Clearwater River Fears

It is interesting as I read over my siblings writings about the Clearwater River here and here, and read about the fears of the Clearwater River, mostly passed on by our mother.

Mom's fears must have been all absorbed by Raymond Pert and Inland Empire Girl before I came along, because I have no memory of Mom being so afraid of the river.

In fact, I never remember being at the river with my mom.

Many of my sibling's memories of the river were at Beaver Dam. This was before my time. This was before Dworshak Dam and the reservoir became a reality. And because of that reality, Beaver Dam was covered up.

My memories of the Clearwater River all happened at Zann's Beach.

And I only remember being at the river with my dad. And I remember being amazed Dad could swim across the river and back, because I had never seen him swim at home, even when we would visit friend's river places up the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River.

I did have a fear of the river one summer, though. It was the summer of 1975. I would have been 12-years-old. That summer I had gone to The Rena Theater, and watched a movie called "Jaws".

That summer when we went to Zann's Beach with my family, I refused to go out into the water very deep, because I was convinced a great white shark would come and attack me.

Seriously!

Thank goodness, 35 years later, my fears of sharks in the water are gone. I was able to go to Zann's beach with my own daughters and husband and niece, and enjoy the water, and remember the white sand on the beach that was hard to get off, the volcanic rocks on the beach, and the memories of times gone by.

Here are some pictures of our family at Zann's Beach a few weeks ago when our family attended the "Last Cousin Standing Hootenanny" family reunion in Orofino, Idaho.

Our niece and three daughters...the bathing beauties in the Clearwater River.
Peaches swimming in the Clearwater River.

PKR, my own muscle man on the beach.
More beauties on the beach.
PKR with Juliet.
Sadie sunning herself on the beach.

Life Continues, Despite the Drought

Despite the drought in my blog writing, life continues.

March has brought with it many pleasant surprises, much spiritual growth, and beautiful spring weather.

I survived my big project at work, Career Day last week.  I believe it went really well, and it was nice to read the comment of one of the students who said listening to one of the speakers made her really think about going to college.  To me, that is what Career Day is all about.
 
We have started a home group at our house on Sunday evenings through our church, Mountain Valley Congregation Church, and it has been such a blessing.  We are doing Rick Warren's "Forty Days of Community" which challenges us to share and pray with one another, encourage and serve one another at church, and do a project in the community.  We have the wonderful opportunity to help a woman who runs a local daycare fix up her yard, a task she is unable to do.  We are also going to relieve the workers at another church in the valley who do a soup kitchen once a week.

I have found I have needed this group to help me focus on the needs of others.  I tend to isolate myself, and focus on my own needs so much, that I don't look at the world around me and what God wants me to do for others in my community.  This group is helping me do that, and I am so thankful that my focus is changing.

 I had a wonderful weekend.  Friday night Paul and I entertained at a dinner at the Shoshone Golf Course, and had a wonderful time.  Then I got up early Saturday morning, picked up my mom and drove to Lewiston for Kiki Aru's basketball tournament.  My cousin LM picked Mom up in Lewiston and drove her to Orofino to spend the night with her sister.

On Sunday, Kiki Aru and I drove to Orofino and had a wonderful lunch at my cousin's house, and then headed back to Kellogg.  After a little detour that wasn't planned, we made it home.  I think the detour was planned by my Grandma West (who has been deceased almost 20 years), because the road we traveled on took us to the place where she was born.  We traveled along Cedar Creek Ridge Road, and ended up at Gold Hill.  Very interesting, because we had just been talking about this area at lunch with my cousin.

This summer all the Orofino family is planning a reunion, and hopefully we will take a road trip to Grandma's birthplace, as well as "The Ranch" where Mom lived until she moved into Orofino.

Z2 went to the District Speech Competition this weekend, participating in Duo Interpretation.  Her and her friend RC got third place, and will be going to State Competition in Pocatello next month.  I am so proud of her!!  PKR had six of his students qualify for state, which he is very excited about.

Spring break starts at the end of the week.  I hope to get a lot of organizing done and possibly even a garage sale at the end of the week.  That would be a big accomplishment!!

I hope to use spring break to get caught up on my sibling assignments.  I think I am behind by about a month and a half.

Hope to write again sooner, rather than later.

Going To Grandma's House Each Summer

Going to Grandma West's house was an annual pilgrimage in our family when I was growing up.  Our summer vacation was spending a week in Orofino, Idaho, usually in August.

Here is another sibling assignment I missed:

Write about specific things you remember about being at Grandma West's house during the summer.

So many memories flood back to me when I think of being in Orofino during the summers.

Sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste.

Sight:
 I have a very early memory (probably two or three years old) of driving up to the Dworshak Dam site, and looking at a display that told about what the dam would look like, and that the place where the display was would be under water once the dam was built.  Here is a little information on the dam.  Once it was completed, it was always nice getting that view of the dam as you drove into town, because you knew you were almost to Grandma's house.

Hearing:
Another very early memory was going next door to Grandma's house with my sister IEG and visiting the girl who lived next door, who was close to Christy's age.  I remember going upstairs to MS's bedroom, and she was listening to music, and the song was "Sealed With A Kiss".  Another cool thing about their house was the huge curved wooden banister that was on the stairs as you went upstairs in their house.

Touch:
I remember catching a blonde colored fuzzy caterpillar in Grandma's backyard one summer, and putting it in a jar, so we could watch it make a cocoon, and become a butterfly.  The cocoon was very unique, almost furry, not like the normal ones that would hang on our house in the summer.  It never did emerge from the cocoon. But I still remember catching that unique looking caterpiller.

Another touch I experiences was when an insect flew in my ear on summer when I was standing on the front porch of Grandma's house.  If my memory serves me correctly, it was a mayfly.  It flew in my ear, and started flying down my ear canal.  I was taken to the emergency room, and the doctor used a syringe filled with water to flush the insect out of my ear.  It was not a very pleasant experience.

Smell:
I remember the smells of Grandma's garden.  The soil in her garden was very dark, and I believe it was full of volcanic material, which made it a very rich soil.  Everytime I smell tomato plants I think of Grandma's garden.  It was always nice to watch Grandma in her garden, and take in the smells of, not only the vegetables but all her beautiful flowers as well.

Taste:
Orofino in the summer had the taste of corn on the cob, Swiss Steak, cucumbers in cream, and fresh picked tomatoes.  It was wonderful.

One of my favorite things to do in the summer was go to Zan's Beach and swim in the Clearwater River.  I do remember the summer after I saw "Jaws", I was terrified to go into the river, because I didn't want a shark to come and get me!!  Zan's Beach had beautiful white sand, and lots of volcano rocks scattered on the beach.

This summer we are planning a reunion in Orofino with all my the cousins on my Mom's side of the family.  It will be a wonderful time of reconnecting, sharing stories, and hopefully eating some of those wonderful meals we experienced as children.  All of us are anticipating a very good weekend.

I Remember Grandma West

I remember her sitting by the window in her rocking chair with the fan swaying to and fro

I remember her quietly greeting our family as we arrive for another summer vacation in August
I remember her asking how we were doing, and not knowing any other way to answer , I would say “fine”

I remember smelling the dark, rich earth of her garden that she planted faithfully each spring and I would see the results each August

I remember enjoying the bounty of that garden, including green beans, tomatoes and corn on the cob

I remember showering off in her bathroom after spending a day at the Clearwater River

I remember getting to play the piano that was in her living room in the mornings when she was outside working in her garden

I remember attending her 80th birthday when I was 12, and thinking she had lived a long, wonderful life. Who knew she had almost 17 more years to go.

I remember never hearing her raise her voice, or say a swear word.

I remember knowing she was a “no smoking” zone for her children and grandchildren

I remember she was a lady of high standards and principles

I remember I always knew she prayed for me

I remember that other people spoke fondly of my grandmother, just like people do my own mother

I remember thinking she was strong and courageous to have raised her family all by herself

I remember she was kind

I remember she was gentle

I remember she had a good sense of humor

I remember being with Mom and my new baby Molly when we got the phone call that Grandma West had died. It was the same weekend as Molly’s baby dedication. I think having her baby granddaughter there helped Mom through her initial grieving process.

I remember being sad that I couldn’t attend her funeral.

I miss her. I often wish I wasn’t so young when we went to Orofino, so I could have known her better.

But her memory lives on in her children and grandchildren through their baking, sewing, crafting, gardening, praying and their kindness to others.

Nona Walker West
Born December 27, 1894
Died November 24, 1990

Her final gift she left us was her gift of longevity. She was about one month shy of turning 97 years old when she died.

She lived a long, wonderful life.

I just wish I could have shared more of it with her.

Chopsticks, Flying Bugs and Maggots…Remembering Summers in Orofino

This week’s sibling writing assignment, given to Inland Empire Girl and myself by our brother Raymond Pert has us using the phrase Orofino in August three times.

From the time I was a baby, until I was in high school, we would take a family vacation to the same place…Orofino, Idaho.

My mom grew up in Orofino, and she is darn proud of it, too. I love hearing her stories of her early years on “the ranch” along the Clearwater River, then, when they moved into town after her father left their family, and Grandma West was a single mother, faced with raising three children on her own.

Each summer we would return to Grandma’s house on Michigan Ave. and spend the week. Each summer we usually were in Orofino in August, the first week of August…probably the hottest week of the year.

With that many summers, there are bound to be some memories.

As I have been writing about family memories, I realize I remember a lot of things about growing up through my senses. Orofino memories are no different. I experienced many things through my senses.

The feel of the hot sand at Zan’s Beach along the Clearwater River where we often went to swim on those hot days in August in Orofino. Most summers we got to spend at least one day at the beach. I do remember one summer, in the mid 70’s, when I went to the beach but wouldn’t venture out into the water, because I swore “Jaws” lived in the Clearwater River that summer.

One summer stands out as the one and only time I ever had to go to the emergency room. It was evening, and I was standing on my grandma’s front porch waiting for someone or something, I can’t remember. All of a sudden I had a strange sensation in my ear. A bug had flown into my ear, and I could feel the wings flapping inside my ear. My mom and Auntie Ronnie drove me to the hospital and I remember the doctor used a syringe of water to remove the bug, which was a mayfly I believe. The feel of the flapping and buzzing of the insects wings, followed by the swooshing of the water being forced into my ear. I’ll never forget that feeling.

My Aunt and Uncle were the owners of “West’s Gun and Tackle Shop” a local sporting goods store in Orofino. If you drove into town you couldn’t miss it. With the building of the Dworshak Dam, fishing really took off in the area. One summer I got to work down at this store. One of my duties that I took very seriously was showing customers their fishing bait. If they wanted to buy worms, you needed to take them out of the refrigerator and pour them in the sawed off gallon bleach bottle so the customer could see they were alive and squirming around.

They also sold another kind of bait at my aunt and uncle’s shop…maggots. Yes, I also had to open up the container of maggots to show the potential customers that the maggots were a viable means to catch a fish. I think that is when I found out some guys like to take the maggots and put them in their lower lip to warm them up and get them wiggling so the fish like the better. Ugh!

One of the highlights of spending at week at Grandma’s house was her piano. (No, it wasn't really Grandma’s piano, as my mother explained every summer. It was Mom’s piano, but we didn’t have enough room for it at our house, so Grandma was just keeping it for her.) I would spend hours sitting at the piano, learning to play the right hand of chopsticks, then another summer mastering the left hand and being able to play both parts together. I figured out the mod version of “The Lord’s Prayer” that some nun had recorded it in the early to mid 70’s. (Anyone remember her name?) I played “Heart and Soul”, “Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater” and various other tunes that don’t have names. Every summer I wished we could take the piano back home with us so I could learn. Well, 30 some years later it happened. I finally ended up with the piano in my own home.

Orofino was a logging town, and a family by the name of Konkol began a lumber mill in what is now referred to at “Konkolville”. One cool thing about driving up to Konkolville on one of the Hot August Evenings in Orofino was seeing the lighted up fountain on the front lawn of the Konkol house. Sadly, the fountain is now gone.

As my memory takes me back to those hot August summers in Orofino, I see Dworshak Dam towering in the distance, a sure sign we were almost to Grandma’s house.

I hear the whir of the fan in Grandma’s living room keeping things cool in the middle of the day.

I taste the cucumbers covered in real cream served at the back table at Grandma’s house.

I touch the dark, fertile soil in Grandma’s garden.

And I smell the forest fires in the air that were a common occurrence each summer as we traveled to Orofino in August for our family vacation.