Elementary School

Living in town was very different than living on the farm. The biggest difference of course was that we had neighbors on three sides of us. Our official address was 432 2nd ave West. No one ever used addresses however and I doubt most people even knew their address. On the map above I have located our house as point #1. East of us lived Hank Hall. They were an elderly couple and very friendly people. They also had a big crab apple tree in their back yard that we always used to swipe apples from. They also had a strawberry patch in their garden that was very delicious. I'm sure they knew that we "borrowed" their apples and strawberry's but they never said anything. If we'd asked they probably would have let us eat them but I guess my attitude was, "why take a chance". For those of you living in Rosemary, Hank Hall is Richard Halls grandpa. That was a cool connection that we made when Richard and Lori moved to town.

West of us were the Olsen's. Nan was a widow raising five kids on her own. Her youngest two kids were the same ages as Lester and I. Diane was my age and Susan was Lester's age. We became pretty good friends with them but we rarely actually did anything together. We would often walk to school together or to mutual but that was it. Directly across the street (north) from us lived Don Palmer. They had a girl Lesters age named Diana. I thought Diana was very pretty and I had a pretty big crush on her from the day I moved in. I was always way to chicken to do anything about it so we were pretty good friends while we were younger. Down the road on the corner lived the Brooks. Eric Brooks was a pretty good friend also. Up the street about three houses lived Dale Jensen. Dale was also Lester's age. Those first few years while we were all still in elementary school we hung out quite a bit. We went to school at Westside elementary school (#2 on the map). I don't know if they only had first and second grades or if that was all I attended there but my first grade teacher was Mrs Nielson. I don't remember my second grade teachers name. Something like Mrs Bechtol. Eric, Dale, Diana, Susan and Lester and I were pretty good friends those first few years after we moved to town. I remember we even used to play "kissing tag". This was pretty innocent stuff with just a peck on the cheek but I do remember always trying to catch Diana. They would probably be quite horrified to think about that now. As we got older my group of friends changed as they seem to do with most kids. I always stayed friendly with that orginal group but in High School we weren't what you would call close friends.

We went to church at the chapel(3) across the street from the temple(4). It was a huge two story chapel and the Junior Sunday School actually met upstairs. During Sacrament meeting it served as the cry room because it had windows that looked into the chapel. I believe it was at church that I became friends with Tom Crooks. I don't actually remember ever being in any of his classes at school but we were friends our entire lives. Back in those days we used to go to Primary on weeknights right after school. I remember that I would walk from the school to Primary and then from there home. One day I was sitting in Sunday School and I noticed a new girl. I thought she was very pretty and I learned that her name was Christine Hunter. Lester and I came to be pretty good friends with Christine and her sister Pamela. They were both very pretty and I remember being surprised that they wanted to be our friends. They used to come over to our house and we played a game in the snow. I can't remember the name of the game but we made paths in the snow and played a kind of tag where you had to run on the paths. I think the game had the name "goose" in it. Something like "chase the goose".

Our favorite game of all time was "kick the can". The entire neighborhood used to come out to play "kick the can". We did it at night time and the whole idea was that one person was "it" and he had to catch people. If you saw them then you would both race to the can which was in the middle of the back lawn. If you were "it" you would jump over the can yelling, "over the can on so-and-so" and that person was a prisoner. If the guy who was caught beat the person who's "it" to the can then he would kick the can and yell, "kick the can" then all of your prisoners go free. We used to sneak around in the dark hiding behind bushes and tree's and it was a lot of fun.

Third grade was another new experience for me because I moved to the Hill Crest school(5). Hill Crest was a very old beat up school that was truly right on the crest of "power-house hill". Power-house-hill is very steep. One time I road a bike down the hill and by the time I hit the bottom I was going so fast and the road was very rough that I went out of control and wiped out. It really hurt. My teacher in third grade was Mrs. Grant. She was old and she was blind and she hated children. I was quite shocked to learn that she had just got married. Her name used to be Miss Sheffield. It was very hard to me to imagine someone wanting to marry that old hag. She wore glasses that were truly "coke bottle bottoms". One time I was sitting in class with my legs out in the isle focusing on my work. She walked down the isle and tripped over my feet. I was afraid I'd killed her but she jumped up and boy was she mad. She really hated me after that. Another time I was playing on the hill during recess and I found a garter snake. I was so excited and I was sure Mrs Grant would love it and use it for show and tell so when we went back to class I took the snake with me. She did not appreciate my gift. In fact, she went completely ballistic. If she hated me before she really hated me after that. Third grade was when I truly became convinced that I hated school.

In another class in Hill Crest school I saw one of the coolest tricks I've ever seen. It wasn't Mrs Grants class (that is for sure) but I don't remember who the teacher was. Maybe it was a substitute. Anyway, this teacher had had a mouse problem in the school and finally he was able to trap it. He made a little hang mans noose and he ran the string through a hook he'd screwed into the very high ceiling and ran the string back to his desk. The mouse was way up high in the near the ceiling so nobody noticed it. In class we had a discussion about capitol punishment and he told us he was aware of someone who had recently been hung for stealing food. We were all given a reading assignment after that and at a point when everyone was reading and focusing on their work the teacher slowly lowered this mouse down until it was dangling right in front of this girls face. I had noticed the mouse being lowered so I was watching the whole thing. I think that girl may have wet her pants when she saw the mouse. I will never forget that lesson about the poor creature who was hung for stealing food.

After third grade I moved over to the E J Wood School(7). E J Wood is named after Edward James Wood who was very well known in Cardston but I'm not really sure what he is well known for. I think he was one of the early Stake Presidents of the Cardston Stake but you would think that you would have to be more than a Stake President to have a school named after you. Next to E J Wood school to the east was a big old two story school(6) but I don't remember what it was called. It is not clear to me what classes were in which school but I will highlight some of my classes. For fifth grade I was in the big old school(6) and I had Mr Sheen in the mornings and Miss Stonehawker in the afternoon. For the first time in my life I was the teachers pet. I loved it, Miss Stonehawker was related to me through the Lybbert side somehow (maybe through the Hatches) and I never had such an easy class. She loved me and I loved her. I saw her years later and she never did get married. I don't think she actually remembered me but she certainly had an impact on my life. Mr Sheen sort of made up for it though because he was very strict. For the first time in my life I got the strap from him. The strap was actually a fairly common tool used back in those days. Quite unheard of today but I really think it should be re-instituted. It is quite funny though, I was actually proud to get the strap. Isn't that dumb? All the tough boys used to get the strap all the time but never me. I had to go up to the front of the class and bend over and "whack" on my bum with a yard stick. My kids will laugh when they hear what I got the strap for. Chewing gum. I hate gum and my kids have probably never seen me chew it. If it were up to me I would make it illegal. Mr Sheen was quite famous for several other things too. If he was writing on the board and he heard someone talking he would whirl around as fast as he could and throw the chalk at whoever was talking. He had deadly aim too and he threw the chalk fast. He could have easily put someones eye out but not too many people talked in his class. Some times he would throw the brush. That would hurt. He would also walk around class while he was talking and if someone dozed off he would smack a book down on their desk very hard making a VERY loud bang. That would certainly wake them up. Another class I had in the same old building was taught by this very old man. It was early in the year and he gave a big homework assignment that had to be done for the next day. Do you remember how much homework I did? Well you guessed it, I forgot to do this assignment. I was really worried about it but when I got into class someone came in and told us that the teacher had died the night before. I'm a bit embarrassed to say just how relieved I was. Isn't that terrible? In those elementary school years my favorite teacher was Mr Cooper. He may have been a Junior High Teacher but he taught me Science. I loved him and I loved his class. If I remember right I think Tom Crooks is related to Mr. Cooper. Mr Cooper also taught a hunter training class. I love it too. One time during this class we all went down to the car wash to shoot a .22 rifle. You may wonder why we would shoot in a car wash but the car wash was built into the side of a hill. This meant that if someone was a real bad shot the bullet would go into the hill. I, of course, shot very well but there was this girl in the class and when she shot we couldn't find a hole in the target. Mr Cooper put up a huge piece of cardboard so he could see just how bad she was shooting. When he couldn't find a hole in the cardboard he got scared and told her that she was done.

As anyone who knows me will attest, I am not much into competitive sports. I've always been in very good shape, I'm tall and quite athletic so I've examined myself closely trying to evaluate why I was never into sports. I came up with two reasons. In third grade my mother decided that she should check out my vision. As it turns out, I was quite blind. Of course, it is in the first few years of school where you're exposed to all of the sports and I just never could hit the ball in baseball or catch it, if it was thrown to me. I can't help but think that the biggest reason for this was not my clumsiness but rather the fact that I couldn't see the ball very clearly. Of course by the time I got my glasses in third grade I was already labeled a klutz and I was also totally turned off of sports by then. I think the second reason was my personality. I loved being active in non-competitive activities such as hiking, skiing, biking and such but I didn't have the competitive drive that made me want to win at all costs. I don't think I really understood this until Ben came along. I watch him play sports and he absolutely has to win. He will sacrifice his own well being just to catch a fly ball or to drive for the basket. And if he loses a game; don't go near him for at least an hour until he has had a chance to cool off. I've also noticed that his mother is much the same way, as is Alex. Me on the other hand, if I lost a game, "who cares, it's just a game". I decided that without that "win at all costs" mentality you can't really be an exceptional athlete. I did try them all, I played baseball and quit, I joined the ward basketball team and quit, I joined a hockey team and quit. I played badminton for quite a long while with Tom but he always won and I didn't really get into it too much.

Another interesting event from this time in my life was fist fights. I've been in two fights in my life. Actually there was a third fight in high school which doesn't really count. As I said, I've worn glasses since third grade and glasses were very expensive back then. I also had lost or broken many pair of them and Mom would get very angry. I was always so worried about my glasses that I did all I could to avoid a fight because I was really worried about breaking my glasses. When some kid is teasing you, and it's looking like a fight is imminent, it is pretty hard to say, "here, wait a sec while I take my glasses off". Besides that, I really can't see very well without my glasses so that concerned me too. I was in a class in the E J Wood school (don't know what grade) and Patrick Isfield was teasing me. Patrick is a short little jerk who barely came up to my chin so I'm not sure what he was thinking but he was right in my face. The class was full of kids but the teacher wasn't there yet so I was really going to lose face if I backed down in front of all those kids. I don't know what it was all about but I clearly remember we had our fists up and ready and Patrick kept saying, "come on, hit me, hit me, I dare you, hit me". I finally said to myself, "to heck with it, I can't let this little squirt do this to me" and I nailed him right in the nose. Just as I let go with my punch the teacher walked in to the class. Patrick went down like a sack of potato's and I thought I was really in trouble now, but I didn't care. To my amazement the teacher said. You kids can't fight in here. Meet me at lunch and we'll put the gloves on. And that is what we did. We went on the stage at lunch time and put on the gloves. It was not even close to a fair fight. My arms were much longer than Patrick's and I was a good head taller and I just kept punching him in the nose until he was backed up to the wall and the teacher made me stop and go back to the center of the mat where we repeated the same procedure. To his credit Patrick never quit and I was getting more and more excited and Patrick was getting weaker and weaker. The teacher finally called it off. Patrick always argued that he never quit but he never bugged me after that.

My other fight was over a girl. Dale Jensen and I both decided that we were in love with Christine Hunter. Christine was actually my very first real kiss that counts. We were friends for a long time but one time we were walking home from down town or school or somewhere and we cut across the temple grounds. On each of the corners of the temple were tall pine trees and we would often go in behind the trees and the space there was very private and it made a very nice "fort". Christine and I went in there and I kissed her right on the lips. I thought we would get married and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, I'm not so sure she had the same plans. Dale Jensen was also in love with her and she wouldn't choose between the two of us. That was probably smart of her, but Dale and I got in a big fight over it and we were going to it on the street in front of my house. If anyone knows Dale Jensen now they would probably not believe my story because I think he is twice as big as me and he could probably squish me like a bug but this was still back when we were kids and we were pretty evenly matched. We went at it for quite some time just wrestling because we were actually friends and neither of us really even thought about hitting the other guy in the face so we just wrestled and punched each other in the stomach and arms. I was actually getting the better of him but he wouldn't quit so armed with my new found knowledge of punching in the face (from Patrick) I finally got him on his back on the ground with me sitting on top of him and I punched him in the face. It must have really hurt too because his head was on the ground and he couldn't move with the punch. Blood burst from this nose and the fight was over with the first sign of blood. Technically I won that fight and the girl should have been mine but I think after that Dale and I made up and neither one of us went for the girl. Either that or she dumped both of us. I don't really remember what happened. We still stayed friends with Christine though, I do remember that.

Living in town I quickly realized that I needed to learn how to ride a bike. Lester and I didn't have bikes but Jackie had an old beat up girls bike. Our street was a gentle hill so we used to push the bike up the hill and try to ride it while coasting down the hill. The fact that it was a girls bike was quite embarrassing but it actually made it much easier to learn how to ride. It didn't take long before I could keep up on the bike but it was really tough figuring out how to stop while keeping my balance. To stop you had to peddle backwards and that was too confusing when it is all I could do to stay up. There was a wooden fence along the side of our drive way so what I would end up doing is trying to turn into our drive way but I wasn't able to make the turn so I would run into the fence. By the time I had mastered riding the bike the fence was so beat up that Dad just tore it down. One of my favorite places in the neighborhood was the creamery(9). I loved going into the creamery. It was just a block down the hill from our house so we would always walk down there and buy creamsicles. It was a real creamery and they had huge tanks full of milk. It smelled like milk and there was milk spilled all over the concrete floor and loved it. They had water hoses and they would just hose down the floor with warm water. I remember wondering at the time why they didn't just build houses like that. Put a drain in the corner and just hose it down. It seemed a lot more fun than sweeping the floor or vacuuming. One day I rode my bike down to the creamery and I was really smoking down the hill. I turned the corner onto the street where the creamery was and suddenly a stupid dog ran out right in front of me. It was one of those slow motion moments. I can still see myself flying over the handle bars thinking, "this is really going to hurt" and then landing on my back. The only satisfaction is that the dog was in just as much pain as I was.

Just up the street from the creamery were the stock yards (10) and next to the stock yards was Dad's Esso dealership (11). I would spend hours over at the stock yards. Farmers would bring their cattle into the stock yards and they would have auctions to sell the cows. We could actually hear the auctioneer from our house. My favorite thing to do was to walk along the tops of the fences. They were 2 x 4 rails and it took some real balance to not fall off but we got pretty good after a while. We didn't want to fall into the corrals because there were either a bunch of cows in the pen or a lot of manure. Neither one was much fun. Once we were really skilled at walking along a 2 x 4 we felt it necessary for us to walk along the fence between our house and the Olsens house. Mrs Olsen did not like that. I must have been a real jerk because I kept doing it even though I knew she was going to come out and yell at me.

Next to the stock yards and Dad's Esso dealership were the train tracks. The trains would come in to pick up the cows and to fill Dad's tanks. We would climb up onto the railway cars and walk for what seemed like miles. We would jump from one car to the next car. Some of the cars were oil tankers, some were cattle cars and some were grain cars that hauled grain from the graineries. We climbed them all. The tanks at Dad's place were huge and they had ladders that went up the side of them. They must have been a hundred feet tall. I wasn't allowed to climb them so I only climbed them a couple of times when I thought I could get away with it.

The blocks in Cardston are huge and everyone has very large yards. Behind our house we had a normal sized lawn and behind the lawn was a very large garden, which again meant a lot of weeding. Only this time I was older and so I got my fair share of picking weeds. Everyones yards met in the middle of the block so we would often sneak all over the interior of this block thinking that we were so sneaky. This is where we were much of the time when we played kick the can. I'm sure the neighbors all hated us. The best part is that in the middle of this block behind the Olsens house and their neighbor, Ben Higgs (or something like that), was a huge shed that Dad ended up buying. This shed turned out to be one of my greatest joys. More about that shed later. Directly behind our yard the neighbor never did anything with their yard so it was all very tall grass. We would crawl through that grass like we were Indians and no one could ever find us. I doubt they were looking but I didn't think of that at the time. In the middle of this grass we built ourselves a little camp with a brick fire place and everything. We would actually build little fires in this fireplace and we had a ball. I don't know what it is about very dry grass and boys with matches but there we were roasting our hot dogs. One day, you will never guess what happened. OK, so maybe you will guess, the grass caught on fire. We quickly tried to stomp out the fire but there was a breeze blowing and I quickly realized that it was out of control and I was never going to get it out. Now I have to admit, even if I do say so myself, that even though I was a stupid little kid playing with matches I was also quite smart. As soon as I realized that I was never going to get this fire out and it was blowing right towards the guys house, thethought came to me. If I run up to the house and start a fire there I can keep it from burning the house because it will be small and maybe the fire will burn up wind and by the time the big fire gets to it there will be no grass for it to burn. I figured out the concept of a back fire long before I realized that it is a very well established technique for fighting fire. So I did just that, I ran to the house and lit several small fires across the width of the yard. I let the fires burn up wind and I stomped out the fire that burned down wind. It worked just like magic. The two fires came together and they burned each other out. The strange thing is that no one ever said anything to me about all the burned grass. This guys grass is long and dry one day and burned and gone the next day and no one wondered why? My parents didn't say anything and the owner of the house never said anything. I thought I was in for big trouble but nope. I got away with that one.

One of my favorite Christmases was the year Lester and I got brand new bikes. We came down stairs and there were two bright new red bikes. I was so happy. This meant that I didn't have to ride Jackies "girl" bike any more. With our new found freedom we covered the entire town. We went out to the dump ground (several miles east) and we went out to the grave yard (several miles west), we went to the golf course and way up Lee's creek. We even went out to St Mary's river where it crosses Highway 5. Nothing could stop us now.

So that pretty much covers what I can remember from my Elementary school years. Next time we will move on to Junior High School. If anyone remembers anything that I've forgotten please send me a reminder. I'd really like to get as much into here as possible. Also, if I've gotten some of my details confused please feel free to straighten me out. I've been accused of having a very bad memory.