Memoir Monday--the constant of change

I missed a week. Last week was hectic and involved a four day trip to Arizona to handle some family (Walton side) business which is still not completed.  I got back home Friday, tired and in a state of semi-shock as I learned things I had no idea about and totally did not expect. How this all will ultimately resolve is not yet in my crystal ball's view. I often think that is the story of my life!

Last time I talked about back-to-school memories. This time I trace a parallel theme which also ties in with this idea of sudden and unexpected changes and revelations. The summer of 1966 was a difficult one. My dad's health was caving in and there were many issues with the horses and mules about which my life had been centered for several years.  The wild idea of leaving home and starting college lingered on the far horizon but I did not believe it would happen. I rode and led, shoveled and fed, worried and went on, head down and mostly very tired to the depths of my spirit. It was a discouraging period.

Then suddenly the unexpected happeend.   All at once the wheel spun 180 degrees and in a week everything was different.  I was accepted for admission at NAU (Northern Arizona University) and got a combination of a scholarship and grants which would pay my full costs for the first year at least. So on September 8, I was duly delivered with the bulk of my worldly possessions to my future dorm, Morton Hall, on the northeast part of campus. Within a couple of days I went from cowboy girl to college coed. Talk about a shock!

I signed up for my first semester classes, got a meal ticket at the cafeteria across from my dorm, survived one brief weird roommate and then got another very calm one, and began classes--back to studying for the first time in four years. It really felt as if one life had ended and another began in which I had been born at age 23, somewhere in actuality between about 15 and 35. I suppose it is a good thing I have always adaptable and rather independent. For the first year I did go home one or two weekends a month so I still saw the animals, did a few chores and watched in sorrow as things deteriorated yet farther on that front.

I had to learn to 'comparmentalize' and do a bit of Roman riding with a foot on each of two charging steeds. I worried about keeping my grades up, whether or not I could still do academic things--perhaps that was needless. "Book learning," so long as I stay clear of a few subjects my mind simply does not encompass, has never been a big challenge. I did well that semester and the next; no worries on earning and keeping the critical financial aid.(Whew)

That's just one example of the strange and surprising trip that my life--at least this current life!--has been. I suspect it repeats some of my past lives in that paradigm as well. Although I am sure I have never been anyone famous or important, I do think I have always been in the middle of tumult and violence, catastrophes and brief calms, having to adjust, learn, grow and change, many, many times. Somehow the lessons all that is to impart have not quite solidified yet. Until I 'get it right' eventually, perhaps I am fated to go on this way. Well, it beats being bored to tears!

In the computer crash earlier this summer I lost most of my college photos and have not yet gotten around to trying to have the hard drive repaired or salvaged but I did find a few, mostly ones I had posted on Facebook the last year or two. Some were also right here on this blog, so I will share a couple.

Before--one way some 1500 days
had been spent

And after, in Morton Hall; I was packing here
but unpacking would have been similar

Memoir Monday--Back-to School-Days

Memory is a funny thing. Try as I might I can not dredge up one memory about my first 'first-day-of -school.' I know it was in Jerome, AZ and in early September 1949. I am sure I was scared to death because at that point I had experienced very little contact with kids anywhere near my age. I expect Mom walked me down the hill from our house to where the school bus picked up the kids from our little neighborhood and away I went. But that is all just from a vague knowledge of what happened. Maybe I have erased it from my memory bank.

The next memorable one was my second start on second grade. I had gone a couple of weeks to Jerome--Clark Street School--when Dad got the job to teach out at Camp Wood, a tiny community north and west of Prescott, AZ. Naturally since our small family was going to live out there at least M-F, I changed schools. It was a huge change! There were only eight kids in the entire school which went from grade 1 to grade 8 and I was the only girl!

That experience lasted for two years and almost all the generally vague memories I have of it were pleasant ones. Save details for another post.  I had not fitted in too well in Jerome and was teased and bullied a bit because I often went to school dressed in trousers and did not know how to play with other kids very well. In those days, girls did NOT wear jeans or pants regardless of the weather so I stood out like a sore thumb!

At Camp Wood that was not a problem. Everyone dressed much the same and as one of the younger kids I became a bit of a pet of the older boys. I was not the teacher's pet, though, as I am convinced my teacher was twice as rough on me as anyone else!

Then another change happened. Yavapai County closed that little remote school and Dad started to teach at Willard School in Bridgeport, AZ, just south of Cottonwood. This was a "big" school--two rooms and a total of forty students or so.  I started 4th grade in the lower half room under Mrs Velma Fuller. There I was not the only girl at all though I was the only one in 4th grade. It was fun to have some girl friends and jeans were quite okay. Most of the girls wore dresses most of the time, especially the younger ones, but some pupils brought their horses to school now and then and the three girls in the 8th grade wore "Levis" a lot.

For 5th grade I moved up to the upper half and the next year due to declining enrollment, they made the school a single room. I stayed there until the end of 7th grade. Again as memories become clearer, I know it was almost all a happy time. Sadly, all good things must end. That school also was closed and consolidated into the Cottonwood schools. Dad quit teaching and I started 8th grade in the Clarkdale system.

Talk about culture shock!  I went from a one room school with about twenty five students to a "Junior High" environment where the 7th and 8th grades went to the same school as the high schoolers and also moved around to different rooms for various subjects.  My class was about 20 and there were only eight girls, but I still felt very out of place and did not become an instant BWOC by any means! Still I was now more adaptable and found ways to get along and deal with whatever happened. I continued in that system through the first start of my 11th grade year; that was the year I dropped out for one year due to a riding accident and some other issues.

That's a good point to stop this narrative and stick in a few photos.

Our house in Jerome

A fave dress I likely wore the first day

The Camp Wood student body

Most of the Willard 5th-8th graders C: 1952-3

The old Clarkdale High School 

The Only 2018 Trip--So Far

I managed to emerge from my doldrums den in March long enough to make one good trip. My granddaughter was getting married and that was an event I was not about to miss. Julie has been a single mom for many years and done a very good job of raising her two kids with just a bit of help from her mom and perhaps some guidance from her other grandpa on the Madden side. Fred Madden, who was a schoolmate and friend of my late husband's, passed away just before Christmas. He was an amazing man and reminded me a lot of my maternal grandfather but that is another story.

Anyway Julie finally met a really special guy who also had a couple of kids and after some fits and starts--the course of true love seldom runs straight as I can vouch!--they decided they'd all be happier in a new combined family. Both having a lot of Irish ancestry, they elected to set the event on March 17. It was unthinkable that I would not be there to share their joy.

The wedding was celebrated at an atmospheric guest ranch on the outskirts of Sonoita, Arizona. There is a lot of history in that area and the old west is remembered in many ways. Old timers might recall when it was the home to some fine racing Quarter Horses in the Three Bars line owned by Art Pollard back in the 1950s and 60s. All that was way before Julie and Josh's time, though!

Anyway, I stayed at the ranch for two nights and shared a room with one of Julie's besties, a very sweet girl named Jamie. I was not a big help but tried to lend a hand here and there as they decorated the big barn where the reception was held and tried to help when people got a bit tense and edgy as is so common when there are important big events and things just don't want to fall into place.

The wedding itself was outdoors. Thankfully the wind calmed quite a bit although it was a bit chilly and I did not envy the bride and her attendants in their light dresses, a couple even strapless. I was chilly in a shirt jacket! It was lovely, though, as weddings are always supposed to be. The guys all wore jeans and white shirts and the ladies, down to the flower girl, all wore western boots with their festive clothes. The ceremony was a unique mixture of old and new, tradition and innovations the couple chose and planned themselves.

The party afterwards was great fun. Mostly Mexican food with a few other dishes, a mountain of cupcakes in lieu of a huge wedding cake, and music DJ'd by a close friend of the bride's mom who is used to doing such things and did a bang-up job all the way. Dancing, eating, drinking, talking and just celebrating in a good down home sort of way. It was wonderful! I saw people I had not seen for years, old family friends from Bisbee. I met Josh's mom and dad and their current partners. They're divorced just as Julie's are and all manged not to have any difficult interactions! I guess that is more the rule than the exception anymore, really. People just work around it and usually out of respect for the happy couple, peace reigns.

Of course I took lots of pictures! There were two professional photographers doing that also and I don't compete with them but I have my own memories too. Here are just a few.  Julie's son Julian (17 this past July 14) was a busy guy. He escorted his grandma Shari to her seat and several others, gave the bride away and was a groomsman. He and Josh get along well. Julie's daughter Emma also adores Josh. His two little boys, younger, were involved also. Julian and Emma seem to like them as well. Ben and Alex are characters!

I had not seen Malcolm, my oldest stepson and Julie's dad, for a long time. I was jolted how much he looks like his dad--except Jim never wore a long beard--and also that he is plainly not well. That was hard. Lung issues from a life of smoking and congestive heart failure. He cannot be off oxygen very long and left early with his current wife but he did come at Julie's request. They've been a bit estranged. Any family or close friends with a question about any of the pictures just ask thru email or a comment and I will try to clarify.

Here Comes the Bride

Giving the Bride

With this Ring

The wedding party afterwards

New couple with bride's parents

The first dance

Dad and daughter dance

The cake table

The reception scene

A picture of love

The rest of the trip--revisiting old sights

The first several in in Jerome. I parked at the bottom and hiked up the road to the site of my first Arizona home on a point called Sunshine Hill that sat north and a bit east of the actual town of Jerome. I left there when I was ten so there have been many changes but a few things are still the same. Again, notes for each shot will run down along the column of photos.

1)  Okay, here we are where the house we lived in once sat. The cement walls supported the wooden water tanks--like huge barrels--that fed most of the town's water supply. There were four of them. The metal pipe was the corner of our yard.

2) Next is the road up the hill. Those cement 'pillows' paving a portion were there in the 1940s! The site of the previous shot is just above the curve of the road near the center.

3) Next is a selfie taken in the old yard area. Part of the mining terraces are in the background


4) Now we are up above town on "The Narrow Gauge" road which actually was mostly the road bed for the first railroad built to the Jerome mines about the turn of the last century. That road goes around Woodchute Mountain and past Perkinsville, where the scenic train turns around, and ends up in Chino Valley north of Prescott. Woodchute also shows some areas of red sandstone and one marks where the road goes.

5) From there we turn about 90 degrees to look out across the Verde Valley to the north east. In the background is Black Mountain and a bit of the red rocks up the Verde Canyon. Two white structures at the Clarkdale cement plant are barely visible in the far right edge.

6) We skip down to Clarkdale  On the left is the old high school where I went to 8th, 9th and 10th grade. That building is now a museum dedicated totally to copper, and full of neat artifacts and trivia most of us had never heard before! Well worth a visit should you be in that area. Across the street the arch was an opening to an open breezeway between what was once the Post Office and some town offices. Neither are there now.

 7) Past the arch, you go about a block north and look down into Bitter Creek Canyon. There is the day's Verde River Scenic making up to depart shortly after lunch. The canyon between has greatly overgrown with mesquite and other small trees and bushes since I was there long ago and rode horses and mules up it to go to the mountains. Again you can see Black Mountain in the distance.

8) Finally a very blurry shot of my two old friends, Arlene (Blahnik) Sandoval and Evelyn (Graves) Morales, Evelyn closest to the camera, taken at the reunion. The red boards on the wall held the names of the classmates from each class covered by the reunion who had passed away. Some of the names were a shock to find. and one reason why the three of us probably won't be going back again--too many are gone. Still not sure how we got so old looking! I managed to avoid getting in front of a camera. Except the selfie, anyway. That's just to say, "I was here."

Remember click on the first photo and you can scroll thru full screen sized views.

More from Fall 2017 AZ Trip

I promised more photos and here they come. The first batch is from the train trip. I'll put a little note with each one.

 The notorious SOB Canyon Bridge--a challenge
when line built in the early 1900s

The next shot is looking down into the SOB Canyon from the bridge as the train crosses it.

The third is just a general view up into the canyon as the valley narrows to only a few hundred feet across and becomes a real canyon.
 It also shows some of the darker rock (basalt?) that probably spilled over the area when some of the volcanoes were active, as little as 1000-1200 years ago!

The next two show two sides of Black Mountain. It shows a lot of red rocks--the same Coconino Sandstone that gives the Sedona and Oak Creek area its colors. However a black volcanic cap tops it and extends down the sides in many places  places as well. The picture after it shows where Sycamore Canyon flows into the Verde and the looming cliffs above are the back side of Black Mountain. Sycamore is now a wilderness area and in many ways as spectacular or more than Oak Creek Canyon and even the famed Grand Canyon!


Next a good look at the red rocks, many shades of them, contrasted with the bright green of trees along the river--which runs all year at this point, fairly early in its travels. And of course the brilliant blue of Arizona's turquoise fall sky!

And last, Eagle Rock, one of the several named formations up in the canyon. It really does resemble an eagle and is very appropriate since both Golden and Bald eagles can be viewed and are known to nest in the canyon.

BTW, disregard the dates! My batteries zonked early in the trip, right after the SOB shots in fact and I was struggling to reset things and not miss any photo ops. I did not get it right until late that afternoon!

Fun in Arizona, fall 2017

I've built a habit of fall trips the past several years. In 2014, I had just come back from my first trip Alaska  so that was my trip for that year. I had hoped to go back in 2015 but things did not work out so I got together with a friend and arranged to do the tourist train from Williams, AZ to the Grand Canyon's south rim and back. The trip included two nights and several meals at the terminal hotel in Williams. We had a fantastic time!

Although the train does use a steam engine for a few special runs like the pre-Christmas one, our train was drawn by a pair of classic diesels like those used by the big passenger trains in the 1950s and 60s. The coaches were also reclaimed from that use. Ours was named Kokopeli which I thought was neat!I took a lot of photos and I am sure I have shared some of them soon after that trek. That same trip I went over to Kingman and also down through the Verde Valley, my old home.

In 2016 as most of you know, I spent four weeks in September and October at a real working sled dog kennel near Fairbanks, AK. That was a wonderful adventure on which I learned a lot and had I not already been a huge fan, I would have become one since I fell even more in love with all the kinds of huskies: the big woolie and powerful Malamutes, their close kin the Siberian Husky, and the newer informal breed, the Alaskan Husky. My host, Kyia Bouchard, put me to work and I enjoyed it all. I know I covered this adventure here and in my GwynnMorganAlaska blog as well. If you ever get up there, check out her bed and breakfast, off-the-grid and rustic style!

So 2017 rolled around and again an extended Alaskan visit was not possible although I had been up  as a volunteer for the Iditarod for two weeks in March. Since late spring I had known my old high school was going to have one of their multi-year "On The Hill Gang" reunions the latter part of September so I made plans to attend that for my autumn trek. Although the only date still available was the same one most of the reunion activities took place, I decided I would ride the Verde Canyon Scenic Railroad a second time.

Back in 2006, I had done the trip with a writer friend and her husband who has sadly since passed away. He was a good photographer and gave me lots of pointers. However my digital camera kind of zonked on me and my old fashioned film camera was a bit harder to handle. I got some decent shots but I wanted more and just to experience the trip again. Definitely no regrets! If you are ever in central Arizona, by all means try to book a trip. Here is the link: https://verdecanyonrr.com

I probably took 200 pictures and have kept at least half of them but of course have my faves. Thank goodness I had long since saved them to a flash drive before my disastrous crash! I'll put a few in at the end of this post. Besides that I also looked around the Verde Valley quite a bit, thinking I was probably not likely to be over that way again soon if ever. I went up to Jerome--more photos--out to Tuzigoot, a Sinagua tribe's ruin near the Verde River just south and east of Clarkdale,

The reunion was almost anti-climactic but it was good to touch base with some old friends, especially my two best girlfriends from 8th grade thru my 1962 graduation and their husbands, who were both in school at the same time also. We all agreed we probably won't go again--it is too noisy and crowded and more of the folks in our age range have either passed on or unable to make the trip now. Anyway, it as a good meal, Mexican food which is of course very popular in Arizona as it is in New Mexico. The styles are slightly different with Arizona being more "Sonora" style and New Mexico more the Chihuahua/Sinaloa style but its all good!

I'll do a second post on this trip  with more pictures soon but here are a few. The rail trip is about 20 miles each way--up to Perkinsville and back the same route but you will not be bored--light changes, you see more and different as there is no mile without views! Remember click on a photo to see a much larger version.

Verde River Box--10 miles out

View north toward Sycamore Canyon

Old corral at Perkinsville

Selfie at the depot, Clarkdale

Returning From the Near-Dead

I did not realize how long it has been. Turns out I have taken a much longer sabbatical than I planned or anticipated. I think I was going to do a short break in my usual down time from a bit after Samhain until that midway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox which falls in early February. But I started early and have gone close to a year.

I'm sorry. My old nemesis the dire D did me in. Yep, I can say the name: depression. It's a family trait and in many cases just a chemical imbalance in one's body and brain that has nothing to do with external matters at all. I think mine is a combination of that and the seasons and events and issues.  Anyway, as the great Scots poet Burns put it, "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee." Mine surely did, way off into some distant and not-pleasant place.

I can't speak for the fall--well in a way I can. I went to a high school reunion and  spent some time saying farewell to my old home area in Arizona's Verde Valley. I had a good visit with my grand daughter and her mom, my former daughter-in-law who has never ceased to be family to me despite the divorce from my eldest step son, now long ago. I had a super time and some fun things--maybe I'll share those and some photos in a bit.

Then leaving the Tucson area I headed home only to be hit in the rear by a distracted driver at a rest stop near the state line. That was pretty upsetting although I was not hurt and was able to rive my little Focus wagon home despite the damage. Once I got home my brother and roommate announced he thought we should move back to Arizona! I was more than willing but this endeavor has turned out to be much slower, more complicated and disruptive than I at first thought. We "ain't there yet" and I'm not sure when we will be. I think it will happen but God(de) knows when and s/he is not saying.  So fall and early winter went with that.

Right after the first of January, we had to have our oldest dog put down. She was really my brother's but we share a home and she'd been part of my clan for quite awhile since I moved in with them on April 1, 2009! We think Beebee had some kind of internal cancer but she had been failing for awhile and attempted  treatments were not doing much good. When she stopped eating and got 'that look' in her eyes, we knew it was time. The other four moped and missed her for a bit but soon closed ranks and moved on.

Our next issue was a really nasty case of the flu. Despite having had the shots--they finally admitted the vaccine was less than 40% effective!--we got sick, majorly sick. Never had to go to the hospital but took every home remedy in the book and drank lots of hot lemonade and rum toddies to dampen the awful croupy cough enough to sleep some. It hung around for a good month and left us feeling totally trashed. Then as a follow up, I got some kind of a digestive problem and ate little to nothing for about three weeks and did not dare get too far from the facilities. Peppermint oil finally calmed my innards and I've used it ever since as it also keeps my intermittent IBS at bay quite well.

So then it was March and I go for my belated annual eye exam. Yes, I am still battling the dry eye and allergy eye issues but I also learned that I was ripe for cataract surgery! My new doctor tried valiantly to ease the dry eyes as much as possible before the operation with a variety of ideas--as more time passed--but the surgeon finally decided to go ahead so I had my two eyes done on May 3 and May 17. That was an adventure also. My right eye did fine and is now 20-20 except for close up, the normal cataract removal 'cure' for myopia ,but the left one, worse on both myopia and astigmatism, was still not fully corrected. I find I have to have external correction there. Actually I do not mind--trying to keep track of "readers" and get used to no close vision was driving me nuts! I got my new glasses in mid June and then had a really bad allergic conjunctivitis spell before and after. Finally as the summer rainy season started with an increase in humidity, I can actually see clearly most of the time!

That being the case I have crawled out of  my den like the groundhog and looked around, bemused and puzzled! What, it's summer? You mean 2018 is over half gone? Yikes! Anyway, despite my semi-absence, things keep  moving along--in fits and starts..

One more installment in my "Perils of Pauline" year was the total crash of my computer about three weeks ago. With all the other issues I had failed to do good backups, even had not copied a lot of things to my flash drives, so I lost a lot. We're shopping around some of the data recovery firms to see if we can find one that I can afford and maybe send the old hard drive away and hope I can get a bunch of photos and writing projects back in a usable form but no guarantees.

Anyway, more than enough whines. Actually I am not whining as I know the old hippie saying is true. Yes, shit does happen! Sometimes it just comes in bunches like grapes and you have to deal with it, meanwhile hoping the current run of catastrophes has finally reached the end!  Please join me in a fervent prayer to whatever Deities you trust and put faith in that this will prove true!

I will do my level best to get back to a regular schedule of posting, sharing more memoir type essays and tales and doing old photos which I have more or less kept up on my Facebook page as "Flashback Friday" posts. I thank the Powers that most of my old photos were saved on a flash drive and not lost. Odds and ends are lost to include all I took at college and most of my work years but I guess I can live without them if they are not salvageable.

Just for kicks, here is a selfie with my new glasses. Alas, they do not magically erase about the last ten somewhat difficult years and the traces they left but for the most part, I am okay with that. I earned every gray strand and line and wrinkle and wear them like badges of deeds accompished!