and it was incredible to just sit by the fire and enjoy the family. The Nitinat Lagoon was too cold to swim in but the lagoon was just an awesome place to hangout. After lunch we all decided to take a walk down the south side of the lagoon. After walking for about a quarter mile we reached the Caycuse River, which enters the Nitinat. Here we had to turn back as the river was too large to cross. I still remember the grove of beautiful moss covered, giant spruce trees growing where the Caycuse dumped into the lagoon.

The whole area was very awe-inspiring but I am ashamed to say what really turned me on was what I saw in a small rocky nook. The winter storms had packed the rocky nook solid with cedar logs of all shapes and sizes. This really made my day, as I knew our search for cedar was over.

Bright and early Sunday morning we took off with Bill’s truck to our cache of what turned out to be prime cedar. What complicated things a bit were that winter storms had beached a number of giant full-length spruce trees and with their root as anchors their tops reached the shore. There were several of these but only one presented a real problem as it reached way out into the lagoon. Going was easy as Bill could drive way out into the lagoon and around the root as the tide was out, but coming back was a different story.

The cedar was better even then we had expected and we were able to back the truck right up to where we were cutting, which made the truck easy to load. I was thinking this was a cakewalk until I noticed that the sunny weather of the day before seemed to have vanished during our busy day and it now looked seriously like rain. More about that later.

Well, the truck was loaded, but the challenge now, how to get the heavily loaded truck back to our campsite. The tide had surreptitiously come in during our endeavor and there were now two feet of salt water and a very soft beach to drive on if we ever wanted to get past the largest of the grounded spruce. I said to Bill, “Either we chance it now, or we unload and reload the truck to make it lighter.” Bill only said, “Just watch me.” And with that he got in his truck and put the pedal to the metal and went roaring around the huge Sitka Spruce root with the water flying everywhere. Even with the pedal to the floor I thought Bill had met his match and the sea would win, but no, the truck suddenly picked up speed, sending water everywhere as it literally flew around the old Sitka Spruce root and onto dry ground.

Boy did I ever breathe a sigh of relief, for a moment I had visions of having to leave the truck over night, stuck up to its axels in the mud, and with the job of having to unload and reload it. What a nightmare, that would have been, and to think that Bill could have also lost his truck to the sea.

We made it into camp just as the sun was setting and what had been a light rain was now a steady west coast drizzle. The best thing to do now was to hunker down around a campfire and be glad we were not unloading a stuck in the mud truck. I can still remember sitting around the roaring campfire in the pouring rain under a huge sheet of plastic that we had tied up over the whole camping area. This seemed to work after a fashion but the trick was to not get drowned, because the plastic over the campsite dumped its load of water from time to time and if you were in the wrong place you would get soaked.

I would not criticize anyone if they complained about sitting around a Bob Betts fire under a plastic tarp in the pouring rain. But as I was enjoying my steaming bowl of hot soup with a thick slice of buttered bread in the dark with family and friends I realized how fortunate I was.

The rest of the weekend was so anticlimactic that I have remembered little, except to say, that our tents for the most part, kept the rain out, the cedar was just enough to finish Bill’s house, and we made it home the following day without any mishap.

The splitting of the last load of shakes had been done in unseasonable weather and the sooner we got going on Bill’s roof the better. So off to Keremeos I went on a fine Remembrance Day weekend with Sandy and all the kids for a fun week on Bill’s roof.

Bill had recently purchased a ten-acre fruit orchard, which was home to an old picker’s shack and a mother skunk with her family of little skunks and maybe the odd rattler.

I still remember trying to get some sleep after we stretched our sleeping bags out over the mother skunk’s den, and that of her family of skunklets who lived directly under the shack’s floor. It was really hard to get past the pungent smell of skunk as it wafted up through the holes in the wooden floorboards. It took Bill some time but he was finally able to evict the basement dwellers and the smell over time slowly receded into a distant memory.

As it was November the winter weather was hard upon us but we were fortunate that only the upper mountains about the valley got a dusting of white, as the weather held.

We awoke bright and early Sunday morning and I still remember how everyone got into the spirit of the project. I can still see my wife Sandy, with Bill’s wife June, hard at it on the roof, while the kids pitched in wherever we asked them too. It really felt good when the last nail got hammered in well before the Sun went down on Friday and we could now sit back and watch it rain or snow, we didn’t care, because it now didn’t made the slightest difference, what a nice feeling when you come out on top.

The bonds that form when done with a common purpose are those that last a lifetime. To this day Sandy and I include Bill and his family with our closest friends, more akin to family. Even with the passing of time, Bill remains a true friend, perhaps more like a brother.

114 What About Pringle?

The seasons come and the seasons go and whether we realize it or not most joy in life is ultimately associated with the pleasures we receive from their comings and goings. The seasons give us a grand occasion or excuse if you like, for getting together with family and friends. Some of my loveliest memories come from the festivities during these times.

Going to Camp Pringle was one of these times and over the years it was looked forward too with much anticipation, especially during the Christmas season. Seventy or more of us would show up at the camp each year to celebrate Christmas and the joy of the season.

People would start rolling in around 4 o’clock Friday afternoon with their compliment for what was to be a big banquet Saturday evening. But for now it was the soups that reined supreme as people began to arrive for the big Friday evening soup bash.

What an amazing meal if you were a lover of soup, as there would be an incredible smorgasbord of soups to sample. My challenge was to try as many as I possible could. There would be plain vegetable soup, then divine split pea soup, beautiful corn chowder soup, amazing bean soup, and an incomprehensible mixed bean soup, incredible squash soup, lovely lentil soup, stupendous cream of broccoli, charming tomato, glorious borsch, and I’ve probably forgotten a few.

And of course all the glorious and lovely breads you could think of to eat. Who eats soup without the luxury of a beautiful loaf of bread?

For dessert there were the pies, and oh the pies. There was raisin pie, apple pie, lemon pie, berry pie, bumble berry pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, and maybe even delectable banana cream, and a plate or two of delightful coconut cream. What a glorious pie fest.

After eating all the soup we could hold and the assigned clean up crew had finished the dishes off we went to the great room to sit in front of a large stone fireplace with a great roaring fire to sing songs until Joyce Schafer pulled out her storybook of sob stories and started the tears flowing. Of course all the stories had a moral and we would each go to our beds after a prayer, with very noble thoughts.

I especially remember the early years when after the fire burned down we would all spread our sleeping bags out on mattresses on the great room floor in front of the fire place and hopefully be the first one to drift off to asleep, so you would not be kept awake by the snoring that would soon erupt.

Saturday was the big day that everyone looked forward too, and the meal that was to follow later on. As this was a church function the morning right after breakfast would find us singing around the great fire, followed by someone leading out in a lively study of the scripture with most everyone taking part.

After closing the discussion with a prayer we would head into the dinning room for a light lunch, which was an incredible fruit salad that would tantalize your taste buds when eaten with the many fruit breads, in anticipation of the banquet later that evening.

Many chose to take a brisk hike to the old Kinsol Trestle in the hope of getting some exercise and an appetite worthy of the gustatory delight that was soon to happen. For those of us with out the energy to tackle such an endeavor, napping was in order but that meant taking a big risk because woe to the person without an appetite at dinner time. There were however, quite a few that were willing to chance it, due to either a lack of interest or maybe just plain laziness.

The ringing of the dinner bell and the rush that followed was worthy of what awaited everyone in the dinning room. One look at the tables was enough to satisfy anyone, even someone without so much as the faintest desire to eat.

What you do not know is that the meal I am going to describe is a vegetarian banquet. Could anything vegetarian taste good you might ask? Well if you have never eaten at an Adventist Vegetarian banquet you have not really eaten vegetarian. Most restaurants don’t know even what vegetarian means so unless one has eaten Adventist vegetarian cuisine keep an open mind. And phone an Adventist for an invite or come to Rest Haven SDA Church some Saturday, first Sabbath of the month and enjoy a feast of vegetarian cuisine that will amaze you.

Check this little known fact out and it might surprise you, it did me.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0511/sights_n_sounds/index.html

Sorry I got sidetracked; lets get back to the dinner. There were the vegetarian steaks, and the lovely baked potatoes with the beautiful gravy. If you didn’t like the gravy you could add butter and salt, or sour cream and salt, or onions and baco-chips. Then of course there were the beautiful plates of raw vegetables with all manner of fresh raw veggies and the many dips, not to mention the lovely garlic bread and the many fruit breads and muffins left over from lunch. And to liven up the dinner there were the pickles and the olives and the cranberry sauce. And let’s not forget the punch that even the children could drink.

The last thing to mention was the desert table, which I must say was well worth the wait as there was much more then necessary to satisfy even the sweetest of tooth’s. And of course, if your tooth was not so sweet, there were real mandarin oranges, not from China.

After the dinner and things were cleared away there was an evening of games such as Pit, Dominos, Scrabble, Boggle, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit and would you believe it everyone just loved musical chairs.

I guess the biggest thing that people loved about it all was the social interaction. The kids just loved to sit in groups and rap until late in the evening. Everyone had fun and wanted to be there.

Sunday was ladies day and their chance to sleep late, as the men prepared a special breakfast with Dan Rippin in charge of the kitchen crew. This was an opportunity for the guys to impress the ladies with their culinary skills. Dan’s crew was a diverse lot but they all went to work with a will. Dan R would be on the pancakes, with Dan J taking care of the mounds of hash browns. Peter would be on the toast, while Leon was closely watching the fake sausages and bacon. Dan R also kept an eye on the potato skins, as they were his personal delight. And for beautiful scrambled eggs nobody does it better then Ed.

Just an aside for those that love sausages, the fake sausages, and fake bacon, require persistence and shear willpower, if you were willing to actually eat one.

You should have heard the squeals of delight as the ladies come charging in to devour what was created just for them. If you add real maple syrup and butter for the pancakes most people are willing to over look the fake bacon and sausages, providing you have not screwed up on the scrambled eggs.

Well, that was the weekend in a nutshell, the only thing left was the cleanup and with everyone pitching in, it was soon taken care of and off we drove with thoughts of next year and the fun we would have.