Our Family III

Food.

I don't remember things like eggs or bacon during weekday breakfast. We had eggs but normally we just had them on a special occasion such as Christmas Or Easter (we had eggs...we never went to Church). Christmas and Easter were pretty big around our house. We always had eggs, sausage and a treat which the family called "dougdies". Mom would go to the store and buy hot roll mix then mix it up and let it rise overnight. The next morning she would break the dough into circular pieces about five inches wide and paper thin. She deep fried the dough in lard, then we ate them while they were still warm with Kings syrup which you could only get locally in the Baltimore area. Oh, it was wonderful and we could never get enough. We had to be pried from the table because Mom ran out of dough long before we ran out of appetite. I'm not sure that the "dougdy" recipe was something that just our family had thought of, I think that others made the same thing but named it something else although I've never seen nor heard of it anywhere else.
Basically, when it came to our cuisine we had a German background. I and most of my sibs love liver. I can remember going to school with liver sandwiches the day after we had it for supper. My schoolmates left the area when I broke out my lunch and no one offer to swap lunches. Mom fried the liver in lard with onions. Until I was an adult I didn't know you could have it any other way.
A little side story about liver. After we moved to Atwater I was asked if I wanted to go to the nutrition center (a place where seniors were assured of getting at least one good meal a day and NO I wasn't considered a senior at that point in my life). The seniors wanted to meet the new cop in town. Anyway, I walked into the center and I could smell the wonderful aroma of cooked liver. Needless to say...I got in front of the line! We were only allotted a couple of piece each and no matter what I did to persuade the cook to give me more, she won't waiver. I sat down at the first table after the food line and...and this is true...as each senior came by where I was sitting they each took their portion of liver and put it on my plate! I ate lunch at the center every "liver Wednesday" and the same ritual occurred.
Back to the story. Another thing which we ate a lot was sour kraut. We had it instead of potatoes and we (and I still do) loved it. Bruanswauger was a usual staple for school lunches and once again I did have to worry about anyone stealing mine. We always ate our sandwiches with mustard but once I became a cop I found a guy who ate in with mayonnaise...yuk!

Ya' can't from Baltimore and not love seafood. I can remember going crabbin' in the bay. I'll give you a lesson on how to crab like an inner city kid. First, you have to get a crab net. That's a net that looks a lot like a net you would use to land fish except for two important differences. One, the net was made of wire mesh which resembled chicken wire. Two, the net was attached to an extra long pole, I'll explain why these two differences are important as I continue my story. Next, you need to get some rotten meat. What we used to do is buy chicken wings and leave it out for a few days. Oh, and you need to buy some extra strong cord...okay lets go crabbin'! It would be nice if you had a boat but if you could afford to own a boat then you could probably be able to buy your crabs and not spend all night crabbin'. You can crab just about anywhere and old piers were best (unless you own a boat but we've already been through that!). You crab at night and it is always done better with a few six packs of beer. First you get some brave soul, probably the one who drank the most beer, and have him or her ( that's right, women crab too) tie a piece of rotten chicken to the end of the heavy cord. Throw the chicken into the bay, the piece you tied to the cord not the free pieces...if you throw the free pieces into the bay then you gotta go home because you've had too much to drink. Anyway, after you throw the chicken into the water you try to find the bottom by letting the cord hit and go slack. At this point you pull the chicken so it is just off the bottom. Now, you are ready to crab. Next, you have to find a "dipper" this is a person that is really fast with the net. Everyone in the party has a least one line in the water and the object is to watch the line until it starts to go straight out which means that a crab was nibbling on that dirty old rotten chicken wing. Next thing you do is scream for the "dipper". Oh, I forgot to tell you how to recognize the "dipper"! He's the guy that goes from one crabber to the next holding the crab net at "port arms" and doesn't have a line out of his own. Now, this is where the design of the net begins to make sense. At this point in the ritual you begin to inch the crab to the surface by slowly and I mean slowly pulling the line in inch by inch. Once the crab sees light he lets go of the chicken and all is lost. The "dipper" puts the net in the water long before the crab can be netted and waits until he sees the crab...hoping that he sees it before it sees him. As soon as the "dipper" sees the crab he dips down deep into the water and Prays that he gets the crab. Now, if you're the "dipper", which is an honor, and you miss a crab you will be ridiculed for at least a year and you will never dip again...unless you own the net. Anyway, after the crab is brought to the surface he is put into a bushel basket by hitting the net on the basket now if you had a regular net, the crab would be entangled and hard to remove, hence the wire. Now, all you have to do is repeat the above for about fifty times which usually lasted all night and you can take your bushel of crabs go home with your friends have your wife steam them (the crabs not your friends) get a few more six packs of Boh Beer and enjoy an Oriole game.

More Later

Rough Week

We've had a pretty rough week. Last Wednesday Doug Hamilton died after a long illness. Doug is Buddy Hamilton's father. Doug was a very wonderful man. He has been my friend for over twenty five years and it was hard to say goodbye. As I look back at all the things that he did for family and friends I realize that he sat the example for many in this small town. He will be greatly missed and I consider it an honor to have known him. Rest in Peace Doug. I'm sure that the Father has deeds that he wants done in Heaven and that's why he called you home.

Our Family II

As I wrote in the last entry, there were ten of us, seven girls and three boys. It was tough sleeping because there were only three bedrooms. Of course mom and dad got one of them leaving two bedrooms for ten kids. It really didn't matter what sex you were when it came to where you slept. There were five of us per bed. Three big kids slept at the top of the bed while two of the smaller kids slept at the foot.Why were our sleeping arrangements made in this way? Because the two little kids always slept with the feet of the bigger kids in their face while the bigger kids never had to worry about whether the smaller ones had clean feet or not. You know, now that I think about it and looking at my stature...I would still be sleeping at the foot of the bed.:) I remember when my oldest sister Alice became a teenager, she no long had to sleep with the rest of us, she got to sleep on the sofa! At first, we all thought of it as some sort of "rite of passage". Wow, she got to sleep by herself, what an honor! That is until she started getting up in the morning with a kink in her neck from sleeping with her head on the armrest. Alice would scream if anyone even looked at her neck let alone try to straighten it out. Mom used to sneak up behind her and twist her neck real fast or Alice would walk with her head crooked all day. (boy the reads like something out of the Beverly Hillbillies or a Jeff Foxworthy skit!). I never slept by myself until I joined the Navy, except for that year with Alice.

Every school year we always had new clothes....new to us that is. Mom worked for Volunteers of America which is a lot like the Goodwill. One day a week during the summer months she took one of us to her workplace to pick out clothes for school. I remember when it was my turn. We went into a room that had mountains of used clothes that were donated for the poor people of Baltimore. The piles were sorted by size. Mom pointed to a pile and told me to pick out clothes that I liked.Okay, we're talking early fifties here with the Korean and WWII fresh on everyone's mind. Nothing would make a young male feel more like a hero then to don his country's uniform. Most of the clothes I picked out were US Marine Corp dress shirts and pants. I must have looked a sight when I went to school in my dress kacki pants and shirt...yep that's right my mom let me wear them. I remember taking the stripes off the shirts...I thought I looked cool! Shoes? Yeah, they were used too. Most were too big so we got tissue paper for the toes. As we used to joke...the soles were so thin you could stand on a dime and could tell whether in was heads or tails.:)

More Later

Our Family I

I thought I'd write for awhile about my Dad's family and how my siblings and I were brought up and how it influenced our lives. First, I want you all to know that I know that I am not the smartest man in the world and you'll have to forgive me for my grammar and spelling which sometimes even spell-checker can't figure out.

We lived in the southern area of Baltimore which was called "Pig Town" for most of our childhood. Pig Town was a lower to middle class income area. Most people had jobs working for the railroad or the many factories in the area.

We lived in row homes all our lives. I'm talking about homes that were about fifty feet long by eighteen feet wide and,if you were lucky three stories high. Every house had a front "stoop" and a rear "stoop". The row houses in Baltimore were from a different era. At the turn of the century none of them had indoor plumbing and there was an outhouse in the back yard. When indoor plumbing was introduced suddenly a three bedroom home turned into a two bedroom home with a toilet.At first we never had a bath tub (at least I don't remember one) in the house. We had to go to a bath house which was really a shower house which was strategically located in the center of a neighborhood. Even though I was very young, I can still smell the steam and the small bars of Ivory soap they used to give you. When did we go there? Why,every Saturday of course!

In the summer every window in every house was open and no one had screens, air conditioners were unheard of. Old people sat by the window twenty four hours a day and if they weren't there they were either sick or dead. No one got away with anything because everyone was watching you and you could get spanked by a concerned neighbor(one of those old people)as well as your dad, if your dad was pissed off enough about what you did.

There were ten of us not counting mom and dad. We lived in neighborhoods where people watched out for one another but it wouldn't be unusual to have two fathers watching and instructing their sons on how to fight as the boys "duked it out" in the middle of the street. No one liked strangers or cops and immediately became suspicious when an unknown or a "prowl" car came into the neighborhood. We never heard gunshots and all of us learned how to fight. We usually handled things with our fists or just yelled at each other a lot.

It was a time of very hot summers where in the evening everyone sat outside on the front "stoop". The kids played curb ball, kick the can and red line. The snowball man came around once a night and I can still hear the screams of small children yelling "wait a minute!" to the drivers as they attempted to get their attention. Dad always seemed to have enough money so we all could have a snowball which tasted wonderful on those hot sticky nights. During a thunderstorm we would lay down in the gutters and let the cool water run around us on it's way to the sewer. I know, I know, it was filthy but none of us ever got sick and it felt so good! We were not rich but I really don't remember going hungry. There were some rough times but we always seemed to have enough.

Sometimes during the summer we went to camp. That's right camp! The city government had a program called "The Fresh Air Camp". The poorest of the poor was sent for two weeks to the Appalachian Mountains where we spent our time swimming and have cookouts over a campfire.I remember,as my sister Mar would say "we would cry when we got on the bus to go and cry when we had to go back home!" Once we got there the first thing that had to be done is we were all deloused. They put us in a shower and spread some kind of blue disinfectant over our whole bodies. There wasn't any shame in this everyone had to go through it so we didn't know who had "cooties".

My dad could probably be best described as "street wise". He did what he had to do to get by and if that meant that he had to swindle and steal then that's what he did. I won't go into any specifics here but lets just say that it was pretty humiliating if you happen to be with him when he pulled one his thefts. Okay, I'll just tell you about one...he would go into one of Baltimore's biggest department stores go to the shoe dept. take a new pair of shoes out of the box, try them on and if they fit he would take his old shoes and put them in the box and place the box back one the shelf.Now, you might say that he was poor and didn't have the money and at times that would be right (the fact that he didn't have the money,it's never right to steal), but sometimes when he did this (and many other things) he had money in his pocket.I remember him telling me many years later after he had spent money belonging to me that once he had started spending my money he found it so easy to get and hard to stop spending until it was gone. Maybe once he had started to steal he found it so easy that it was hard to stop. I don't mean to smear my dads name but thought I'd just let you know how it was.



I can remember going to the movies for the matinée at the Horn Theater almost every Saturday. It cost 5 cents to get in and we stayed there most of the day watching the Three Stooges, Superman, a whole lot of cartoons and a feature film which was usually a western starring Roy Rogers or Hop-Along-Cassidy.We never bought popcorn or candy while we were there. We usually took something from home like a sandwich or a bag of tomatoes that we had to sneak in because we weren't suppose to bring anything into the movie.

My dad never got along with my mom's parents. When I was really young (five years old) we lived right across the street from my grandparents and dad and them were at it constantly. Once, I remember that we had our electricity turned off because we didn't pay the bill (it happened sometimes) and our next door neighbor felt sorry for us because of the amount of kids we had. The neighbor allowed my dad to put an extension cord from our house to theirs so we could have electricity. My grandma saw this and called the electric company and reported my dad and the neighbor and we both had to pay a fine. I don't know what started this feud but it cost us any kind of relationship that we could have had with our grandparents. I barely remember them or any of my aunts or uncles. As a matter of fact we didn't know any of our aunts or uncles on either side. I don't know how many cousins I have.

When I became a teenager my dad started to look at me differently. I was no longer a kid to feed, I suddenly became an asset. When I was fifteen I was told I had to get a job to help support the family. I went to work at a local department store as a stockboy. I worked everyday after school and on Saturday. I made twenty five dollars a week and my dad took twenty. I know you are going to find this hard to believe, but I had to buy my lunch on Saturday and any work clothes I needed with the five dollars I had left. What was I giving my dad twenty dollars for? Why, for rent and my meals! (I was fifteen). After a few months I wasn't needed at the store any more and was let go. Dad wanted me to quit school and find a full time job. I resisted telling him that I wanted to get through high school so I could get a good job. His answer? "I raised you as big as you are and all I had was a six grade education, you certainly can make it with an eight grade education!" I didn't agree and refused to leave school.

Our relationship deteriorated and it got so he wasn't talking to me except to criticize and it got so I hated to see him come home. My mom intervened and I sent to my oldest sister's home to live. I lived there for a year and I must admit it was probably the happiest year of my life.

After the year I moved back home and dad continued to badger me so after a year I decided that I had to do something. I quit school in the ninth grade and joined the Navy which at that time was the best decision I ever made in my life. To give you an idea as to how bad it got I had to go to the airport by myself on the day I left home. As I stood in the doorway of my home with my suitcase I said goodbye to my father. He wouldn't take me to the airport. I was taken there by my recruiting officer who told me that in all the years that he recruited sailors this was the first time he had to take one to the airport when they left home. As I said goodbye dad looked at me and said "I'll see you in a couple of weeks." I told him that boot camp was three months long. He looked at me smugly, like he couldn't wait to say the next sentence and said "I know how long boot camp is but the Navy is looking for men, and you're no man!" I left home and took a bus to the recruitment center. I stood off to the side at the airport as families said goodbye to their sons and brothers with tears in their eyes.

Dad was right. I wasn't a man when I joined the Navy but I don't think any son would like to hear such words from his dad especially when the son knew that his whole life was about to change and was scared to death that he was going to fail. I guess my dad's final comments made me determined that I was going to make it and I guess that, in a way, I have him to thank for that.

I became a man in the Navy. I got my High School Diploma which opened up a whole new life for me.

More thoughts later.

This Summer

What a summer we've had! First, had our beautiful first grand daughter Rocky, graduate high school. It was wonderful being there with her that weekend. I was so proud of her, she is so beautiful. Next, we had to say goodbye to my number two daughter, four of my grandchildren and a wonderful son-in-law. Standby Denver the LeBon/Johnson clan have invaded your beautiful mountains and serene valleys. Denver, you should be celebrating because we are a proud lot...and nothing comes before family! Next, Mom had her problems with her heart. Everything is going very well. Anyone that doesn't believe in modern miracles hasn't heard this story of a loving mom that found she had heart problems through her annual physical.
Next, we're going HOME to Maryland to be there when our number three daughter, Julie has her baby boy (wishful thinking). I'm looking forward to the trip. I just love Hampstead and can't wait to sit on the back deck in the morning as the deer graze along the hillside.
Then, we're off to Spoken where I'll be dancing at my son's wedding. Then you will see why I have the nickname "twinkle-toes". I can't wait to meet my future daughter-in-laws parents. I'm so proud of my son, he's turned out to be quite a man. I'm not sure but it looks like we'll be coming by train unless the airfare comes down.
Then, sometime this year, before the snow flies, I want to take a trip to Denver and spend some time with the Johnson's. All this, and the gas prices are going through the roof! Oh well, this is what retirement is suppose to be about.

Love to you all!

Jeanne

I've waited to write this blog so that you would hear about Mom's condition from her. I look at this as a wake up call for the both of us. I'm trying to convince her that we should retire as soon as possible and enjoy life. We really don't know what we're going to do but I think we've made up our minds about where we want to live. I think we'll stay in the Willmar area and take trips in the winter. Of course we'll be taking trips to Washington State and Colorado in the summer with trips to Maryland and Florida in the winter. We love this area during the spring and summer. Hopefully we'll find a small place in Willmar and leave Atwater. Since all of our kids left home there is really nothing to keep us here and we've often asked ourselves why we're still here. Anyway, keep your Mom in your Prayers especially on Tuesday when we go to St.Cloud

"There is an appointed time for
everything,
and a time for every affair under the
heavens.

A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time plant, and a time to uproot
the plant.

A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to tear down, and a time to build.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to
gather them;
a time to embrace, and a time to be far
from embraces.

A time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to be silent and a time to speak.

A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war and a time of peace."

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

What weekend we had last week. First, we got to go to our to our oldest granddaughter's graduation. It was a stormy night but the smile on Rocky's face more then made up for it. I wish I could see my "big city" girls more but with tight schedules and the outrageous price of gas makes it almost impossible. On Saturday we had Rocky's party and the whole family was there to celebrate and play a little volleyball. We had a wonderful time even though there were a few injuries.
Then came Tuesday...We had to say goodbye to Chuck, Chris, Allison, Ashley, Tanner, Mitchell and of course Ruby. Saying goodbye was very difficult. I spent most of the day after I got off work helping Chuck move the heavy furniture into the moving van. Chuck asked me if I was going to miss my family, I almost lost it then, I had to get away and stand by my truck until I could hide my emotions.
I'm getting pretty choked up writing this blog. I'm going to miss them all so very much.
Take care you Johnson's and remember I love you all.

Dad
AKA;
Grandpa
Twinkletoes