October 5, 2006
An old friend of mine, Wallace Stegner, has a list of new Western writers in his book Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs, copyright 1992. Of course, I didn’t know the late Mr. Stegner personally, but when you read an author and find you are on similar ground, he or she feels like a friend. I was delighted to find this list. I love book lists. Not only do you have a new list of delights for your own mind, you get a peek into someone else’s mind. I have been sampling his list. One of the first writers on that list is Ivan Doig and it was a name I had heard before. So last time I went to the library I took part of Stegner’s list with me and picked up English Creek by Ivan Doig.
A friend loaned me a copy of one of Mr. Doig’s books several years ago and told me he was a good writer. I just couldn’t get into it. Maybe it was the book (which one I don‘t recall) more likely it was me. I went through a long painful time when I had a very difficult time reading. Even when I enjoyed a book immensely, I was likely to put it somewhere with a bookmark in it half way through and forget about it for weeks. Then I would pick it up, look at it, take the bookmark out and put it on the shelf. So I was willing to give Ivan Doig another look.
I just finished English Creek. Oh my. If you grew up in the Mountain West, you know these people. Strong people, sometimes individual to the point of eccentricity. Real people with virtues and vices and vices they called virtues. Good to the bone, though, most of them. Mr. Doig’s writing is beautiful, poetic in places, words to linger over and savor. Some of his characters use “ahem” colorful language, but he doesn’t use four letter words just to be using them and there is line he does not cross. This was an interesting read about strained relationships in a family and among friends. Worth you time.
And I have a new friend. Can’t wait to read another of his books…the only question is which one.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Today I canned salsa
Early September, 2006
Culture runs deep. I came from pioneers who didn’t always know where their next meal was coming from. Any extra garden produce was canned or dried, “put up” for the winter. Both sets of grandparents were poor by today’s standards. Their homes were small, two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom. My maternal grandparents in my earliest memories slept in an alcove off the kitchen; privacy consisted of a curtain that ran along the side of the bed.
My grandparents did not receive welfare. They did what they could and if the money ran out, they ate what they had in the house. Granddad H loved Zoom cereal and ate his fried eggs so black with pepper it was hard to tell the whites from yolk. I remember being surprised after Grandma died at how empty his cupboards were. His cupboard contained a few dishes and glasses, a salt and pepper shaker, the ever present box of Zoom and, on the top shelf, a bottle of whiskey. Sometimes there were a few cans of peaches or beans.
I don’t remember him being sad or worried about this state of affairs. He always reached in his pocket first thing when we arrived and dug out his little leather coin purse. He rummaged around in it until he found a nickel apiece for us and dropped those worn nickels in our outstretched hands with stiff shaky fingers. “Go get a milk nickel,” he would say with a smile. (A milk nickel was a chocolate covered ice cream bar and cost $0.05.) I remember one time Dad asked him how much money he had left. He admitted to giving us much of what he had, he was down to two bits. (for the younger generations...$0.25) Dad chastised him for giving away his last dime, but Granddad just smiled. He was generous to fault and loved to make children happy. Daddy was very careful with his money and I could see that he had some resentment toward his father as he handed him a twenty dollar bill. (That went pretty far in the mid fifties.)
Funny how traits are remembered for good or ill and those memories are passed down through the family. Grandma H was careful and planned ahead. She canned everything she could in the summer to keep her family during the winter. Granddad didn’t plan ahead quite so well. One time when he had been drinking, he invited some of his buddies home and gave them jars of Grandma’s home canned produce. I understand she was not very happy about that. There must have been quite a commotion for the memory of it to have been passed down all these years.
I don’t remember my mother’s mother canning. She came from Holland and her ways in the kitchen were not the same as my mother’s. Mom remembers a time during the depression that her father picked wild apples along the Oregon roadside on his way to work so he "would have something in his stomach". My mother learned most of her cooking from Mrs. Anderson on the ranch she and dad worked on for a bit. Dad cowboyed and Mom helped in the kitchen. Mom wanted to be American and nothing old world stuck.
Mom and Dad were both young during the Depression and took food and food wasting seriously. Though they never said so, I believe they had both gone to bed hungry when times were bad. We were simply not allowed to leave the table until we had eaten everything on our plates. Dad often lectured us on being grateful for what we had. I spent hours at the table one Thanksgiving because the canned asparagras they bought for a treat made me gag.
Mom canned peaches and pears and green tomato relish. She made bright green sweet pickles that were saved for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And green tomato mincemeat. Nothing was wasted. Tomatoes and peaches, pears and apples were purchased by the bushel. We were very rarely allowed to eat the peaches and pears fresh, they were to be canned. If we had plenty, Mom would slice and sugar them for dessert. Dad would pour cream or milk if we didn’t have cream on peaches, a habit I have never tried. Apples were kept in wooden bushel baskets in the garage on the wall next to the house. Dad covered them with an old rug to keep them from freezing. The apples were for pies, but we could eat them if we asked first.
So I find myself canning each autumn, a sort of learned reflex, born of having parents, grandparents, and great grandparents who knew times of deep hunger. I know people who love to preserve fresh garden produce, taking great delight in the whole process. I do not love to can. I find myself doing it grumpily, sometimes resentfully, yet I am the one who plants all those tomato plants and all those pepper plants and now tomatillos, too. I go to the orchard and glean peaches and apples after the pickers have finished. Nobody forces me to. It is entirely my own choice. It’s messy and time consuming and tiring, but I cannot imagine not doing it. I must admit that commercially canned peaches have next to nothing in common with home canned peaches. So, for as long as I am able, I will continue this hated yet compelling habit of canning. Today I canned salsa and tomorrow there will be more tomatoes and peppers to pick.
Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006
Culture runs deep. I came from pioneers who didn’t always know where their next meal was coming from. Any extra garden produce was canned or dried, “put up” for the winter. Both sets of grandparents were poor by today’s standards. Their homes were small, two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom. My maternal grandparents in my earliest memories slept in an alcove off the kitchen; privacy consisted of a curtain that ran along the side of the bed.
My grandparents did not receive welfare. They did what they could and if the money ran out, they ate what they had in the house. Granddad H loved Zoom cereal and ate his fried eggs so black with pepper it was hard to tell the whites from yolk. I remember being surprised after Grandma died at how empty his cupboards were. His cupboard contained a few dishes and glasses, a salt and pepper shaker, the ever present box of Zoom and, on the top shelf, a bottle of whiskey. Sometimes there were a few cans of peaches or beans.
I don’t remember him being sad or worried about this state of affairs. He always reached in his pocket first thing when we arrived and dug out his little leather coin purse. He rummaged around in it until he found a nickel apiece for us and dropped those worn nickels in our outstretched hands with stiff shaky fingers. “Go get a milk nickel,” he would say with a smile. (A milk nickel was a chocolate covered ice cream bar and cost $0.05.) I remember one time Dad asked him how much money he had left. He admitted to giving us much of what he had, he was down to two bits. (for the younger generations...$0.25) Dad chastised him for giving away his last dime, but Granddad just smiled. He was generous to fault and loved to make children happy. Daddy was very careful with his money and I could see that he had some resentment toward his father as he handed him a twenty dollar bill. (That went pretty far in the mid fifties.)
Funny how traits are remembered for good or ill and those memories are passed down through the family. Grandma H was careful and planned ahead. She canned everything she could in the summer to keep her family during the winter. Granddad didn’t plan ahead quite so well. One time when he had been drinking, he invited some of his buddies home and gave them jars of Grandma’s home canned produce. I understand she was not very happy about that. There must have been quite a commotion for the memory of it to have been passed down all these years.
I don’t remember my mother’s mother canning. She came from Holland and her ways in the kitchen were not the same as my mother’s. Mom remembers a time during the depression that her father picked wild apples along the Oregon roadside on his way to work so he "would have something in his stomach". My mother learned most of her cooking from Mrs. Anderson on the ranch she and dad worked on for a bit. Dad cowboyed and Mom helped in the kitchen. Mom wanted to be American and nothing old world stuck.
Mom and Dad were both young during the Depression and took food and food wasting seriously. Though they never said so, I believe they had both gone to bed hungry when times were bad. We were simply not allowed to leave the table until we had eaten everything on our plates. Dad often lectured us on being grateful for what we had. I spent hours at the table one Thanksgiving because the canned asparagras they bought for a treat made me gag.
Mom canned peaches and pears and green tomato relish. She made bright green sweet pickles that were saved for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And green tomato mincemeat. Nothing was wasted. Tomatoes and peaches, pears and apples were purchased by the bushel. We were very rarely allowed to eat the peaches and pears fresh, they were to be canned. If we had plenty, Mom would slice and sugar them for dessert. Dad would pour cream or milk if we didn’t have cream on peaches, a habit I have never tried. Apples were kept in wooden bushel baskets in the garage on the wall next to the house. Dad covered them with an old rug to keep them from freezing. The apples were for pies, but we could eat them if we asked first.
So I find myself canning each autumn, a sort of learned reflex, born of having parents, grandparents, and great grandparents who knew times of deep hunger. I know people who love to preserve fresh garden produce, taking great delight in the whole process. I do not love to can. I find myself doing it grumpily, sometimes resentfully, yet I am the one who plants all those tomato plants and all those pepper plants and now tomatillos, too. I go to the orchard and glean peaches and apples after the pickers have finished. Nobody forces me to. It is entirely my own choice. It’s messy and time consuming and tiring, but I cannot imagine not doing it. I must admit that commercially canned peaches have next to nothing in common with home canned peaches. So, for as long as I am able, I will continue this hated yet compelling habit of canning. Today I canned salsa and tomorrow there will be more tomatoes and peppers to pick.
Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006
Monday, September 04, 2006
What does blogging mean to me?
What does blogging mean to me?
The granola tagged me with this, so here it is.
1. Are you happy/satisfied with your blog’s content and look?
The content I am happy with, or maybe saying that it makes me happy to write the content is more accurate. As for the look…no I am not happy with that. I am not well enough versed in the art of computer graphics to make my blog look the way I would like it to. Blogger doesn’t have enough choices for me. I would also like to figure out how to add pics and links to my blog. As for the sidebars…they are pretty much nonexistent except for the stuff that Blogger puts there. Again, I need to spend some time and learn how to do it all.
2. Does your family know about your blog?
Define family… My husband, who has never yet read my blog, knows about it. My three daughters are the only ones who have ever visited and left comments. I have not told my siblings or my father about it. I guess I should. Maybe I will. Someday.
3. Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog? Do you feel it is a private thing?
It’s never come up. I started my blog as a way to send some of my poetry out into the world, but it has turned into a sort of memoir. I take some risks in what I write in my blog, talk about things that have left a deep impression on me that some people I know would be uncomfortable talking about.
4. Did blogging cause positive changes in your thoughts?
Yes. I have found an authentic voice…one that is my own. It has opened the door to memories I thought I had lost forever. Reading other people’s blogs has opened my mind, has given me insight into other points of view, and sparked my desire to write.
5. Do you only open the blogs of those who comment on your blog or do you love to go and discover more on your own?
I was reading the blogs of those who commented on mine before I had a blog, except for my youngest daughter. I bugged her until she started a blog of her own. I love to read blogs. I usually use one of Granola’s blogs as a jumping off place. She has great blog rolls.
6. What does a visitor counter mean to you? Do you like having one on your blog?
I like having a counter on my eBay auctions. I don’t have one on my blog. I would like that. I just need to be more of a techno babe.
10. Does criticism annoy you or do you feel it’s a normal thing?
Depends on how it’s done. It’s a frequent thing in the world, but it’s only helpful if it’s done right. Never had any on my blog, so I couldn’t say how I feel about it related to blogging.
11. Do you fear some political blogs and avoid them?
No. I am one of the least political people on the planet and I don’t go to political blogs because they don’t interest me. I am not afraid of politics. Several members of my family are very political, including my dear husband. I just get uncomfortable when they rant.
12. Were you shocked by the arrest of some bloggers?
Seems like I heard about it on the news. I wasn’t shocked. I was shocked 10 or 15 years ago when we took classes so we could have foster kids. I had no idea what some children go through. 9/11 shocked me. It takes a lot to shock me these days. I do, however, sometimes get shocked when I walk across a synthetic carpet and touch a door handle. It’s even better when I touch another person, cuz then we are both shocked.
13. What do you think will happen to your blog after you die?
I have started writing it in my word processor, something that took me a bit to figure out. I will make a hard copy, maybe several. It is turning into my life history, a way for my children and grandchildren to know me as a person and not just a mom and grandma.
14. What do you like to hear? What song would you like to link to your blog?
Oh, wouldn’t that be fun!!! I love most music and I would want songs to match the blogs, each one pertaining in some way to theme of the blog. A lot of what I am writing now would need a my favorite rock and roll from the 50's and 60’s in the background.
15. Five bloggers to be the next victims.
I will pass on this one.
The granola tagged me with this, so here it is.
1. Are you happy/satisfied with your blog’s content and look?
The content I am happy with, or maybe saying that it makes me happy to write the content is more accurate. As for the look…no I am not happy with that. I am not well enough versed in the art of computer graphics to make my blog look the way I would like it to. Blogger doesn’t have enough choices for me. I would also like to figure out how to add pics and links to my blog. As for the sidebars…they are pretty much nonexistent except for the stuff that Blogger puts there. Again, I need to spend some time and learn how to do it all.
2. Does your family know about your blog?
Define family… My husband, who has never yet read my blog, knows about it. My three daughters are the only ones who have ever visited and left comments. I have not told my siblings or my father about it. I guess I should. Maybe I will. Someday.
3. Do you feel embarrassed to let your friends know about your blog? Do you feel it is a private thing?
It’s never come up. I started my blog as a way to send some of my poetry out into the world, but it has turned into a sort of memoir. I take some risks in what I write in my blog, talk about things that have left a deep impression on me that some people I know would be uncomfortable talking about.
4. Did blogging cause positive changes in your thoughts?
Yes. I have found an authentic voice…one that is my own. It has opened the door to memories I thought I had lost forever. Reading other people’s blogs has opened my mind, has given me insight into other points of view, and sparked my desire to write.
5. Do you only open the blogs of those who comment on your blog or do you love to go and discover more on your own?
I was reading the blogs of those who commented on mine before I had a blog, except for my youngest daughter. I bugged her until she started a blog of her own. I love to read blogs. I usually use one of Granola’s blogs as a jumping off place. She has great blog rolls.
6. What does a visitor counter mean to you? Do you like having one on your blog?
I like having a counter on my eBay auctions. I don’t have one on my blog. I would like that. I just need to be more of a techno babe.
10. Does criticism annoy you or do you feel it’s a normal thing?
Depends on how it’s done. It’s a frequent thing in the world, but it’s only helpful if it’s done right. Never had any on my blog, so I couldn’t say how I feel about it related to blogging.
11. Do you fear some political blogs and avoid them?
No. I am one of the least political people on the planet and I don’t go to political blogs because they don’t interest me. I am not afraid of politics. Several members of my family are very political, including my dear husband. I just get uncomfortable when they rant.
12. Were you shocked by the arrest of some bloggers?
Seems like I heard about it on the news. I wasn’t shocked. I was shocked 10 or 15 years ago when we took classes so we could have foster kids. I had no idea what some children go through. 9/11 shocked me. It takes a lot to shock me these days. I do, however, sometimes get shocked when I walk across a synthetic carpet and touch a door handle. It’s even better when I touch another person, cuz then we are both shocked.
13. What do you think will happen to your blog after you die?
I have started writing it in my word processor, something that took me a bit to figure out. I will make a hard copy, maybe several. It is turning into my life history, a way for my children and grandchildren to know me as a person and not just a mom and grandma.
14. What do you like to hear? What song would you like to link to your blog?
Oh, wouldn’t that be fun!!! I love most music and I would want songs to match the blogs, each one pertaining in some way to theme of the blog. A lot of what I am writing now would need a my favorite rock and roll from the 50's and 60’s in the background.
15. Five bloggers to be the next victims.
I will pass on this one.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
The Library
The best thing about summer was swimming lessons and the best thing about swimming lessons was the library. The Idaho Falls Municipal Swimming Pool was a short couple of blocks from the Idaho Falls Public Library. Woolworth’s was right around the corner, but that is a discussion for another day. My mother, once out of the house and that close to the library, could often be persuaded to drive the extra couple of blocks to the library. Once I entered those magic doors, the rest of the world fell away. It was just me and a big room full of books. Nobody had to tell me to be quiet. It was quite simply the most wonderful place I had ever been.
Looking back, it wasn’t such a large building. The library was made of purplish red bricks with a wide staircase flanked by imposing white pillars, not a common sight in Southeastern Idaho. The glass doors opened to the wonderful smell of old books and bindings. The bottom floor held tables for studying, the Children’s Section, the nonfiction, and, of course, the check out counter. Upstairs on a balcony that went clear around the building was the adult fiction. When I was in high school I heard about the section under lock and key which was also downstairs, inconveniently located behind the circulation desk.
My library card was pink cardboard with a metal piece on it that held my number. I signed that card when I was six or seven. I could check out any book in the Children’s Section by showing that card. I carried that responsibility with all the dignity my skinny shoulders could muster. I was so careful with the books from the library that the wholesale marking of books I was introduced to in college was shocking, a sacrilege. I walked along the stacks lightly touching the spines of the books. I met Pippi Longstocking and Mary Poppins, Caddie Woodlawn, My Friend Flicka, and Misty of Chincoteague Bay. I read about the Bobsey twins and a horse called Fury and Betsy, Tacey, and Tib. I wandered in The Secret Garden and cried over Black Beauty. The hardest thing about going to the library was choosing. I could only check out two books at a time. During swimming lesson season I would race through the books and go back for more the next day. I learned early on to pick long books for the winter, books I couldn’t get through in a day or two. It was much harder to get Mom to drive us to the library in the winter over the snowy roads. It was also harder to race through a book when I went to school five days a week and had homework as well as household chores.
When I reached the mature age of fourteen, I was allowed into the adult fiction section. That first climb up into the balcony opened new vistas for me. Now I read the Bronte sisters and Jane Austin. I fell in love with Heathcliff and Mr. D’Arcy. I got dreamily lost in the jungles of Green Mansions. I thrilled to the swashbuckling adventure stories like The Count of Monte Cristo. I swallowed authors whole and then went on to cultures. A Tale of Two Cities just naturally led to Les Miserables. When I was sixteen or seventeen I read War and Peace and couldn’t stop reading Russian literature until I had absorbed all the library had to offer. My parents were more than a little concerned about my Russian period, my father worked for the government and the Cold War was in full swing.
I graduated from high school and went to college, where I found that libraries could take up more than one room. Summer vacations I went to the library in Idaho Falls and checked out books to fill coffee breaks and lunch hours and those long summer evenings when I felt stirred up and restless. I married young and moved first to Menan, a tiny farming community, then to Shelley, another dot on the map. I read constantly during my first pregnancy, but not library books. I was too far from the library to check books out when I went to town. I just wasn’t sure when I would get back. I read some of the books on my mother in law’s shelf and reread some of my own books. After my beautiful baby girl was born, I found it even harder to get to the library, so I bought paperbacks. And so it happened that I didn’t get back to that hallowed hall before it was remodeled in the early ‘70s. I have driven by the new Idaho Falls Public Library; now even the new expanded version seems small. Worse, it looks modern. It isn’t the same place at all, although it occupies the same lot. The magic is gone.
Rinda Fullmer (who still loves libraries)
Copyright 2006
Looking back, it wasn’t such a large building. The library was made of purplish red bricks with a wide staircase flanked by imposing white pillars, not a common sight in Southeastern Idaho. The glass doors opened to the wonderful smell of old books and bindings. The bottom floor held tables for studying, the Children’s Section, the nonfiction, and, of course, the check out counter. Upstairs on a balcony that went clear around the building was the adult fiction. When I was in high school I heard about the section under lock and key which was also downstairs, inconveniently located behind the circulation desk.
My library card was pink cardboard with a metal piece on it that held my number. I signed that card when I was six or seven. I could check out any book in the Children’s Section by showing that card. I carried that responsibility with all the dignity my skinny shoulders could muster. I was so careful with the books from the library that the wholesale marking of books I was introduced to in college was shocking, a sacrilege. I walked along the stacks lightly touching the spines of the books. I met Pippi Longstocking and Mary Poppins, Caddie Woodlawn, My Friend Flicka, and Misty of Chincoteague Bay. I read about the Bobsey twins and a horse called Fury and Betsy, Tacey, and Tib. I wandered in The Secret Garden and cried over Black Beauty. The hardest thing about going to the library was choosing. I could only check out two books at a time. During swimming lesson season I would race through the books and go back for more the next day. I learned early on to pick long books for the winter, books I couldn’t get through in a day or two. It was much harder to get Mom to drive us to the library in the winter over the snowy roads. It was also harder to race through a book when I went to school five days a week and had homework as well as household chores.
When I reached the mature age of fourteen, I was allowed into the adult fiction section. That first climb up into the balcony opened new vistas for me. Now I read the Bronte sisters and Jane Austin. I fell in love with Heathcliff and Mr. D’Arcy. I got dreamily lost in the jungles of Green Mansions. I thrilled to the swashbuckling adventure stories like The Count of Monte Cristo. I swallowed authors whole and then went on to cultures. A Tale of Two Cities just naturally led to Les Miserables. When I was sixteen or seventeen I read War and Peace and couldn’t stop reading Russian literature until I had absorbed all the library had to offer. My parents were more than a little concerned about my Russian period, my father worked for the government and the Cold War was in full swing.
I graduated from high school and went to college, where I found that libraries could take up more than one room. Summer vacations I went to the library in Idaho Falls and checked out books to fill coffee breaks and lunch hours and those long summer evenings when I felt stirred up and restless. I married young and moved first to Menan, a tiny farming community, then to Shelley, another dot on the map. I read constantly during my first pregnancy, but not library books. I was too far from the library to check books out when I went to town. I just wasn’t sure when I would get back. I read some of the books on my mother in law’s shelf and reread some of my own books. After my beautiful baby girl was born, I found it even harder to get to the library, so I bought paperbacks. And so it happened that I didn’t get back to that hallowed hall before it was remodeled in the early ‘70s. I have driven by the new Idaho Falls Public Library; now even the new expanded version seems small. Worse, it looks modern. It isn’t the same place at all, although it occupies the same lot. The magic is gone.
Rinda Fullmer (who still loves libraries)
Copyright 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Mr. Howell
I lived in a growing community when I was in high school. Lots of baby boomers and lots of government work. We needed another high school, so I went to school from 7:00 to 12:00 noon. The kids who would go to the other school went from 12:30 to 5:30. My last class the year I was a sophomore was English as taught by Mr. Howell.
How he got a job teaching impressionable youngsters in very conservative half Mormon Idaho Falls remains a mystery. He was 35ish, a womanizer, smoked, drank, and had diabetes. The first day of class he stood up and told us he thought grammar was so much bunk and we were on our own if we wanted to learn it. But he would be delighted to teach us literature. He was true to his word. Half the time he either gave us an assignment out of the hated grammar book (which we were then expected to correct ourselves from the teacher’s edition sitting on his desk) and left or didn’t show up at all, sometimes leaving a page number on the blackboard in his ungainly scrawl.
When he was there, and completely present, he taught us more about literature than I learned from many a college prof. It was in his class that I learned that not everything written is as it seems to be on the surface. It was from him I learned the magic words simile, metaphor, symbol. He hated poetry, so we had none of that, but we did go deeply into much of the good modern writing that he loved.
I started to write…not just the phony baloney soap operas that I had been writing to entertain a few of my friends, but long maudlin essays on truth and beauty. I would stand at his desk until all the other students were gone and then I would hand him pages of sophomoric dribble. Mr. Howell would accept them graciously and actually read them. He was a generous reader and told me my essays were refreshing and that he enjoyed reading them. Then we would discuss truth and beauty and symbolism for a few minutes. Just Mr. Howell and me. Those discussions were the jewels of my days. I missed the bus and walked two miles home in the snow for them.
One day I asked Mr. Howell if he would recommend a book for me to read. Oh, heaven! He started rattling off a list of books and authors that I should read. I wrote as fast as I could. I still have that list; it is one of my treasures. Some of my favorite books have been taken from that list. Some of the books I have not yet read, and do not plan to read. If my parents knew that my sophomore English teacher recommended that I read The Last Temptation of Christ (Nikos Kazan…long Greek name) and The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger), I am sure they would have had him fired. I have picked up The Last Temptation once or twice and looked at it, but I have not read it. I read The Catcher in the Rye a few years after he recommended it and wondered what all the fuss was about. I didn’t find it particularly good or terribly shocking. I enjoyed Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger) much more. But then there was Crescent Delahanty (Jessamyn West) which I read when I was fifteen, and have reread five or six times as the years have gone by. It’s a different book every time I read it and always a delight.
Mr. Howell told us that sex was always good in a book and suggested that there was sex in the story we had just read. No. No….there was no sex in that book, Mr. Howell, we all said in our own way at the same time. Quite an uproar. He laughed, throwing back his head so his longish blond hair flopped back down on his forehead. When it was quiet, he asked us about the boy and girl who held hands. Yes, but that wasn’t sex we said. That was just holding hands. Fifteen and sixteen year olds know the difference between sex and holding hands. Just ask them…they can tell you. But the desire is there, he told us. The desire is what makes it interesting, is what drives so much of what people do. There may not have been anybody going to bed together in that story, but there certainly was sex. We had to admit he was right. And he still is.
I think someone must have blown the whistle on him. Mr. Howell didn’t teach at the high school the next year. His obituary was in the newspaper before I graduated from high school. Someone found him dead in his apartment. A diabetic coma, the newspaper said. He died alone.
I never got to thank him for teaching me to read. Again.
Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006
How he got a job teaching impressionable youngsters in very conservative half Mormon Idaho Falls remains a mystery. He was 35ish, a womanizer, smoked, drank, and had diabetes. The first day of class he stood up and told us he thought grammar was so much bunk and we were on our own if we wanted to learn it. But he would be delighted to teach us literature. He was true to his word. Half the time he either gave us an assignment out of the hated grammar book (which we were then expected to correct ourselves from the teacher’s edition sitting on his desk) and left or didn’t show up at all, sometimes leaving a page number on the blackboard in his ungainly scrawl.
When he was there, and completely present, he taught us more about literature than I learned from many a college prof. It was in his class that I learned that not everything written is as it seems to be on the surface. It was from him I learned the magic words simile, metaphor, symbol. He hated poetry, so we had none of that, but we did go deeply into much of the good modern writing that he loved.
I started to write…not just the phony baloney soap operas that I had been writing to entertain a few of my friends, but long maudlin essays on truth and beauty. I would stand at his desk until all the other students were gone and then I would hand him pages of sophomoric dribble. Mr. Howell would accept them graciously and actually read them. He was a generous reader and told me my essays were refreshing and that he enjoyed reading them. Then we would discuss truth and beauty and symbolism for a few minutes. Just Mr. Howell and me. Those discussions were the jewels of my days. I missed the bus and walked two miles home in the snow for them.
One day I asked Mr. Howell if he would recommend a book for me to read. Oh, heaven! He started rattling off a list of books and authors that I should read. I wrote as fast as I could. I still have that list; it is one of my treasures. Some of my favorite books have been taken from that list. Some of the books I have not yet read, and do not plan to read. If my parents knew that my sophomore English teacher recommended that I read The Last Temptation of Christ (Nikos Kazan…long Greek name) and The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger), I am sure they would have had him fired. I have picked up The Last Temptation once or twice and looked at it, but I have not read it. I read The Catcher in the Rye a few years after he recommended it and wondered what all the fuss was about. I didn’t find it particularly good or terribly shocking. I enjoyed Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger) much more. But then there was Crescent Delahanty (Jessamyn West) which I read when I was fifteen, and have reread five or six times as the years have gone by. It’s a different book every time I read it and always a delight.
Mr. Howell told us that sex was always good in a book and suggested that there was sex in the story we had just read. No. No….there was no sex in that book, Mr. Howell, we all said in our own way at the same time. Quite an uproar. He laughed, throwing back his head so his longish blond hair flopped back down on his forehead. When it was quiet, he asked us about the boy and girl who held hands. Yes, but that wasn’t sex we said. That was just holding hands. Fifteen and sixteen year olds know the difference between sex and holding hands. Just ask them…they can tell you. But the desire is there, he told us. The desire is what makes it interesting, is what drives so much of what people do. There may not have been anybody going to bed together in that story, but there certainly was sex. We had to admit he was right. And he still is.
I think someone must have blown the whistle on him. Mr. Howell didn’t teach at the high school the next year. His obituary was in the newspaper before I graduated from high school. Someone found him dead in his apartment. A diabetic coma, the newspaper said. He died alone.
I never got to thank him for teaching me to read. Again.
Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006
Monday, August 28, 2006
City Girl
I grew up in Idaho Falls with a subdivision behind me and sheep in the field across the street. On the other side of the sheep Taylor Mountain sat, soft and majestic, changing color with the seasons. A half hour’s ride would take us into foothills so wild in places I believed I was the first white girl to lay eyes on it. I chose not to think of the ski hill or the dry farms. I used to sit for hours on the cement slab we called the front porch and look at the mountain. If the sheep were nearby, I would talk to them. I could really get them riled up, baaing at them. Probably drove the neighbors crazy, not to mention the farmer.
Three houses down the subdivision ended abruptly in a grassy field bordered by a small irrigation ditch. I hollowed out a little house in the tall grass by the ditch one summer. It was green even in August and smelled of wild things and earth and water. I could hide there and be alone with my ten year old thoughts, letting the sky and the earth seep into places in my soul I hardly knew needed filling until they were full. I wrapped the quiet around me like a familiar blanket, letting it comfort me, letting it quiet me.
A block or so the other way, along St. Clair was the Idaho Canal, which I understood my grandfather had helped to dig. It was deep and ran for miles. Trees loved the banks and the grass and weeds grew tall all along the canal. Water for irrigation ran most of the year, icing over in the winter. I loved the constant patient gurgle of the water. It seemed to answer when I talked to it, to whisper soothing gentle things I heard in the deep places of my soul. I could sit under a weeping willow in the grass and be hidden from the occasional car that drove down St. Clair. I took my troubles there as long as I lived in the red brick house on 17th Street.
My mother used to encourage me to play with the children in the subdivision. A girl close to my age lived in the house behind me for a while. We marveled over the double coincidence of sharing the same uncommon first name and the same birthday, although I was a year older than her, but that was about all we had in common. Around the block was another girl close to my age. Her father had been in a boating accident and drowned, leaving a young widow with four or five young children. I remember her mother, a generous comfortable woman who baked bread and gave thick hot slices slathered with butter to any neighborhood child who happened by. This woman married her poor drowned husband’s brother a little too quickly for the neighbors and promptly began having babies again. She nursed her babies long and tenderly, a practice my own mother talked about in the shocked whispers that guaranteed her children would hear, especially when she didn‘t want them to.
I read too much. I went off by myself and daydreamed. I watched the mountain and the sheep. In the summers as I entered my teenage years I took long walks and bicycle rides in the country, mostly by myself. I shut myself up in my bedroom and listened to the soundtrack from Dr. Zhivago and read more. Mom used to take my books away until I finished my chores. I read practically every book in the Idaho Falls Public Library, a building that filled me with awe. At school I was quiet, speaking mostly in literature classes, after my great intellectual awakening the year I was a sophomore. I nursed heavy crushes on the the smartest boys, but didn’t dare talk to them. Most of my high school friends were from the surrounding farms and went to a different school. They hadn’t figured out I wasn’t cool. They didn’t know about the books I couldn’t hide at school or the awful shyness. They called me a city girl.
Copyright 2006 Rinda Fullmer
Three houses down the subdivision ended abruptly in a grassy field bordered by a small irrigation ditch. I hollowed out a little house in the tall grass by the ditch one summer. It was green even in August and smelled of wild things and earth and water. I could hide there and be alone with my ten year old thoughts, letting the sky and the earth seep into places in my soul I hardly knew needed filling until they were full. I wrapped the quiet around me like a familiar blanket, letting it comfort me, letting it quiet me.
A block or so the other way, along St. Clair was the Idaho Canal, which I understood my grandfather had helped to dig. It was deep and ran for miles. Trees loved the banks and the grass and weeds grew tall all along the canal. Water for irrigation ran most of the year, icing over in the winter. I loved the constant patient gurgle of the water. It seemed to answer when I talked to it, to whisper soothing gentle things I heard in the deep places of my soul. I could sit under a weeping willow in the grass and be hidden from the occasional car that drove down St. Clair. I took my troubles there as long as I lived in the red brick house on 17th Street.
My mother used to encourage me to play with the children in the subdivision. A girl close to my age lived in the house behind me for a while. We marveled over the double coincidence of sharing the same uncommon first name and the same birthday, although I was a year older than her, but that was about all we had in common. Around the block was another girl close to my age. Her father had been in a boating accident and drowned, leaving a young widow with four or five young children. I remember her mother, a generous comfortable woman who baked bread and gave thick hot slices slathered with butter to any neighborhood child who happened by. This woman married her poor drowned husband’s brother a little too quickly for the neighbors and promptly began having babies again. She nursed her babies long and tenderly, a practice my own mother talked about in the shocked whispers that guaranteed her children would hear, especially when she didn‘t want them to.
I read too much. I went off by myself and daydreamed. I watched the mountain and the sheep. In the summers as I entered my teenage years I took long walks and bicycle rides in the country, mostly by myself. I shut myself up in my bedroom and listened to the soundtrack from Dr. Zhivago and read more. Mom used to take my books away until I finished my chores. I read practically every book in the Idaho Falls Public Library, a building that filled me with awe. At school I was quiet, speaking mostly in literature classes, after my great intellectual awakening the year I was a sophomore. I nursed heavy crushes on the the smartest boys, but didn’t dare talk to them. Most of my high school friends were from the surrounding farms and went to a different school. They hadn’t figured out I wasn’t cool. They didn’t know about the books I couldn’t hide at school or the awful shyness. They called me a city girl.
Copyright 2006 Rinda Fullmer
Monday, August 14, 2006
Mocassins
Richard and I went to West Yellowstone for our honeymoon. It took us a whole hour and a half to get there. Driving. We stayed in the Westbank on the Snake River in Idaho Falls our first night. It was a nice hotel, but we were starving college students so when we got to West we stayed in two different $10 log cabins that barely had indoor plumbing. Knotty pine a la 40's. We thought the second one might be better than the first. It wasn't, but hey, both cabins had beds and showers. That's all we really cared about anyway.
Saturday afternoon we came up for air and wandered around West. We found the usual touristy restaurants and trading posts. Hamburgers at three times the price because there were bright shiny new wagon wheels on the boardwalk rails in front and red checkered tablecloths inside. And knotty pine. Don't forget the knotty pine. We found a treasure in all this old west hype (lower case intentional...touristy old west is not the same as Old West). Around the corner and up a back street was a boot shop that sold the real article. The little store was no more than the size of a living room but the shelves were full of real leather boots that a man could wear without embarrasment. No trumped up red eagles on shiny black patent leather here, just honest brown leather cowboy boots that were either beautifully tooled or beautifully plain. Tucked back in a corner we found a shelf of mocassins. The real deal. Dirt cheap. Richard asked if I wanted a pair. I didn't have any money. I had spent it all on the wedding buying things like cake and pictures and dresses. Oh yes, I wanted a pair.
They were ankle high with conches and ties on the outside and fringe, a deep roan color. I loved them from the first minute I put them on. I wore them everywhere but to church and work that summer and into the fall. They got better the more I wore them. Those mocassins are my all time favorite shoes.
Somewhere there is a picture of us taken shortly after we got married. We are both in jeans. Richard is wearing his cowboy boots (honest brown leather beautifully tooled purchased in Mexico) and I am wearing my leather soled mocassins.
Saturday afternoon we came up for air and wandered around West. We found the usual touristy restaurants and trading posts. Hamburgers at three times the price because there were bright shiny new wagon wheels on the boardwalk rails in front and red checkered tablecloths inside. And knotty pine. Don't forget the knotty pine. We found a treasure in all this old west hype (lower case intentional...touristy old west is not the same as Old West). Around the corner and up a back street was a boot shop that sold the real article. The little store was no more than the size of a living room but the shelves were full of real leather boots that a man could wear without embarrasment. No trumped up red eagles on shiny black patent leather here, just honest brown leather cowboy boots that were either beautifully tooled or beautifully plain. Tucked back in a corner we found a shelf of mocassins. The real deal. Dirt cheap. Richard asked if I wanted a pair. I didn't have any money. I had spent it all on the wedding buying things like cake and pictures and dresses. Oh yes, I wanted a pair.
They were ankle high with conches and ties on the outside and fringe, a deep roan color. I loved them from the first minute I put them on. I wore them everywhere but to church and work that summer and into the fall. They got better the more I wore them. Those mocassins are my all time favorite shoes.
Somewhere there is a picture of us taken shortly after we got married. We are both in jeans. Richard is wearing his cowboy boots (honest brown leather beautifully tooled purchased in Mexico) and I am wearing my leather soled mocassins.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Motorcycle cowboy
Summer 1966
They drove by all hours of the day and night, those boys on their Hondas and Suzukis. My ear was as tuned in to the whine of their motors as a goose is to a gander. Sometimes they stopped at my house, the ones I knew. Rod and Lynn, Ted and Farrel.
I met Rod at the Pioneer Day Rodeo. The Pioneer Day Rodeo was a bit of a conundrum in and of itself. Established to commemorate the coming of the Mormon Pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, in Idaho Falls it attracted the cowboys from the surrounding counties. Cowboys didn't exactly live up to the high standards the Mormons set. There was drinking and chewing and wild talk at the rodeos themselves. Who knows what went on afterwards.
I went to the rodeo with my best friend Shirley. Well, we actually drove over with my parents who never missed a rodeo. My father was a sort of reformed cowboy, a Mormon who cowboyed when he was young and never quite got it out of his blood. Shirley and I didn't want to sit in the stands; my mother wasn't as interested in the rodeo as my father and she had eyes in back of her head. I was just shy of 16, Shirley was getting close to 17, and the sap was rising in us. We wanted to move around, to watch the cowboys out of the ring. You couldn't smile and say "hi" to anyone engaged in the business of bronc riding; he just wouldn't see you at all. But if you were out there in the field after he got off, he just might notice you while he was walking off his cramps. Rod wasn't a rodeo cowboy. He was just walking around the fields himself, wanting to talk to bull riders and bronc busters, hoping somebody would give him a hand, start him out rodeoing. He noticed me and I said "hi". I was a good girl and so was Shirley. We went home with Mom and Dad, but Rod had my phone number in his pocket when he climbed on his Suzuki.
It was only a matter of days before he rang the doorbell, asked me to go for a ride on the back of his bike. He showed me the exhaust and told me to be careful climbing on. I didn't say anything about the scar I had on the inside of my thigh from straddling a bike like his in my cutoffs. I just wore long jeans. I climbed on and put my arms around him soft, not really holding on. He turned and smiled at me with his big brown eyes, then took off like a bat out of .....well, you know where. I grabbed hard and held tight; it was that or fall off. He laughed softly and turned his head as he said "That's better." We ate up the miles on that Suzuki with the wind in our hair and our mouths smiling so big we were lucky we didn't catch bugs on our teeth.
Rod was stocky and tough. He worked that summer moving sprinkler pipes. In those days boys were anxious to do a man's job, pitting their strength against the 10 foot lengths of pipe and moving them down the field. He was also gentle and respectful. He wasn't Mormon, though I was, and he knew I didn't drink. He did. From here it looks like underage drinking and a crying shame. From there, he was bold and daring and a little bit bad. He never once came around when he had been drinking. He never once invited me to a kegger, although he couldn't resist bragging about them when he would come to see me, always out of earshot of my parents. I wasn't quite 16, so I couldn't date yet, but that was a new rule in the church and Mom wasn't quite sure what she thought of it. She figured motorcycle rides weren't dates, and though he wasn't a "member", he was a nice boy and respectful, so she didn't object to our rides. She would have shooed him out with her broom if she knew about the drinking.
It seemed like a long time that I listened for the phone, that I listened for the sound of that Suzuki motor bike turning in the drive. It seemed like a long time, but it couldn't have been, looking back, because by the time school started, Rod had quit coming round. No fight, no words, just more days between his phone calls and visits until one day I knew he wasn't coming back. I still carry the memory of him standing in the dark in my front yard, pulling me into a close embrace. "Oh, you're sweet," he whispered into my neck, his breath almost choked off. Though he never took advantage of me, never even kissed me, he made me a woman that night with those three little words.
Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006
They drove by all hours of the day and night, those boys on their Hondas and Suzukis. My ear was as tuned in to the whine of their motors as a goose is to a gander. Sometimes they stopped at my house, the ones I knew. Rod and Lynn, Ted and Farrel.
I met Rod at the Pioneer Day Rodeo. The Pioneer Day Rodeo was a bit of a conundrum in and of itself. Established to commemorate the coming of the Mormon Pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, in Idaho Falls it attracted the cowboys from the surrounding counties. Cowboys didn't exactly live up to the high standards the Mormons set. There was drinking and chewing and wild talk at the rodeos themselves. Who knows what went on afterwards.
I went to the rodeo with my best friend Shirley. Well, we actually drove over with my parents who never missed a rodeo. My father was a sort of reformed cowboy, a Mormon who cowboyed when he was young and never quite got it out of his blood. Shirley and I didn't want to sit in the stands; my mother wasn't as interested in the rodeo as my father and she had eyes in back of her head. I was just shy of 16, Shirley was getting close to 17, and the sap was rising in us. We wanted to move around, to watch the cowboys out of the ring. You couldn't smile and say "hi" to anyone engaged in the business of bronc riding; he just wouldn't see you at all. But if you were out there in the field after he got off, he just might notice you while he was walking off his cramps. Rod wasn't a rodeo cowboy. He was just walking around the fields himself, wanting to talk to bull riders and bronc busters, hoping somebody would give him a hand, start him out rodeoing. He noticed me and I said "hi". I was a good girl and so was Shirley. We went home with Mom and Dad, but Rod had my phone number in his pocket when he climbed on his Suzuki.
It was only a matter of days before he rang the doorbell, asked me to go for a ride on the back of his bike. He showed me the exhaust and told me to be careful climbing on. I didn't say anything about the scar I had on the inside of my thigh from straddling a bike like his in my cutoffs. I just wore long jeans. I climbed on and put my arms around him soft, not really holding on. He turned and smiled at me with his big brown eyes, then took off like a bat out of .....well, you know where. I grabbed hard and held tight; it was that or fall off. He laughed softly and turned his head as he said "That's better." We ate up the miles on that Suzuki with the wind in our hair and our mouths smiling so big we were lucky we didn't catch bugs on our teeth.
Rod was stocky and tough. He worked that summer moving sprinkler pipes. In those days boys were anxious to do a man's job, pitting their strength against the 10 foot lengths of pipe and moving them down the field. He was also gentle and respectful. He wasn't Mormon, though I was, and he knew I didn't drink. He did. From here it looks like underage drinking and a crying shame. From there, he was bold and daring and a little bit bad. He never once came around when he had been drinking. He never once invited me to a kegger, although he couldn't resist bragging about them when he would come to see me, always out of earshot of my parents. I wasn't quite 16, so I couldn't date yet, but that was a new rule in the church and Mom wasn't quite sure what she thought of it. She figured motorcycle rides weren't dates, and though he wasn't a "member", he was a nice boy and respectful, so she didn't object to our rides. She would have shooed him out with her broom if she knew about the drinking.
It seemed like a long time that I listened for the phone, that I listened for the sound of that Suzuki motor bike turning in the drive. It seemed like a long time, but it couldn't have been, looking back, because by the time school started, Rod had quit coming round. No fight, no words, just more days between his phone calls and visits until one day I knew he wasn't coming back. I still carry the memory of him standing in the dark in my front yard, pulling me into a close embrace. "Oh, you're sweet," he whispered into my neck, his breath almost choked off. Though he never took advantage of me, never even kissed me, he made me a woman that night with those three little words.
Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006
Back to Jackson
Late 1940's early 1950's
The tourists were going "out West" again, in droves. Some of them went to dude ranches and some of them just drove around, liking the sights and sounds of the West, safe now, but not quite tame. Did they know how the Westerners, even city slickers from the big towns like Bozeman and Pocatello, Billings and Cody, looked at them? How they watched those tourists in their fine tailored suits as they walked the streets of towns held together with barbed wire and flour paste and sandy grit? Did they feel the fine disdain the ranchers felt for the "dudes" who paid good money to do work they weren't suited for, work that had to be done over, like as not, by someone who understood the business end of a pitchfork?
The streets in Jackson were lined with ancient boards, eaves that came out over the boardwalks and held up by ancient stripped poles of lodgepole pine so straight they didn't need tapering. You could still tie up a horse on the rail in front the general store or the saloon. Most days it wasn't crowded, just an old town with a lot of history. Winter, it was almost completely closed in, lying like it did at the base of the Tetons. Not much skiing yet, no housing boom and there wouldn't be one for another fifteen or twenty years. Most folks just lived like they had always lived here, in cabins. Some of them had wires hooked up for electricity and leantos on the back were converted from cooksheds to bathrooms with running water, but the chinks had to be patched to keep the winter chill out just the same. Deer got into the gardens and mosquitos got into the house in the summer. In winter it was just cold; ten, fifteen, twenty below and the wind blowing all the time.
Some days in summer people flocked in for the fakey acted out quick draw on main street. It always started in the saloon and spilled out onto main street by the park with the antler arch. The roads would be lined with station wagons and Chevy sedans, not a pickup in sight. It was just such a day that my inlaws brought their children the two hours to Jackson, a little outing for the kids, a rest from the backbreaking work of running a farm. After stretching their legs and walking around a bit, the littlest one needed feeding. I am not sure which of the boys the little one was, but she took him and the next littlest one with her back to the car while he took the older children to see the sights with a promise of meeting under the antler arch in half an hour. She got the toddler quieted down with something to play with and settled the little one in to nursing with a blanket drawn over for modesty.
People kept walking back and forth on the walk, most not even glancing at the woman in the car with her babies. Two women, set apart as Easterners by their dress, walked by, looked in the window and stared. Not noticing that the window was rolled down to catch the air, they just stood and stared. Finally, as they walked off, she heard one say to the other "How quaint!", as though she and her hungry baby were part of the show, part of the Wild West.
Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006
The tourists were going "out West" again, in droves. Some of them went to dude ranches and some of them just drove around, liking the sights and sounds of the West, safe now, but not quite tame. Did they know how the Westerners, even city slickers from the big towns like Bozeman and Pocatello, Billings and Cody, looked at them? How they watched those tourists in their fine tailored suits as they walked the streets of towns held together with barbed wire and flour paste and sandy grit? Did they feel the fine disdain the ranchers felt for the "dudes" who paid good money to do work they weren't suited for, work that had to be done over, like as not, by someone who understood the business end of a pitchfork?
The streets in Jackson were lined with ancient boards, eaves that came out over the boardwalks and held up by ancient stripped poles of lodgepole pine so straight they didn't need tapering. You could still tie up a horse on the rail in front the general store or the saloon. Most days it wasn't crowded, just an old town with a lot of history. Winter, it was almost completely closed in, lying like it did at the base of the Tetons. Not much skiing yet, no housing boom and there wouldn't be one for another fifteen or twenty years. Most folks just lived like they had always lived here, in cabins. Some of them had wires hooked up for electricity and leantos on the back were converted from cooksheds to bathrooms with running water, but the chinks had to be patched to keep the winter chill out just the same. Deer got into the gardens and mosquitos got into the house in the summer. In winter it was just cold; ten, fifteen, twenty below and the wind blowing all the time.
Some days in summer people flocked in for the fakey acted out quick draw on main street. It always started in the saloon and spilled out onto main street by the park with the antler arch. The roads would be lined with station wagons and Chevy sedans, not a pickup in sight. It was just such a day that my inlaws brought their children the two hours to Jackson, a little outing for the kids, a rest from the backbreaking work of running a farm. After stretching their legs and walking around a bit, the littlest one needed feeding. I am not sure which of the boys the little one was, but she took him and the next littlest one with her back to the car while he took the older children to see the sights with a promise of meeting under the antler arch in half an hour. She got the toddler quieted down with something to play with and settled the little one in to nursing with a blanket drawn over for modesty.
People kept walking back and forth on the walk, most not even glancing at the woman in the car with her babies. Two women, set apart as Easterners by their dress, walked by, looked in the window and stared. Not noticing that the window was rolled down to catch the air, they just stood and stared. Finally, as they walked off, she heard one say to the other "How quaint!", as though she and her hungry baby were part of the show, part of the Wild West.
Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006
Monday, August 07, 2006
Mountain Man
Summer of 1969 or late spring 1970
It was stifling in the courthouse and I couldn't wait to get out to the riverbank. I had smiled and cajoled and swallowed complaints all morning as I rang up the fees for license plates on the old cash register. The air was fresh and clean out along the Snake and the water going over the falls sent out a fine mist, cooling the parks that ran along both banks. I grabbed my lunch and book as soon I heard the noon whistle blow and went across the street to the river side as fast as I could go in a skirt and heels. I settled into a bench and just sat for a minute, taking in the sound of the water crashing over the rocks and the fresh blue sky. I was younger by at least 10 years than all the other "gals" I worked with. It was good to have a little time to myself. I opened my sandwich and my book at the same time and soon I was lost to the world around me.
I didn't hear him walk up, or feel him sit at the other end of the bench. I just somehow became aware that I was not alone. When I turned and saw him, it was all I could do to stay where I was. He was wearing buckskins, honest to goodness fringed buckskins that were dark and grimy with wear. He had a beard and long hair, so dirty the color was uncertain. The beard looked like it had been trimmed with a knife in big chunks. His fingernails were ragged and rimmed with black dirt all the way around. He was staring at me, looking me up and down like I was game he was trapping.
"I come inta town fer a wife." His eyes were very blue and they bored into me as he spoke. His voice was gravelly and rough, like it hadn't been used much. The creases on his face were deep, filled with oily grime. "Are ya married? I had me a squaw, but I got a hankerin' fer a white woman. Someone to cook and keep camp fer me. Ya look like ye'll do. Are ya married?" One more look from those piercing eyes and he dropped them, brought out a bowie knife and started working on his fingernails.
"I have a boyfriend." The words sounded stilted and false, even though I did have a boyfriend. I gathered my lunch things and picked up my book. I left him there sitting on the bench at the side of the river. I never looked back.
Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006
It was stifling in the courthouse and I couldn't wait to get out to the riverbank. I had smiled and cajoled and swallowed complaints all morning as I rang up the fees for license plates on the old cash register. The air was fresh and clean out along the Snake and the water going over the falls sent out a fine mist, cooling the parks that ran along both banks. I grabbed my lunch and book as soon I heard the noon whistle blow and went across the street to the river side as fast as I could go in a skirt and heels. I settled into a bench and just sat for a minute, taking in the sound of the water crashing over the rocks and the fresh blue sky. I was younger by at least 10 years than all the other "gals" I worked with. It was good to have a little time to myself. I opened my sandwich and my book at the same time and soon I was lost to the world around me.
I didn't hear him walk up, or feel him sit at the other end of the bench. I just somehow became aware that I was not alone. When I turned and saw him, it was all I could do to stay where I was. He was wearing buckskins, honest to goodness fringed buckskins that were dark and grimy with wear. He had a beard and long hair, so dirty the color was uncertain. The beard looked like it had been trimmed with a knife in big chunks. His fingernails were ragged and rimmed with black dirt all the way around. He was staring at me, looking me up and down like I was game he was trapping.
"I come inta town fer a wife." His eyes were very blue and they bored into me as he spoke. His voice was gravelly and rough, like it hadn't been used much. The creases on his face were deep, filled with oily grime. "Are ya married? I had me a squaw, but I got a hankerin' fer a white woman. Someone to cook and keep camp fer me. Ya look like ye'll do. Are ya married?" One more look from those piercing eyes and he dropped them, brought out a bowie knife and started working on his fingernails.
"I have a boyfriend." The words sounded stilted and false, even though I did have a boyfriend. I gathered my lunch things and picked up my book. I left him there sitting on the bench at the side of the river. I never looked back.
Rinda Fullmer
Copyright 2006
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Jackson Pass
Jackson Pass
We fought, Bob, Susan, and I
over who got the window.
No one wanted it.
Through tempered glass we saw gravel,
the tops of lodgepole pines,
and the road again.
Straight up. Straight down.
I slid into my seat,
burrowed into any book.
I wouldn't count the switchbacks,
hairpin turns Daddy called them.
He sat relaxed, hands easy on the wheel
even when one of us would scream.
Not even the safety of the seatbelts held us
on the slippery blue of that plastic backseat
in the old Chevy.
Daddy laughed and told stories
his father used to tell,
almost true stories of the Old West.
Grandad was a trucker,
hauled freight in a wagon
snaking up and over Jackson Pass
on the unimproved road.
Jackson Hole, Freedom, Tetonia, West Yellowstone,
St. Anthony, Sugar City, and Wilford
where later tiny Vera was buried
almost before she was born.
Summer complaint, Grandma called it.
Grandad's hands were as good as his horses:
he could drive anything with that team.
He had charge of the Yellowstone stage
the day the horses got spooked by gunshot
in front of the lodge by the Falls.
Straight for the canyon rim they went
at a dead run
before the guests had time to step out
onto the stool ready at the door.
Grandad soothed them, turned the team
with inches to spare.
Franklin Roosevelt was on that stage,
so the story goes.
Grandad stopped driving and took to farming
sometime after he courted Stella,
soothed her into marrying him.
The longest way home is the sweetest way home
he told me fom his leather chair
by the uncurtained window
that faced the dusty Umatilla street.
A good team always knows the way home
Grandad said with the sun on his face
long after Grandma died.
His hands lay flat on his thighs.
Some time after they put Vera in the ground
he just couldn't stay put in one place anymore,
so he quit farming.
A road engineer they called him later in the newspaper,
but he earned it the hard way,
digging ditches while Grandma cooked for the crew.
Grandad built roads and bridges in Idaho
and all over eastern Oregon,
improved roads for other to people to drive on.
He died in Umatilla with garters on his sleeves,
far from Jackson Pass.
His good hands lay still in the box.
I didn't go to his funeral.
It was on a school day.
March 17, 1996
revised August 5, 2006
copyright Rinda Fullmer
The Wild Wild West and how tame it has become
I have been doing a lot of thinking the last few days about the west, make that the West with a capital W. Part of it is because I have been reading The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie Jr. (I think I said Arlo in my last post...Arlo is the folk singer, Alfred B (Bud) Guthrie won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1950 for The Way West.) I am more than halfway through the book and Boone Caudill, the hero, has just arrived in Jackson Hole. He ran away from a harsh father in early 19th century Tennessee and ended up working on a keel boat headed west. Long story short, he teamed up with a mountain man after Black Feet Indians killed most everyone on the boat. They have gone to Jackson for a rendezvous in 1837. Jackson Hole, Wyoming, used to be called the Hole in the Wall. This is a place I used to know, but I don't know it any more. It's just not the same place it was when I was a kid, or the same place it was in the stories I heard as a child.
Ah...the romance of the old west. Excuse me, Old West. It was a place of heart as much as a place on the earth. The mountains are large, so big I have known Easterners that were afraid of them, that were sure they would crumble of their own weight. I grew up with a view of the Grand Tetons from our living room picture window...on a clear day. We had lots of clear days in Idaho Falls, but they would disappear for weeks at a time during the winter. Now, it is true that they were far away and very small, not at all close like Taylor Mountain, where we could see the lights for night skiing every night, but they were there and they colored my childhood. On the Fourth of July, like as not, you would find us in the car driving over Jackson Pass to Jackson Hole and the Tetons. The little kids (I was the oldest of this group) would have new cap guns and small cardboard boxes full of rolls of paper caps. No shooting was allowed in the car, but once we were out of the car, we could shoot as much as we wanted. I have seen the meadows with elk and the marshes with wild swans. I have seen the majesty, the grandeur of those tall tall mountains. I grew up on stories about my grandfather driving a team of horses and a freight wagon over Jackson Pass before it was paved. The switchbacks and hairpin turns went almost straight up when I was a girl and my father told us they were nothing compared to what they used to be. The thought of driving horses up there in all weather on unimproved roads made my grandfather into a hero.
A few years ago my husband and I went to a family reunion not far from Jackson. Richard asked if I wanted to go to Jackson. I didn't want to go. We had been there about 20 years before and I didn't recognize the place. I have heard that it has become artsy and a tourist trap, the last outpost of the Old West. And now I am reading about a rendezvous there in 1837, and somehow, that seems closer to Jackson than than place I last saw. Wild country and wild men. Indians and fire water, warm and willing squaws. No white women, no permanent citizens, just lodges thrown up for convenience and a fort. The true West, with the elements untamed by cozy fires and hunger slacked by "buffler" liver eaten raw, not a Big Mac. That's where I want to go. Somewhere open and wild, untouched. I would dress in men's clothes and just sit in the background and watch. Ah...but then reality sinks in. I would not like everything I saw, for much of what went on there was completely wild. Fights to the death over simple insults, men drunk on seeing women after months in the hills as well as liquor, gambling that got rough...and they called it a "frolic". Maybe just out in the meadows or in the mountains would be more to my liking...like the honeymoon in Owen Wister's The Virginian.
The point of all this is that the West just isn't what it was. It's been tamed and broken to man's hand like a horse. Even the environmentalists can't stop the progress, and in my heart I know that it's probably for the best. The mountain meadows of the past feed scores of people with their winter wheat. I just find myself being more and more attracted to the idea of the Old West, to rodeos and cowboys and teamsters who can handle any team under any circumstances. Going back to my roots. Deep in my heart, I am a cowgirl and I am glad to live in Idaho.
Ah...the romance of the old west. Excuse me, Old West. It was a place of heart as much as a place on the earth. The mountains are large, so big I have known Easterners that were afraid of them, that were sure they would crumble of their own weight. I grew up with a view of the Grand Tetons from our living room picture window...on a clear day. We had lots of clear days in Idaho Falls, but they would disappear for weeks at a time during the winter. Now, it is true that they were far away and very small, not at all close like Taylor Mountain, where we could see the lights for night skiing every night, but they were there and they colored my childhood. On the Fourth of July, like as not, you would find us in the car driving over Jackson Pass to Jackson Hole and the Tetons. The little kids (I was the oldest of this group) would have new cap guns and small cardboard boxes full of rolls of paper caps. No shooting was allowed in the car, but once we were out of the car, we could shoot as much as we wanted. I have seen the meadows with elk and the marshes with wild swans. I have seen the majesty, the grandeur of those tall tall mountains. I grew up on stories about my grandfather driving a team of horses and a freight wagon over Jackson Pass before it was paved. The switchbacks and hairpin turns went almost straight up when I was a girl and my father told us they were nothing compared to what they used to be. The thought of driving horses up there in all weather on unimproved roads made my grandfather into a hero.
A few years ago my husband and I went to a family reunion not far from Jackson. Richard asked if I wanted to go to Jackson. I didn't want to go. We had been there about 20 years before and I didn't recognize the place. I have heard that it has become artsy and a tourist trap, the last outpost of the Old West. And now I am reading about a rendezvous there in 1837, and somehow, that seems closer to Jackson than than place I last saw. Wild country and wild men. Indians and fire water, warm and willing squaws. No white women, no permanent citizens, just lodges thrown up for convenience and a fort. The true West, with the elements untamed by cozy fires and hunger slacked by "buffler" liver eaten raw, not a Big Mac. That's where I want to go. Somewhere open and wild, untouched. I would dress in men's clothes and just sit in the background and watch. Ah...but then reality sinks in. I would not like everything I saw, for much of what went on there was completely wild. Fights to the death over simple insults, men drunk on seeing women after months in the hills as well as liquor, gambling that got rough...and they called it a "frolic". Maybe just out in the meadows or in the mountains would be more to my liking...like the honeymoon in Owen Wister's The Virginian.
The point of all this is that the West just isn't what it was. It's been tamed and broken to man's hand like a horse. Even the environmentalists can't stop the progress, and in my heart I know that it's probably for the best. The mountain meadows of the past feed scores of people with their winter wheat. I just find myself being more and more attracted to the idea of the Old West, to rodeos and cowboys and teamsters who can handle any team under any circumstances. Going back to my roots. Deep in my heart, I am a cowgirl and I am glad to live in Idaho.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Book meme
My eldest daughter, the granola otherwise known as Amka, has tagged me. Aah...this is a good tag. I like to think about books.
1. Name a book that has changed your life. I don't remember the title of the book. It's the first book my mother read to me. I cannot remember a time in my life when I didn't love books and that has been one of the things that my life is about. My favorite Christmas present as a child was "The Anthology of Children's Literature", a book that was fat enough even for me. Oddly enough my parents apologized for giving me the book. They thought it didn't compare well to the gifts the other children received. I would be willing to bet that I am the only one who still has a gift from that Christmas and that my gift brought more hours of happiness and pleasure than all the other gifts combined.
2. One book that I have read more than once? Just one? Can't do it. I will share a list of writers whose books I have read more than once and will most likely return to again. Willa Cather (The Song of the Lark, My Antonia), Jessamyn West (Crescent Delahanty...first read this one while I was in high school), Wallace Stegner, Conrad Richter, Herman Wouk, Carl Sandburg (yes, he is a poet but he wrote wonderful biographies of Lincoln and his wife as well as a terrific novel, Remembrance Rock, one of my all time favorites), Gerard Manley Hopkins (yes, I know he is a poet and technically did not write a book, but he is my favorite poet) William Stafford (also a favorite poet), Tillie Olsen, Orson Scott Card, William Shakespeare. I am sure if I thought long enough I could go on. Currently I am loving novels based on American history and written during the 20th century. Ten years ago I was kneedeep in medieval history and world literature. Love old English...and I ain't talking Shakespeare here...he was the first modern writer.
3. One book you would want on a desert island. Just one???? It would have to be a very big, very fat book that I edited myself with all my favorite scriptures, favorite poetry, and excerpts from my favorite novels.
4. One book that made you laugh. Ummm.... Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I used to read this to my kids. :) Gloria Sylvia Cynthia Stout would not take the garbage out....so I wraps my hair around my bare and down the road I goes....No one loves a Christmas tree on March the 25th...heheh still makes me giggle
5. One book that made you cry. Sophie's Choice by William Styron (read this one during one of my WW II phases)
6. One book I wish I had written. Hmm...I have frequent episodes of writer's envy. I wish I written some of Hopkin's poems. I wish I had written The Tempest by Will Shakespeare (one of the finest things ever written imho). I wish had written all the books I have inside me.
7. One book I wish had never been written. Hard to say here. Whose opinions are not valid enough to write? I wish that people would get along together better than they do. I wish no one would write a book that inflicted undeserved pain or suffering on anyone else.
8. One book that you are currently reading. Oh my. Just one? I never read one book at a time. I am reading The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie Jr. Another of those American historical novels. Pretty good, too, I might add. I picked it up because it has a forward by Wallace Stegner. I am also reading Healing Moves by Carol Krucoff and Mitchell Krucoff, MD, a book about how exercise is actually good for you. hmmm. Honey and Salt which is a book of poetry by Carl Sanburg. My Hopkins is always on my bedside table. I also dabble in the scriptures, Old Testament and Book of Mormon, but not as regularly as I did a few months ago.
9. One book you have been meaning to read. One book???? Just one? Well, I have recently discovered that Jessamyn West and Willa Cather were more prolific than I thought they were. So I have their bibliographies to finish. And both of them read Virginia Woolf, a writer whose books I have not read. Ought to do that...she was one of the most influential women writers in the US. I have also been thinking about all the literature in the world that was not written by Brits or Americans. Lots of stuff out there to read.
10. Now tag five people. Yikes...I am just getting started in this blogging world. I am gonna pass on this one.
1. Name a book that has changed your life. I don't remember the title of the book. It's the first book my mother read to me. I cannot remember a time in my life when I didn't love books and that has been one of the things that my life is about. My favorite Christmas present as a child was "The Anthology of Children's Literature", a book that was fat enough even for me. Oddly enough my parents apologized for giving me the book. They thought it didn't compare well to the gifts the other children received. I would be willing to bet that I am the only one who still has a gift from that Christmas and that my gift brought more hours of happiness and pleasure than all the other gifts combined.
2. One book that I have read more than once? Just one? Can't do it. I will share a list of writers whose books I have read more than once and will most likely return to again. Willa Cather (The Song of the Lark, My Antonia), Jessamyn West (Crescent Delahanty...first read this one while I was in high school), Wallace Stegner, Conrad Richter, Herman Wouk, Carl Sandburg (yes, he is a poet but he wrote wonderful biographies of Lincoln and his wife as well as a terrific novel, Remembrance Rock, one of my all time favorites), Gerard Manley Hopkins (yes, I know he is a poet and technically did not write a book, but he is my favorite poet) William Stafford (also a favorite poet), Tillie Olsen, Orson Scott Card, William Shakespeare. I am sure if I thought long enough I could go on. Currently I am loving novels based on American history and written during the 20th century. Ten years ago I was kneedeep in medieval history and world literature. Love old English...and I ain't talking Shakespeare here...he was the first modern writer.
3. One book you would want on a desert island. Just one???? It would have to be a very big, very fat book that I edited myself with all my favorite scriptures, favorite poetry, and excerpts from my favorite novels.
4. One book that made you laugh. Ummm.... Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I used to read this to my kids. :) Gloria Sylvia Cynthia Stout would not take the garbage out....so I wraps my hair around my bare and down the road I goes....No one loves a Christmas tree on March the 25th...heheh still makes me giggle
5. One book that made you cry. Sophie's Choice by William Styron (read this one during one of my WW II phases)
6. One book I wish I had written. Hmm...I have frequent episodes of writer's envy. I wish I written some of Hopkin's poems. I wish I had written The Tempest by Will Shakespeare (one of the finest things ever written imho). I wish had written all the books I have inside me.
7. One book I wish had never been written. Hard to say here. Whose opinions are not valid enough to write? I wish that people would get along together better than they do. I wish no one would write a book that inflicted undeserved pain or suffering on anyone else.
8. One book that you are currently reading. Oh my. Just one? I never read one book at a time. I am reading The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie Jr. Another of those American historical novels. Pretty good, too, I might add. I picked it up because it has a forward by Wallace Stegner. I am also reading Healing Moves by Carol Krucoff and Mitchell Krucoff, MD, a book about how exercise is actually good for you. hmmm. Honey and Salt which is a book of poetry by Carl Sanburg. My Hopkins is always on my bedside table. I also dabble in the scriptures, Old Testament and Book of Mormon, but not as regularly as I did a few months ago.
9. One book you have been meaning to read. One book???? Just one? Well, I have recently discovered that Jessamyn West and Willa Cather were more prolific than I thought they were. So I have their bibliographies to finish. And both of them read Virginia Woolf, a writer whose books I have not read. Ought to do that...she was one of the most influential women writers in the US. I have also been thinking about all the literature in the world that was not written by Brits or Americans. Lots of stuff out there to read.
10. Now tag five people. Yikes...I am just getting started in this blogging world. I am gonna pass on this one.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Fours
Four jobs I’ve had:
Artist's model
Singing telegrams
Stocking shelves for Toys R Us
Collecting gas prices for Lundberg survey
Four movies I could watch over and over:
The Quiet Man
Bringing Up Baby (and anything else with either Kate Hepburn or Cary Grant)
Anything with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
Shadowlands
Four places I’ve lived:
Oakridge, Oregon
Shelley, Idaho
Bayou Vista, Louisiana
Lehi, Utah
Four TV shows I love to watch:
House
The Closer
Simply Quilts
Cash in the Attic
Four places I’ve gone on vacation:
Yellowstone
Cresent City, California
Ensenada, Mexico
Biloxi, Mississippi
Four websites I visit daily:
eBay
A's blog
T's blog
K's blog
Four people I need to tag:
Ok...this one is lame for me cuz I don't know a lot of people with blogs at this point. And all three of them I know have already done this. In fact...2 of them tagged me. No point in having them do it all again, now is there. hehe
Artist's model
Singing telegrams
Stocking shelves for Toys R Us
Collecting gas prices for Lundberg survey
Four movies I could watch over and over:
The Quiet Man
Bringing Up Baby (and anything else with either Kate Hepburn or Cary Grant)
Anything with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
Shadowlands
Four places I’ve lived:
Oakridge, Oregon
Shelley, Idaho
Bayou Vista, Louisiana
Lehi, Utah
Four TV shows I love to watch:
House
The Closer
Simply Quilts
Cash in the Attic
Four places I’ve gone on vacation:
Yellowstone
Cresent City, California
Ensenada, Mexico
Biloxi, Mississippi
Four websites I visit daily:
eBay
A's blog
T's blog
K's blog
Four people I need to tag:
Ok...this one is lame for me cuz I don't know a lot of people with blogs at this point. And all three of them I know have already done this. In fact...2 of them tagged me. No point in having them do it all again, now is there. hehe
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
word well
As long as I can remember I have been writing. Sometimes it gets in the way. Sometimes it is the way.
images come seeping up through
the floor of that other life
that life filled with flour and yeast
for bread-making and the brush
that scours the toilet on Saturdays
words come up, seeping through the carpet
that needs to be vacuumed
holding the dishes in the sink
words muddy the water of responsibility
undammed and demanding
they keep the roast in the refrigerator
the unforgiving aunt comes in unannounced
finds unmade beds
heaps of laundry, musty towels
books everywhere and piles of paper
covered with impatient marks
words that will not wait for punctuation
the well of words cannot be stopped
words trickle in around the baseboard
words that won't settle with the dust
muddy works that slide down in dismay
clear images that glint in the sun
tattered silken sounds of moving water
soft white snow that sheds light on dark places
images not caught float by
dry in the sun
evaporate
are gone
images come seeping up through
the floor of that other life
that life filled with flour and yeast
for bread-making and the brush
that scours the toilet on Saturdays
words come up, seeping through the carpet
that needs to be vacuumed
holding the dishes in the sink
words muddy the water of responsibility
undammed and demanding
they keep the roast in the refrigerator
the unforgiving aunt comes in unannounced
finds unmade beds
heaps of laundry, musty towels
books everywhere and piles of paper
covered with impatient marks
words that will not wait for punctuation
the well of words cannot be stopped
words trickle in around the baseboard
words that won't settle with the dust
muddy works that slide down in dismay
clear images that glint in the sun
tattered silken sounds of moving water
soft white snow that sheds light on dark places
images not caught float by
dry in the sun
evaporate
are gone
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