Priscilla's visit

Priscilla was just back East to visit with me.  Amazing after all these years and we still look exactly the same!!!

Priscilla, The Barn, & and Our Homes

Priscilla was my partner-in-crime growing up. We did a lot of things together and did a lot of doing nothing together too. We were friends before we went to first grade (none of those high falutin’ kindergartens or nursery schools in Jerome). We’re still friends today, though she’s in L.A. where she went to get into the movies--but that is another story.

Priscilla lived across the road from us…the road being Route 601. No street name for us, as a paved state or county road ran through the center of town. But there were some street names in Jerome, not that anyone paid much attention to them. And most of those roads, as I recall, were not paved—just covered with black ash from the mine.

Our house was House 404 on Route 601, in Jerome. I don’t know what Priscilla’s house number was. But it was a big beautiful white frame farmhouse. You see Jerome used to be farmland. That’s before the coal mine took over. When I was little, the big old barn was still across the street from our house. And Priscilla’s big spacious beautiful house was beside the barn on a nice big yard.

Over time the barn was used for dances, weddings, polka parties, and even briefly for roller-skating. The roller skating was short-lived, as there were no rules and everyone skated fast in all different directions, some hanging onto people’s arms and then letting go as they came around the turn, with centrifugal force taking them sailing into a far wall. Great fun, but not what the adults wanted to see. Mayhem is what I think they call it.

The dances didn’t go on long either. I remember that my Mother was a chaperone for one. What a downer. How can you have fun when your mother is not only around, but is disciplining your friends and school acquaintances? You see she was a first grade teacher, and making kids walk-the-line came easy. I loved my mother, but I must say I was glad to see those dances in the barn disappear.

Over time, the barn went into more disrepair than it already was in, and it got torn down. So did Priscilla’s beautiful house…to make way for the new grade school, where my mother would eventually teach.

After Priscilla's older siblings were gone, her family moved into the old bank building that was beside their white house. It was a stately red brick structure that sat in the middle of what was our downtown. As I understand it, it had been closed during the depression, or maybe the crash of 1929. Her family moved into an apartment on the top floor. The depression and the crash all seemed like ancient history, but given that I was born in 1938, it probably was not that long ago for the adults, when I was growing up.

Priscilla and I found a way to sneak into the old part of the bank on the main floor. It was very dusty and musty. This was the area where banking had taken place--counters and such still intact, but the space looking dim and forlorn. Either we didn't turn on the lights for fear of being caught, or there was no functioning electricity; the only light was what filtered in through the old high windows, giving the place an eery look.

For whatever reason, we climbed up the large brass dials and rods on the front of the huge old vault. Probably Priscilla’s idea, as she was good at climbing trees, unlike me. We would sit on top of the vault in the two-foot space under the ceiling--spending hours up there, sorting through all kinds of musty bank receipts and records, looking at people’s names and wondering about their lives and who they were. Once or twice Pricilla’s mother or father came in and called our names. How did they know we were there? But we just laid low way up on top of the huge vault. Eventually they would leave. For us, raised on Nancy Drew, it was all very exciting. We knew we were not supposed to be there; it was our secret place.

We were old enough to know that the papers strewn about were people’s private records, and we were surprised that these receipts and statements were just left on top of the vault in such disarray. Although our part was all very innocent, I do wonder what important private information passed through our young hands.

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Eventually the bank would disappear too, making room for the new Jerome grade school.

PLUMBING

Growing up in Jerome, we had indoor plumbing as did many others in town, but there were many or most who had “out houses”.

I was particularly impressed by the “honey dippers” who would come by in a large truck once in a while to clean out these wooden buildings in people’s back yards.

I also remember watching a teenager I knew take her bath in a wooden round tub in the middle of their kitchen, with her mother pouring warm water over her head to rinse her off. The coal stove for cooking was right next to her keeping the water and the room warm (and this was the same stove where her mother made the best home made bread…but I digress).

As time went on, indoor plumbing was in all houses.

But with this early sorry state of affairs, I must mention that we also had outdoor open sewers in Jerome, like little streams running through town. The one I liked to play in was not far from the Lutheran Church--and not far from our house. It was fun jumping across the little stream. It also had a little tunnel (large pipe) that we could walk through straddling the “water” running along the floor of the pipe. It was all quite exciting, as one certainly didn’t want to fall in.

Needless to say we were cautioned about not playing in the sewers, but….

One of the First IN TOWN TO HAVE…#3

(Continued from #1 & 2)

RENAULT

We were the first that I know of in town to own a foreign car--or at least one of those little foreign cars. At that time there was the competition between the VWs and the Renaults. Our father bought a Renault.

It was dark, I think black.

Every time we would pass another on the road, which was rare, we would all toot and wave at each other. It was very exciting.

I'm not sure but I don’t think this was a second car, I think it was the only car we had at that point, as I don’t remember ever having 2 cars. Perhaps one day my brother can shed more light on this car.

Now when was this? My father died in the late 50’s so it had to be before that.

The VWs came out about the same time, and eventually they seemed to have won out in the market. But they were like the enemy, the competitors, and we didn’t toot at them, no sir. We were loyal to our Renault. We didn’t seem to have it very long though.

Like now with the other males in our family down the generations, new things and the modern world seemed to call out to him. I assume that he would have been into digital gadgets (but not necessarily computers), if he were around today.

One of the First IN TOWN TO HAVE…#2: TV

(continued from One of the First IN TOWN TO HAVE ...#1)


TV

We were, I think, the first in town to have a TV. It was set up in the big room on the side of the house that had its own outdoor entrance (as well as one into the main part of the house). The room had been the doctor’s office for the physician who used to live in our house, and later would revert to being our father’s office.

But in the TV metamorphosis, we had a lot of chairs set up so people from the town could come in to watch our TV. Having the door to the outside made it easy for people from the town to come and go without bothering us. I can remember coming into the main part of the house for dinner, and leaving others sitting in that room watching our TV. Naturally it was black and white.

This was in the early 50’s if my memory serves me right. I was about 12 or 13 yrs old, and the Korean War was on. The shows I remember were Milton Berle with Imogene Coco, an actress called Dagmar (who looked sort of like Dolly Parton), Tom Corbin Space Cadet (a forerunner to Star Trek), and professional wrestling. Later I would watch Jack Paar, a forerunner to the late night talk shows.

One of the First IN TOWN TO HAVE…#1

We were often the first in town to have things. It was probably because my father made a better living than most in town (even though he was probably on of the few “poor" doctors in the US. However, like his son and grandsons, he liked new “technologies” and was progressive.

Telephone
I mentioned in an earlier blog, we were possibly the first in town to have a private telephone line. In fact, many in town did not have phones at all. Some people we knew would give others our phone number, and if a call came in for them, my mother would dispatch little me to run across town to get them…all the while the caller was hanging on.

The person I would go after, often someone like Ruth Smith or Mrs. Heist, would then walk quickly down one of the unpaved streets (maybe 10 min.) and come to use our phone.

At first our phone was on a party line. These were the tall black phones, and you would crank a handle, I believe on a box on the wall to ring someone. And you had to listen when someone range for you. Ours was two longs and a short…that was what we had to listen to in order to know if it was for us or not.

I never knew who was also on our line. If we were using the phone and the other person wanted on and thought we were on too long, that person would pick up the phone ever so many minutes and then slam it down…hint, hint. I’m sure we never did the same…. But it would be a pain to want to call someone and have someone else on the line.

Because our father was the local doctor and delivered babies, it was important that people be able to reach us, so eventually we got our own private line. That was a big deal.

To be continued…

Scrubbing the Playroom Floor

SCRUBBING THE PLAYROOM FLOOR

On one side of the house we had a large rectangular room that was used as a playroom when we were quite small, and then later partitioned and turned into a doctor’s office.

When it was a playroom, there was linoleum all over the floor. I remember my friend, Priscilla and I, probably pre-school age, deciding to be helpful one day and “washing” the floor. We somehow got it all soaped up, and then had the challenge of how to rinse off the soap and water.

I had watched my mother wash the front porch; when she needed to rinse, she would simply get a hose or bucket of water and throw it on the porch. Of course in that situation the water would just run off the sides of the porch and onto the ground. But in my young mind I didn’t go that far in my thinking.

So Priscilla and I got a bucket and emptied several bucketsful of water onto the playroom floor. But, ah hah, since this was in indoor room and not an open porch, we now had an inch or more of water going nowhere. So in my further wisdom, we collected all the newspapers we could find, and lay them all over the floor to absorb the water. Needless to say it was quite a soggy mess. And Priscilla and I probably didn’t look so hot by then either.

It was about this time that my mother turned up. I can’t remember where she was during all this. Needless to say, she was not too happy about the mess that she found…soaking newspapers all over the place, an inch or so of water, and whatever.

To her credit--and this shows what a great mother she was--I have no memory of her yelling at us, and I have no horrible feelings about this incident. I know that I felt bad that I had goofed up, but our intentions were noble and she seemed to have understood this. I remember her explaining that one doesn’t throw buckets of water in the house, and to now to leave the room so she could take care of this.

I can only assume that she cleaned it all up herself…probably with a mop, but we were long gone by then.