Category Archives: Kidhood

My Folks #16: 30th Street #4, Needing Room

Leave a reply

By 1946, with my sister being three and myself having survived my first year, our tiny little house was getting snug. At the same time thelot across the alley had no more room for our expanding fleet of trailers. 

Two blocks north of our house on 30th Street, the block between 31st and 32nd Streets sat empty. It would sure be easy to move to.

It was a fine, flat patch of land perfectly adequate for my folk’s needs. It was in Boise City’s boundaries so was blessed with paved streets, fire and police protection and sewers to whisk our cares away.

It was also covered by Boise City rules, one being that neighbors could express their opinions about a business moving in next door. Years later my folks pointed out the home of the lady who thought the traffic, noise and dust of renting trailers would be too noisy, too much traffic and too much dust.  My folks had to agree but it did end their plans. They found another local some seven blocks away, south of State Street.

Screenshot

After we moved from 30th Street the block my folks were eyeing for their business was filled with buildings even smaller than our 30th Street house. They were twelve freestanding buildings, made of cinderblock and all identical. Lined up in two rows, six were facing 30st Street and the other five had a view of 31st Street. 

At one time one of those buildings overlooking 31st Street was rented by my dad’s sister Reole and her handsome husband Earl. When I was six or so we visited Reole, Earl, and their sons Rodney and Craig at their home. 

Screenshot

At the time we were living in a cinder block house and I had a legos-like toy set made up of cinderblock style pieces, so I identified with the life style. I vividly remember those cinderblock buildings standing alone on that otherwise empty city block. Now, in 2025, the buildings are still in use but there are carports, trees, awnings, and other additions making them much more cozy

My Folks #15: 30th Street #3: Saved by Sis

1 Reply

A year had passed since my mother’s ordeal delivering her oversized baby boy. The black and blue lumps on my head had long since formed into the perfectly formed skull I’ve been blessed with ever since. (That’s my story and I’m sticking with it!)

Screenshot

We were still living in the tiny house on 30th Street. Dad was actively renting the trailer he had purchased to build the tiny house and he was more than happy to stop and chat with everyone who asked about it. In fact, with no credit card records in 1946, he had to chat and get enough evidence so the folks renting the trailer would bring it back.

I don’t remember it but my older sister Vicky does and my mom sure did. Apparently Dad was responsible for watching Vicky and I when he got busy conversing with a neighbor. Or renter. It must have been a very important chat. 

Screenshot

There was an irrigation ditch running through the property, small enough for any adult to step over and any three year old to jump across. And, apparently, just the right size for a one year old to fall into without having the room to roll over and get his face out of the water. 

My sister noticed my laying in the ditch and struggling. Dad ignored Vicky’s frantic cries. So she reached down and pulled me out. 

Thanks, Sis …

There is no record of the reaction when my mother asked about her dripping wet muddy boy but the marriage lasted another thirty-one years.

My Folks #15: 30th Street #3: Saved by Sis

1 Reply

A year had passed since my mother’s ordeal delivering her oversized baby boy. The black and blue lumps on my head had long since formed into the perfectly formed skull I’ve been blessed with ever since. (That’s my story and I’m sticking with it!)

Screenshot

We were still living in the tiny house on 30th Street. Dad was actively renting the trailer he had purchased to build the tiny house and he was more than happy to stop and chat with everyone who asked about it. In fact, with no credit card records in 1946, he had to chat and get enough evidence so the folks renting the trailer would bring it back.

I don’t remember it but my older sister Vicky does and my mom sure did. Apparently Dad was responsible for watching Vicky and I when he got busy conversing with a neighbor. Or renter. It must have been a very important chat. 

Screenshot

There was an irrigation ditch running through the property, small enough for any adult to step over and any three year old to jump across. And, apparently, just the right size for a one year old to fall into without having the room to roll over and get his face out of the water. 

My sister noticed my laying in the ditch and struggling. Dad ignored Vicky’s frantic cries. So she reached down and pulled me out. 

Thanks, Sis …

There is no record of the reaction when my mother asked about her dripping wet muddy boy but the marriage lasted another thirty-one years.

My Folks #14: 30th Street #2 : Birthing This Boy

2 Replies

(originally blogged as My Folks #11: Birthing This Boy – fits in the story here)

I don’t remember the day, but my Mother sure did. April 25, 1945. Five days before Hitler murdered his newly married bride and then shot himself. At 6:25 in the morning, despite Mom’s hard work and interminable efforts, my fat head just would not get beyond crowning. 

Finally the doctors decided to take drastic measures by placing a contraption with three suction cups on what was showing of my head and yanking all 9 pounds and 5 ounces of me from her body.

Babies skulls are soft, an essential part of our getting through the birth channel. It is why the three suction cups that pulled me out left three very prominent black and blue lumps crowning the fat glory of me.

Somehow, after all that, my beautiful mother generously still loved me! 

Years later Mom told me how excited Dad had been, running along the line of new dads looking through a viewing glass to see their newborns for the first time. Cigars were passed out and lit up as he made sure everyone looked where he was pointing while he exclaimed: “That’s my boy! That’s my boy!”

It was then Mom looked at me and confided, “But Dean — you were the UGLIEST baby I had ever seen!” 

Gosh. Thanks, Mom!

My Folks #14: 30th Street #1, Building A Cottage

2 Replies

I was born when my folks lived in a tiny one bedroom house on 30th Street in Boise. It still stands a block north of the baseball backstop of Lowell Grade School. My folks had build the house in the early 1940s when WWII was introducing rationing and finding materials was getting more difficult by the day. 

Dad bought a four-wheel John Deere trailer that featured articulated front tires that turned into corners. It also boasted all-wheel breaks that used a sliding feature on the tongue to sense when the weight of the trailer was pushing on the that was towing it. As the trailer pushed against the towing vehicle the harder the tongue pulled on wires that applied the brakes.  A few years later he bought a second one.

Screenshot

Some fifty years later I piled one of those trailers piled high with firewood and was stunned as I pulling that large load over the Lucy Peak grade to Idaho City. The brakes were so smooth I forgot there was a load behind me — until every time I wanted to check out the rear view mirror and saw only the  front end of a large trailer!

My dad bought that trailer with the turning wheels and all-wheel brakes so he could drive to the sawmill in Horseshoe Bend and enjoy wholesale prices on the lumber to build our little house. Anyone remembering the precipitous and winding 1940s Horseshoe Bend Grade knows how important those steerable wheels and brakes figured into putting a roof over our heads. 

It wasn’t long before one and then another neighbor came knocking on our door asking if they could rent that trailer. When folks from across town started showing up wanting to rent it my folks looked into renting a vacant lot across the alley so they could park more trailers that served different needs, like hauling a couple of cows or a load of coal. Worbois Rentals was launched before it had a letterhead. 

Or at least I think it was. Being an infant at the time my memory is rather blurry on the details.

My Folks #13: The Smell Test

2 Replies

My dad’s plan on marrying my mother was the same it had been with his first wife — to move in with his folks at the farmhouse out on Horseshoe Bend Road. 

It was a large two-level house with the latest in modern counter-balanced windows that offered good circulation in the summer months. It also featured an outhouse, chicken coop, hay barn and milking shed, all of which guaranteed a rich “bouquet” that permeated the entire premises. In that department I’m sure it was no different than any barnyard. 

Years later my mother assured me she was having nothing to do with that plan: “He was not moveing me into that smelly old house to take care of his mother and aging brother and sister.” 

And he didn’t!

Instead they rented a small place in Boise until they bought a single lot on 30th Street. It was and remains at one block north of Lowell Grade School’s baseball backstop.  

Soon they were building a small one-bedroom house. Three years after their wedding on June 14, 1940, my older sister joined the few pieces of furniture that were crowding that space. I joined them two years after that. 

My Folks #11: Birthing This Boy

2 Replies

I don’t remember the day, but my Mother sure did. April 25, 1945. Five days before Hitler murdered his newly married bride and then shot himself. At 6:25 in the morning, despite Mom’s hard work and interminable efforts, my fat head just would not get beyond crowning. 

Finally the doctors decided to take drastic measures by placing a contraption with three suction cups on what was showing of my head and yanking all 9 pounds and 5 ounces of me from her body.

Babies skulls are soft, an essential part of our getting through the birth channel. It is why the three suction cups that pulled me out left three very prominent black and blue lumps crowning the fat glory of me.

Somehow, after all that, my beautiful mother generously still loved me!

Years later Mom told me how excited Dad had been, running along the line of new dads looking through a viewing glass to see their newborns for the first time. Cigars were passed out and lit up as he made sure everyone looked where he was pointing while he exclaimed: “That’s my boy! That’s my boy!”

It was then Mom looked at me and confided, “But Dean — you were the UGLIEST baby I had ever seen!” 

Gosh. Thanks, Mom!

My Folks #10: It’s A Gas #2 – A Modern Gas Pump

2 Replies

Since we rented tractors by the gallons of gas the customer used my dad decided he needed an actual gas pump to do the measuring. This was when I was six or so and I have no idea how gasoline was measured before dad found a used pump and went about installing it. 

Acquiring the pump and getting it installed happened when my mother took my two sisters and I to see Aunt Carol in her new place on a farm outside of Hillsboro, Oregon. Being 1953, US Highway 30 was a miracle of modern Federal construction — two full lanes wide, paved, with no railroad crossings, and the same signage from coast to coast to guide our way. Yes, there were local speed limits through every town and lines of cars behind every truck struggling to grind its way to the top of every hill. But sometimes the highway was even three-lanes wide so cars could pass trucks on steep grades!

When we got home from Aunt Carol’s I was shocked to find a modern gas pump sitting at the end of our house. It was modern in that it ran on electricity, showed gallons pumped, the price, and it had a little twirly thing in a bulb full of gas so you knew gas was flowing to twirl the twirly.

I had no concept that you could have your own gas pump at your house. Even the idea was cool! 

During our absence dad found the used pump, installed it and ran underground pipes to two above-ground tanks he had installed some twenty feet to the north.

I got real good at using that pump. First to measure how much gas our customers used (for renting tractors we charged $5 for the first gallon, $4 for the second and $3 for all after.) Later I took it for granted to keep my parent’s cars topped off before heading out on teenage adventures. 

Now, six decades after returning from visiting Aunt Carol and finding a modern gas pump attached to our house, one thing still dangles in my heart about that day — scratched into the concrete anchoring the pump, was the date dad had built the pump’s foundation. And the word, “Alone.”

My Folks #9: It’s A Gas #1 – A Very Helpful Boy

3 Replies

My mother gave me a very touching card for my 52nd birthday. She wished a happy birthday and a year full of pleasant surprises. She recalled fond memories and said I was always a joy to watch grow up. I was basking in the warmth of her when I read about one experience from 1948 —

“Of course there were times like the time you thought you were doing such a good job of filling our gas tank with water!! When you were about 3. I’ll never forget that scene of a 3 year old standing behind our car with the hose running water into the gas tank!”

Well. I ended up waiting tables for a profession. It seems I have always prided myself in being helpful.

My Folks #8 – Making Hay

2 Replies

Cleaning out the hay wagons was one of the earliest chores I remember helping my older sister with. This happened after the large, four-wheeled trailers had had their wooden sides attached and had been rented out for something called a “hayride.”  

Later I’d come to understand the allure of these evening rides to a country picnic and bonfire and an even later and much more quiet ride snuggled in the hay on the ride home. At the time I only knew to be careful with the pitch fork, which was longer than I was tall, while climbing over what to me were the towering sides of the trailers. 

My sister made sure I would give the forkful of dry straw a good shake before tossing it over the side of the wagon. The goal was to toss the straw with enough gumption so it landed in the property’s barrow pit instead of right next to the trailer.

Dad, and later we kids, would always push the wagon next to a borrow pit before cleaning it out. Later, when conditions were right, Dad would burn the straw, cleaned the pit while ridding ourselves of the leftovers of satisfied customers.

And just why had my sister made sure I gave the pitchfork full of straw a good shake before tossing it over the side of the trailer? Now that you’ve asked, I’ll tell you the anticipated joy we kids felt when someone had rented the trailer for a “hayride.”

It seems there were folks on those hayrides who did not pay attention to what was in their pockets. As I said, I would eventually learn about those distractions. But when we were armed with pitchforks we kids discovered there was always some change falling out of that straw—sometimes even a whole dollar’s worth!

Our folks never had to coax us into cleaning up after someone else’s hayride.