Joyce Kropewnicki

I belonged to the Cloverly Girl 4-H Club for years. My mom was the leader and Nora Libsack was her assistant. All the girls from our Pleasant Valley School and other neighboring country schools joined 4-H. We learned to cook, sew and decorate. Mom was the chief of sewing and making garments with perfect stitches and fit. I still have the little micro black and white checked cotton apron I made for my first project. It was hand sewn and the stitches had to be exactly spaced within the checks. These were small checks. I’m sure mom had me count the checks before I made the stitch. In the fall we entered our summer’s work at the county fair at Island Grove Park. If we made a Grand or Reserve Champion on our projects we could enter them in the State Fair in Pueblo. I was a blue ribbon sometimes red ribbon winner. Some times Mom had a Grand Champion winner that made her and Nora so proud of their accomplishments.

Mostly Nora taught the cooking. I learned to make sugar cookies that came off the cookie sheet perfectly with the smallest amount of distortion. Jellies had to be clear with no bubbles and a perfect seal of the paraffin. I think I made mostly apple jelly probably from apple juice. I like to make jams better now so you have some flavor and little pieces of fruit to spread on a piece of bread. No more messy paraffin anymore to seal the jars. The lids fit tight and a quick turn upside down for a few minutes and the jars are sealed perfectly.

I made bread on summer. White bread, white flour. There is nothing tastier then a piece of warm bread spread with a little real butter. I was reminded of that today. We had a few bananas that were speckling up on the counter from last weeks Christmas fest. From the bottom drawer I pulled out my favorite banana bread recipe tucked in an old cookbook from a collaborative effort of some people from Stan’s engineering job that he had some 35 years ago. I just love that recipe as it has no fat and always bakes up perfectly. I sliced off a few pieces and gave one to my bus driver. He was trilled to receive a piece of homemade bread. He said when he grew up his Mom would always make bake goods from scratch. Not so much today as his wife usually buys whatever the grocery store sells that is already boxed up. I wonder if his mom was in 4-H.

Before we advanced to bread we learned to make muffins. The recipe in the 4-H manual told us not to beat the dough, but barely spoon it together for under twenty strokes. I can still make pretty good muffins keeping to that minimal mixing routine. My friend Lois Goldsmith was in the same muffin group. There was some centennial celebration in the community. Colorado had its centennial in 1976 as it became the 38th state in 1876. I know it wasn’t in 1976 as I was about 10 which would have been 1956. Whatever the celebration, centennial was theme. Lois and I teamed up to give a demonstration at a contest in Greeley. Lois was the presenter and I was the person putting together the ingredients while she talked. We made Centennial Golden Muffins. These were the same muffins are in the second year 4-H cookbook with added golden butterscotch chips. These chips were new to the market as only chocolate chips had been available. This made a delicious change to the standard muffin. Lois and I practiced each day at her house or mine. We made muffins galore to the delight of both families. We were ready for our demonstration at the contest. Lois became sick with mono or some other sort of illness, became hospitalized and wasn’t well enough for the demo we had planned together. There went our big opportunities to be young Martha Stewarts. There was no replacement for Lois, so the show didn’t go on. Thinking back to this time, I probably could have completed the demo on my own, but just didn’t have enough confidence to do it or there were rules about entering specific names for the demo. I still make muffins today skipping the butterscotch chips to add blueberries, cranberries, peach instead.

Christmas growing up is but a vague memory. I’ve seen videos when I was about five of a Santa that came to visit on Christmas Eve when we lived in the Tipton house. My mom must have been taking the photos as dad was in the movie so I don’t think that Santa was played by him. This Santa was slight of build so it wasn’t my Uncle Swede either. He was kind of short so maybe it was my Uncle Rodney, Aunt Ruth’s brother who played Santa.

This Santa was the lowest tech ever. He had the red velvet suit, probably made by one of the handy seamstresses in the family, but his beard was not silky and full like the Santas you see today. It looked in the video like white cotton. This was about 1950 when cotton came in a big roll about eight inches wide wrapped in blue heavy cardboard like paper. Poor Santa looked like he had been in the medicine cabinet into that roll of cotton to find a white beard for him to wear.

Santa handed out wrapped gifts for all of us. There was a great racket when he arrived as he jingled these grand bells that were from the horse harness that was placed over the horse’s neck. The bells varied in size and were about 4 inches in diameter and had a great big melodious tone. This string of bells was from my Great Grandfather Frank O. Swanson’s carriage equipment when he would drive his wife to town in a sleigh about Christmas time at the turn of the century in the 1900’s. The strip of bells were handed down to his son, my Grandfather, Carl O. Swanson and then to my Dad, Harold O. Swanson. Dad guarded them with abandon. They are still guarded in one of my closets. I take them out once in a while on Christmas Eve. We have taken a walk through our neighborhood years ago on our way to Cynthia Jones’ house to Christmas Eve dinner. We spent many Christmas Eve’s together with that family as John and their son Geordie were best friends. One evening the houses were all adorned with luminaries along the sidewalks throughout the whole neighborhood on a Christmas Eve. We walked in the middle of the quiet snow-packed streets and gently shook the bells as we walked. They are the best bells I have ever heard.

My dad was a roly-poly guy who made a great Santa for our school, Pleasant Valley. The parents all contributed one present for each child. My dad would put on a Santa suit that probably belonged to the school as I never found any Santa suit remains when I helped clean out their home. I don’t remember any tacky cotton beard. He would Ho-Ho-Ho his way into the school with a big red bag slung over his shoulder packed with gifts. He would call out all the kids’ names. He knew them all as this was a close knit neighborhood. He asked them questions about being good or bad. After they battered back and forth he gave them a gift. In the 1950’s gifts were pretty simple. A few nuts and a fresh orange or apple were a treat. Checker boards, monopoly or a baby doll were a special treat. No one wanted to receive any coal, which was in easy supplier from the furnaces that were then stoked with shovels full of coal.

When we went to church on Christmas Eve at eulota (Swedish name of Christmas Eve service) at 4:00 am on Christmas morning. The ushers passed around little boxes of candy for all the children. There were all kinds of yummy treats that we only saw at Christmas time. Ribbon candy and hard candy filled with creamy or crispy favors are still fragrant in my mind. I loved the cinnamon puffs that made our tongues and lips red.

We would sing out the old familiar Christmas carols that have been around for hundreds of years. Today we attend various Christmas concerts where they play a few of those Christmas carols. I still get a lump in my throat when I hear Joy to the World. It is a lot different hearing live music played with feeling than the same tunes piped into the malls like it is played by drones.

We started going to the Tuba concerts on a Saturday around the first week or so of December outside in downtown Denver at Larimer Square. Hearing those big ole’ tubas belting out Jingle Bells is a delight. On that day twenty or thirty tubas fill the street to play Christmas carols for the Holiday crowds. There are generations of people joining in the fun. They have been gathering for over twenty-five years at various city streets across our nation. My son John took his little girl Anya, age one, to her first Tuba concert in Boston.

We don’t make a big deal out of Thanksgiving by stressing out over special foods and filling the house with relatives. Most of our family has moved to different states and friends are spending time with their families. Still I like to bake a turkey even though two out three of us that will be at the Thanksgiving dinner table are vegetarians. It still like the turkey gravy poured over stiffly mashed potatoes and a healthy serving of stuffing drenched in turkey juices where they have been baking for a few hours with a side of jellied cranberry sauce. A black-berry flavored jello filled with crunchy things like chopped cranberries, grapes, celery and nuts is always good. Often I make home made cinnamon rolls and dinner rolls. I always like to eat a cinnamon roll right from the oven while I cooking the rest of the dinner. Pumpkin pie is my favorite although I usually make an apple and cherry pie depending on how many people come to dinner. It will be Stan, Jamie and myself this year.

Several years we also included Ruthie, a neighbor, at our Thanksgiving feast. Her husband Ralph died a few years ago so it is enjoyable to have her come by and help us with the turkey and leftovers. This year she is going to visit her son in Albuquerque for Thanksgiving. We are going down there as well the day after to celebrate Stan’s sister, Irene’s 80th birthday.

One year about 2004, John traveled from Boston with his girl friend for Thanksgiving. We went all out that year to be sure and make a good impression on Rachel. We spent most of September and October taking down that old kitchen wall paper from the 1980’s and painting the walls a soft designer yellow. What is so designer about yellow? It’s just soft yellow. We added some soft yellow and white gingham wall paper to the back splash and the sofit to add some change in the texture. I found some fabric at a wholesale shop with a splash of painterly flowers in yellows, purple and reds. I made a drape for the sliding door and gently gathered valences to top the other two windows.

The table was set with the hand stamped rust and beige table cloth that we bought on our trip to India years back. I made some kind of floral arrangement (not my long suite) from pine boughs and some orange berries from one of the trees in our backyard. I set the table with my Grandma Anna Swanson’s dishes. They have delicate gold trim and look nice on a Thanksgiving table. I have a couple sets of silverware that I use on such occasions. One that we received as a wedding gift that we bought with money Uncle Vern had given us and one from my mom with the initial “S” on the handles. I bought some cute little white lacy looking ceramic snowmen that I threaded a rusty-red ribbon through the lacy part to decorate them up. Each person had a snowman at their place. I figured we could use them on the tree for Christmas ornaments. We enjoyed getting to know Rachel that Thanksgiving weekend. She made a favorable impression on us and we are happy to have her as our daughter-in-law now.

Other Thanksgivings we served variations of the same types of food. When mom was still alive we invited her over to Thanksgiving. I would pick her up from her retirement apartment a few miles from our home. Even though we had the same type of foods, she must have been a bit of a vegetarian herself in her later years. She ate mashed potatoes with some gravy, vegetable, a little jello and a roll. These were servings big enough for a bird. She liked pumpkin pie too. Once she was finished she wanted to go back to her apartment. We were happy to have a few minutes with her.

Early when I married Stan in 1973 I had to learn had to make all this Thanksgiving stuff over years. It wasn’t always easy as pie to put on a Thanksgiving dinner. It takes practice over years. Now, I like baking the turkey on a baking bag best. It seems to work for me and people always eat the turkey without many complaints. I always like to try a new salad or cookie recipe during one of these dinners, which can be a disaster or a delight.

Gravy is always a problem. None of us know how to make it. Simple, I know, but still we don’t get it. Now I just buy an envelope of turkey gravy that you simply add water and heat up for a few minutes. One year in 1973 when we were first married and lived in Brownsville, Texas people came down to visit us in droves. That Thanksgiving, my parents, my friend Bobby Kline and Stan’s friend, Chuck Germeyer all showed up on Thanksgiving. Some how we got dinner on the table for all of them. No special dishes as it takes years to collect all that kind of stuff. I relegated the turkey gravy to Bobbie and Chuck knowing that Bobbie was a good cook. Well, not in the gravy arena. My parents must have thought – what a fiasco to drive all the way to Brownville to watch their daughter struggle with a simple Thanksgiving meal. I probably bought pies that year. Bobbie and Chuck ended up being very close friends that weekend, but ultimately went their separate ways.

By 1976 when we moved back to Colorado we spent a few years having Thanksgiving dinner with Mom and Dad at their house in Greeley. By that time Mom had forgotten whatever she knew about cooking. She had this technique she used to cook her turkey in a Westinghouse oven that kind of steamed the thing into submission. It was a very over-cooked bird by the time it was served on the plate. Stan nick named it turkey jerky. She was still the best pie maker ever and we enjoyed the visit, just not the turkey. We were all hardy meat eaters then.

As a young couple we felt we had to make the parental break to establish our own traditions. So we started going skiing with the kids on Thanksgiving day. That eliminated the need to go to Greeley for Thanksgiving. Mom was probably tired of making the big meal so she said. We would bundle up the kids in the van and off we would go to try out the new sometimes sparse snow, while the turkey baked in the oven using the automatic oven timer. That was some of the best skiing ever before the snow was packed down with snow grooming equipment. We wore our rock skis so those scraps wouldn’t ruin our good skis. The ski tickets were always cheaper then on Thanksgiving Day. The crowds were light as most people were spending the day eating and watching football games indoors. For several years this allowed us some couple-family freedom and still we had turkey dinner on the table later in the afternoon after a morning of skiing.

Growing up I don’t remember too much about Thanksgiving except the year we ate a pet duck with Marlyss’ family which I told about before.

In school the fall was filled with construction paper cut outs of leaves, turkeys and pilgrims. If we were lucky there might be some printed cardboard cut outs that the teachers would hang on the bulletin boards. We had a few at home too that used to decorate the windows.

Thanksgiving held an important part in our lives when we all took time to say a heart felt grace and reflect on things we which were thankful. Now Christmas has crept into our Thanksgiving spirits with advertisements and sales starting in the stores minutes after Halloween. When I grew up no Christmas decorations were applied to street corners or hung in store windows until Thanksgiving was over. Thanksgiving was such a nice time to sit down and have a delicious meal you’re your family.

Last week we saw a line of needy people around the block at the Jeffco Action Center waiting to pick up their box of food to prepare their own Thanksgiving feast. Other centers are offering meals that day in community halls filled with people in need. It seems the connection to Thanksgiving is missing in some of these contrived experiences.

Sometimes maybe just a simple meal, no matter the content, with a sharing of Thanksgiving for our family, country and freedoms would be more appropriate.

Choir Robes

Our family belonged to the First Covenant Church in Greeley. Every time the doors opened we were there to support and participate in the activities. Sunday, of course, was the biggest day for church.

My Grandparents, Anna and Carl Swanson, were charter members of this church. It started in a different building than the one I became familiar with. Anna and Carl had probably helped build that first church through sweat and economic contributions. I can just see the men planning and working together. Mostly church members were farmers toiling in the fields to raise crops then milk the cows and gather eggs from the chickens. This was a daily job that takes the computer jocks of today to task when they refer to a team managing customer service 24/7. Farmers were on call to operate their farming operation 24/7 with no backup support except their family. Still they believed in the freedom to worship that this country gives to all its citizens. Together they took precious hours from their farming to come together to build a church. Not just the hammer and nails it took to build the frame and lay the bricks, but building a community of friends and relatives with similar values and beliefs.

The First Covenant Church was connected to the main church in Minnesota. During my Grandparents day the church included mostly Swedish folks. The services were in Swedish as was the singing. I found an old Bible from my Grandmother that was in Swedish. The leather cover was soft with wear as were the pages that were thumbed through over time from hours of reading her favorite Bible verses. My dad, Harold, grew up speaking Swedish at home and at church. He learned English and in school and other public places, he and his brother, Clarence would always speak English. Grandma had a thick Swedish brogue when she spoke English. It was music to our ears to hear her talk. Grandpa spoke clear English as he was in the business world selling and buying cattle and meeting with people of all nationalities. It must have been a challenge for my Mom when she married my Dad to acclimate to the Swedish chat between family members at family gatherings. Still we always said grace before every meal in Swedish.

When we cleaned out some of Mom’s stuff in an old barn I found a wooden orange crate full of dusty song books from the first church. They were only an half an inch thick compared to the two inch variety that the next church used. But the songs were the same melodies with some variation of titles or words. The hymn book was in English, but had many verses in Swedish. I thought some day I would take a book apart and frame some of the songs. They would be interesting on a wall in a music room above the piano.

Maybe people don’t have pianos anymore, just keyboards and drum sets along with stacks of CD. Now the young folks have thousands of songs loaded into an Ipod or MP3 player no bigger than a credit card always on – always connected to ear buds hanging from their ears. A shame really that they will miss the opportunity I grew up with to hear music live played from my sister’s fingers stroking the piano keys. Miss a note or not it was delightful to sit next to her on the piano bench and watch her play. If we knew the song my brother and mother might stand behind the piano for a brief verse or two to sing along.

My dad was a good singer. He must have been a baritone. He didn’t sing high tenor notes like Don Lindstrom or really low bass like my brother Alan. Just clear and heart felt. When he was younger for years he sang every Sunday in the choir with my Mom and the rest of the friends and relatives at the church who could carry a tune. Alan found a 78 vinyl recording of dad singing a solo with the choir that Alan had transcribed to a cassette. Now we are into CDs and digital recordings. I have misplaced that short piece of music with my dad’s voice resonating in joy of life to the congregation. Maybe I’ll find it and listen once more.

My mom sang in the middle range too about the same place that I can carry a tune. There were strong singers in the choir. One big soprano voice came were from my Aunt Marion, Marlyss’ mother. Not really my Aunt, but we all called her that as she married my Aunt Ruth’s brother Rodney Johnson. Aunt Marion could take a deep breath with those big old lungs and hit the high notes as clear as a beautiful crystal glass. From time to time Aunt Marion and Uncle Rodney would sing duets. She was always the power house. Vivian Swanson, my second cousin, had a champion soprano voice too. The kind of voice that makes you stop for a minute just to hear her sing.

My Aunt Ruth and Marlyss (Miki) had low alto voices that carried the harmony on Sunday mornings. My second cousin, Ray Duell had a really strong baritone voice and was asked many times to sing songs such as “Our Father, who art in Heaven” and at Christmas time “Oh Holy Night”. Breathtaking really.

One thing about our church was that we sang praises loudly and with vigor. When I married Stan we went to the Catholic Church from time to time. They are timid singers. The songs were not familiar as the ones I grew up singing week after week. Churches were bigger; there was a choir, but not the rejoicing that you find in the strain of church when I grew up. I went to a mega church with my sister-in-law Irene when visiting in Albuquerque. They really sang and sang and sang until the place was a frenzy of voices shouting out at the words on the big screen up front. The First Covenant Church was somewhere between those two extremes in the singing department.

There was always something going on with the Ladies Aid group at church. They gathered for prayer meetings and to study the Bible one a week or so. Then they would sponsor projects to prepare food for church gatherings. There was a big old meeting room in the basement of the church with a large kitchen at the end. Women would bring food from home and people would line up to fill their plates of the best home-cooking from miles around. This of course was before women entered the workforce in earnest. They had their chores at home and helped feed the calves and chickens, then gave of time at the church. Funerals were not catered, but food was brought in by the women of the church to share with a grieving family and their friends. The Ladies aid reached out to the shut-ins making visits to cheer people up as well as visits to nursing homes to share some joy.

My Grandma was more of a worker then a social butterfly. I fit into that mold pretty well. Give me something to do and I’m happy. Let me chat up a storm with some friends and I’m fidgety. I leave that up to people like my sister who relishes in friendships. I spend time with my friends from work, but there is always a plan or goal to get something done. This week we are planning to decorate and fill Christmas stockings for needy children.

In the front of the church there was a large table and a tall velvet curtain. My Grandma had made some of these large drapes for the church. My Mom took over some of those sewing chores also. It seems they changed the drapes several times a year with the change of seasons; deep gold for spring and dark red for Christmas time. Mom was always busy sewing something for her family, teaching little girls to sew in 4-H and sewing something for the church. This included making choir robes and bows for the children’s choir.

Mrs. Osterberg was the minister’s wife who had responsibilities at the church longer than your arm. She had two daughters, Janet – who was my age and Anne who was a couple years younger. Mrs. Osterberg gathered all the little children from about age 5 – 15 to sing in her children’s choir. The kids had one choir loft on the right side of the front of the church and the adults had the other choir loft on the left side. The kids meet every Saturday at the church to practice. Mrs. Osterberg taught us three part harmony and just beamed every Sunday when we sang our songs on Sunday morning. There were probably about 20 kids or so singing and fidgeting during the sermon up front of the church.

I must have learned production projects from my Mom. She sewed up a bunch of those choir robes. They were out of heavy crème colored fabric with a yoke and gathers in a variety of sizes to fit all the kids. At the neck was a big old crispy satin bow. These were also made by Frances and her friends from the Ladies Aid. Each Sunday the kids would gather after Sunday school behind in the crowded room behind the alter to put on our choir robes and have the bows tied. The bows were bright red for Christmas and gold or light teal blue for the rest of the year. My mom was in charge of making sure all the kids got on their robes and had their bows tied and straight. Mrs. Osterberg was a good planner and worked collaboratively with the women of the church to get the maximum help she needed to get the job done. We looked cute as buttons and sang pretty well too.

Once a year in the spring we had community track meets for local country schools that included Pleasant Valley School for kids grade one through eight. There was no such thing as kindergarten at the time I grew up. Barnsville, Lone Tree, Olin were some of the other schools that participated. These schools were similar in that the school was contained in one two-story building that taught 8 grades of children.

The teachers were all a buzz about training us kids to do well in competition with the other schools. At a set aside time during the day, we practiced running the 100 yard dash, high jumping and broad jumping. I can’t remember what we wore during this practice time as little girls usually wore dresses or skirts top school. I imagine we just practiced in our regular clothes as there wasn’t any place to change or store our clothes in lockers.

The high jump was a pole supported by two uprights with nail holes every inch. The nail was moved up for every increment as kids competed. We all stood in line and took turns jumping over the pole into a sand pit. If the pole was knocked off, then you dropped out until there was a declared winner. The younger kids were eliminated early on while the older kids keep on trying to jump over the pole. I’m not sure how that system worked to increase your skills as the poor performers were pulled aside while the high performers had more and more time to practice.

I liked high jumping and always tried real hard to jump high enough to the keep the pole suspended. I can’t imagine wearing dresses as the flare of the dress would have caught on the pole. I think we just kind of stepped over the pole anyway instead of jumping like the athletes do now with style and finesse to barely clear the pole.

Broad jump was also a fun sport. We would run as fast as we could and leap at the starting mark into the sand pit. They didn’t really explain the finer rules of board jumping. They just said to jump as far as you could. I think we had three tries to beat our and other children’s scores. Some times you would fall back onto your hands or touch your feet over the starting line and lose a good score.

Running was never my game. We had to do it anyway. There were kids who were built for running that did the 100 yard dash in record time; at least lightening speed compared to us slow pokes. There were relays where we ran with a baton back and forth in teams of four trying to beat out the other competitors.

Once we were trained, off we would go to the other schools to compete. I think our Mom’s volunteered to take a car load of kids to the school that was hosting the event. It must have been an all day affair. By this time we must have wore jeans to school on event day. Little kids really didn’t wear short at that time.

It was always a fun day. When we participated in our events that were grouped by grades ribbons were handed out: blue for first place, red for second and white for third. The rest of us received green or yellow ribbons for participating.

In between events we hung around with our friends and gossiped about the kids from the other schools. The Mom’s must have brought sack lunches for us to eat as we sat on the grass under a tree. I don’t remember that there were any concession stands for pop or candy. This was very low tech and probably helped keep kids slimmer than our counterparts today who are always sporting a big sugary drink, chips or candy bars.

One summer when I was in junior high I started playing bassoon with my cousin Pam and her cousin Miki (Marlyss) who took up French Horn. Miki did a lot of things with us and since her father was Pam’s mother’s brother we hung around as relatives even though we weren’t really related. Miki gave up French Horn shortly after that summer so she could get busy taking advance placement classes. Pam and I continued with the bassoon through most of high school. I was two years ahead of Pam in school, so after that first summer we were always in different band classes.

I don’t remember if the band learned enough that first summer to be in the marching band, but the next summer we did. Bassoons are not included in a marching band so I was always given something else to play. The next summer Mr. Faulkner, our band teacher from Meeker Junior High, set me up with a glockenspiel. This is a heavy kind of shiny silver instrument that looked like a liar with strips of metal looking similar to a piano that you struck with a mallet. I guess there was some kind of leather contraption that put over your head that had a place to support the instrument while you marched in the band. I doubt if there was any concern for which hand I usually used. The teacher probably put the mallet in my right hand as that is the way the instrument was loaded into the strap so you support it with your left hand and play it with your right. I’m left handed. I don’t think this instrument was too hard to play as all you did was play the melody line one note at a time. I’m sure if I hit the wrong note everyone knew it as this instrument really stood out with it’s high pitched sound when the band played.

Mr. Faulkner marched us in every local parade from here to Timbuktu. The junior high band kids wore white shirts, black pants and black Keds. One summer we marched so much that I worn out the front toes of my new pair of Keds clear through to the toes. My mom was concerned that these shoes were defective and we tried to get Jones’, the local sports store, to replace them as defective. I think they were kind of expensive for the time and Mom wanted to control her limited budget and get the best value. Well, the clerk at Jones’ just looked at us like we were crazy when she heard I was in the marching band. I must have gotten a new pair that day for which my Mom had to pay regular price.

We were in the Greeley 4th of July parade and another one in Estes Park. We must have played for the rodeo as I remember seeing the Greeley rodeo at Island Grove Park with all my band chums.

By the time school started, we were the band that supported the football players at the games. Mr. Faulkner had switched me over to an old silver soprano saxophone he found some place. He was probably tired of hearing that ting – ting – ting of the glockenspiel. I didn’t play with the regular saxophone players as the soprano had different notes similar to the clarinets. I remember I had a lot of fun at the football games talking and laughing with my co-band members.

One time we were leaving and Mr. Faulkner stopped me as I was coming down the bleachers. He said, “Did you forget something?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about until he pointed to the saxophone resting on the bleacher seat where I had been sitting. I guess that saxophone and I didn’t really bond too well.

The next season the teacher moved me to cymbals. They were big old things that at times you had to hold to swish quietly together in time with the drum beats. When you played them, there was a certain way you held them to really get a nice clear crashing sound. I liked playing the cymbals as I always got to line up with the boys who played drums. There were always a lot of shenanigans going on in the drum row. Those guys are probably in Leavenworth now.

During the regular school band classes and for performances I played bassoon. I was mostly 2nd chair of 2 or 3 people. It was fun and I had no plans to be a concert bassoonist so that worked out Okay. We sat right behind the clarinets, next to the oboes in front of the trumpet rows. The trumpet players were always the cute hard to talk to guys. They didn’t want anything to do with the bassoonist that sat in front of them. I always thought that trumpet players must be good kissers as they had to hold their lips so tight when they player their instrument.

By the time I went to high school I started in the intermediate band and then moved up to the advanced concert band, still with a lot of the same kids. You really get to be best friends when you sit by the same kids year after year. I joined the orchestra too and got to know a whole different group of kids playing violins, cellos and bass. We had the opportunity to perform at the annual school musicals. The first year I was singing on stage with a group of girls in South Pacific. Next year I was in the orchestra when we did Oklahoma. Another year we did Brigadoon. My mom was so great. She went to all those performances and sat through them to support me in my activities.

In the high school marching band things were a lot stricter. We practiced every morning; rain, shine or snow. We were out there on the football field to work through the various patterns that our teacher had developed. We had to step so many steps between each ten yard line in perfectly straight lines. No goofing off with this guy, whose name escapes me. He must have had a big budget for band as he had several of us playing cymbals. He bought these smaller sized cymbals with leather straps that we learned to flip and turn to the beat along with crashing together the whole lot of us in perfect time.

By the time Thanksgiving came along we were ready as the Greeley High School band had been invited to present the half time show at the Bronco game at Mile High Stadium. We had new dark black uniforms with those silly hats with big white feathery plums. We were great at this half time performance. All that early morning practice really paid off. They took us to the Continental Denver, which at the time was a pretty nice hotel restaurant at the corner of Speer Boulevard and Zuni Street. They had starched white table clothes and shiny plates loaded up with Thanksgiving dinner. It still can’t compare to a real Thanksgiving with your family.

Fall was always a pleasant time on the farm. The crops were mostly out of the fields except maybe for digging up the sugar beets. The weather was still fairly warm with chilly evenings and cooler daytime temperatures. Colorado didn’t have much in the way of color of autumn leaves so we didn’t make much a big deal about it like they do back east in New England with the deep rusty, red and dark oranges colors. We had the gold of Aspen trees in the fall in the mountains against the dark green of the evergreens. When I was a kid our family didn’t go out of our way to go to look at the Aspen leaves. I didn’t experience that splash of color of the mountain Aspen until I was married. We would take weekend rides up through Boreas Pass by Breckenridge and see the canopy of bright yellow gold over the mountain roads.

Children were back to school and settling into the drills and tattered school books passed down from children who used them the year before. Mostly little girls wore dresses of calico and gingham. The boys wore jeans or coveralls and plaid cotton or flannel shirts. The jeans were just plain old jeans. Nothing designer or special about these jeans. They might have been Levis or Wranglers, but the brands didn’t mean much at that time. They were just jeans that boys wore to school and to help with the chores around the farm.

Once a year we celebrated Halloween. On that day most everyone came to school in a costume. We had assigned desks so you could guess who the kids were even though they were dressed head-to-toe in odd costumes. One year I remember one of the Howard boys – probably Joe – changed seats with a couple of his 8th grade classmates to fool us younger kids in 5th grade. Joe and his friends had concocted homemade Halloween costumes that covered them so well we couldn’t guess who they were. Joe in particular had put on his Mom’s clothes stuffed socks for the boobs and added one of those flowered scarves on his head that he tied with a knot at his forehead. I think I went all day and I never did figure out who he was. I was pretty naive about that kind of stuff. We all made our costumes out of things we found at home. Scarecrows had real straw coming out of coveralls and witches were wrapped in black cloth with homemade pointed witch hats.

One year the Goldsmiths put on a haunted house in their basement. I was probably ten or so at the time. Even though I tried to find out from my friend Lois what her brother Bob was up to with the haunted house I never did find out the gory details until we actually went through the basement. It was dark and scary as we walked down the stairs. The staircase was open so as you walked someone grabbed at your ankles from behind to put your emotions through the wringer. Sheets were put up in a maze. You followed a dark path feeling eyeballs (peeled grapes), brains (cooked spaghetti) and other such concoctions that scared young children. Black cats ran across our path screeching and swishing their tails at our legs. They played a record on their turn table that had eerie sounds along with their own sounds effects of screening and pretend murders taking place.

Once we were sufficiently scared from the basement offerings we went back upstairs for some games. These were the days when you actually dunked your head in a tub of water to retrieve an apple. Harder than it sounds. Apples were also strung on a string from the garage ceiling that you had to grab a healthy bite. The best way was to partner with someone so the apple would stay still. There were popcorn balls made with fresh candied syrup and hot cider to warm your spirits.

Stan and I have tried for recreate that type of Halloween atmosphere with our kids over the years but nothing comes close to the Goldsmith party. Our kids mostly went trick or treating and brought home bags of candy that we checked to make sure no one had slipped in any razor blades in the apples and that all candy was wrapped in its original wrapper. This is a crazy tradition to send your kids out in their costumes to beg for candy on a chilly night. They always had more candy then an army could eat. It made them both just on one big sugar high for weeks while they ate through their stash.

The schools let our little kids dress in Halloween costumes (purchased of course) and served cupcakes or decorated cookies made by some of the mothers. Stober Elementary School had pumpkin decorating contests while John was going there. He won one year with a tall skinny pumpkin that we painted like a clown with a hat and a pom-pom on top. Another year he found a really small pumpkin that he decorated and won the smallest pumpkin contest. At the time little pumpkins were hard to find. Today you can find baskets of them at any local grocery.

We always tried to carve a pumpkin or two when I grew up and then each year as our kids grew up. They were just the ordinary Jack-o-Lantern with eyes, nose and mouth and a candle to light it all up. Now pumpkin carving has become a real art that includes scraping away the hard skin and sculpting interesting faces.

One year when Jamie was about three months old I found a really big pumpkin, cleaned it out and carved the face. I put her in it for a photo. Hope I can find that photo some day. Young mothers. We are kind of silly sometimes.