Avalanche

Thinking about things to write, is like standing at the bottom of the mountain with the snow racing at me. I'll try to write about things I remember growing up--like watching Topper on our new TV on Friday nights with Bobby and my dad. In 1952. after Mother and Daddy were married, they worked at the California Laundry in San Diego. Daddy worked days and mother nights, so we always had a parent at home--they were far ahead of their times. We lived in a house owned by my maternal grandmother, Reta Rasmussen Beaman in San Diego on K Street. There were three houses in a row: our house, then my grandparents, and then my great grandparents. It was a lot of fun having three houses we could go to at any time and people there who thought we were pretty nifty. We used to have door-to-door salesmen often. If we could catch them at our house, we'd tell them no one interested, close the door, and then run out the back door and over to our grandparents' house, race through the house and answer the door there. We'd do it again -- running to our great grandparents' house and answering the door there as well. At that point, the salesmen would usually just shrug and walk away. For a time without computers, cell phones, a Wii, Xbox and only one TV that came on sometimes at noon and had 2-3 channels, it was high entertainment. Our great grandmother "Ma" (Martha Jensen Rasmussen) used to get dressed up (to the nines, really, hat, gloves and coat) walk down two city blocks to the bus stop and ride to downtown San Diego to go to court. She sometimes went every day and followed the trials--she especially loved the murder trials! Even then as an 8-12 year-old, that seemed a little weird. This is the same lady who made lye soap in her back porch laundry room, and hosted elections in her living room--not usually at the same time. I'm pretty sure this is longer than a post should be, so I'll close here. Stay tuned, you never know which direction my gaze will travel.