The Hollywood Theater; Coming of Age.

Coming of Age in Portland Oregon in the Innocence of the 1950's

By Don DuPay

Spring 1947

Coming to Portland

The pilot was worried! I could tell by the way he kept looking out the canopy window at the ground. My Dad was worried too! He was sitting in the co-pilots seat and kept looking first at the bunch of gauges in front of them and then at the ground. My Dad didn't get worried often but his face was scowled up with concern.

We were flying in a small Naveon single engine four-seater private air-plane, headed to Portland Oregon from our home in Bozeman Montana. My father was on a scouting trip looking to buy a commercial pie bakery that sold fresh pies all over Western Oregon. Dad had earned a private pilot's license but told me he was only a “fair weather, seat-of-the-pants,” flier. I never knew what that meant until he decided to fly to Portland and “look over this deal,” and said he would have to hire a pilot and a plane to fly over the mountains to Oregon, too far to fly by himself. “School's out for the summer son, want to fly with me?”

A typical 1946 Naveon plane...

So that's how we got up here in the air and now both Dad and the pilot were looking scared. “How much gas we got left?” asked dad, leaning over to look at the gauge. “None,” replied the pilot. “We're on the fumes now. I've got to find a place to set this thing down.” I looked out my backseat window now too wondering exactly what the pilot was looking for. “There's a fairly flat field up ahead on my left. We're going to land there,” he said. I could tell he was nervous. He was laughing slightly, but there was no smile on his face. I looked out the left side of the plane and saw a big field that looked like a meadow, except no cows were in it. 

We were getting lower and lower as the pilot circled toward the meadow. “That's it,” yelled the pilot. “The engine quit, we're out of gas and it's going to be a rough landing. Hang on tight!”

Dad reached for me with his left hand and pushed down on my knee, to hold me down in the seat. I heard the tricycle landing gear come down and could see another red light blinking on the instrument panel. “Hang on! hang on!” shouted the pilot again. I could feel the bounce as the wheels hit the meadow and in-spite of the seat belt holding me in and dad pushing down on my knee my head seemed to hit the top of the canopy, as my butt lifted up off the seat. It didn't really hurt but scared me. It seemed like we were rolling through a pile of rocks. I could see the green grass rushing by as we bumped, banged and squeaked along. I found myself clenching my teeth to keep from biting my tongue, wishing we would stop soon. The plane finally slowed down, as the pilot hit the brakes and the rudder trying to get the Naveon stopped and still pointed in the right direction.

Without the engine running the plane finally squeaked to a stop in the mushy green grass. The smile returned to the pilots face and my Dad's too. He still had a grip on my knee.

“Are you alright son?” Dad asked me.

“Yeah, but I gotta pee! Bad!”

The pilot released the canopy holding us in the cockpit and unfastened his own seat belt, climbed out onto the wing and jumped to the ground. I climbed over his seat and onto the wing and jumped into his arms. I ran away a few feet and turned my back and tried to pee. As relief slowly drained out of me I realized what had just happened. Flying with Dad was exciting!

As I finished peeing, I could hear the sound of a tractor rumbling slowly towards us over the bumpy ground. It was green with two big wheels in the back and two small wheels in front. The tractor stopped and the blue overall clad farmer jumped down. “You guys OK,” he asked, “what the hell happened?” The pilot, now with his bravado returned, and the Naveon safely on the ground, walked over and shook the farmers hand. “We flew here from Bozeman Montana,” he explained. “We had a lot of headwinds coming over the mountains and used more gas than we had. Lucky I was able to put down here.” Dad joined the conversation now, laughing, “Any gas stations around here?” The farmer removed a red rag from his head and wiped his brow. “You guys scared me,” he exclaimed. “You're lucky the cows weren't in the field. You're about twenty miles short of the Troutdale Airport.”

“I'll call on the radio,” said the pilot “ and see if I can get some aviation fuel delivered here. In the meantime can you help us turn the airplane around so we can take off again?” With me, Dad, the farmer, and the pilot pushing on the airplane's tail, we got it turned around in the opposite direction. “Can you fly this thing out of here?” asked the farmer, wiping his brow again with the sweaty red rag. “I landed it here, I can fly it outa here,” replied the pilot peering confidently down the field. “How much room do you need?” inquired the farmer, this field is just under eight hundred feet long.”

“I need five hundred feet,” answered the pilot, “and I can bounce it into the air. Yeah, just five hundred feet.”

“Well alright,” said the farmer. We all stood around the plane now, laughing and shaking hands. I got to shake the farmers hand too. It made me feel grown up, like I was a man. “Guess I ought to welcome you to Oregon!” exclaimed the farmer. “Yes sir, welcome to Oregon!”

I guess Daddy's deal on the pie shop in Portland went through because before long mom and dad said we would be moving to Portland, but that I would be spending my summer with my cousins on the ranch in Hood River before starting school in the fall in Portland. The pie bakery in Portland was supported by two apple orchards (ranches) in Hood River and Dee Oregon, about 60 miles up the Columbia river from Portland. The orchards grew most of the apples for the Crispi Pie company. My uncle Ross, my mothers brother, and his two boys Dwayne and Rodney would be living at the ranch too. Running two apple orchards was a full time job and uncle Ross would be in charge of that part of the whole pie baking operation. My cousin Dwayne was 11 like me and Rodney was only 9. We had lived close together in Bozeman, were experienced at building little roads in the dirt for our toy cars, and making bridges for them to cross out of sticks and twigs. Besides I had a new bike, a Schwinn, with white sidewall tires and red fenders.

The ranch was just off a narrow paved road that followed the winding Hood River up stream. There was a mail box where our dirt drive way met the road that was almost covered over by wild black berry bushes.The little red flag on the mail box was bent over and didn't work very well. The bushes pretty well hid it anyway.

An abstract view of the famous Portland Hollywood Theater...

The old ranch house had been painted white, a long time ago and now dust from the orchard rested comfortably on the siding. The front porch was long and wide and mostly shaded by the now grown-up apple tree in the front yard. Inside was a big old kitchen with a wood stove that used to be the only working stove until the ranch got electricity. Now we had an electric range and a big family table in the middle of the room. The table only had four chairs, so Rodney, the youngest, sat on apple boxes when we ate dinner. We seldom used the front room, which had an old and well-used fireplace with a stack of cut apple wood along side. The couch was dark brown and well worn, with stuffing coming out of the back of one of the cushions. A red brick served as a back leg and kept the couch from wobbling when us kids jumped on it chasing each other around the house.

When we got too noisy Aunt Beth would exile us to the huge old warehouse in back of the residence. The warehouse seemed like it was a block long, with a long loading dock where trucks could pull up and load up boxes of apples. But during the summer, the warehouse was stacked to the ceiling with hundreds of empty wooden apple boxes waiting for the harvest at picking time. It was one of our favorite places to play because we learned that if we pulled a few boxes out of the middle of the stack we could crawl in a little way, pull out a few more boxes, and eventually make a small cubbyhole like spot where all three of us could hide out and talk. It served as our meeting place and hide-out all summer. We could hear Aunt Beth calling us though when it was time for dinner! If we didn't answer her right away, she would bang on a metal bucket that was on the back porch.

We ate a lot of fried chicken that summer, at least twice a week and always on Sunday. Sunday dinners at the big table were always fried chicken, mashed potatoes with chicken gravy and usually fresh asparagus which we grew on the other ranch in Dee, Oregon. Asparagus poked it heads up in the dirt between the rows of apple and pear trees. It grew well there and didn't seem to need a lot of sunlight. Aunt Beth always cooked it so it was tender and soft and covered it with melted butter.

One of the reasons we ate a lot of chicken, was across the driveway from the farmhouse was a large fenced in area that was full of chickens! The chicken house, was small with not enough room for all the chickens and that was part of the reason we ate about two chickens a week. The hens that owned the chicken house laid eggs and we got four or five eggs every day.

For some reason taking care of the chickens became my job, putting out their feed, making sure there was water, and hunting for eggs that got laid where they weren't supposed to be laying them. Dwayne and Rodney were afraid of going into the chicken pen, Rodney because he was younger and the old rooster seemed to particularly dislike him, pecking at him if he got too close. Dwayne only liked chickens when they were served for dinner with lots of potatoes and gravy. So the "chicken job" became mine. It was fun, going in the coop, shooing off the bad old rooster, threatening him with the hatchet which was always sticking in the stump where we cut off their heads.

That became my job too, killing the chicken we were going to eat for dinner. Aunt Beth showed me how to do it. She chased down a fat hen, held it legs together, put its head on the stump and went “whack,” with the hatchet. The seemingly not dead chicken would flop around bleeding all over until it finally quit moving. I wasn't squeamish like Dwayne and Rodney. I could tell the chicken was really dead even if its body flopped around for awhile, because the eyes were always shut on its cut off head. Some times when I couldn't find the hatchet, I would wring their necks. I learned this also from Aunt Beth who grew up on a farm in Oklahoma before she married Uncle Ross. Just grab the chicken by the head and swing it around and around. It's neck was instantly broken and the head separated from its body after a few swings and it flopped around bleeding just like when the heads were chopped off.

When the chicken stopped flopping around, I took it in the farm house where Aunt Beth had a big pot of water boiling. Into the boiling water went the chicken, feathers and all. After a few minutes she pulled the chicken out of the water and put it on a big sheet of newspaper and we started pulling out all the feathers. Boiling water somehow made the feathers come out easy. Except when the feathers were all gone there were still some hairs sticking out of the skin. Aunt Beth would then roll up a piece of newspaper and light it on fire. She would hold the chicken in the flame until the hairs were burned off. “Singeing” the chicken she called it. From there she taught me how to cut off the legs and wings and and cut out the breast pieces. She popped the chicken pieces into a paper bag with seasoning and flour. I was learning how to cook. It was fun and “smothered” chicken was the first thing I learned to fix! Except for boiling wieners. I knew how to do that too!!

Another fun thing I got to do was steer the old tractor that pulled a trailer with a big nasty smelling spray tank. The tractor was always parked at the end of the warehouse loading dock away from the house because it smelled so bad. Uncle Ross told us that worms and other insects liked apples as well as we did and had to be sprayed so they didn't ruin the apple crop.

The tractor was once painted gray, but the spray drops made it look spotted and kind of milky appearing. The word “FORD” was barely visible on the front. It had big wheels on the back and little wheels on the front just like the tractor that came to greet us when we landed in the farmers meadow. Uncle Ross would start up the tractor and drive it slowly down the long rows of apple trees checking the blossoms and emerging fruit to see when it might need to be sprayed. I suggested that he could get a better look at the apple trees if he let me steer the tractor. His handsome face broke out in laughter, but he agreed and let me hold the steering wheel. The rows were long and he would steer again at the end of the row turning around so we could come back the other way in the next row. Then I got to steer again!

I got to steer the big truck too the same way. Once every day or so we would have to drive over to the other ranch at DEE, a few miles away to check on things. We always drove the Green Chevrolet two and one half ton truck to DEE and back. The rows of trees were long there too and Uncle Ross would set the hand throttle and put the truck in low gear and it would rumble slowly along the tree rows. He now trusted me enough to steer the truck while he stood outside on the running board inspecting the tree branches. This was fun! Down one row and back up another, over and over again, steering the big old truck. It made me feel grown up and responsible. Truck driving was a big job and I didn't understand how the gears worked yet.

We also had to inspect the creek that ran through the property because it was the water we used to irrigate the orchard. The problem was that beavers lived in the stream and made themselves a nice beaver-dam to play in. We could see them sometimes swimming in the pond they made behind the dam with their noses barely above water with sticks in their mouths. Uncle Ross said the beavers couldn't do that because it stopped most of the water we needed to irrigate. “I hate to do it,” he mumble mostly to himself, “but we need the stream more than they do.” His handsome square jawed face looked troubled and the wrinkles in his forehead disappeared into his silver gray hair. Uncle Ross also had a pencil thin mustache, gray just like his hair. It wasn't clear to me just yet what he had decided to do about the beaver dam and we didn't talk about it on the way home. I just listened to the comfortable low whine of the trucks gears as he moved the floor shift lever through a pattern I hadn't figured out yet. My favorite sound came from the gear he called “compound low.” I glanced at him on the way home. His face was very manly I thought, and mom always said it was her side of the family that got the “good hair.” I didn't know it yet but I had inherited the “good hair” too!

The very next day Uncle Ross and I were back in the big green truck on our way to the orchard at DEE with a case of dynamite, several hundred feet of waterproof fuse and waterproof blasting caps. Something big was going to happen! I could feel the excitement as Uncle Ross kept looking down at the box of dynamite between us on the seat. “Can this stuff go off now,” I asked. “Nope,” he replied, “not dangerous until I make it go off.” When we arrived at the roadway onto the property, Uncle Ross shifted the truck into “compound low,” and the truck crawled slowly up the steep hill into the orchard. We passed over the main irrigation ditch and could see that very little water was still running. Not enough to irrigate the trees. Uncle made a clucking sound and shook his head. “I could pee more water than that,” he said, and made the clucking sound again.

In a few more minutes we had reached the part of the stream the beavers had damned up and Uncle Ross turned off the ignition key and the truck coasted to a stop. It seemed as if he was trying to sneak up on the beavers. His look signaled that I should be quiet too. With his pocket knife he slit open the case of dynamite and took out three sticks. He wrapped them together with black electrical tape and added the blasting caps. He attached the caps to the dynamite, then wrapped the fuses together. With a determined look he walked slowly to the edge of the stream and waded out into the water, chest deep, to the edge of the beavers dam. Uncle Ross took a deep breath and ducked under the water where he completely disappeared. I could see bubbles from where I was standing on the edge of the stream and I waited for him to come back up. But I didn't see him. Only more bubbles, then more and more bubbles. I was getting worried and found myself holding my own breath. Finally his silver hair appeared above the surface and he walked toward me picking his footing carefully, holding onto the long fuse.

Once ashore, he shook the water off as much as possible and we retreated back to the truck as he reeled the long fuse behind him. “What's going to happen now Uncle Ross?” I asked. “Well I'm going to light this fuse as soon as I get my breath. Then we wait.” “Is it dangerous?” I asked.

“Well, we are back about three hundred feet. We'll be ok. Truth is, I've never set off three sticks of dynamite at the same time, but I think we're back far enough.” His answer sounded a little unsure and I found myself slowly backing up farther behind the truck. In a minute he took a deep breath and lit the fuse with the cigarette lighter in the truck. The glowing coil of the lighter hit the fuse and it sputtered a moment from the water still on Uncle's hands, before it took off. It began to burn, turning the coating on the fuse black. The black part got longer and longer as the fire in the fuse got closer to the waters edge. I was holding my breath, my eyes frozen on the slowly moving, seemingly slow burning fuse.

After about a hundred feet I couldn't see the smoldering fuse any longer and looked at uncle Ross to see if it was alright. He glanced at me and nodded, but he couldn't see the burning fuse either. We waited some more, looking at each other, then trying to see if the fuse was still burning. We both found ourselves standing on tiptoes, peering ahead. Nothing happened...and still nothing happened. “I wonder if everything got too wet?” he asked himself, moving a few feet closer to the water. I couldn't hold my breath any longer either and moved a few steps closer behind him.

KA-BOOM!! The explosion scared the be-jesus out out both of us! It was the best thing I had ever seen. The water flew, it seemed, a hundred feet into the air. Sticks and pieces of wood and brush that had held the dam together flew up in all directions, as well as two or three beavers. I could feel the shock wave on my face and see a big wave from the explosion surge back up stream. Then everything came loose at once and the plugged up water rushed down stream and into the irrigation ditch, flowing over the top of the little log bridge we had crossed.

Uncle Ross started the truck, and seeing the irrigation water once again flowing into the ditches along side of the rows of apple trees, he slapped me on the back, grinned at himself in the side view mirror. Soon we were home at the other orchard again with the feeling that a good days work had been done. I could hardly wait to tell Dwayne and Rodney about the explosion and how high the water flew into the air and how about a “dozen” beavers flew into the air too and how wonderful it all was. We crawled into the cubby hole in the apple boxes and I told the story over and over again. Each time there were more dead beavers. I felt like a hero!!

One of my most favorite outings was the weekly trips in the big, old, Green truck with a load of apples for the pie factory in Portland. Each Sunday, Uncle Ross would load the flatbed truck with boxes of apples early in the morning, strap down the load and we would rumble down the driveway to the road. After looking both ways for traffic, we pulled out onto the winding highway and headed down the hill to Hood River. The heavily loaded truck, “about two tons of apples,” said Uncle Ross strained the gears and made the whining sound I loved. Rather than use the brakes all the time going down the steep hill, Uncle Ross left the truck in third gear which made it go slower. Once through the city of Hood River the road stretched out level as highway 30 and followed the Columbia River for miles and miles before the road started up the long, steep grade past Multnomah Falls.

We always stopped at the 'falls cafe' to pee and get a cup of coffee for Uncle Ross and a creme soda for me. Vanilla creme was my favorite. After that was Orange. Sometimes I got an Orange soda, to take with me and drink later in the trip. Uncle Ross always checked the radiator to see if there was enough fluid before starting the long, gear grinding trip to the top of the hill at Crown Point.

I would look out the truck window and see down the steep cliffs off to my right. I often wondered how the road makers had carved such a winding road, through these rocky cliffs so high up from the river. Looking down was scary and the road seemed dangerously narrow, but Uncle Ross always had a confident smile on his face while he drove. In time the whining gears would lull me to sleep, but I always knew when we got to the top before opening my eyes because of the way the truck gears sounded. Uncle Ross would shift the truck into high gear and before long we would cross the green bridge that spanned the Sandy River and up the hill again and onto baseline road, now called Stark Street. By the time we pulled up to the loading dock at the pie factory at 820 E. Burnside Street, we had been driving for two and one half hours on a winding and very steep old road. I was tired and ready to pee again and glad to see Mom and Dad. Dad helped Ross unload the truck and when they were done, we gassed up at the pumps on our property and started the long trip back to Hood River. “Summer will be over in a few more days son,” said dad, giving me a big hug goodbye, “and I'll get you and your sisters enrolled in school.”

And sure enough, the last days of fun on the ranch whizzed by in what seemed a minute. I had not read about Tom Sawyer yet, but looking back it was an idyllic Tom Sawyer summer with riding my bike, steering the tractor, steering the big old truck, whacking chickens for dinner, making a fort out of the apple boxes and blowing up the beavers.

Dwayne and Rodney would stay and live in Hood River and go to school on a yellow school bus that would stop by their mailbox and I would start school in Portland. I stuffed my old clothes in a duffel bag not caring if they got wrinkled or not and waited for my last Sunday trip to Portland on the big truck. When all the apple boxes were loaded and tied down, Uncle Ross put my red Schwinn on top of it all and tied it down too. I jumped up and checked it because I didn't want my bike flying off down the road someplace or worse falling down a cliff to be lost.

Home in Portland was a big gray up and down duplex at 1611 NE 48'th avenue. We had the street level apartment to live in. It had a big porch in front and 6 steps up. Mom and dad had their own bedroom, I had my own bedroom and my twin sisters shared the third bedroom, with bunk beds. We had the use of the full basement with a washing machine and a clothes line to hang the clothes up to dry. The stairs up from the basement led to the back door and out onto the driveway. There was a garage at the end of the driveway, but it was full of old stuff and the doors were hard to push open. I was able to get the doors open enough to store my bike inside. My sisters didn't have bikes. They had stick horses. When I would ride my bike they would try to follow me on their stick horses yelling “giddy up" and "whoa.” But they couldn't keep up with me. I just rode faster, feeling the breeze on my face, watching my sisters fall behind on their stick horses.

Dads pie company bought a new dark green 1948 Ford pickup truck which was kept in our driveway. Mostly Mom drove it as her car. It had a floor shift lever just like the flat bed truck at the ranch and Mom would let me do the shifting. Mom would push in the clutch and I would shift the lever. It was so fun, listening to the sound of the engine, waiting for just the right 'whine,' the exact right moment that Mom would put in the clutch and I could shift. I thought I was pretty good at it having listened to the sound of the gears on the old truck at the ranch. Sometimes I would miscalculate and shift the lever before Mom got the clutch all the way in and it would make an awful grinding noise. When I did that Mom wouldn't let me shift anymore for the rest of the trip. In a way I was learning to drive, having steered the truck and tractor at the farm and now shifting the gears too.

People thought my mom was pretty. She was always getting compliments on her hair. I thought she was pretty too. She had a lot of dark brown hair which she kept just above her shoulders. At night she would spend an hour putting her hair up in pin curls, winding a strand of hair around her finger to make the curl then holding it in place with a bobby pin. When I would watch her, she would sometimes laugh at me and grab a strand of my hair and put it in a pin curl. She always wore red lipstick and Merle Norman brand pan cake make-up on her face. It had to be 'Merle Norman' make up and she got it at a special place down town. I told her I thought she was "prettier" than "other moms" I had seen and she always said that she was a business woman and business women had to look “professional.” I wasn't sure what 'professional' meant but she always looked nice. Sometimes I thought she was dressed too nice to be driving a truck.

A few days before enrolling us kids in Rose City Park grade school for fall term, Dad took a look at me with my worn and berry stained summer jeans riding my bicycle. “Come on son,” he said, “we're getting you some new clothes and throw those jeans away. No kid of mine is going to wear blue jeans.” Dad had a thing about Levi's. To him jeans represented a lower class of person. He never owned a pair of blue jeans himself, and all the time I lived at home I never got to wear jeans either. My sisters wore bib overalls, though to dad it didn't seem the same.

School clothes shopping was all done at the big Sears and Roebuck store on NE Union Avenue in NE Portland. For trousers I got two pair of 'sun-tans,' two pair of 'moon-tans,' the same as sun-tans only gray and two pairs of brown corduroy pants. I got a pair of brown and white saddle shoes for 'every day' and a pair of black wingtips for dress shoes. The store had an x-ray machine that I could stick my feet into and you could look through the scope and see your toes wiggle. When the shoes fit properly there was plenty of 'wiggle room.' I got a heavy winter coat that zipped up the front with a fleece collar, and rubber galoshes for when it snowed. “You're all set now son,” said Dad smiling at me. And the clerk was smiling too as he put the money in the cash register. “We might have to buy some gym clothes too, but we'll wait to see what you need for that” he told me.

I never thought of my dad as handsome but I noticed that women seemed to like him. Dad was always well dressed, always wore a suit, with a white dress shirt that had been heavily starched and a nice tie. When dad was at work at the pie shop he never put on “work clothes,” his work clothes were his suits, tie loosened at the collar and a white apron tied around his waist. Dad never seemed to get dirty even when he was unloading boxes of apples from the flat bed truck either. His clothes were always the latest suits and his shoes were always shined. I was often with dad when he would drop off his dress shirts and pick them up ready-to-wear. He used the cleaners at 20th and East Burnside and the package was always marked 'heavy starch.' The shirt collars were stiff as a board from the starch, so stiff you could write on them.

Mom and Dad had some friends in the insurance business that lived about three blocks from our house on NE 48th avenue. We would often visit for dinner and grown-up talk. Gordon, the man, seemed to take a shine to my mom and they would talk together and flirt. Gordon's wife was a woman named Mildred. I thought she was movie-star beautiful and so did Dad. Dad and Mildred would talk together and flirt too. They were from Canada and Dad thought the way Mildred ended her sentences with the Canadian “eh?” was so cute. Gordon graduated from college in Canada, but Dad was always proud of the fact he never went beyond the 6th grade. He had to quit school to take care of his mom, after his father abandoned the family, when he was ten or eleven years old. His mother, my grandmother, Genevieve had named Dad Sherley, a man's name but even then, an uncommon name for a man. People always asked if Sherley and Clara, were sisters and I had to explain that I didn't know why my Dad had a girls name, but Sherley was my Dad and Clara was my Mom. Dad went by SM DuPay, his initials, but all his friends called him Sherley. I just called him Dad.

I can remember Dad saying that he automatically knew how to run a business. “I don't know much about arithmetic,” he would say, “but I hire an accountant for that, and I hire an attorney for the other stuff I need to know.” I knew my dad was smart because I had just finished the 6th grade in Bozeman, Montana and I knew I couldn't run dads business. I usually walked the short distance home when I became tired of the grown-up talk about insurance and pies.

Rose City Park School

Rose City Park Grade school looked like a school is supposed to look, It was a red brick building set back off the street with the front door right in the middle of the building. A few teachers cars were parked in the parking area to the left of the school and there was a door located there. It was the door I always used. I would ride my bike to school and park it near the side door. My school books were in a spring loaded rack on the back fender and I tied them on just in case I crashed. I was assigned a 'home-room,' the first room of the day and it is where we did our homework.

I was assigned the job of safety patrol and got to leave class 15 minutes early to get to my assigned corner. Safety patrol “officers,” were given a white web belt that went around their waist and over their right shoulder. A shiny silver badge was pinned to the belt and I was given a red flag on a pole that read STOP! Going to my assigned corner was always the best time of the day. I got to leave class early and when I put my flag down in front of the cars they STOPPED! It made me feel powerful!

When I was finished at my corner and all the kids were gone, I put away my equipment and tied my books to the rack on my bike. In Hood River I had learned to ride my bike backwards, ie, sit facing the rear and pedaling. I was good at it and proud of myself when I jumped on the bike the opposite way of the other kids and pedaled off down the street toward home, steering with my butt. Other kids wanted me to show them how to ride backwards but I always said “No, you can't do it. It's too hard.” I would laugh and pedal away even faster looking over my shoulder to see where I was going. I almost never crashed, but sometimes I did.

Next door to our house was an even bigger house. Mary-Lou Hunter lived there. She was in the same grade as me at Rose City and I thought she was cute. Girls were starting to interest me and Mary-Lou and I played together with my two sisters in the huge vacant lot a few doors away at NE 48th and Halsey. There were paths through the weeds that grew there and a lot of dandelions and dog poop from the people in the neighborhood, that always walked their dogs there. And there were lots of garter snakes. The snakes would slither through the tall grass and cross the dirt paths trying to get into the weeds on the other side. They were easy to catch too.

When I saw them trying to cross the path I acted fast and stepped on their tails. The hard part was trying to pick them up by the neck just behind their heads while they were wiggling around with my foot on them. They would open their mouths and flick their tongues out at me. The inside of their mouths were pink and their long tongues were red and were split on the ends. They didn't have any teeth, but still I didn't want them to bite me. Once I grabbed them behind the head I could put them in a big Mason jar. I could usually catch at least two every time I went to the vacant lot. Then I would catch some beetles, there were lots of black beetles there too, and sometimes grasshoppers and I would put them in the jar for the snakes to eat.

Mary-Lou didn't like the snakes and neither did my little sisters. Sometimes I would reach in the jar and fish our one of the biggest snakes and chase my sisters around the vacant lot and down the block into our backyard. They would run into the house yelling “Mom, help us. Donnie is chasing us with a snake.” Mom always scolded me, saying “stop tormenting your sisters.” But it was worth it to see them run and scream when I waved the snake around and around my head threatening to fling it at them.

Rose City School, Portland, Oregon.

I was starting to like Rose City school. The janitors would push four foot wide wide brooms down the hallways. They used a floor cleaning compound that had a funny smell. They pushed it in front of their wide brooms. It was the color and texture of ground coffee but smelled like oil and sawdust. We could always tell when the janitors had finished cleaning the hallways. The school smelled good. Recess was 15 minutes long and I would usually show off by riding my bike backwards around the playground. The other kids were jealous, and when they wanted me to teach them how to do it, I just laughed and rode away. “Too hard,” I would tell them, “too hard.” If I timed it just right I could ride to the corner store right across the street from the school and buy a package of Corn-nuts and a package of licorice, and get back before the bell rang.

Gym class was always after recess and I mostly didn't like it. We had to change into ugly gray sweat pants and a sweat shirt and tennis shoes, as well as having to wear a jock-strap. Dad took me to buy my gym clothes at Sears. I didn't know what a jock-strap was until Dad took me to buy one. It was embarrassing, trying to tell the clerk what size I needed. But Dad picked out the right one, and I had to wear it in gym. We always started out gym class by running around the gym three times, just enough to get all sweaty before we started to play prison ball.

I was good at prison ball, good at dipping and dodging and ducking and when I could catch the ball I could throw it back really hard. All the kids wanted me on their team. In good weather we would go outside and play flag football. The teacher would divide us into two teams and give each one of us a white hand towel to stick in our belts. If a player grabbed your flag you were tackled. I didn't like football I decided. Too much running and falling down and it made me mad when someone would steal my flag.

In the spring we played soft ball. I didn't like it either. The game was too slow for me and it made me mad when I was the victim of a “forced out.” I didn't know what that was and it never seemed fair, but for some reason I was “out,” and the other team was happy about it. I decided that me and sports were not made for each other. I was always glad when the game was over and I could take off the sweaty gym clothes and and stupid jock-strap.

In class we were studying about the Native American Indians who lived in Oregon before the White man arrived. I was interested because I have Cherokee Indian heritage on my mothers side of the family. My grandmother looked like an Indian. Mom showed me pictures of Grandma holding me when I was a baby. She was Indian alright.

Besides I was born in Wenatchee Washington, an Indian name, we vacationed at Lake Chelan, an Indian name and we visited Seattle another Indian name. We moved to Portland Oregon divided by the Willamette river, an Indian name. The teacher told us that Willamette referred to a town now called Oregon City. My mom took me fishing in Tillamook bay, another Indian name, so in my mind, I was kind of Indian.

My Mother was a dyed-in-the-wool fisher person. When she wasn't working she was going fishing. Dad on the other hand hated fishing. “Drowning worms is a waste of time,” he would laugh. Mom gave up trying to get Dad to go fishing so she always made me go along. “We both can't be away from the business at the same time,” Dad would say, “take Donnie with you.” I hated everything about fishing. I was scared of the water, the rocking boat made me nervous, I didn't like the fishy smell or the slimy silver scales.

Mom would haul the poor fish into the boat, hit them over the head with a short club she kept in her tackle box and take the hook out of its mouth with a pair of pliers. It was bloody and stinky and I didn't like the taste of fish anyway. Besides there were too many little bones in fish. Sometimes we would dig for clams at Tillamook bay. Mom had a long pipe looking thing called a clam “gun.” I didn't like clams either. They were too tough to chew.

Often if the fish weren't biting mom would throw out a crab net and catch dungeness crab. I did like the crab meat but I thought the crabs were ugly and too hard to crack open to get to the meat. It was fun though, throwing crabs into boiling water and watching them turn from green to red. Mom would tell me to listen closely. “The crabs will scream when they hit the hot water,” she said, trying to be serious. I listened but never heard a scream.

Dad's sister, my Aunt Peggy, and her husband Paul owned a big motel on the beach at Ocean Lake, (now called Lincoln City) and so we were able to spend a lot of time at the beach with a free place to stay. Uncle Paul would stop by Barnacle Bills fish market and bring home dungeness crabs and spiced prawns.

Averting a tragedy

Life was good now that we were living in Oregon. The pie business was thriving, Mom and Dad always seemed to have plenty of money. Other kids in school had to wait till their folks “pay day” to get the things they needed, but not us. We had all we needed and never went without.

Sometimes while riding my bike I would drift back in time, remembering when we lived on the farm near Valier Montana. There was no running water or electricity or even a bathroom to use. The only heat was from the wood stove in the kitchen. At the edge of the kitchen sink was a pump-handle that we used to pump water into the sink. The only light was from the Coleman lanterns we had, that hung from the ceilings. The bathroom was an outhouse out the back door at the edge of the garden. Moving from the city of Wenatchee and a successful restaurant business to a rural Montana farm at the end of a deeply rutted dirt road with no electricity or running water sent our Dad into a deep depression. He was completely out of his element there. My mother was in her natural environment on a farm, having been raised on one. She was resourceful, hard working, loved to fish and loved to be our of doors, but Dad was more of a city dweller.

Dad could never seem to adjust to farm life, and would mope around, looking for all the world like a fish out of water. He had, as long as I'd known him, refused to wear "blue jeans," and would never allow any of us kids to wear them either, saying only the "lower classes," did so. He tried to do the daily chores, including trying to figure out how to get the tractor up and running and out of the barn in his suit pants and dress shirt. At night I could hear Mom and Dad arguing in their bedroom but I could never make out what they were saying. But I could intuit that dad was very unhappy and mom was worried about his deteriorating mental health.

One overcast, rainy afternoon Mom seemed to suddenly go into a panic when she couldn't find Dad. “Where's your Dad?” she asked looking for him in each room. “Did he go out to the barn? Is he out back?” I put on my coat and rain boots and went outside to look for him.

Dad wasn't in the barn. I could see my father hanging by his neck from the metal cross bars of our windmill about thirty feet off the ground. The windmill had at one time pumped water for a herd of cows that used to live on the farm with the previous owners. Now it just sat, unused and immobile from rust and neglect, atop a 75 foot metal tower. Dad was hanging by his neck at the bottom of the V shaped cross bar supports.

The old windmill tower was about halfway between the weathered cow barn and the edge of the garden where the outhouse sat. For me it was a ready made “jungle-jim” and I played there often. I learned to climb up the flat metal cross braces to the top. It was about 75 feet high with the windmill at the top. I could sit on the top platform if I made myself small enough and if I tugged hard at the rusty fan blades I could still get them to turn a little.

The blades squeaked really loud, but they turned. I didn't tell Mom or Dad, what I was doing, but a couple of times when I was climbing the tower I lost my grip on the cross braces and fell to the ground. The first time I fell, I promised myself I would be more careful because I didn't want anyone to know. The second time I fell from about 20 feet up I hit the wooden boards covering the old well head and knocked myself silly. I lay there for a few minutes gathering my wits about me, and when I could get on my feet I limped to the barn. I pushed a dusty old bale of hay out of the hay loft and dragged it to the windmill and used the hay to cover up the hard boards in case I ever fell again.

But now it was my Dad up there hanging by his neck. I could see that he had gone limp because his arms were hanging at his sides and one leg was caught in the cross brace below. I ran to the tower and climbed up to Dad. His eyes were shut and his face was turning blue. I yelled at him but he didn't answer. I was able to maneuver myself in behind him and somehow lift him up and get his neck out of the “V” shaped cross supports. Once I got his head loose from the bars I held him tight with my left arm around his chest and slowly worked my way down one rung at a time until I couldn't hold his weight any longer. We both tumbled onto the hay from about 10 feet up. On the ground he began to gasp for air. When I rolled him on his side, I began picking the hay out of his hair, as he continued to regain consciousness. Mom came running over screaming “Sherley! Sherley! What are you trying to do? What are you trying to DO?!” Dad had started to breathe again and Mom and I got him to his feet and helped him back to the house, putting him right to bed.

We never talked about the fact that Dad tried to kill himself. We never talked about his depression or why he would have done something so reckless and selfish. But that's how things were, in the old days. You didn't talk about things that went wrong. You pretended they never happened. After I'd gotten Dad down from the windmill, Mom hugged me repeatedly and seemed overcome with gratitude, saying that God must have been with me for an 85 pound 9-year-old to lift up and maneuver an 185 pound man 30 feet back to the ground. Dad was alive and I was grateful I'd gotten to him in time, too. 

This incident turned out to be the end of the ranching experiment. Mom sold out and we moved to Bozeman Montana and started another restaurant. Dad seemed to be his old self back in the restaurant business. He took flying lessons again and earned his pilots license. And I had a job washing dishes in the restaurant.

The Hollywood Theater and Yaws

Starting when I was about 9 or 10, I discovered that I loved movies. Every Saturday the Hollywood theater on Sandy Boulevard and NE 41'st avenue had a matinée film. All of my favorite cowboys were in the matinée movies. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and their horse Trigger, The Lone Ranger and his faithful Indian companion Tonto, Hop-along Cassidy,and Red Ryder. There was always a short action film that had a maddening ending, leaving you to wonder what was going to happen next week so you had to come back the following Saturday to find out. My mom called them "cliff hangers."

Fox Movie-Tone news showed every week too, as well as Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig cartoons. Dad gave me a job making one dollar an hour packaging salted nuts, dried smoked shrimp and little green mint candies, at a small store front at 20 NE 20th and Burnside Street. These small packages went with the pie trucks and were distributed to the various stores along with the pies. It was boring just to sit in one place measuring nuts into little cellophane packages, but it was okay because it gave me enough money to go to the movies on Saturday and it was better than washing dishes for money like I had done in the restaurant in Bozeman.

At the Hollywood, I always sat in the balcony clear up front so I could lean on the rail and look down at the people below. In a time when only outlaws wore a mask, I could never understand why the Lone Ranger, (the good guy) always wore one. Then at the end of the movie someone on the screen would always ask, “Who was that masked man anyway?” and you would hear the Lone ranger riding away shouting “Hi-ho silver and away.”

The Lone ranger's horse was white and was named Silver. Roy Rogers horse, Trigger, was a palomino, a pretty goldish-blond color with a long blond mane. After all the bad guys were dead or put in jail Roy and Dale would sing “Happy Trails.” After the movie I would go to Yaws, only about a block away from the theater on 42'nd Avenue. 

Yaws restaurant sometime in the 1950's on 42nd Ave, Portland Oregon

Yaws was Dad's favorite restaurant and he took us there for hamburgers and a side of spaghetti and gravy fries. Yaws was always busy especially after the movie let out and I hurried to get ahead of the crowd so I could get a seat. The burgers were hot and juicy with just enough lettuce and tomato and cheese, but the pickle slices kept sliding out. Yaws milkshakes were made from real ice cream and sometimes I ordered a strawberry shake if I wasn't too full after the gravy fries; but usually I drank a Green River. The green color was so pretty to look at, and when I held the glass up to the light it seemed to shimmer, undulating with the tiny bubbles, as they gently rose to the top.

On the way back home I would walk along Sandy Boulevard. I always looked in the window at the shoes in Alex Volchok's shoe store just East of the theater, or stopped to window shop at JC Penny's on up the street. There was a bank on the corner of 42'nd avenue and Sandy. The building looked like it was an old time bank like I just saw in the western movies and in my mind I could see the bank robbers running out the front door with bags of money in their hands. The Lone Ranger must be just around the corner I imagined.

Piano Lessons

When I arrived home from the movies I usually had to practice the piano. I started piano lessons at age nine. My Dad was a frustrated musician and played violin and saxophone in a small band as a young man when he lived in Denton Montana. Dad wished he could play the piano and in his mind I think he saw himself as a concert pianist. I guess that meant he wanted me to be a concert pianist, because Dad insisted on getting piano lessons for me. My piano teacher was a tall thin man with gray hair and a thin mustache and stern blue eyes. His name was Stanley and Stanley never smiled, during the lessons that were always conducted at his house, on NE Broadway. His lips would curl up trying to smile, when he invited me in, but it never seemed to look right. Stanley's piano was an upright and he would always sit next to me for my lessons, counting out the beat with his finger, waving it in time to the metronome that sat on top of the piano.

The metronome kept the beat relentlessly and sometimes I got confused trying to read the music, and keep up with the tick-tocking machine. Then Stanley would stop the metronome and put his hand over mine on the piano keys and tell me to start all over. It made me mad to start all over again from the very beginning, but Stanley would never let me go until I had completed the exercise perfectly at least once. I didn't like Stanley. He was too stern, his thin smile never worked for him and sometimes in frustration at having to start the exercise all over again I would cry. My tears only seemed to make him more determined to make a piano player out of me or else!

“You need to practice more Donald,” he would say, “You are not practicing enough,” then he would move me over on the seat and play the piece himself perfectly just to show me how it was supposed to sound. Often the lesson would end with me in tears and Stanley admonishing me to “practice, practice your scales and stretch your hands so you can reach an octave. You must be able to reach an octave easily.” Then with my sheet music in my hand and wiping my eyes dry with my sleeve I went out to Broadway street and took the street car to the Hollywood district and walked home from there. The street car fair was 12 cents each way. I didn't like the teacher and I didn't like to cry, but sometimes he just made me so mad.

Dad bought me an upright piano to practice on, an expensive endeavor but he was determined I would become a concert pianist. It stood against the wall below the front room window. I could see the neighborhood kids playing in the street out in front of the house through the window. They were playing foot ball, stopping as the cars drove by. I didn't like foot ball much either so practicing the piano gave me an excuse to stay inside when the kids yelled for me to come out and play. “I can't come out. I have to practice,” I would yell through the window.

Over the months I got better at playing the piano and struggled my way through Clair de Lune, by Debussy, Flight of the Bumble Bee, by Rimsky Korsakov, and the Polonaise by Chopin, but my favorite music was playing Boogie Woogie on the piano. I loved the base notes and made up my own Boogie-Woogie tunes. I liked music. I just hated to practice classical music and I hated the metronome too.

The earthquake and Two Things Mom and Dad Never Caught Me Doing.

One afternoon in early spring, April 13th, 1949 I was playing in front of the house on 48th street trying to fix my bike. The chain was rubbing on the frame and making a terrible noise and I had the bike upside down on the sidewalk prying on the chain with my Dad's big screwdriver. Suddenly I felt the ground move under me and the concrete on the sidewalk seemed to roll in a sweeping undulating movement a little like the Garter snakes would wiggle when I tried to catch them. My bike fell over on its side just as I heard bricks from our chimney fall down and land on top of Dad's new green truck which was parked in the driveway.

Mom came running out the front door in her house-dress looking for me and my twin sisters, to make sure we were all safe. Together we stood looking up at the cracked chimney and about twenty missing bricks which were now in the driveway and on top of the truck. After the ground stopped moving Mom hugged me tight and we walked up the driveway to inspect the truck. I was old enough to know that we had just witnessed an earthquake but it was the first one I'd ever experienced.

Mom whistled as she surveyed the damage to the truck. I had never heard Mom whistle before. “Boy-o-boy!” she exclaimed letting out another low whistle, “Dad's going to be mad. I've got to call him and tell him about the truck and see if everything is alright at the pie shop.” We both hurried inside the house and Mom turned the radio to KGW as she called Dad on the phone. On the radio we heard the announcer telling us that an earthquake centered in Washington state near Tacoma had also “hit Portland causing rock slides and cracks to building walls. Chimneys toppled off roofs and merchandise fell off shelves.”

A Typical 1949 F150 Ford Pick up Truck, like the one my father owned.

Well it sure did. It sure knocked our chimney down and Dad told Mom that some of the pies had slid out of their shelves and onto the floor. “We've got a big sticky pie mess to clean up here,” said Dad, “then I'll be home to look at the truck. Call the insurance company about the truck damage and call the landlord about the chimney,” he told Mom.

Every Sunday Mom went to church and took me with her. Except it wasn't a regular church. Mom's favorite minister was an old lady named Netty Taylor and she held her services in a big room at the downtown Masonic lodge building in the Park blocks. The next Sunday after the earthquake we piled into the dented truck with the newly cracked windshield and drove downtown to church. Mom always let me work the shift lever when she pushed in the clutch, while driving. The earthquake hadn't bothered that part of the truck.

“Does God make earthquakes?” I asked. “Well, I guess he does,” Mom replied after thinking about it for a moment. “God makes everything happen, she said.”

“Why does he make bad things happen like earthquakes?!” I demanded.

“Hmm,” she replied, thinking about it, “I'm not sure about that one. I'm still learning about how God works, that's why I go to church son, to find out more about God.”

“He must be powerful alright 'cause I saw him make the ground move and the concrete on the sidewalk move up and down. And he made my bike fall over without even touching it.” Soon we were parking in front of the Masonic Lodge and Mom checked her purse to make sure she had some change for the collection plate. She gave me some coins to put in too. Thinking about the Beaver-dam in Hood River I asked, “Mom, is God more powerful than dynamite?”

                                                                        ******

When it rained, and it seemed to rain more since we lived in Portland than it had in Bozeman, I would spend my time playing in our big basement. I loved to make rockets out of matches. Wooden matches were the best but paper matches worked too. I took a match and wrapped the head of it in tinfoil and squeezed it tight. Then I took a small needle and pushed it between the tinfoil and the match itself which made a tiny vent.

Then I lit another match and heated the tinfoil end of the rocket-match until it ignited. Wow, it was exciting because the rocket match would take off making a hissing noise with some smoke coming out of the vent I made. The match rockets would fly in any direction and sometimes they come back at me and I'd have to dodge. It was fun, and scary at the same time so I tried to control the direction of the rockets by splitting the tail end with a razor blade and making paper tail fins. The tail fins seemed to work, at least the rocket didn't make a U-turn and come back at me.

I also made darts with the wooden matches and a sewing needle. I split both ends of the match and inserted a needle into one split end and wrapped it with Scotch tape. The other end would have the paper tail fins. I found the darts would fly about 10 feet with good accuracy. I made a paper target and pinned it to a post in the basement and threw my home made darts at it. Sometimes my two sisters would come down the basement and squeal and howl when I sent match rockets in their direction. They enjoyed dodging the rockets and running after them when they landed. I always aired out the basement after lighting matches by opening the basement window and the back door at the top of the stairs. I never got caught lighting matches and my sisters never told on me.

With school out for the summer I spent my time riding my bike, taking the trolley to my piano lessons, and then two hours of practicing at home on our family piano. I was starting to have fun with the piano as I got better at playing and made up a lot of boogie-woogie tunes. The oppressive metronome got broken. I think it fell off the top of the piano. It never worked after that. Besides, my boogie-woogie tunes didn't need a metronome.

When the Fourth of July finally came around Dad would buy lots of fireworks, bottle rockets, Roman candles, little “lady finger” fire crackers, regular fire crackers and a big box of M-80's. (Fireworks were not illegal in 1949 in Portland) We would set them off on the vacant lot on Halsey and 48th. After dark, with Dad in charge he would set off the Roman candles. They went high in the air and drifted down Halsey street towards 47th avenue. I put one M-80 under a soup can and lit it. It blew the can about five feet in the air. This was cool. The M-80's looked like little sticks of dynamite and reminded me of the Beaver dam explosion in Hood River. I found that if I twisted three of the fuses together and lit them it would send the soup can about twenty feet. Four twisted together blew the can apart and scared me a little but the noise was amazing and the crater left in the dirt was impressive.

But the best thing happened when I found an old piece of water pipe about a foot long and discovered a marble rolled easily through the length of the pipe. Now I was struck by a genius of an idea. Could I shoot the marble out of the pipe with an M-80 fire cracker? A little grade school engineering was required. In our basement I had come across some old pieces of water pipe and some fittings. I found an end-cap that screwed onto one end of my piece of pipe. With my Dads hand drill I drilled a small hole in the cap. I threaded the fuse of an M-80 through my newly drilled hole and stuffed the big fire cracker into the pipe. I screwed the end cap on tight. The fire cracker and the fuse fit perfectly and the marble rolled into the other end and up against the M-80. Wow! It looked like it might just work!

Now to test it out. When Mom and Dad were at work at the pie shop I dragged an old rusting metal wash tub out of the garage and up the street to the vacant lot. I turned the big tub on its side which gave me a big round rusty bottom as a target. I backed away about a hundred feet farther down the vacant lot and sat down. I checked the fuse and the marble and looked all around to make sure no one was watching. I pointed the pipe gun at the big round tub and lit the fuse. KABLOWIE!!

The old metal washtub, ground zero for my Marble Gun.

The fire spurted out the end of the pipe and the metal tub went “thud” and fell over. The pipe got hot and almost burned my hand, but there was a beautiful round hole in the bottom of the tub. I looked around to see if I had been discovered, but no one saw. I was scared too. The pipe gun was more powerful than I thought it would be and dangerous enough to get me into trouble. I dragged the tub back into the garage and hid it behind a bunch of other old stuff. I never did it again, because I was too afraid of getting into trouble, though Mom and Dad never knew.

                                                                        ****

As I entered the 8th grade, I found I was more interested in girls and less interested in playing in the basement with match rockets or with fire crackers at the vacant lot. Besides I had run out of fire crackers until Dad planned on buying some more next year. I rode around the neighborhood on my bike and down to Sandy Blvd and watched the girls coming and going from Fred Meyers on 42nd avenue and Sandy and the nearby Yaws restaurant. Sometimes if I had enough money I would buy a hamburger and eat it outside the restaurant while sitting on my bike. I was very interested in girls with boobs and watched to see if they jiggled when they walked. If the girls jeans were tight enough I could sometimes see the outline of their panties when they walked.

I started looking in the Oregonian newspaper. On about the third page I could find pictures of women modeling panties and bras. I could actually see women in their underwear in the newspaper without my mom noticing what I was doing!

As I attended school as a new 8th grader I found that I wasn't the only boy newly interested in girls. One of the boys in my homeroom class, Robert Ehrenstrom, showed me a torn and badly tattered copy of a paperback book called “Lady Chatterly's Lover. He showed me the pages where Lady Chatterly was having something called “sexual intercourse,” and graphic descriptions of her vagina. These were new words to me, but Robert helped me figure it all out. Sexual intercourse, he explained, was just grown up words for "fucking" and "vagina" was what girls called their “thing.” This was exciting for me and I had two new words to look up in the dictionary. I found Vagina, it was in the dictionary but "fucking" was not. I looked around for other words and found penis was in the dictionary too.

The cutest girl in my homeroom class was named Loretta. She had long brown hair, brown eyes, a quick smile that showed her braces and she wore a bra. She sat in front of me and to my right in the next isle of desks and when she leaned forward I could see her bra straps and wondered how it fastened in the back. Robert was watching her too and sometimes we would talk about Loretta as we rode our bikes home. “I wonder what her boobs feel like?” he asked. “I wonder too.” I replied. “Let's find out,” he said, and we formulated a plan to “feel her up.”

Our homeroom at school had a "cloak closet" behind the wall that had the blackboard and the big clock. We all hung our coats up in this walk-in closet. Robert and I waited for Loretta to hang up her coat and when she turned around she saw us both and smiled, hesitantly. I think she had sensed our interest. In the excitement of the moment, I lost my nerve and barely squeezed just one of her boobs before I turned around embarrassed and stumbled to my desk. I was now intensely aware of her. She smelled good, a faint smell of flowers and her boob was very soft.

I don't know if Robert got to feel her, as he looked at me with a scared smile, before leaving the cloak room. Loretta never told on us and we never tried to “feel her up” again. I think she may have enjoyed the attention, after all she was the only girl in class that wore a bra. I don't remember Loretta's last name either. I sure hope she doesn't remember mine!

                                                                        ****

After my Mom was finished reading the morning Oregonian I would take the paper in my room and masturbate while looking at the advertisements of pretty women in their panties and bras. I was still reading the deteriorating copy of “Lady Chatterly's Lover” that my friend "Robert" had loaned me and so I decided to make a vagina to masturbate into. From the book description of Lady Chatterly's vagina I certainly had some idea of what one should look like and I knew it must be both soft and round. I took a round toilet paper roll and stuffed it partly full with soft cotton and toilet paper. I stuck my penis into the toilet paper tube vagina but found it didn't work as well as my slippery hand had worked.

But something very scary happened. For the first time when I came, something slimy squirted out the end of my penis. I was terrified. This had never happened before and I thought I had finally broken something. I didn't know what I would tell Mom if I had to go to the hospital or the doctor. I wiped the slime off with toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet. I hid the copy of “Lady Chatterley's Lover” clear under my mattress way in the back and put the newspaper pictures in the garbage can. I didn't say anything about it even to Robert and swore that I would never masturbate again.

I felt guilty about what had happened and felt that I should be doing something 'good' in penance. So I spent an hour furiously practicing the piano, pounding hard on the boogie-woogie base notes. I was still practicing when my Dad came home from work at the pie shop. He stood behind me for a moment with his hand on my shoulder watching me play. “Good job son. I'm glad to see you're practicing so diligently,” he said. I stopped playing for a minute and flexed my fingers smiling at my Dad in acknowledgement. I wanted him to be proud of me. I also wondered if he had ever read “Lady Chatterley's Lover.”

Two more sexual things happened to me in the 8th grade. I begin to notice that the jock strap I wore in gym class was beginning to fit me better, and wasn't so loose. I also noticed while sitting in class my penis would get get hard all by itself for no reason at all. I had to put my hand in my pants pocket to hide it and I was always afraid the teacher might call on me to recite. Standing up in class to recite with one hand in my pocket happened to me several times and I was embarrassed. I suspect that Loretta knew what was happening to me because I saw her looking at me and smirking as if she was getting even with me for “feeling her up.”

Maybe the teacher knew also because when she noticed me with my hand in my pocket she would call on someone else and let me sit down. I was grateful. I was confused by it all, too having a body part that had a mind of its own and could get hard at any time. I thought about asking Dad about it, but never had the courage.

My last class of the day was history class and I noticed one of the “cute” girls would stare at me a lot, looking at me over the top of her glasses. Her name was Janotta Nottingham. She was almost as tall as me, with very long brown hair that hung down past the middle of her back, down past her bra strap almost to her butt. Her brown eyes were framed by the thick glasses she wore and when she smiled her teeth were perfect. Her Dad was a dentist. Sometimes I was sure she forced a smile just to show off her teeth. I always got to leave class early to pick up my white duty-belt with the silver "safety patrol badge" and my big red STOP flag.

When the final bell rang, Janotta would leave the building and walk towards home stopping to cross the street where I was assigned crossing guard. Sometimes she would stop just to talk to me, waiting for two or three cars to go by, waiting for me to stop traffic just for her it seemed. “My Dad is a dentist,” she would say, “what does your Dad do?” Everybody knew her Dad was a dentist because she showed off her perfect teeth as much as possible in class. “My Dad owns a big pie factory and two apple ranches in Hood River, “ I bragged, smiling back at her.

Janotta seemed to want to hang around the corner waiting for me so I asked if I could walk her part way home after I put my flag and badge away and retrieved my bike. She agreed and we walked together three blocks up the steep hill towards NE Sandy and 57th. Walking side by side our shoulders touched and emboldened by her bright toothy smile our hands touched and in a few minutes our fingers were entwined. I was excited at being able to touch her. Girls just felt good. I got excited when I could touch one.

At the top of the hill was a Rexall drugstore with a sit down soda fountain. I didn't have any money to buy Janotta a soda, but we walked through the drug store anyway, looking at the candy and greeting cards, small stuffed animals and other interesting stuff. Not having any money to spend, I walked her about another block towards her house. There I reluctantly let go of her hand and watched her turn to leave. Then I jumped on my bike and rode backwards in a circle around her to show off before I headed across Sandy and back down the hill toward my house on 48'th street. I was pretty excited because Janotta was the first girl I had touched except for groping Loretta. She felt good and I could hardly wait to touch her again.

Every school day for awhile, we would grin at each other in class and Janotta would wait for me to finish my safety patrol job so we could hold hands and walk together. One day near the end of the school year, Janotta was not in class and I didn't see her walking in the halls. Where did she go I wondered? Finally, worried, I asked the teacher if she knew what happened to Janotta. “Oh, her family moved to Seattle, she won't be back here at Rose City School” she replied. I didn't know what to think. Was it my fault she left? Had I done something wrong? Did her folks find out we had been holding hands? I was sad. I liked holding her hand. I liked her big smile. There was no one to “show off” for now, and my bike ride home wasn't the same anymore.

                                                                        ****

Many comfortable routines were starting to change about now. Eighth grade was over, Mom and Dad sold the pie baking factory along with the ranches in Hood River and made a lot of money. We moved out of the duplex on 48th street and into a real house on the corner of NE 43'rd avenue and Tillamook street. It was closer to Grant High school where I would start my freshman year and closer to a hillside vacant lot my folks bought at NE 42nd ave and Wisteria Drive. Dad said the vacant lot was in a desirable location and in spite of its being a steep hilly lot, Dad envisioned a large 4,000 square foot, stone front ranch-style mansion sitting there. But all I could see was a steep hill covered with tons of brush. “Who we going to get to build it for us Dad?” I asked. There was a city owned concrete stairway alongside our new lot that climbed all the way up to 'snooty' NE Alameda street. I ran half way up the stairs, but all I could see was more weeds and wild blackberries. Dad followed me up the stairwell, walking up slowly looking down on the property. “We are son,” he replied, in answer to my previous question. “we will built it ourselves. We can build it together. It will be your first real job.” I was becoming a man in my father's eyes.

Before long the kitchen table in our rental house on 43'rd became Dad's new office with architectural plans for the mansion laid out all over the table. The rental house had a big kitchen with a pantry, a dining room and a front room. The bedrooms were in the back. I had my own bedroom, as I was the oldest and the only son. My sisters had to share a room and Mom and Dad had their own room. In the basement was the furnace that heated the house. The furnace was a sawdust burner. It had a big hopper with a metal lid on it and my new chore was to keep the hopper full of sawdust from the sawdust bin. When the furnace turned on I could watch the sawdust in the hopper move slowly down into the fire box and when it got down about two feet, I would fill it to the top again.

There was a cracked and broken concrete driveway on the right hand side of the house that led to a single car garage. In the garage was a Blue 1946 Plymouth sedan, that came with the house. I would sit in it sometimes and pretend to drive, turning the steering wheel and shifting gears and making car noises with my mouth. Dad said it didn't run but he would fix it someday. It was a 'play car' and I had a lot of fun in it.

For awhile I missed the old neighborhood on 48th street, walking to the soda fountain with Janotta and playing ball in the street with Robert, but I was closer to the Hollywood Theater for fun Saturday matinee's, rooting for the Lone Ranger and hamburgers afterward at Yaws. Our house was so close I could practically throw a rock and hit Yaws restaurant. Dad had become friends with Paige Yaw, the owner, so for awhile we were like family there.

Directly across the street from our house was another big old house, and I noticed a cute girl sitting on the porch. She had short dark hair, combed up on the sides and at first I thought she might be a boy with such short hair. She would smile at me, and I would smile back. She was definitely a girl. She waved me over after about a week of just smiling at each other and we sat on the porch awkwardly aware of each other as our shoulders touched. She had just completed the 8th grade at Fernwood grade school on NE 33rd street and would be starting her freshman year at Grant High also.

Her mother worked as a secretary at another school in Gresham and had a new boyfriend, so she was not home a lot. Her father was dead, and she lived alone with her mother in the house. She had a very cute impish little smile and told me her name was Suzie. It fit her I thought. She looked like a Suzie. I wanted to touch her, and sat as close to her on the steps as possible. She didn't seem to mind. She would toss her head and smile rather pointedly at me too. Encouraged, we agreed to go to the movies at the Hollywood Theater. I was excited now. She was a girl, I had touched her. And I realized with all self importance that I had just invited a girl on a date. My hands got sweaty. I was inexplicably attracted to girls and I could hardly wait to sit next to her in the balcony of the Hollywood Theater.

But Dad wrecked my plans to get Susie in the dark at the Hollywood Theater. When Saturday came around he pulled up in the Ford pickup truck with new shovels, axes, brush cutting loppers, a small chain saw and leather work gloves all purchased from Chown's Hardware in North West Portland. “Let's go son,” he said, with a serious but smiling look on his face. “We have a lot of brush to cut and burn on our new lot.”

“I kinda wanted to take Suzie to the movies today Dad,” I replied with some anguish. “Plenty of time for girls later son, we've got mans work to do. Here, try these on,” he said, handing me a new pair of tan leather work gloves. I tried them on and they fit perfectly. “Yeah,” I thought, “man's work--mans gloves.” I stood up as tall as I could muster and smiled at Dad. “Yeah, I'm ready. Let's go do some mans work.” I ran and jumped in the truck, and rolled down the window. This would be fun, working side by side with my Dad for the first time.

It was only about eight short blocks from the Tillamook street house to the vacant lot on Wisteria Drive, and Dad drove North toward the property via NE 43'rd street. It came to be known as the “back way,” because there were no through streets or stop signs to worry about. “If you should ever drive to the lot by yourself, be sure and use the 'back way,” Dad said smiling mischievously at me. Now I was really excited because Dad was intimating that maybe I would be allowed to drive the truck by myself sometimes. I could hardly wait to get to the lot and start cutting brush. He would see I could do man's work. And thoughts of Suzie were gone for the time being.

With the truck parked at the curb, I carried the shovel and "bush whackers” to the top of the concrete stairs and jumped over the railing to the top of our property. Looking down on our task it appeared impossible. “Get with it son!" said Dad, “stop staring and start whacking!” I surveyed the task for just a moment longer and then grabbed the base of the first bush and cut it loose. Looking around trying to decide what to do with it, Dad said, “Just throw it as far down the hill as you can and when we get a pile I'll start a fire and we'll burn it all.” I gritted my teeth and grabbed the next bush and whacked it too. This was going to be tough, maybe fun too, but tough. So I cut and whacked my way across to the other side of the lot then worked my way back, tearing through the black berries and other brambly stuff. Before long there was a big pile at the foot of the hill and a big vacant spot behind me where I could actually see the dirt.

Dad opened a can of motor oil and poured it over the huge pile of brush and set it on fire. The pile erupted into a cloud of thick gray rolling smoke. It was hard for me to keep down-wind of the awful smelling smoke and still keep whacking away at the remaining brush. After a couple of hours of cutting and burning my body was giving out. Some muscles in my arms were sore, muscles I didn't know I had until then. My legs were killing me too, from trying to stand on the steep incline, maintain my balance and throw the brush over my shoulder. "Man's work" was hard and I thought maybe I was still too little to do it all, I was after all only 13. But the look in Dad's eyes told me not to complain too much, besides we were getting near the end of out task. But I felt something was bad-wrong with me. My body became covered with tiny blisters that get bigger and bigger and I itched everywhere. My face and arms that were exposed to the smoke began to swell. Dad looked at me and let out a low whistle. “Wow, you don't look too good son. The fire will be out in a minute and we can go home.”

When we got home I fell on the front room floor in exhaustion. Mom gave me a worried look and started peeling off my clothes. My whole body was covered with the itching blisters. By now my face was so swollen I didn't recognize myself and I was scared. Mom and Dad were scared too and decided to take me to the nearby Providence Hospital at NE 47'th street and Glisan. The doctors looked at me and asked what happened? We told them we had been cutting and burning brush to clear our new lot. The ER doctor looked closely at the blisters. “This is from poison oak!” he said “Just touching it with your skin can make you sick, but when the plant oil gets in the smoke it is much worse.”

“We are going to have to admit him,” the doctor said to my folks, “he has been poisoned by this stuff and we will have to keep him for a few days. It could overload his kidneys and could be very serious. We call it Nephritis of the kidneys caused by toxins." The nurses whisked me away as my Mom and Dad and the Doctor spoke in low tones glancing at me as I disappeared down the hallway. I was afraid. I felt like puking and the itching was unbearable. Soon the nurses put needles in my arm and I saw a bag of fluid hanging from a stanchion near the bed. Another needle in my arm and I drifted off. It was as if I was floating somewhere nearby. I could hear their voices, but could not answer. Feeling safer now, I floated away completely.

The next week was a blur of injections, being fed by a nurse and watching the bag of cloudy urine hanging by the bed fill up. I didn't have to get up to pee. They told me they put a catheter in me and I could feel something taped to my privates. My arms and face were covered with pink calamine lotion which didn't seem to help and made me look really stupid. I was glad Suzie couldn't see me.

After ten days in Providence Hospital, I was released. Dad came to get me in the truck and took me home. He never got any of the blisters. I guess he was immune to poison oak. But my face and arms were still swollen. I laid in bed and when I wasn't resting, they had me soak in some kind of solution in the bath tub. Still, I felt terrible. After a few days at home, Suzie came to visit me. The look on her face when she saw me said it all. I was ugly! Swollen-up fat, and unrecognizable!

It was another week before the swelling went down and I could recognize myself in the mirror. Suzie came over and we started play-wrestling around the front room. She perched on the arm of the couch to give her the advantage of height and from there launched herself at me on the floor. The pain in my chest was immediate and back to the hospital I went. “Two cracked ribs,” said the doctor looking at the x-rays. The doctor wrapped my ribs so tight I could hardly breathe. But I wasn't mad at Suzie. She felt good when we were wrestling and I enjoyed touching her. I could hardly wait to get her to the Hollywood Theater. After all, we had a date!

A scary movie called “The Thing,” was coming to the Hollywood theater on Saturday and I wanted to take Suzie. I asked Dad for some money for the movie and he smiled at me while digging into his pocket. Dad always carried about three hundred dollars in his pocket. “Walking around,” money he called it. He never carried money in his wallet, it was always in the left hand pocket of his suit pants. It seemed like he was taking a long time to dig it out, smiling at me all the while. Finally he came out of his pocket with a ten dollar bill and offered it to me. I reached for it but Mom walked into the room just at that moment and saw the game Dad was playing with me. “You need to give Donnie a twenty dollar bill” said Mom, standing with her hands on her hips. “You almost killed the kid up there on the lot.” Again, Dad made a production of going back into his pocket fishing for more money. Finally he came out with a new and very crisp twenty and I snatched it from his hand. Wow! I had never had a whole twenty bucks at one time before. “Thanks Dad, thanks, Mom” I shouted as I ran out the front door to Suzies house. We would make it to the matinée just in time.

Flush with money, I paid for both tickets and stopped at the candy counter and bought a big pop corn for us both and two packages of licorice candies. I found us a good seat in the loges at the very back of the balcony and when we sat down a Bugs Bunny cartoon was already in progress. Fox movie- tone news came on next and by the time the movie started we were settled into our seats and snuggling as close together as possible.

The movie “The Thing,” was about an ancient space alien that crashed in the ice of Antarctica thousands of years ago and had now thawed out terrorizing everyone. And it was scary. But I was more interested in feeling Suzie than the movie and she was letting me do it. She was wearing a loose sweater as a top and she let me feel up under her sweater. I was very nervous putting my hand on her stomach slowly petting her and moving up toward her emerging breasts. Suzie just snuggled closer and liked what I was doing, snuggling my neck with her face.

It was nerve racking feeling up under her sweater and I found myself holding my breath as I inched closer to her titties. Finally, when I was right under them I took a deep but silent breath and cupped her left breast in my hand. My heart was pounding. I could feel it in my temples. I was there and she wasn't objecting, but seemed to be enjoying it too. Her flesh was soft and the bulge seemed to fit just perfectly in my hand. I moved my hand slowly, caressing her right breast next. As the movie played on I began to relax and breathe easier, but still held on to my prize tightly. Sooner that I wanted, the movie was over and the theater lights came up. I squeezed her breasts one last time before turning her loose. We stood up and side-stepped our way out of the aisle. My penis was hard and there was a wet spot that showed through the outside of my suntans. I covered the spot as best I could with my hand, hoping it would soon dry and we walked out of the lobby onto Sandy blvd. “Shall we go to Yaws on the way home?” I asked. “I'm hungry now,” she replied. “I want a burger with gravy fries.”

Yaws was busy with the after movie crowd but we found seats at the counter. Soon we were munching away, grinning at each other and touching. I was happy and so was Suzie. We had moved our friendship to a special level. After eating we walked the two blocks home. I dropped her off on her front porch and she gave me a quick kiss on my cheek. Crossing the street now to my house I put my hand in my pocket. The wet spot was almost dry and I still had money left over. It had been a great Saturday, a great Saturday indeed!

Being in the hospital and recovering at home had kept me from any work at the new lot, so I was anxious to see what was happening. Dad had hired John L Jersey Company to excavate. Their motto was “We Move The Earth,” and Mr. Jersey had a phone in his car. I had never seen a car-phone before but when the horn honked in the car, Mr. Jersey would jump down off the bulldozer and run to the car to answer the phone. He let me watch him talk on it and it looked like a regular handset like the one we had at home. After all the digging was done we had a huge hole in the hillside where the mansion would sit. Next Paar Lumber Company delivered truck loads of lumber, one whole truck load was shiplap boards.

The shiplap would be used to build the cement forms. The foundation walls would be seven inches thick and it would be my job to cut about a thousand "spacer" sticks. These would be used to keep the concrete forms exactly seven inches apart. Next Dad arrived with the truck loaded with a new table saw, a heavy-duty Skil saw, hand saws, drills, wire and pliers, all purchased from Chown Hardware store. We were ready to start. Dad seemed to know just what to do. He would study the plans and when he couldn't figure something out he would ask the old carpenter that was building on the lot right next to us.

His name was Mr. Lehman. They became friends and the old carpenter would remove his head band and wipe his brow and sit on his saw-horse and listen to Dad's problem. He never seemed to mind Dad's “stupid” questions and was always friendly and helpful.

After the new table saw was plugged in and working, I started cutting the seven inch spacers. Dad gave me a lesson on how to use the dangerous saw and admonished me to be very careful. As I worked I could see how dangerous this machine could be and I was very careful. I needed all my fingers to play the piano. And to feel Suzie's boobs in the Hollywood Theater!

In late June I turned fourteen and that seemed to be the magic number Dad and Mom had been waiting for. Because now Dad would toss me the keys to the Ford pickup, give me an assignment at the building project, and tell me to “Go to work.” He always admonished my to drive only on "the back way" and “be very careful.” Since they trusted me with driving the truck, I was always alert, shifting gears at exactly the right time and parking properly at the curb on Wisteria Drive in front of the lot. I was only fourteen and I knew I was driving illegally and I didn't want to mess it up.

Building all the forms for the foundation took about two weeks with only Dad and I working at the project. Dad always made sure I had money to take Suzie to the movies with burgers at Yaws afterward. I enjoyed working. It was hard but after my muscles became used to the work it didn't seem so bad. I was getting stronger. I could see my muscles in the mirror of my bedroom and how they were developing. In the movies, Suzie would snuggle close and feel my biceps. It made me feel like a man!

While we were building the house Mom and Dad were looking for a restaurant to buy. Except for the successful pie factory they bought when we came to Oregon, they had always been in the restaurant business. My folks started out running a lunch counter located inside a pool hall in Denton Montana. They married and moved to Wenatchee Washington and opened a small but successful diner. It was basically a counter with two booths in an old railroad dining car and Dad served good hamburgers from beef he cut and ground himself. “Steak Burgers,” they were called on the menu.They did well enough in the restaurant business to start a family and I was born in Wenatchee, June 30, 1936. They bought a new car that year also, a black 1936 Ford sedan.

The diner sold and they opened a larger restaurant right on Main street in Wenatchee and served the same good food. “Little Dollar,” hot cakes were added to the menu, served with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Wenatchee was booming then. In 1941 the government was building Grand Coulée Dam and many of the workers lived in town. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941, WW2 began, and a lot of military activity came to the area.

Near by Moses Lake Washington had a big air base and fighters were stationed there to protect Grand Coulée Dam. Dad would take me to the occasional open-house at the airbase and we got to see the P-38 fighters and the B-17 bombers. Dad got to see inside the cockpit of the bombers and he decided that he would like to learn to fly. A lot of these pilots and mechanics came to Wenatchee and ate at DuPay's Cafe, and Dad would engage them in conversation, wiping his hands on his cooks apron before pouring them a free cup of coffee.

A typical Lockeed P38 Fighter plane

It was then that Dad started taking flying lessons at the East Wenatchee airport called Pangborn Field. Mom would drive us to Pangborn and wait and watch while Dad took his lessons. When the flying lesson was over, we watched Dad climb down from the cockpit, shaking hands with the instructor and he would turn to us with a huge grin on his face. Dad was having fun! “When can I go?” I asked after every lesson. “Not for awhile son,” Mom always replied before Dad could say anything. “Your Dad's not very good at it yet.” Mom grinned back but she was relieved he landed safely. Mom told me that she hated for Dad to fly because “It's just too dangerous for a family man.”

During the height of the war, Dad went to Yakima Washington and opened another restaurant in the downtown area. Both the restaurant in Yakima and in Wenatchee were operated simultaneously. In later years I came to realize that they made a lot of money during the war. Anyway, now that the pie business was sold my folks wanted to get back into the restaurant business.

My snuggle relationship with Suzie continued with movies at the Hollywood Theater on Saturdays. I loved the Lone Ranger cowboy movies, with his faithful Indian companion Tonto and his white horse Silver and I always waited to hear the ending of the movie. Two of the towns people that had been saved from the bad guys would say to each other, “Who was that masked man anyway?” And the we could see the Lone Ranger off in the distance shouting “Hi Ho Silver and awaaay,” as Silver reared up and then galloped off. I always wondered what town full of bad guys Tonto and the Lone Ranger were headed for next.

One summer Saturday afternoon after the movies Suzie and I were so “worked up” touching each other that we decided to skip burgers at Yaws and lay down on a blanket in her back yard. After we got comfortable she let me hold her in my arms and kiss her on the mouth. It felt so good, different from kissing my Mom. Suzie never wore a bra so it was easy to feel under her shirt and caress her breasts. She let me unzip her jeans and feel between her legs. I was so excited by it all I had trouble getting my breath and it sounded like I was gasping for air. She was wet and slippery and as I touched her she whimpered, in a groaning kind of way and shut her eyes. This was so exciting. We had never gone this far before. I was getting really hard and I could feel the tip of my penis getting wet too. I knew that something should happen next, but in spite of what I remembered from reading Lady Chatterly's Lover, Suzie's vagina remained a mystery. I felt frustrated and so did she.

“Suzie!” Her mothers voice came suspiciously from the open back door. “Can you come in the house and help me with the laundry and dishes?” Suzie jumped up zipping her jeans on the way and smoothing her hair. We shared a last sweaty glance and I too took off running home. I hoped her mother had not seen us doing anything. She would be mad and might tell my folks! It was two weeks before I was able to take Suzie to the Hollywood Theater again, two weeks to be sure no one found out what we had been doing in the back yard.

Since I would be a starting freshman at Grant High School in a few days, Dad took me shopping again at Sears for new school clothes. From talking to the other neighborhood kids I knew that only grade schoolers rode bikes to school. We high school kids walked with our books under our arms the ten blocks from our house. My Dad decided that along with the other classes that were required, I would take typing.

“I don't care if you have to dig ditches for a living,” he admonished, “you need to learn to type like your Mom does.” Mom had always typed up the menus for the restaurants, and Dad who never went past the sixth grade in Denton Montana had never learned to type. My Grandfather, Coleman DuPay, abandoned the family when my Dad was a little kid and he had to work selling papers and washing dishes at the pool hall to help out. So Dad was insistent that I learned to type, to better myself.

I was very nervous entering school the first day. It seemed like the older kids were just waiting for the “frosh” to appear so they could smirk and giggle and point. I tried to be nonchalant about it, searching for my “home room.” Home room was number 216 just a few doors from the principals office and my home room teacher was Mrs. Ethel Ewer. Besides watching over us while we studied, Mrs. Ewer taught Shakespeare.

Typing was my first class of the day and it was confusing. None of the Royal typewriters we used had any letters on the keys. The keys were all blank. How are we supposed to learn to type when we can't tell where the letters and numbers were I wondered. I was as confused as all the other kids were. But the teacher taught us where the “home” keys were and the first exercise was “fjf fjf fjf. After doing “fjf” about fifty times I felt comfortable finding the home keys. It was a little like learning to find middle “C” on the piano. Having piano lessons had helped.

As unfamiliar as high school was at first, I found that the janitors used the same odd smelling floor cleaning compound as they used in grade school. I would see the janitors pushing the wide brooms down the halls between classes, pushing a pile of the coffee looking stuff ahead of them. It was something familiar in still unfamiliar surroundings.

Because I liked music and was by now "fairly decent” on the piano as my Dad would say, I tried out for the freshman choir and was accepted. My voice had changed from soprano to baritone. A lot of the freshman boys still had high voices so the choir teacher was looking for baritone voices and bass voices. I fit right in.

Mrs. Jean Vancil was the choir teacher. She was short with black hair and hands that seemed to wave magically in front of us extracting the music she knew was there. Mrs. Vancil would limp towards us from behind her music stand, stopping in front of each of us, tilting her head left or right to hear our individual voices in her ears, like she was tuning up an instrument. Her left leg was shorter than her right leg and her left foot was withered and much smaller than the other. She always wore black high top shoes that laced up the front with heavy brown support hose. At first her short leg and withered foot was all we could see about her. Her left shoe had an extra thick sole that looked like a truck tire.

Some of us kids wondered if Mrs. Vancil had to buy two pairs of shoes to get a set, one smaller than the other. We could see that the sole of her small shoe was at least as thick as two of the riser boards we stood on to sing. But still it didn't seem to be thick enough, because she limped anyway. I guessed she was already embarrassed by the thick sole, and probably couldn't bring herself to get a thicker one, even though she needed it. I could watch her putting the little foot behind the music stand as out of sight as possible and when she sat at her desk the little foot was always the farthest under.

But after a few days we hardly noticed any more. She was just Mrs. Vancil, listening to our voices. I know that at first we sounded like an un-tuned orchestra, but as time went by and our voices became stronger we learned exactly what her hand signals meant. We were learning Christmas carols and the Hallelujah Chorus, because the teacher said it would take a lot of time for our voices to become strong and ready for the school Christmas pageant. I had an advantage over a lot of the freshman kids because I already knew how to read music. Piano lessons were coming in handy again.

                                                                        ****

By now the concrete foundation for our mansion had been poured and with the forms removed we installed large two-by-twelve floor beams and began laying down the sub-flooring. These boards were "tongue and groove" two-by-six's and we hammered them in place with sixteen penny nails. Once the sub-floor was down, Dad poured over the plans figuring out how to frame the walls. The plans showed just exactly where the windows and doors were supposed to be located and with the help of Mr. Lehman, (a builder/carpenter) next door, what we were putting up was beginning to look like a house.

Dad never got dirty. He worked in his suit pants and dress shirt. He would get sweaty, but never dirty. The saw dust from the table saw just brushed away from his good pants and shirt. Sometimes though I would have to brush the sawdust out of his hair.

During his quest to buy another restaurant, Dad became friends with Gene Waddle. Gene Waddle started with his signature drive-in restaurant out on Jantzen Beach near the Interstate bridge. Folks were never sure exactly how to pronounce his name, he told Dad. Was it Waddle, or Wad-dell? So he added the picture of a duck to the sign over his restaurant and then everyone knew. Dad understood because people were often confused by our name and sometimes pronounced it Du-Pree.

One afternoon while Dad and I were working side by side at the mansion he confided in me that too often a person with one successful business would try to duplicate the same success in a different location. “Son, it's tough to run just one good restaurant. Two or more are hard to operate and control food quality” he told me. “But didn't you and Mom run two?” I asked. “Yes,” Dad interjected, “we did, but it was war-time and we were lucky. With one restaurant you can watch over the food quality. With two it's tough. I would never try it again.” He turned off the whining table saw and I watched the blade whir to a stop. “I'm going to buy one of his failing drive-ins and turn it around as “DuPay's” Dad told me cheerfully. With our carpenter work done for the day, Dad gave me the keys to the truck and patted me on the shoulder as we drove home to Tillamook street.

On the short drive back home Dad shared with me that Gene Waddle was a private pilot and he had been invited to fly with him to Reno on a business trip in his new Cessna 172 airplane, and would I like "to come along?” Wow it sounded so exciting. “Can I go really Dad?” I asked him. “It will be a trip down on a Saturday and return on Sunday,” he explained and then punching me gently in the ribs he smiled and winked. “Can you give up your Saturday Hollywood Theater date with Suzie?” Thoughts of Suzie immediately disappeared and I could visualize myself once again in the cockpit of a plane. “What's a Cessna 172 Dad?” I inquired. “It's a four seater with the wings overhead. Remember when we first flew here in the Naveon airplane?” he asked. “The wings were below the doors, and we jumped out of the cockpit and stepped onto the wings to get out of the plane. The Cessna has high wings and we can jump in and out like getting into a car."

The next school week seemed to drag. My mind drifted away, as my hands lightly rested on the keys in typing class. I imagined wandering into the cockpit of the Cessna. I wondered what all the dials and gages looked like. Since being able to drive the Ford pickup I was used to looking at gages and dials and shifting too; dials for the speedometer, the gas, a dial for the odometer, gages for the battery and a hi-beam, low-beam switch for the headlights. I wondered how bright the headlights were on the Cessna and then remembered we wouldn't be flying at night. I hoped Mom wouldn't talk Dad out of letting me go on this trip. She still wasn't happy about us flying.

The Friday night before we were ready to go to Reno I overheard Mom and Dad talking in their bedroom about the flight and me going along. I could hear Dad saying that Gene Waddle was an "experienced private pilot" and that he had already flown all over the South West on business, even flying to Mexico. “There's nothing to worry about this time,” Dad said. “Besides, I could probably land the damned plane myself if anything went wrong.”

“That's exactly what I worry about,” I could hear Mother saying, “something going wrong, like it did when you first flew out here and crash landed in the farmers field.” Even through the bedroom door I could hear the exasperation in Dad's voice, tempered with a quiet determination. “We didn't crash honey” he said slowly, measuring his words, “We ran a little short of fuel and had to make an abrupt landing.”

“You mean you ran out of gas!” Mom corrected him. “Well, right, we did run out of gas, but we didn't crash. “Besides, honey” he continued, “Donnie has been working hard on building the house, he is doing good in school and he hasn't messed up driving the truck. This trip is kind of a reward for our son.” Mom finally sighed in defeat and made Dad promise to call her just as soon as we landed in Reno. “I promise,” he replied, “l promise.” Then Mom added something I couldn't quite hear about me getting away from Suzie for a while. “They have been going at it pretty hot and heavy...” and her voice trailed off to an unintelligible mumble.

Seven am Saturday morning found us at the Troutdale airport. Gene Waddle was already there talking to a man behind the counter filing a flight plan. Mr. Waddle was tall and thin faced, taller than my six foot Dad. He looked serious peering over his glasses at the flight plan map. He was well dressed, like my Dad, with a light gray sweater pulled over a white dress shirt and tucked into his darker gray slacks. Folding up the map, he put his glasses in his shirt pocket under the sweater and smiled directly at me. I couldn't help noticing he was wearing old black tennis shoes which looked odd with his suit pants and both his big toes were almost poking through, the worn canvas material. “My feet hurt,” he explained when he noticed me staring.

“So you must be Donnie!” he said. “I'm Gene Waddle, and we're about to take off for Reno-Tahoe airport. Been flying before son?” he asked, “I know your Dad Sherley is a pilot too.”

“We flew here a long time ago when we moved to Oregon,” I volunteered extending my hand. He shook it vigorously and with the map under his arm he escorted us to the taxiway where his plane was parked. “That's it right there, the white one with red stripes down the side.” He pointed at the first plane in the line of parked planes and then stopped to admiringly look over the shiny machine from top to tail fins. He rubbed his hands over the wing surface and kicked the three tires. “Tricycle landing gear,” he mumbled, “easier to land than the old 'tail dragger' I flew before I got this beauty.” Satisfied, with the inspection, he opened the cockpit doors and helped me into the back seat. Dad sat in the co-pilots seat and Mr. Waddle took the controls. “Buckle up son,” said Dad, looking back at me to make sure I had done it right.

Gene pushed a switch and the engine turned over and the propeller started to spin, slowly at first then so fast all I could see was a blur. While the engine warmed up, the control tower was talking to Gene, telling him which runway to use, which way the prevailing wind was blowing and to take off when we were ready. After releasing the brakes, I watched Gene steering the plane with the rudders at his feet. We taxied to a runway that let us take off into the wind. I watched the pilots face change from smiles to all seriousness as he lined the plane up parallel with the runway and with a last look at each of the gauges he pushed the throttle forward and we began to move, slowly at first and then faster and faster. Looking out the window I could see the runway flashing past underneath the plane and then Gene pulled back on the steering yolk and I could feel us lifting off the ground. We were flying!

The plane banked to the left and continued to climb. The big smile returned to Gene's face and he turned to Dad. “Do you know what the second best feeling in the world is Sherley?” he asked. “No, What is the second best feeling in the world?” Dad responded. “Taking off,” Gene said. “And do you know what the best feeling in the world is?” he continued. “No,” responded Dad again, smiling and laughing. “Landing!” Gene said laughing out loud and slapping Dad on the knee. They both had a good laugh. I didn't really understand so I just smiled, sitting in the back seat.

We continued to climb and bank slowly to the left and the pilot and Dad both concentrated on the instrument panel. My mind was full of questions but I knew enough to wait until they weren't so busy flying before I started asking questions. I didn't have to wait long, before my curiosity took over. “We're heading South,” volunteered Gene and we have mountains to fly over so we'll be climbing to about 7,000 feet at first. We'll cruise there for a bit to see what it's like and then probably climb to about 9,000 feet and level off. That should get us over the mountains.” “How high can we climb?” I asked leaning forward to get a better look at the instruments. “Oh, about 12,000 feet but you wouldn't like it that high,” he answered, because at 10,000 feet we would need oxygen which this plane doesn't have. We couldn't breathe.”

Wow! I thought looking down. “How high are we now?” I continued. “A little over a mile high Donnie. We are just climbing through 6,000 feet.” I could see some numbers turning slowly on the altimeter. I was quiet for a few minutes staring out the window at the slowly changing picture below us on the ground. The morning sun glinted on the windshield and both Dad and Gene put on their sunglasses. It made them look more professional thought, especially since Gene also had on his earphones. He looked like a pilot I thought and I felt safe and relaxed, sitting in the back. I wished I could roll down a window and stick my hand out and feel the wind going by. Gene seemed to know what I was thinking and pointed to the instrument that showed the outside temperature. “Forty degrees and dropping,” he said. “You'd freeze your butt off out there in only a few minutes.”

Soon we were at 7,000 feet and Gene began tuning in an instrument that said VOR on it. “What's the VOR” I asked. “It's like our highway in the sky” Dad answered happily. I looked out the window and couldn't see anything that suddenly looked like a highway. “The Reno-Tahoe airport is transmitting a beaming signal right at our plane,” Gene continued and turned up the volume so I cold hear what he heard in his earphones. “Think of it as a flashlight beam,” Dad continued looking back at me. “As long at we stay in the beam we're okay. If we get off to the right or left, the signal fades and we know to get back in the beam. As long as we stay in the beam we can fly it straight to the Reno-Tahoe airport.” I was completely amazed. We really were flying on a highway that we could only hear but not see.

Gene checked the instruments again and pulled back gently on the steering yolk. I could feel the plane climbing again and watched the numbers move up on the altimeter. In just a few minutes we leveled off at exactly 9,000 feet. Gene took off his ear phones and handed them to Dad. “It's all yours Sherley,” he said. “Keep it in the beam.” I looked at all the complicated appearing instruments and then at my Dad and I felt proud. My Dad was actually flying the plane. Slowly the tense look on his face relaxed and Dad wiggled into a more comfortable position in the co-pilots seat. In a minute he was smiling too and sneaking glances back at me to make sure I was watching him. Me and Dad and Gene were all having fun!

After about thirty minutes we were approaching some mountains in the distance. They were far below us, and Gene began glancing first at the airspeed indicator and then at the fuel gage. “The head winds are kicking up,” he mumbled to himself. “We are flying into a strong headwind.” While Dad continued to fly the plane South towards Reno, Gene looked at the instruments and started calculating on a sheet of paper with a pencil that had magically appeared from behind his ear. After a few minutes he put the paper in the side pocket of the cockpit door and put the pencil back behind his left ear. “Let's go back down to 6,000 feet Sherley and see if the headwind is less strong.” Dad looked at Gene, for instructions and Gene nodded and said ”Push the yolk forward gently Sherley and and watch the altimeter. Watch your air speed carefully, we don't want to get into too steep a dive.” Dad seemed to know exactly what to do and in just a few minutes he ad leveled off at 6,000 feet again.

In a few more minutes Gene was figuring again on the paper and watching the instruments. He was starting to frown. “If anything Sherley the wind is stronger down here. Let's go back up. We want to be way above the mountains.” Dad pulled back on the yolk and we started climbing again. We leveled off again at 9,000 feet. “We have nearly 55 minutes flying time left to get to Reno.” Gene said, “and we have just about 60 minutes of fuel left. It's going to be close. I wish the winds pushing against us would die down.”

“Are we going to run out of gas again Dad? Because if we do Mom's going to be really mad.” I said. “It will be close son,” Gene replied, “but I promise you we'll land on the runway. I can even dead-stick it if we get to the runway. I did it once before." By now I knew that “dead-stick” meant landing with out any power from the engine. I once tried shutting the motor off in the Ford truck to see if I could coast into the parking spot in front of the new house on Wisteria Drive but I barely made it and the truck was hard to steer.

Gene looked like he knew just what to do, and even Dad had a confident look on his face. I knew they would get us to Reno and I settled back in my seat and looked out the window to the mountain tops passing far below. Sometimes I could see a small mountain lake that was so high up the mountain that I bet no one had ever been there before.

The surface of the lake reflected the sun and looked like a small mirror stuck in the dark green of the mountains. Rivers looked that way too, silver winding snake-like threads shining up at us. Everything below our wings looked so small. Even when a cloud passed by below us sometimes, all I could see was fluffy white; and when we flew through one it just seemed to part in front of the propeller. I found myself wondering if the earth looked this way to God when he looked down on us. Mom's minister lady, Mrs. Taylor always said that God looked down on us to see if we were being good or not.

The sound of Gene's voice talking on the radio to the Reno-Tahoe airport made me realize we were almost there, and brought my mind back inside the cockpit and to the immediacy of what was happening. Gene was telling the tower that we were very low on fuel and must land “right away” and they were not happy about that. “Negative.” replied the tower, “we have another plane about to land with an emergency and you will have to land after that.”

“Can I land on another runway? I'm running out of gas here!” said Gene. “Negative” replied the tower again, “that runway has had some new paving and the remaining gravel has not been cleared away from some of it. Looking at Dad, Gene said, “I've landed on gravel before. I'm not going to let a few little pebbles worry me. We've got to get down. Now!” He turned the radio down so he couldn't hear it and hung up his earphones. Gene wasn't going to negotiate with the tower any further. He pointed the nose of the Cessna at the newly paved but forbidden runway. Looking around to make sure we were in no ones way, Gene put the nose of the plane down and in a minute we were over the pavement, bumping along and slowing comfortably down. Pretty good landing I thought remembering how bumpy the landing had been in the farmers meadow when we first came to Oregon in the Naveon. Just as we were taxiing onto the taxi-way the engine stopped and the propeller quickly spun to a stop. Gene threw up his hands to show that he didn't turn off the engine. “Out of gas,” he said. “They damned near turned us into an emergency.” He wasn't smiling as he said it.

Before we could get out of the Cessna there was a man in a suit and tie standing with a clipboard waiting for us to get out of the plane. “It's an FAA guy waiting to chew me out,” Gene explained. “You two fellas head over to the car rental office and pick up our car. We have reservations at the Mapes hotel and that's where our business meeting will be.” Dad and I walked past the stern looking guy in the suit and hurried to the car rental office. I wondered what the FAA guy would think of Genes toes sticking out of his black tennis shoes. Once out of the plane I realized the weather was different in Reno. It was hot!

While driving from the airport to the Mapes, Gene explained that he told the FAA inspector in “no uncertain terms,” that he was an "experienced pilot" that had landed on gravel roads in Mexico, grass landing fields in Montana, and meadows as well as good tarmac, and that he wasn't worried about a little gravel left over from paving the runway. “I had no intention of running out of fuel and becoming another emergency,” Gene said, shrugging his shoulders, ending the subject.

After we checked in at the hotel, Dad changed a twenty dollar bill for quarters and found a phone booth right next to a shot machine. He put some quarters in the phone and called Mom as he had promised. While the phone was ringing he put some quarters in the slot machine too and pulled the handle. The slot machine whirred, spinning the brightly colored wheels with pictures of fruit on them. Four quarters popped out as Mom answered the phone. “We're here at the hotel now. Yes, we landed safely with no trouble, the flight went smooth.” Dad looked at me and winked. “We'll be home tomorrow afternoon honey. Don't worry. Donnie's okay. He's having a good time.”

With the phone receiver back in the cradle, Dad poked more quarters in the slot machine and the wheels spun around again. No money came out this time.”Let me do it,” I begged. “Sorry son, minors aren't allowed to gamble, it's against the law, but if I win any more money I'll give it to you to spend.” He didn't win any more except the first four quarters which I put in my pocket. On the way up to our room, Dad put his arm around my shoulders, and whispered, “We won't say anything to Mom about almost running out or gas again. It's our secret.” I put my arm around Dad's waist and hugged him back. It was out secret, man to man.

The next morning, I was sleepy and reluctant to get out of bed until I thought of being in the cockpit of the Cessna again. The thrill of it urged my feet to the floor. We met Gene Waddle in the lobby diner for a breakfast of bacon and eggs. When the waitress arrived with the coffee pot I pushed my cup toward her. “I'll have mine black, just like my Dad.” Both men smiled at me in approval. It was nice being treated like a grown-up.

After a good breakfast, we picked up the rental car from the valet in front of the Mapes Hotel and Gene got in to drive. I noticed he was not wearing his black tennis shoes, but a pair of brown leather open toed bedroom slippers. He noticed me looking again, but his only comment was a shrug of his shoulders. At the airport we saw the shiny white and red Cessna at the fueling area. Since we had run out of gas on the taxi-way, the plane had been towed to the gas pump by a little golf-cart looking towing machine. Dad pulled out a credit card to pay for the fuel, but Gene brushed it aside. “Business trip expense,” he explained. “I'll pay for it.”

We jumped in to the cockpit, and I buckled myself in getting comfortable in the back seat. I was tired. Maybe I could sleep when we got up in the air. “Can you get us outa here Sherley?” Gene asked looking at Dad. “Uhh, sure,” Dad said taking over the controls. Gene talked to the tower getting instructions but Dad was in charge. He used the foot rudders to steer the plane to the runway and get lined up. Dad had a serious look on his face and his jaw was tight. “Relax Sherley.” said Gene. “Give it some throttle and when we get up to about 75 or 80 miles per hour, it will feel like it wants to take off. Then pull back on the yolk and bank slowly to the left. Head for that spot right there,” he said, pointing to an imaginary place in the sky just above the spinning propeller. Dad seemed to know just where that spot in the sky was and we lifted off heading home.

I watched the numbers on the altimeter dial slowly turning and once again we climbed to 6,000 feet and leveled off. Dad tuned the VOR to the Portland signal and adjusted our direction to stay in the beam. “Let's go on up to 9,000 now,” said Gene. Dad pulled back slowly on the steering yolk. His face had relaxed and he had a little grin curling about his lips. He glanced back at me to make sure I was watching him. He was proud of himself and I was proud of him too.

After about a half an hour in the air, Gene got out his pencil and paper again and started figuring. This time he had a big smile on his face. “We are cruising at 9,000 feet with the engine pulling us at about 175 mph. Our actual air speed is 204 mph. That means we have a 30 mph tail wind pushing us. We'll be home in no time.” I marveled at the fact that we were going over two hundred miles an hour. I felt safe with Gene doing the calculating and Dad doing the flying and fell asleep with my head propped on a pillow that had “Cessna” printed on it.

I woke up when I felt the wheels bump down on the runway at the Troutdale airport. Gene was at the controls now. I rubbed my eyes and stretched as much as I could while still encased in the seat-belt. I was thinking of Suzie and all the things I would have to tell her. Dad and Gene Waddle shook hands at the airport office promising to talk again soon about our buying Gene's drive-in restaurant at Mclaughlin and SE Holgate.

When Dad pulled into the driveway at our house at 43rd and Tillamook I ran in, and said “Hi” to Mom and then dashed out the front door and across the street to Suzie's house. I ran up onto the front porch, but could sense something was wrong! The front screen door was unlatched and the Sunday newspaper was keeping it from banging against the door jam in the breeze. I cupped my hands around my eyes to better see inside the big front room window, and pushed my nose up against the screen. The room was vacant. An empty cardboard box was turned over on its side and a broom and dustpan leaned against the wall in the corner. I ran around to the back porch and looked in the kitchen window too. The cupboards were open and empty and a mop was in the sink. I didn't know what to think. I wanted to talk to my Suzie.

My shoulders slumped in frustration as I sauntered slowly back to my own front porch. Mom met me at the door. “I tried to tell you, but you ran out so fast...” her voice trailed off. “They moved to Gresham to be closer to where Suzie's Mom works. “They have our phone number,” Mom said, holding my chin and looking into my sad face. “Suzie will call you.” I wondered if Suzie's Mom found out what we were doing on the blanket in the back yard. After a week or so of not hearing from her I decided her Mom found out because Suzie never called. I never saw her again.

                                                                        ****

I found my tan leather work gloves hanging on the nail in the new basement bathroom right where I left them. The sub-flooring was now finished on the new house so we had a roof and wanted to get the basement ready so we could live in it while working on the main floor above. Pulling on my gloves, I surveyed the hard work ahead of me. It was digging. Pick and shovel digging. A trench had to be dug from the water meter at the sidewalk up the driveway and into the basement to run the main water supply pipe for the house. Next I had to dig another trench from the basement to the street to hook up the sewer. After that I had to dig a hole in which to bury the 500 gallon oil tank that would hold the heating oil for the new furnace. The tank was huge and the hole to bury it in would be deep. It was after school and I would work until dark. Dad eased up on my having to practice the piano until the digging was done. Determined, I wrapped a red handkerchief around my head to soak up the sweat I knew would be coming, and wondered if looked like old Mr. Lehman next door with a red rag around his head. 

I picked up a shovel and the pick and went to work. I found I didn't really mind the picking and digging because I could let my mind wander and think. I thought about how exciting it had been to fly to Reno with Dad and how maybe I could learn to fly someday. It didn't look all that hard. I was driving the truck now and that wasn't hard. I thought about Suzie and the fun we had necking and smooching in the Hollywood Theater, and wondered where she was living. I decided she probably had a new boyfriend anyway. I wondered what our new restaurant that Dad was buying from Gene Waddle would be like, with the drive-in outside and the car-hops coming and going. Dad promised me a job there, busing tables and working the soda fountain dishing up ice cream and making banana splits and milkshakes. It would give me pocket money. I liked having money in my pocket, just like Dad, and if I had a twenty I would change it into three fives and five ones, just to make it look like a thicker wad.

By the time is was too dark to see the bottom of the ditch I had a backache and sore arms, and had a blister on my thumb, but both trenches were finished. I eased my body into the Ford truck and after starting the motor, I realized it was dark enough to turn on the headlights, which was something I'd never done before. It was fun driving at night I came to find out. I made a U-turn and drove past the other mansions on Wisteria Drive, watching the headlights pick out the road. Driving after dark with lights on was exciting to me and I took an extra long way getting home.

Parking in front of the house on 43'rd avenue, I sat for a moment enjoying the feeling of hard work on my muscles and finally turned off the headlights. Mom met me at the front door and after giving me a hug, steered me into the bathtub she had ready for me while holding her nose. I now had hair under my arms and smelled like a working man. I was proud of it.

From working at building the house, carrying lumber, pouring concrete, pounding nails and digging ditches I was in better physical shape than most of the boys in my gym class. The gym teacher was a good guy and I liked him. His name was Tom De Silva. He was built like a football player, big thighs as thick as tree stumps, narrow waisted, broad chested with black chest hair showing above his t-shirt, imposing shoulders and no neck. His head with its short black crew-cut hair just seemed to set on his shoulders, but his easy smile and even white teeth softened his formidable appearance and made him less scary. I didn't like gym class in high school any better than I did in grade school and knew I wasn't going to be a “jock,” but did well at wrestling and could hold my own running track. During one gym class we had to run the 440. I ran hard against the only other runner good at that distance but still came in second. Coach De Silva was happy with my effort because I ran hard and was almost able to keep up with the better runner. I thought I could catch him next time around the track.

After school that day, I bragged to Mom that I had come in second in the 440 race. She thought it was great and patted me on the back. Then I told her, “Yeah Mom, but there were only two of us running.” I laughed along with her watching her frown turn to a smile, as we enjoyed the joke at my expense. 

After two days of resting up, I returned to the building site to tackle the “great oil tank burial,” and it was a project! I pounded wooden stakes at each corner of the proposed hole and ran yellow string from stake to stake. This outlined the area I had to excavate. By now my arms and shoulders were tough enough so that I didn't get tired right off the bat.

It would be a big hole and I started digging. Again, while my body was digging, my mind was wandering, thinking about the school year, and how much fun it really was. I was getting good at typing, 20 words per minute and got A's in the class.

I loved choir. Our initially weak voices were becoming stronger and coming together. Choir teacher, Jean Vancil with her little withered foot was now smiling, as together we improved into something that actually sounded like an instrument. The choir was usually busy singing at special assemblies and school plays and I loved being on stage waiting for the curtain to open and Mrs. Vancil to begin waving her arms directing us. Sometimes the school band accompanied us. But the band wasn't very good yet and to my way of thinking the choir did better a capella. The clarinet player particularly hit some squawky notes that sounded like fingernails on the chalk board. I felt embarrassed for her.

Back in the pit I was digging, the pick I was swinging hit a big solid rock, making sparks and jarring me back to reality. I dug around the big rock for about fifteen minutes finally prying it loose. Then I was able to get under it with my gloved hands and heaved it out of the hole thinking it must weigh fifty pounds. Looking at it I found myself wondering how long it had been there and how it became buried so deep with the other small stones. By the time it was dark and I had to quit working I was down in the hole to my waist. Tucking my gloves in my back pocket I looked down on my work. I would be in the hole over my head by the time it was finished. After climbing out of the hole, I started the truck, turned on the headlights and took the long way home again to the hot bath I knew Mom would have waiting.

Two more days of digging after school found me in the big hole so deep I couldn't see out anymore and had to put down a ladder just to climb in and out. My neck became tired looking up over my head to make sure the dirt in my shovel reached the top. When Dad showed up to see if the hole was big enough for the oil tank, he put his hands on his hips and tried to grin and whistle at the same time, peering down into the hole to see me. “Is that you down there?” he giggled. “Yeah, it's me Dad and I'm pooped!” I replied tossing a small rock up at him. “That hole is big enough to bury a small car. You're done with it son. Come on up. I'll have the oil tank delivered tomorrow and they'll have the power equipment to put it in.”

I gladly climbed out of the hole for the last time, wringing the sweat from my head band. When it stopped dripping I gave it a playful toss at Dad. “Buy me a cold green river at Yaws Pop,” I requested “and a burger too. I'm starved.” We pulled into Yaws and found two stools at the counter. We sat there eating, the business man in his suit, and the stinky dusty kid with leather work gloves protruding from his back pocket. We stuffed down our burgers and grinned at each other. Pop and I always had fun together.

By Christmas the house was finished, and it was magnificent both inside and out.

The exterior was landscaped with new green grass and shrubs. The wide concrete driveway led up to the double garage doors that were paneled with sandblasted redwood. The sandblasted wood allowed the natural wood grain to show in relief. Natural sandstone in various colors of tan, brown and pale green decorated the house front. (I mixed and carried all the mortar for the contract brick layer and learned what a "hod carrier" did.) Above the stone front, siding boards of natural Cedar were stained reddish brown. Above that was a roof of natural cedar shingles.

The interior was carpeted in a wall-to-wall rich burgundy color. The multi-colored stone fireplace was the center piece of the living room and adjacent dining area. A mahogany paneled den opened just off the living room, with a “secret” door leading into the hall. We called it "the secret door" because the square mahogany panels were fitted so the door was invisible. The door opened with a touch of the secret latch.

The kitchen was ceramic tile flooring and ceramic tile counter tops in pale green tile accented with burgundy edge tiles. The kitchen cabinets were of solid mahogany stained a golden brown with burgundy accents matching the burgundy tile. Cabinet doors opened with a touch and closed the same way.

All three bedrooms were finished in a different wood paneling. My bedroom was done in birds-eye maple. Both bathrooms were fitted with colored fixtures and ceramic tile to match. The main bathroom had a green sink, green tub and green toilet. It was my favorite color, a light leafy green.

The backyard was beautifully, landscaped with new grass and roses bushes and other shrubs on the now terraced hillside. From the top of the concrete sidewalk It presented a completely differently picture than the one I first saw, a steep hillside covered with blackberry bushes and poison oak. I shuddered remembering how I suffered having to clear it all away and burn it, then ending up in the hospital. 

                                                          ****

Moving into the new house made the walk to Grant High School about ten blocks farther for me and even farther for my sisters, with their grade school on NE 33'rd street. It was still an easy walk for me in the now chill morning air of Christmas time. With my winter coat zipped up tight it seemed a long time ago that I was mixing mortar and digging trenches in the hot August sun.

In choir class, we learned all the normal Christmas carols we would be singing in the Christmas pageant, including our triumphant conclusion of "The Hallelujah Chorus" complete with the music of the high school band. Even the girl clarinet player sounded better with barely a squawk or two of sour notes, or maybe she was just drowned out by the rest of us.

The drama department acted out the manger scene with a plastic doll playing the role of baby Jesus. Mom and Dad were able to take time from the new drive-in restaurant, purchased from Gene Waddle to come and see me sing. From my perch on the risers in the baritone section of the choir, I could see them both setting in the 4th row, and I could see them singing along to the familiar carols. My two sisters were somewhere in the audience also, but I couldn't pick them out.

My new route walking to school took me past the corner house on the West side of 42nd street, just a block from my front door on Wisteria Drive. As I walked by, the boy that lived in the house came out his front door with a thick stack of homework. I had seen him around school but we didn't share any classes. His name was Dennis and his Dad worked for Nalley's potato chips company. Dennis told me he had seen me cutting brush and digging, watching me from his front porch. I explained what my folks did and where the new restaurant was located, and that I would be working there part time after school and on weekends.

As we walked along I noticed a cigarette in Dennis's shirt pocket. “Is that a ciggy?” I asked. “Kent 100 with a Mirconite filter,” he replied. “Swiped it from my Dad,” he explained patting the shirt pocket, “I smoke them after school,” he said. “Don't tell. Nobody knows, well, now you know" he chuckled. "I noticed,” Dennis said, giving me the eye “you driving that Ford pickup truck. But you always made a U-turn and disappeared down 43'rd street. How do you get to drive? You're not sixteen yet?"  

Dennis stopped walking for a moment and looked me up and down, in an appraising way. “Nope, you're not 16 yet, either that or you must have been set back a grade or two.”

“My Dad lets me drive,” I bragged, “but no body knows about it, so don't tell. Maybe I will give you a ride around the block sometime.” Dennis patted his shirt pocket again. “Wanna smoke this with me after school?” he asked. “I stole a can of beer from my Dad too and we can drink it and smoke.” Wondering just where the can of beer was now, Dennis answered my unspoken question. “The beer is stashed in my gym locker under some stinky sweats.”

I had only tasted beer once before in Montana before we moved here and had never smoked a cigarette. Neither Mom or Dad smoked and only rarely drank. Smoking and drinking beer with my new friend seemed like a cool thing to do and was exciting to think about. “Yeah, where can we smoke it?” I asked glancing eagerly again at the cig in his pocket. “It sounds like fun" I said. “You know where the Hollywood theater is don't you?” Dennis asked, “Well you know how the covered exit stairs come down from the balcony don't you?” I nodded yes, having exited the Hollywood by those stairs many times. “We can climb up the stairs to the top and be completely private. That's where I smoke and drink my beer.”

Our conversation had taken us to the front door of Grant High School where we parted agreeing to meet again after school. I was excited and could think of nothing else all day, the teachers voices droning in one ear and out the other. It seemed the school day would never end. The sign above the school room clock said “Tempus Fugit.” But it didn't! When the last bell finally rang at 4:20 pm, I gathered my books, making sure I had my typing assignment book, and my history book, and met Dennis at the front door of school. He had the gym bag in hand, and with the look and the stride of a mission to be accomplished, we took off walking toward our target location. In barely a few minutes we had covered the seven or eight blocks to NE Sandy Blvd and the Hollywood Theater and were seated at the top of the exit stairs I had walked down so many times before. 

Sitting side by side, Dennis placed the gym bag on the stair below us and zipped it open. He removed a 12 ounce can of Lucky Lager, a beer can opener, a Zippo cigarette lighter, and a package of Nalley's potato chips With a serious look of experience in his eye, he slowly pierced the can, listening to it hiss and then bubble. I could smell it. Beer smelled bubbly and forbidden. He handed the open can to me and nodded for me to take the first sip while he lit the Kent cigarette, all with the look that said he was not a novice at smoking and drinking beer.

I took several sips of the warm beer recalling that it tasted much like I remembered, tart, bubbly, and burning mildly as it went down. Dennis took two deep drags on the cigarette and handed it to me. I grabbed it between my finger and thumb and was immediately corrected and shown the proper way to hold a cigarette.

“No, like this,” he said, and showed me how to hold it between the index and middle finger. Sure that I was holding it right, he watched me take a drag. It felt like the smoke crowded the oxygen from my lungs. It burned and I coughed, looking at Dennis sheepishly. Then I got dizzy. “Whoa,” I said, holding my forehead. “Don't worry,” said Dennis, “it takes some getting used to it. I coughed at first too.”

As the beer drained slowly into us, and the cigarette burned down to the micronite filter, I could feel the effects of both. I felt warm and light headed and giddy. It felt good though and we patted each other on the shoulder. We felt grown up and swore to be friends for life. Gradually our conversation turned to girls. I shared my experience feeling up Suzie's titties during the movies. “You ever felt up a girl?” I asked. “No,” he replied, munching a potato chip reflectively, “not yet, I don't have a girl friend.” Now I felt superior to Dennis. I had never smoked or drank beer, but he had never felt a girl or drove a truck. So feeling like the instructor now, I tried to explain how boobs felt. “They are really soft and kinda spongy feeling, except the nipples. They get hard and stick out when you touch 'em.” “Have you ever felt a girl...down there?” he asked pointing between his legs. “No,” I lied not wanting to share something so embarrassing, “not yet anyway, besides, Suzie moved away.” The conversation lulled as we both stared off into space for a few moments. Then returning to reality, we realized school was long ago out and we had better get home. We went down the stairs and into the bright afternoon sunshine that bathed Sandy Blvd, crossed at the crosswalk and then walked rapidly making up for lost time.

“See ya in the mornin,” I said as we parted ways. “Yep, see ya in the mornin.”

As I opened the front door to our house, I walked in and threw my homework down on the fireplace mantle. My twin sisters, Jean and Joan were doing their homework at the kitchen table. I put Mom's typewriter on the table across from them and opened my typing book looking for the right page to start. As I began typing away, I noticed them both looking at me suspiciously. “You're late getting home from school,” they both said in unison, “and you smell like beer. We want some.” I stopped typing, my mind stuttering over an answer. I didn't know what to say. I had been caught the very first time and now they wanted some beer too. I looked at my twin sisters across the table. It was as if I had never seen these two girls before. They seemed to have grown up since the last time I remember noticing them riding stick horses in our old driveway. They were more grown up and had boobs of their own.

I didn't know what to say but realized I had better brush my teeth and gargle with mouth wash. If they could smell me, so could Mom or Dad. “When does Mom get home?” I asked, trying to be nonchalant about it. “Her and Dad are working late tonight for some big banquet,” they replied. “Don't worry, we won't tell.” I felt safer having brushed my teeth and having been assured my sisters wouldn't rat on me. “We didn't tell when you were lighting match rockets in the basement of our old place on 48th, but we want some beer next time too.” Comfortable now that I wouldn't be found out, I continued typing until I finished my assignment, and began reading my history book. But my mind wandered and the print blurred as I wondered if my sisters, now sitting across from me might now blackmail me if I didn't get them some beer too. Giving up on the history assignment, I excused myself, looking at my two sisters trying to read their sincerity. I brushed my teeth again and went to bed closing my bedroom door. I would be safely asleep by the time our folks got home.

                                                       ****

The next morning I met Dennis at the front of his house and began our walk to school. He had another cigarette in his shirt pocket and pointed to his gym bag knowingly. Not wanting to get caught by my sisters two days in a row, I declined Dennis's offer telling him that I had to help out at the restaurant right after school. “More for me that way,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “more for me.” I really wished I could drink some more beer with him, after school but tried to remain cool about it. I knew that if my sisters ratted on me or Mom and Dad found out they would probably not let me drive the truck again. Thinking about that scared me, so to be on the safe side, I didn't share beer or cigarettes with Dennis for several days. And to make sure Mom didn't have a clue I gave her a big kiss when she came home, with my freshly brushed teeth and sweet smelling breath.

After a few days of being alcohol free my two sisters turned the tables on me. Arriving home from my piano lesson with a book of piano sonata's my teacher Stanley wanted me to practice, I found my sisters waiting for me sitting side by side at the top of the front stairs to our house looking for all the world like twiddle-Dee and twiddle-Dum, their faces fully involved in smirkyness. Between them sat an unopened six pack of Olympia beer. “We got beer,” they said, smiling in unison. “We should drink it” they both said simultaneously  I stopped half way up the stairs and just stared at them and the beer they were now brandishing. “Where in the devil did you girls get that much beer?” I asked, absolutely astounded. They were after all, only 13-years-old. That much beer just wasn't available! Dennis was only able to steal one can at a time and he was a guy and 16! “One of our friends brother just got out of the Navy and he got it for us. All we had to do for it was kiss him, just on the cheeks though. We didn't do anything bad.” I was both excited and relieved. Now my sisters couldn't rat on me for they were co-conspirators.

I thought it would be safer not to bring the smell of beer into the house, so I found three empty quart Mason jars in the basement and we poured the beer into the jars. For the moment I hid the empty six pack in the bushes at the top of the access stairs that went up to Alameda street, and we sat on our front stoop drinking the beer and grinning at one another. About half way through our quarts we began to get silly. My sisters starting to sing silly songs like "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and soon I couldn't help but join in the fun of our intoxication by breaking out in song with them.

We must have been more exuberant than we realized because a police car pulled up, nosing into our driveway. The officer leaned out his window and told us we were making too much noise and should go in the house and be quiet. From his vantage point the officer could not see the beer we were drinking, and we promised to do as he asked, saying "yes sir, yes sir, we'll go right in." 

We realized this had been a close call and retreated indoors. It must have been old man Lehman that lived next door that ratted on us, we agreed. When the beer was gone I opened the sonata book on the piano to look as if I had been practicing, washed out the empty quart jars with soap and water and put them back in the basement. Mom would be proud of us. By the time she got home from the restaurant all three of her kids were in bed sleeping soundly, our homework apparently done.

                                                ****

By the time we had lived in the mansion nearly a year, it became obvious that "DuPay's Drive-In Restaurant" was becoming successful and well-known. The problem now was that driving from the restaurant in far Southeast Portland to our home in far Northeast Portland was too time consuming. Simply put, Mom and Dad said we just lived too far away now and had to move. At first, news of this made me more than sad, and even a little mad because all of my personal hard-work. Digging holes, sweating and nearly dying from trying to burn Poison Oak was invested in my house. I feared it would be the nicest house I would ever live in and in the best neighborhood too.

We would be moving into an older rental house in a not-so-good neighborhood at SE 12th Street and Franklin Avenue, a mere ten blocks from the restaurant, and a short walk for me. Surveying our new digs we found that we would have to attend the also not-so-good Cleveland High school whose football and basketball teams were usually humiliated by the mighty Grant High Generals. We three kids kept entreating our folks trying to convince them that under no circumstances should we be forced to attend the lowly Cleveland High. After all, it was bad enough we had to leave our mansion in a really fancy neighborhood and move there. After a couple of family meetings on this important matter I could see the wheels turning in Dad's head. Soon we would know the final decision.

The answer came on my 16th birthday, June 30th, in bits and pieces. First we were all treated to ice cream and my favorite banana whipped cream cake with 16 candles eaten in the big family booth in the restaurant. My sisters were happy to help me blow them all out even though I didn't need any help, but they too were awaiting the final family decision with the new school year looming. But next Dad presented me with my very own silvery Gillette President model shaving razor and a package of Gillette blue blades in a dispenser pack with a can of shaving cream. The shaving cream had a festive ribbon tied around it. Dad must of tired of my using his razor twice a week even though I cleaned it and put it away properly. Between bites of cake and ice cream I stroked my chin. Yep, it was time for my own razor for sure.

After our cake and ice cream were all consumed, Mom and Dad got up and started walking towards the back restaurant door as if to return home. And we still didn't know what would happen. We three kids looked at each other with frowns on our faces as we slowly followed them out the back door.

But suddenly Mom and Dad got smirks and smiles on their faces. Dad pointed to the parked 1946 Plymouth that had once been stored in our garage and mysteriously disappeared “to the junk yard,” I was told. Now it had a new coat of blue paint, new white side-wall tires, and new seat covers. He handed me the keys saying “I think we have come to a conclusion that will make all three of you happy. Donnie is 16 now and can obtain his drivers license this week. We won't tell Grant High we moved, and you can drive your sisters to school and back.”

It was the best decision in the world! We gave Mom and Dad hugs and kisses and more hugs and then jumped in the car. It smelled good inside too. Dad had one of those green pine tree smelly things hanging from the rear view mirror. “Start it up,” Dad said sliding in next to me. “I had the engine tuned up too...oh and a new muffler. The old one had a hole in it. Mom and I decided that since all three of our kids would be in this car, that it had to be both safe and respectable looking.” I started the engine and listened to it purr for a moment before putting it into reverse, backing out of the parking slot. I looked both ways before pulling onto Holgate street and after getting comfortable in the drivers seat I drove our happy family around the town. This car was smooth, I thought to myself, and easier to shift than the Ford pickup truck. Now I couldn't wait for the thrill I knew would come when I parked the shiny Plymouth in front of Grant High school and walked across the grass twirling the keys smartly on my finger and whistling to myself. Yeah, my Junior year would be great! Yea-ah! Great!

But my 16th summer was more than just driving around in my new blue car having fun. “It's time for you to start learning the business son. There is a great deal to learn in running a successful restaurant.” Dad took me to the Social Security office. There I received my first social security card, then off to the Bureau of Labor. At 16 I had to have a permit to work even for my folks. Then it was off to Sears again where I was fitted with two white dress shirts and two pairs of black slacks. I would wear these clothes while working as a bus boy and also behind the fountain. DuPay's had a full soda fountain and served milkshakes, and malts, ice cream Sundae's, floats, banana splits and soda's as well as Chocolate cokes and cherry cokes.

It was overwhelming at first and the pace of the work was fast. Mom gave me a quick lesson on how to bus a table and carry the dirty plates. “Smile at the customers,” she admonished and if there is any tip money left on the table, leave it there. The waitress will pick it up and at the end of the shift if she feels you were a help to her, she might share her tip money with you.” And it looked like the tips were good. Most of the tables I cleaned off had two or three dollars during the lunch rush and more during the evening dinner business. At the end of my first shift busing tables I had earned three dollars and the waitress had shared her experience on how to carry several dinner plates at once. “If you're faster at cleaning off the tables,” she explained, “we can seat the next customer quickly and we both make more money.” 

Capiche? she asked me. "Yes" I capiched, but my arms were tired, and my new white shirt had catchup stains on the sleeve. With my shift over, I had to punch out like everyone else at the time clock. I had earned almost ten dollars, plus the three the waitress gave me. I drove home and took a shower washing the restaurant sweat from me. Last summer I was pounding nails, sawing boards and digging ditches. This summer I had a clean inside job and wore better clothes. Things were looking up.

Quickly I learned my folks had high standards in preparing and serving food. Dad cut up good chuck beef and fed it into the meat grinder. We ground our own hamburger and the automatic patty making machine, went “whap, whap, thwack” and stacked the fresh patties neatly on trays for the next days business. We peeled large potatoes in a potato peeling machine and cut our own French fries. We used 10 gallons of fresh, never frozen fries a day. I learned to cut up fresh whole chickens for our fried chicken dinners and made tubs of mashed potatoes to go with it. Dad taught me how to make soup stock by boiling beef bones with carrots and celery, and chicken stock the same using chicken bones. The soda fountain used “Simple Syrup,” and I learned to make it by boiling sugar and water until it was clear and sweet.

Before long I became accepted by the crew and enjoyed the kitchen hi-jinks the cooks inflicted on one another. Dave, our best and fastest fry-cook could put together, cut and wrap a burger to go, his fingers flying so fast I couldn't follow the action until he tossed the completed burger in the burger-basket and added hot fries, and salted them with a flourish. Dave was forever tormenting our lady cook named Freida, who was good natured to a point until Dave kept asking her, “Hey Freida,” is it Freida anybody?” Freida would retaliate by chasing Dave around the kitchen whacking at him with her spatula. She never caught him because Dave would dodge out the back door.

We employed a Japanese prep cook by the name of Takashi Osaka. We all called him Tack. Tack did a perfect imitation of a ninja twirling two butcher knives around and over his head before bringing the knives down on a large potato cutting it in half and then in half again the long way before tossing the cut spud into the pot which would become mashed potatoes, always with the appropriate, shrill, “Hi-yee whaah,” that only the Japanese could do. I often tried to imitate his “Hi-yee whaah” but it never came out right. Tack would cackle at me in glee saying “You no Japanese! You no slant-eyes hah!” and continue slicing up the spuds. Tack could make quick work out of a 50 pound sack of Russets.

At least once a shift a police car would pull into the drive-in for the free cups of coffee we always gave them. The regular cops were brothers, Don and Clayton Coffee. “The Coffee brothers are here for their coffee,” the car-hops would say and deliver it to the police car. One of our car-hops, Barbara, had enormous breasts she was quite proud of. Some times I wondered if the cops came for the coffee or just to ogle Barbara's boobs. Dave would ogle her too, but Barbara would just shake her boobs and her apron pocket full of tip money and offer a wink and a smile.

If things in the kitchen were not too busy, I was allowed to sit in the back seat of the police car and listen to the radio calls. I became fascinated with the atmosphere in the black and white car and tried to learn as much as possible about police work, how the radio calls were dispatched and what kind of guns they carried. Police cars pulling in and out of our drive-in made an impact on me that never went away. I had no idea yet that I would become a Portland Police officer someday.

                                                ****

I was a happy Junior the first day of school. I dropped my sisters off and watched them disappear through the front doors, then just sat there in my car enjoying the the feel of it all. Some of the guys I knew that didn't have cars, walked by, looking at my shiny ride. I offered a nonchalant two fingered half wave and enjoyed their obvious envy.

As the clock on the dashboard neared class time, I turned off the ignition, rolled up the windows and locked the doors. I walked across the grass twirling the key chain on my finger, just as I had imagined it might be like. I took a deep breath, turned for one last look at my car and walked into school. I worked for it, I thought, and I sure deserved it, sweating, and digging and sawing to get it. If the other kids asked if my Daddy gave me a car, I would be ready with a quick answer, “Hell no, I worked for that car!”

My first period class was world Geography, second period was Mrs. Ewers Shakespeare class. She told us we would be doing a Shakespeare play called “Midsummer Nights Dream.” Third and fourth period were both taken up with Mrs. Vancil's choir, and the boys octet. My voice wasn't deep enough last year, but I thought I could make the group this time around. Mrs. Vancil loved barbershop quartets, but most boys 15 and 16 didn't have strong enough voices, so teacher would double up, two weaker voices to make one strong voice and so the Grant High boys octet came to be. I sang baritone.

During regular choir practice, I noticed a girl that was singing alto. I thought she was pretty and wondered why I hadn't noticed her last year. When we all introduced ourselves again I learned her name was Caroline and her Dad, owned the Rexall drug store at 42nd and Sandy, next to the Fred Meyer Hollywood store. I had walked by the drugstore many times after drinking beer with Dennis at the Hollywood Theater.

Now this girl was cute, I remember thinking. Caroline had short brown hair, that flipped up at the end and sides, and she wore glasses with dark frames. She wore pale red lipstick on her lips that framed her nice white teeth when she smiled and was taller than the other girls in the alto section, but shorter than me. When I smiled at her, she smiled right back. She was cute alright and she had a bra-full! Wow, I'd have to talk to her, I decided. I had a car now, and the car changed everything.

After choir, I asked Caroline if she needed a lift and she decided it would be alright if I drove her home. I explained that I had to wait for my sisters because I was their ride too, but I could drop her off first if she didn't mind. She explained that she lived on NE Broadway street just about two blocks from her Dad's drug store. I was happy that Caroline accepted my offer for a ride home. We smiled at each other and touched hands momentarily as I helped her in the car, while my two sisters were being giggly in the back seat. I could see them smirking at me in the rear view mirror knowingly, as we pulled away from the curb. I knew they would tell Mom and Dad about my new “girlfriend.”

After a few car rides home with Carolyn it felt good to be with her. Natural sort of, like it had felt with Suzie before she so suddenly moved away. Natural and good, like we'd always known each other. Music and choir were our favorite classes and we looked forward to being together more and more. Choir and the school plays and homecoming events and rallies also gave us added reasons to be together as the high school choir was always involved in these things.

My Junior year was beginning well and I decided that school should be less about smoking cigarettes and drinking beer with Dennis and more about getting good grades. Besides Mom was getting suspicious. She thought she smelled tobacco on me once. “Have you been smoking cigarettes?!” my mother asked me, while sniffing around my shoulders. “Hell no Mom! I've just been hanging out with Dennis and he smokes, that's all.” Her questioning panicked me. If they found out I was secretly drinking an occasional beer with Dennis and smoking cigarettes they might take away the car. So that was part of the reason I decided that my last two years in high school I would concentrate on my studies and endeavor to get all A's and B's. That--and getting into Caroline's panties. I was sure she was the one I wanted and I thought she wanted me too. How lucky I thought to find my mate so early in life. When I was close to her in the car I felt an excitement I couldn't explain. It was as if I could breathe her in when I snuggled her neck and kissed her on the lips. Whew, Baby, it felt good to be next to her!

By the time the school Christmas pageant rolled around we knew the words to all the Christmas carols by heart and the choir sounded professional. When we sang the Hallelujah Chorus I felt inspired and was really enjoying myself. On that night, our combined voices reverberated in the auditorium and when we finished the audience sat in stunned silence, and then they erupted into a thunderous applause! That's when we realized how good we were.

Mrs. Vancil would slip her little foot behind and bow with sweeping arms to the audience, in an attempt at a small curtsy, with the biggest smile I ever saw on her wonderful face. She was proud of us! I wanted to hug her. We all wanted to hug her. Sometimes at practice, we wanted to hug her too, but when we tried she would back away with feigned apprehension, pretending she didn't want a hug, until we just surrounded her and gave her a group hug anyway. She would complain, but we all knew she secretly loved the accolades we were happy to lay at her feet, little foot and all. We were the Grant High school choir and we were one big happy family.

Also by Christmas I was a permanent member of the Boys Octet. It was a thrill when the eight of us were asked to step forward from the mass of the choir to perform our solo numbers, such as Sweet Adeline, and several others. Except for Christmas music the octet sang a lot of barber shop tunes and they gave us white straw hats to wear and black canes to wave. My voice was strong now and though I was only 16, I was a real baritone.

Because we both had strong voices and loved the music Caroline and I were selected to join the All-City High School Choir. It was a real honor to be selected. The other kids from the different schools were good singers too and the enlarged choir, (there were about eighty of us all together) rocked the auditoriums where we sang. But between you and I, driving Caroline home and going to practices all the time was becoming the most important thing in my life. The car had changed everything indeed, for only there we could be totally alone and together.

We went to the Hollywood Theater a few times on weekend evenings and even sat in the “Loges” (which were the wider, more comfortable seats) where Suzy and I had snuggled before I started High School, but eventually we abandoned the movies so we could be alone in the car. 

Because we were together so much, Caroline told me her mother was becoming suspicious and was watching her closely with her hands on her hips when she came from the bathroom. “She's making sure I start my period,” Caroline whispered to me, a concerned look on her pretty forehead. “She' s watching us. Maybe we should cool it for awhile” she finally suggested. “We haven't done anything to get you pregnant,” I replied looking in her eyes to reassure her. I was concerned this might interfere with our heavy necking and I didn't want to lose that part of us. All my Mom ever said to me was “be careful driving, especially at night.”

My mother had never told me about sex or condoms, let alone how babies were made, and neither had my father, so I learned of these things from my pal Dennis, and the more salacious aspects of sex from the book Lady Chatterley's Lover. Caroline and I wanted each other badly but so far our alone time in the car was just touching and feeling each other. Serious touching and feeling. We wanted to go further but we were too afraid, up to that point anyway.

Feeling Caroline's breasts and kissing her neck and whispering “I love you” in her ear took my breath away and frankly made my penis hard and her panties wet. We didn't know just what to do about our feelings yet, and I didn't want to talk to my folks about it either. Besides they were always at work at the restaurant and I would have felt uncomfortable talking to them about girls and sex.

                                                ****

It had now been awhile since I drank beer with Dennis so I was happy to run into him in the hallway outside Mrs. Ewers class room one day. “Did you get your letter yet?” He waved an official looking letter under my nose that he had stuck between the pages of a book. “What letter?” I asked. I snatched the paper from him and could see it was from the Government telling him that because of his age he was an eight year military obligor. He would have to do eight years military service, part active duty and the rest in the ready-reserves. “Wow...this is serious,” I said. “I never thought about the military before, did you?” I asked him. “No,” he replied, “but I guess we know what we're going to do after high school huh?”

“They sent me to home-room last week to have us take aptitude tests,” I offered. “My tests said I had aptitude for working in law enforcement and an aptitude for journalism. It didn't say anything about the military. Was your Dad in the service?” I asked. “No,” Dennis replied. “Mine neither,” I said. “I remember something about Mom worrying that Dad might have to go during WW2, but he was deferred because he had three kids. My Uncle Kenny is an Army officer though, and flew reconnaissance missions in Korea.”

Dennis and I then decided to meet after school and drink a beer at the Hollywood Theater and talk about the changes that would happen in both our lives if we had to go into the military. We met after school and he still had his gym tote bag, and patted it knowingly as he tossed it in the trunk of the car. It was Dennis's first time in my Plymouth. I ran my hand over the dash cleaning off a little dust and smiled at him. “When you gettin a car?” I asked casually, trying not to sound like I was bragging, even though I was.

“Oh, I don't know,” Dennis replied with a fleeting sad smile. “Dad says he barely has enough money for one car. We're not rich like your folks” he said simply. Wow I thought to myself. I had never thought of myself as a rich kid. I had worked hard for my car and knew I deserved it, but then my father had two cars already, and even though I'd worked for my car, I was able to get it because my father bought it in the first place, only to replace it with another car. I had worked for it but my father was able to "sell" it to me because my parents did have more money, than Dennis's parents. I had not considered that before. 

“You could get a job after school and save money for some wheels,” I suggested. “I worked hard digging ditches for this car last summer,” I said and I flexed both my arm muscles for emphasis. “Yeah,” Dennis replied, “I remember when you drove the Ford pickup to work. I was jealous...that's why I never came over to talk to you when you were working.”

At this point, I parked the Plymouth behind the Hollywood Theater and Dennis and I ran up the fire escape stairs, sat down on our favorite stair, opened the can of beer and read the Government letter over and over again. Dennis lit a cigarette and passed it to me. It had been awhile since I smoked and it made me cough. Dennis poked me in the ribs...“Sissy!” he said grinning at me. “So what are we going to do about this?” he asked, looking serious, first at the letter and then back at me. “We have to do something. I'm not going to just wait around to be drafted into the Army and then get shot by some Kraut!” he declared. “The Kraut war is over,” I reminded him quietly, “but I'm not an Army man either. No digging fox holes for me. I already know I don't like digging and I don't wanna' march either.” Hmmm...we'd have to drink some more beer and think about this new and momentous event before we could come to any conclusions about it.

Back in my car after dropping Dennis off at his house, I looked across the street at the mansion my blistered hands and sore muscles had helped to build. Someone else lived there now--and It made me sad and a little angry. It felt like they were trespassing on my house! It had been a wonderful place to live compared to the relatively dumpy house we lived in now, and a much better neighborhood too on NE Wisteria Drive. Maybe when I got older and made a lot of money I could buy it back and park my newest shiny car in the driveway. I stared at the grass and shrubs that were so new when we had planted them. Now they were mature and looked like they always lived on that particular piece of ground...my old and favorite home.

I was still confused over the fact that Dennis viewed me as a rich kid, especially since we had both lived just across the street from each other in an uppity neighborhood with fanciful names like Wisteria Drive and 'living on the Alameda'. Did that mean I was upper class? Maybe so. I didn't feel like I belonged in the rundown neighborhood we currently lived in just because it was closely located to the restaurant, and there was no way that I would lower myself by attending that well-known mediocre Cleveland High School. 

There was so much to think about and now with the specter of military duty hanging over my head after high school, I felt especially annoyed. And what about Caroline? I was certain I was in love with her and maybe we could get married? We really hadn't talked exactly about it, but just hinted at it a couple a times. I was expected to work for my Dad and Mom at the restaurant so I would be able to support us.

Caroline talked about going on to nursing school after graduation. Her Mom and sister were both nurses and her Dad was a Pharmacist. We talked about the future, but now I had to figure out just what to do next. My government letter came a few days after Dennis got his. They must have been mailed out alphabetically, because Dennis's last name was Cox and mine being DuPay, naturally followed. Mom had opened the letter for me as it looked official, and kinda scary. She appeared subdued and I noticed there were tears in her eyes when she handed it to me. “You have to go into the Army is what this letter says!” I stood there quietly, concerned and curious at my mother's tears. “Its okay Mom. It'll all work out” I told her.

There was a lot of family discussion about this “goin' into the Army” situation over the next few days. Dad had never been in the military but he didn't believe the Army was a good thing for his son and so we discussed some alternatives to Army-olive-drab. The letter didn't give a specific date I had to enlist, and neither had Dennis's letter, so it left a big unanswered question hanging like a rain cloud over my head. Eventually we figured out that I had to register for the draft and wait for my number to come up and that could take as long as two years we were told. Register and wait--register and wait--register and wait? To me it seemed like I had to put my head in the yolk and wait for the guillotine to slam down chopping it off.

Of course the word got around the restaurant about my military predicament, and it was Dave our hamburger cooking whiz that offered a solution. “The Navy,” he began “I was a radioman in the Navy. Always had a clean place to sleep, never had to dig a hole,

to hide in and always had decent grub to eat! And I can teach you the Morse code. There's a Navy Reserve outfit down on Swan Island here in Portland. Go check it out. Ask for Chief Petty officer Morris. We were ship mates a long time ago. He'll set you straight.”

My parents and I had talked about the Navy of course, but I was never comfortable out on the water going fishing with Mom. Still, if the ship was big enough maybe I wouldn't be afraid, like a battle ship or an aircraft carrier. Dad taught me how to swim years ago when I was a little kid in Wenatchee where I was born. I could swim a long ways on my back doing the frog kick.

Over beer and cigarettes with Dennis at the top of the Hollywood Theater fire escape we discussed the possibility of the Navy as an alternative to digging fox holes. Dennis's Dad thought the Navy would be a good idea too.

So that's how it happened. With our parents 'approval' signatures on the dotted line, Dennis and I appeared before Chief Petty Officer Morris on a Saturday at the Swan Island Reserve recruiting office to be sworn in. Chief Morris sat down at the machine that would make our new metal dog tags. It was painted Navy gray and had a typewriter keyboard and when the keys were pressed a die would slam down on the metal tag and imprint a letter. It whirred noisily waiting for the Chief to start. Ka-whump went the machine! Ka-whump for a letter and Ka-thwack for a space. Whump-thwack, whump-thwack, whump-thwack! My tags said: DuPay, Donald L. 457-42-65, blood type O, and Protestant (as opposed to Catholic). The whumping continued until the machine spat out two, new, shiny “dog” tags. Somewhere in my head I realized that my name was now forever logged into the roster of Navy men. 

Next we were issued a full set of uniforms, dress blues, with white piping stripes on the collar and working blues without the piping, dungarees, (Navy talk for blue jean working pants,) Shiny black shoes and black socks. The little white hats came next and when Dennis and I were fully dressed Chief Morris showed us how to wear the hats, square on our heads, two fingers above our eyes. One single white diagonal stripe three inches long adorned the left shoulder indicating my rank as a Seaman Recruit, pay grade E-1, the lowest of the low. “Below garbage,” said Chief Morris with a quick wink, and a smile, “but hopefully with potential,” he added.

Next came the serious part. We were asked to raise our right hands in front of the American flag and with a few words, promising to do our duty and uphold the constitution of the United States, Dennis and I were officially sworn in as the two newest members of the US. Navy Reserve.

Mixed emotions swirled as my thoughts as my eyes fixated on the flag above me, apprehension, pride, and satisfaction. Apprehension, because I realized I was growing up and becoming a man, that I had set out on a journey yet unknown, perhaps at sea, perhaps in a far away foreign land, and Pride, because I loved America and the Navy was a proud service with a long and honorable tradition. And lastly, satisfaction, because I had taken charge, as much as possible, of my future. I would not just be waiting around to be drafted and sent away willy-nilly somewhere, doing something stupid. My new reserve unit was with the Naval Security Group. We would be doing important top secret work, leaving the digging of ditches to others, like the menial jocks at Cleveland High. I felt good—really good and Dennis did too. We were both confident we had done the right thing. We decided to go drink a beer and smoke a cigarette at the Hollywood Theater and let it all sink in. And that's exactly what we did!

                                                        ****

The last few months of High School were a blur, and went by with the quickness of an arrow or a spear, as it passes. You can see it but it speeds towards its end, falling victim to gravity and when it does, it will leave a mark in the grass. A point. A dot. A period. And the period signifies the end of something. The most intense part of growing up, attending high school was nearing its end. I could see it coming and it was both sad and exciting. 

Caroline and I were together almost every night now. Even when we weren't looking for an excuse, there was so much going on. The best of the kids that sang in the All-City choir were invited to try out for the Portland Civic Opera chorus. The group would be performing two Giuseppe Verdi (that's Joe Green in English) opera's, LaTraviata and Il Trovatore and famous opera tenor, Jan Pierce, would be singing tenor lead in LaTraviata. Chorus practice would be two nights a week. Caroline and I were both accepted in the Portland Opera Chorus. When we got word, we looked at each other, grinning widely and hugged longer than absolutely necessary. She felt so good in my arms I could hardly let her go!

And then there was the Friday night football games. Grant High was unbeatable on the football field and for two years (1953 & 1954) our team humiliated the other schools on their own fields. Silly Cleveland went down, Roosevelt went down, Lincoln went down and even the tough guys at Benson Poly went down. They all left the field in defeat leaving us Grant Generals to celebrate. But we had a secret weapon, a crack shot, rifle armed quarterback named George Shaw. 

This George Shaw was a play writer too, but his plays were performed on the football field, not Pygmalion but pig skin, and our George Shaw was a pleasure to watch. When he threw a pass it always hit the correct receiver and Touchdown! George was drafted by the Baltimore Colts right out of high school, and later played for the NY Giants, the Minnesota Vikings and the Denver Broncos, he was that good. Maybe we should have felt sorry for the other Portland high schools...but we didn't.

With football games on Friday nights, two weeknights at opera chorus practice and the regular school schedule of plays, festivals, and home comings harvest festival activities, Caroline and I were practically living together, in the front seat of my Plymouth. Our private time came after these events, when I usually parked the car in the quiet darkness of the downtown Park blocks. We were so in love that we could hardly wait to hug each other and kiss in what privacy the sedan provided. 

In early May, just a few weeks before graduation Caroline and I devised a plan to be alone together for an entire Saturday. We would drive to the Oregon coast and spend the day on a nice private sandy beach. And I knew just the place. Mom would often drag me fishing with her to Short Sands Beach, where she could fish in the surf and catch sea bass. It was small in area, a U shaped cove, where rocks jutted out into the surf on both sides and the white sand beach between the rocks was private.

On our trip we sat as close together in the front seat of the car as seat belts would allow, and talked about our future together, and how really beautiful Oregon could be on a sunny spring day. We both knew that we were going to make love this day, but still, we didn't speak of it. We were eager, yet afraid, and sometimes we glanced at each other and then quickly back to the road and the safety of small talk. 

As I passed the sign that said “Short Sands,” I slowed the Plymouth looking for the almost hidden path, through the dune. This path was covered with tall sea grass and partly obscured the way down to the beach. In a moment I spotted the trail and parked the car under a roadside tree. I turned off the ignition and looked at Caroline. She was smiling. So far so good. I was hoping she would not back-out at the last minute leading to more frustration for us both. I was trembling in anticipation.

I retrieved the blanket from the back seat, a green flannel blanket we had used to cover ourselves for both warmth and privacy while smooching in the front seat at the Park blocks, all those times. I held her hand and lead the way pushing the tall grass aside, picking out the path as it lay, nearly hidden. It looked as if no one had passed this way in some time. Good!

As we neared the beach I stopped for a moment to put my arms around Caroline and to take in the scene. The breeze was mild and warm and brought with it the smell of salt and seaweed and wafted strong enough to provide lift for the seagulls that seemed to float without exertion, as we watched them in the air. Then screeching, the gulls would peel off only to pick up another puff of wind and float away again. It was a different wind than the wind at home, that blew through the trees bringing with it the smell of damp leaves as it rained or the faint dusty smell of dry leaves in the summer. This wind had no trees to break its path and it smelled only of the sea. The surf had its own sound too, not a roaring surf on this mild day, but like a muted surf, a drum-roll, constantly there but blending with the other sounds of nature.

Caroline and I looked at each other again and continued eagerly downward until we could feel the sand crunching under our feet. I picked out a large rock protruding from the sand, that would give us privacy. The rock was covered with barnacles and seaweed and was probably completely under water at high tide, but for now it would be our refuge. It would be awhile before the incoming tide reached us.

I spread the soft blanket on the sand. We removed our shoes leaving on our socks and sat on the blanket facing each other, not speaking. I approached Caroline slowly, enclosing her in my arms and kissing her on the soft part of her neck. The breeze blew her hair slightly and seemed to enhance and mingle with the smell of her. She returned my kiss, encouraging me, and together we melted into the blanket. She allowed me to remove her sweater and unfasten her bra. I had never seen her bare breasts before, had only caught mere glimpses of her Décolletage from the yellow street lights coming into the car window. 

Caroline was beautiful! Her breasts were pert and firm and her nipples were a pinkish brown melting into my caress. She kissed me again and wiggled around removing her panties. She was naked as I looked down on her, and I didn't know what words to use. I had never seen a naked girl but heard myself mumbling “you're beautiful,” over and over again. I undressed myself, looking around again, to be sure we were alone and removed the condom from my wallet, the one I had secretly purchased from the all-night drugstore on SW Broadway near the Paramount Theater. 

Condoms were not openly displayed and I was forced to ask the pharmacist for one. I was embarrassed then but glad now that I had planned ahead. I put on the condom. It was the final barrier between us. Holding her close I felt between her legs, finding what I sought. My heart was beating so fast and so loud it seemed to drown out the now dull noise of the breaking surf. I was frantic for her, still unsure of what I was doing. I tried to kiss her again but my mouth was dry and my lips seemed to be covered in paper.

Then I found her—entering her slowly, deliciously, our eyes speaking words we could not utter with our mouths. Time stopped, it seemed and there was only Caroline and I, now one, united in flesh. After a few minutes together, I heard her squeal quietly, as she climaxed, undulating under me and I heard myself grunt a guttural primal sound I had never made before. Filled with each other we lay together, locked together, entwined like seaweed, regaining our breath, enjoying each others bodies. I don't know how long we remained on our blanket in the sand, new lovers locked together, but eventually we felt the cold briny water surge around our protective rock soaking us momentarily before retreating back to the ocean. But it brought us abruptly back to reality. The tide was coming in and our love-rock would soon return to to its ocean home abandoning us. 

We jumped up, shook the sand out of our underwear and clothes, and tied our shoes. Caroline asked me to faster her bra. It was a strange but comfortable thing to do. The next wave encroached our rock, the unstoppable tide reclaiming what had only a few minutes before been our sand, telling us our time was over. Shaking sand from the blanket we chased each other playfully, happily, back up the path to our car.

Now as we hurried away from the tide, I realized that never again would I have to resort to a toilet paper vagina, stuffed with soft cotton, as I had when I was 12-years-old and first began experimenting. No more would I have to re-read the drooled over pages of Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence. I had finally and beautifully lost my virginity.

              Hallelujah! Sweet Jesus! Hallelujah!

I would turn 18 in a month and had survived many interesting and dangerous experiences since arriving in Oregon in 1947 on a plane running low on fuel, and manned by a "worried" pilot. I had the rest of my life to look forward to, and could never know what lay in store for me, but like all mysteries those events, people and times would slowly reveal themselves, in sweet, tragic and sometimes painful ways that would leave their mark on my life and on my memory forever.  

Author's Note: In case you were wondering, Dennis remained in the US Navy as a Communications Technician and retired as a Chief Petty Officer. My high school aptitude tests proved to be prophetic. After my time in the Navy where I spent two years in Germany during the Cold War, doing electronic surveillance, I returned to Portland and within a short time joined the Portland Police Bureau. I was both a street cop for six years and later a detective for eleven more, from 1961-1978, when I left the force for health reasons. The second half of my life has been spent happily writing. Caroline and I never did get married, but I still think of her fondly and treasure the role she played in my young life. She became a nurse and married a boy that was the brother of one of her nursing school class mates, and went on to do well. 

By Don DuPay

If you'd like to contact Don DuPay, you can find him at facebook here...https://www.facebook.com/dondupay

or you can email him at his PSU email, at ddupay@pdx.edu

ABSOLUTELY NO PORTION OF THIS PERSONAL ESSAY MAY BE REPRODUCED OR DISSEMINATED WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR, DONALD LEE DUPAY, UNDER PENALTY OF COPYRIGHT LAWS!