One day mom packed all of us kids into the car and took us
over to Uncle Duane’s house which she often did. I can still see in my mind the
route we’d drive taking the back roads from Spanish Fork to Springville. Back
then the freeway had not arrived in our valley and the only way from town to
town was State Street that wound from one town to the next then straight
through and on again to the next. We loved going to Uncle Duane’s because they
had a big back yard full of gardens and fruit trees. To me the backyard was a
wonderland where I’d play and play. We climbed trees and threw dirt clods at
anything that moved and when nothing was moving we’d have contests trying to
knock over old tin cans that we would place strategically through the gardens.
Every fall Uncle Duane would invite us over to pick apricots
and cherries stating that he had more than he could ever possibly use. He was a
kind and loving man I will always remember how much mom looked up to him and truly
loved her big brother. We always left with a basket full of tomatoes, cucumbers
and zucchini squash. On this occasion we came home with what to me was a real
treasure, a brand new, at least to me it was brand new, bike that my older
cousin Steven had out grown and he handed down to me. It was perfect for a 6
year old little boy. At least that was what Uncle Duane said when he gave me
the tiny bike. It was blue and had solid tires like a trike but it was not a
trike it was a bike, and it was mine. Mom and dad even went to town and bought
me new sparkly blue handle bar grips with white and blue streamers dangling
from the end of each grip. This not only was totally cool but I really think it
made the bike faster… just sayin.
One of my earliest memories that I recall fondly is dad
running up and down with me as he struggled to help me to master the challenge
of balancing on those tinny tires. The sidewalk in front of the Pink House had
a crack in every single section. No not just a crack, but a crack that went
from side to side and with one of the slabs always at a slant with one corner
at least two inches lower than its mate causing quite a perilous outing until I
learned the smoothest course over the path. However, it did not take long
before I figured out how to sleekly traverse the rugged sidewalk. Before long mom
and dad came to quickly understand that my world was gradually becoming larger
and larger.
To me the thrill of my newly discovered freedom was so
exciting that I yearned for more and more and I always pushed the envelope of
my boundaries to the extreme. I will never forget the exhilaration I felt the
first time that I rode my bike all the way around the block all by myself. I
knew I was real tuff stuff and I told everyone that would listen about my
conquests.
One afternoon mom had restricted my boundaries to no more
than the houses on either side our hour house which stood on the corner of 4th
and Center in Spanish Fork, to us kids always referred to affectionately as the
Pink House. As I rode up and down the sidewalk I decided that if I meandered
into the driveways I could extend my route and get more mileage out of each leg
as I navigated back and forth up and down our street. As I rounded the front of
a truck parked in one of these driveways I was looking down the sidewalk
instead of paying attention of where I was going, and I according to mom I was
always going too fast while not paying attention, when the next thing I knew I
was flat on my back writhing in pain on the grass next to the concrete staring
up at the truck. When I touched my forehead my hand was covered with blood. I instantly
knew I was dying. There seemed to be blood everywhere and my head was numb with
pain but it is interesting that even now I recall that my greater fear was that
I had strayed from the sidewalk and I was going to be in trouble! Apparently
the truck in the driveway was a utility truck with doors on the side that would
lower granting access to tools and providing a nice working area. Yup, I had
not seen the lowered door and had ridden right into the edge driving the corner
deep into my forehead.
When I got home mom calmed me down and cleaned me up then took
me to Dr. Moody to get my forehead stitched up. I do not recall getting into
very much trouble when dad came home. I wonder how much of that result was mom
intervening on my behalf. I think she felt as if I had been in enough pain and that
I’d learned my lesson. On my part I don’t know how much of a lesson I learned
because growing up I remember to always have a cut, a scrape, or a broken bone and
continuously sported a bruise from bumping and bouncing from one adventure to
another. On time mom commented that she hoped that I didn’t go bald because of
all of the scars that surely must be accumulating on my scalp.
I was always coming up with one scheme or another. I decided that I needed some money. So I took a big chunk of steel that dad had. It was actually a piece of railroad rail that was about ten inches long that dad used as an anvil. A friend of mine and I put it in my wagon and pulled it to a Swenson’s metal salvage company on the outskirts of town. We had to have pulled that wagon a mile. There were not any sidewalks so we pulled the wagon on the side of the road past the county fairgrounds. When we got there they weighed it and told us that it was not worth anything. We were totally disappointed. But, come to find out the man who was helping us kept snickering about these two eight year old kids who came dragging this hunk of steel in a wagon and wanted to sell it. To make things worse he knew dad. He knew that this was something that dad would not want me to sell so he wouldn’t give us anything for it. We had to drag it all the way back home. That night dad asked what I had been up to that day. He laughed and laughed and figured that taking it all the way there then having to bring it all the way back again was punishment enough.
