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Maxine's Story
A Happy Occasion
It amuses me occasionally to compare life's situations with the worm in the vinegar jug! Supposedly that wretched worm is happy enough ... knowing nothing better .... while on the other hand, we expect to be happy just as soon as things are different. If only I was older, or younger, or married, or divorced, more money, had children, got rid of the children, more money, felt better and so on .... Always around the comer, surely we will be happier. Yet sometimes, unplanned and completely unexpected, happiness just comes bubbling up and we find ourselves aware of such joy that the memories and the moment never really go away. One of those times in my life was the simple gathering of wild strawberries.
I was born and raised for the first 6 years in dry and arid country---Arizona, Southern Idaho and then Eastern Oregon. My Dad loved what he called the high desert country and climate. My Mother, however, did not. She had seen pictures of the Pacific Northwest and that was her idea of a great place to live. Furthermore, living next door to her in-laws was not working out at all and she simply refused to stay in Paul Idaho any longer. So began our move west. Ontario Oregon wasn't much different from Paul Idaho, but in the mid 1930s you simply went to where the jobs were ... My Dad was able to go to work for the PWA (Public Works Administration), the government program that built dams, schools and public buildings of various kinds. He was strongly opposed to government help and considered the WPA(Works Progress Association) to be a democratic socialist plot! So it was that while he was away working on projects like the Bonneville dam, my Mother and her four children lived in Ontario, for a period of about 5 years.
Eventually he moved on to what he considered a better job and one where we could all live together, road construction. Thus began our life as gypsies, which lasted until the outbreak of WWII, which changed nearly everyone's lives.
The road Construction Company had contracts all over the state of Oregon. None lasting very long, generally just a few months. The problem was to be to find housing, especially for families. The first job that we were sent to was near Roseburg, a very small community called Brownsboro. It was only for the summer months and there was no housing to be found. So we simply became campers! A delightful meadow by a good-sized creek in that beautiful wooded setting. It was more than wonderful! I had never seen nature like this---trees and green and more trees and more green. I instantly fell in love with the western side of this state and have never lost that feeling. The day that I remember so clearly, was the day we discovered ripe wild strawberries! The wonder of that fruit is with me today .... the taste of it, the size of some of them as big as the end of your thumb ... (it must have been a really great year) and the abundance! We picked and ate and picked and collected finally until we had enough to make a batch of strawberry jam---cooked on a campstove. No jam has ever tasted quite the same.
There have been other occasions when I've felt this shear joy, but non-more poignant. The thrill of just being alive and experiencing the happiness of a carefree childhood, long before the responsibilities of adulthood---or a nation at war.
I have seen that camping site in recent years; 60 years to be exact, and wonder now what I found so beautiful. For I've become accustomed to the look of the western part of our State. My eyes have seen tropical islands, lands of renowned beauty and wonders of all kinds and descriptions, but like that happy worm, I too am content. Not because I don't know anything different, but because I am exactly where I want to be, surrounded by those I love .... And when the sun is shinning and the local strawberries are available I know without a doubt that it just doesn't get any better that this!
Ps. I've wondered many times about those wild strawberries ... In all my years since, I have never seen anything like them ... I did discover wild blackberries however, and was just about as thrilled over them ... One of the first things I did after getting married, was to pick everyone I could find and make blackberry jam, filling all the bottles I could get my hands on. Since I didn't know enough to take out some of the seeds, it wasn't very good jam really and I thought we'd never get it used up. (Took a lot of peanut butter sandwiches to do the job.)
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