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Our family owned a six-man toboggan and used it for tons of winter fun. I seemed to always be the tag-along with my older brothers up to the foothills by the river. It seemed like a dream as we zoomed down those hills a hundred miles an hour!!!. It was so very cold but we never noticed. We were having too much fun. Jay and Dennis flooded the pasture with water close to the turkey coops. Overnight the water would freeze into a gala hockey rink. We played hockey (they played, I watched). "Bullet" was our German Shepherd dog who loved to play goalie. I was always puzzled how that dog could stop the puck every time with his teeth and not break them.

Old Man River beckoned all of us in the summer. It was fun to splash and swim in the clear water. It sounded like this:

“Let’s see how much we can splash Julie!"

A deep water hole on a bend in the river was our favorite. Jay and Dennis jumped off the steep cliff over and over again. I was too chicken to jump off! I happily watched from the sidelines.

We did not have a television, but we walked a half mile to Lee Orr’s house to assemble ourselves in front of his T.V. When our father married Mary Jessen Smith in September of 1959, she brought with her a TELEVISION! We liked to watch anything that emanated from that blue, glaring screen. We were transfixed.

Because my father still needed to send his youngest two sons on missions we moved to Beaverton, Oregon for a better financial life. We had a farm auction, sold all our farm machinery and rented out the land to the neighbors.

We must have looked like the Beverly Hill Billies as we crossed the line from Canada. Our half-ton GMC truck was loaded to over-flowing with ALL of our possessions. We were required to register as legal aliens and required to keep our green cards with us at all times. It was funny to tell people that I was an ALIEN!