𝗠𝗬 𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗜𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗪𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗗 𝗕𝗬 𝗔 𝗛𝗔𝗜𝗥𝗖𝗨𝗧

 

Pilot Rock, Oregon

During my elementary school and junior high years, my family was constantly on the move~at least 40 moves that are registered and chronicled in my brain.

In all those years, my dad had one good job, in the boiler room at Boeing in Renton, Washington, then, either lost that job or quit for conscientious reasons, depending on who you believe.

Before and after the good job, he tried the smelly, distasteful job of tanning hides, followed by selling Simcas, selling Renaults, before a second cousin talked him into selling books over the phone, a job that lasted all of a week.

Toward the end of my first semester of 7th grade, we spent 49 days in Battleground, WA, just north of Portland, Oregon and it rained EVERY day.

Then, there was a stable period of about a year, with my dad getting an opportunity to open a new territory for Gates Tires in Eastern Oregon, Western Idaho with The Dalles, La Grande, Pendleton and Ontario in Oregon and Payette, Weiser and Caldwell in Idaho.

In the summer of '60, we landed in Pilot Rock, Oregon, 20 miles south of Pendleton, renting a 3 bedroom ranch style house butted up against a wheat field. (I found myself constantly staring across that wheat field, not being able to see its end, only barren hills in the distance.  After harvest, I quickly learned that bare feet and wheat stubble were not a good match.)

Changing schools frequently, you're always the "new kid," sometimes you're put down and sometimes embraced. (In Battleground, they viewed me as scholastically-challenged and put me in remedial classes despite my protests.)

Pilot Rock was the polar opposite of Battleground, especially since, at age 12, Northwestern Bell put me in Pilot Rock's Teenager Phone Book, an appendage to the regular one.  I got several calls a day, with my mom handing me the phone:  "It's for you." (My fundamentalist dad would have stopped those calls, but he was out trying to sell tires.)

A girl named "Mary" always invited me to pickup baseball games, where a group of boys the same age imitated the swings of Mantle, Mays and Willie McCovey and the pitching mechanics of Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax.

The informal group got very good at baseball, hitting, fielding and pitching, turning double plays, catching long flies in the outfield, using the knowledge some had gained in Little League or by watching Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese do the Game of the Week on TV.

When someone we later learned was a Little League coach saw me pull a pitch over the left field fence of the high school field, he asked to take the mound, then tossed me about a dozen easy pitches over the plate, half of which I knocked over the fence. (He couldn't believe I was just 12.)

School was also great as I was well-received and recognized as very smart, in sharp contrast to Battleground.

In the hallways, shared by high school and junior high school students, people kept telling me:  "Shania likes you."

To be sure, there were some newfound sexual feelings stirring within me, but dating was not on my menu, especially since it was forbidden by the fundamentalist religion of my birth.

Things got even more serious when a high school couple stopped me in the hall:  "Shania really likes you," they said in earnest.

When someone finally pointed out this girl to me, my mouth dropped, as to me, that was more of a woman than a girl.  I learned that she lived on the Umatilla Reservation.

Young Umatilla girl

A boy named Tim claimed he'd dated Shania once and bragged that she wore "pink panties," something that, even at 12, I knew better than to believe.  He also claimed she'd left school for a year to have a baby and that she was now 14.

Anyway, through the junior high grapevine, I learned that Shania wanted to dance with me at the upcoming Sock Hop.

While my dad would have NEVER let me go to a school dance, my mom said "sure" when I asked.

"But, we'll have to do something with your hair," mom said.

My normally blonde hair had turned white in the sun playing baseball every day.  It was also very long and I combed in into a ducktail in the back.

Mom took out the barber trimmers, adding the attachment and gave me a butch cut all over with a ton of hair hitting the floor.  

Wasting no time, I ran to the school gym's dance floor and was met by a taller girl for a pretend dance.  We danced around balloons and I stomped on a couple of them.

Thanking her, I moved on and was met by the high school couple.

"We just talked to Shania.  She doesn't like you anymore now that you cut your hair."

I ran home just as fast as I'd run to the gym, vowing to never allow my hair to be cut short again.