Sitkum Childhood

My family: Keith, Helene, Michael and I, lived in the Coos Bay Timber Co.’s Sitkum logging camp housing, built close to the east fork of the Coquille River. Sitkum, a small community in a narrow valley of the coastal range, thrived in the post WW2 boom. Eisenhower was president, timber was plentiful, the housing market strong. Times were good.

Mom worked at the camp cookhouse to earn money for a piano. She’d take us along and Michael and I got to choose a little carton of cereal and then eat it right out of the box, a big treat. The excitement level was high when the long yearned for piano was delivered. Dad played his guitar and Mom played the piano one-handed with the cornet in the other for an occasional toot. We kids danced and sang. Our Post grandparents doted on us and loved to watch our performances thinking us quite brilliant.

Bruce was born during this time. I remember a very pregnant Mom gone to Myrtle Point for doctor appointments while Dad cooked up pancakes in shapes of dinosaurs and whales for Michael and my dinner. A record flood overflowed the banks of the river, stranding our community in the spring of 1957, before Bruce turned one year. The National Guard evacuated us by “duck”, amphibious tanks into Myrtle Point. When we boarded Mom handed Bruce up and over the side of the duck to a soldier who released him on the deck and Bruce took his first steps.

My parents bought a small two-bedroom house under construction a few miles from the logging camp. It was framed but the interior wasn’t done so Dad and Mom did the finish work with lots of help. A bunch of friends showed up one Saturday with a truck load of plywood for a housewarming party. They laid the flooring in an afternoon then gave it a tryout as a dance floor that evening. Michael and I were put to bed, not to sleep though as there was an intriguing gap in the wall between our bedroom and the bathroom. From our observation point on the top bunk we watched the adults using the toilet until our giggles gave us away and we got a good scolding for our efforts.

Our house sat on a hilltop in a Myrtle tree grove, (their fragrant leaves suspiciously identical to the bay leaf Mom cooked in spaghetti sauce). Our land was rampant with wild blackberries and poison oak. We were all susceptible to poison oak rash, except Michael who’d show-off his immunity by rubbing the leaves on his body and never getting a rash. Household water was pumped from a year-round stream running through a forested section of the property. Michael and I caught a small trout swimming there with our bare hands. It was still squirming as we rushed it home and Mom fried it up for our lunch.

We were neighbored on one side by the Laird dairy, where we bought our milk, and by the Reynolds ranch on the other. Michael and I would climb over the fence and explore the dairy property. An ancient rusted car captured our imagination – it was so far from a road, we couldn’t imagine how it came to that end. We’d catch a cow and squirt warm milk into each others mouth. We played constantly with the Reynolds kids, Joe, and Susie. We’d walk out in the field where their horses grazed, halters hidden behind our backs, and lure them close enough with sugar cubes or carrots to pop on the halters and take off. We disdained saddles. We’d play cowboys and Indians, shooting at each other with imaginary guns, waiting for a big patch of scouring rush to fall into when “shot”.

Mom built a tree-house platform for us in a Myrtle tree near the house. Michael fell off and landed on his back one day. I scrambled down in time to see big bubbles foaming from his mouth. He was rushed to the hospital in Myrtle Point Hospital for treatment, leaving a forlorn me behind. We were tight, 22 months apart, and I worshipped the ground he walked on. I have a memory fragment of him standing in the corner for punishment while I cried beside him in sympathy.

Traveling 27 car-rattling miles from Sitkum to Myrtle Point over a narrow twisting gravel road wash boarded from logging trucks was an event. It took a minimum of one hour. The road, not wide enough to merit a center-line, hugged a bit of hewed-out ground, landslide prone hills on one side and a deep gorge sheerly dropping into the faraway silvery ribbon of the river on the other. There were no guard rails to keep our car from hurtling down into the massive rock encrusted maw of the gorge save for a massive Douglas Fir log seated on the barest edge of a cliff on one particularly wicked curve. Each blind corner hid certain death if a log truck came barreling along at the precise instant as our car. There was a definite thrill factor in a simple trip to town, for me anyway. I never slept during the ride along the gorge, certain my vigilance increased the odds of a safe trip. I’d feign sleep once I’d spotted the dairy so Dad would carry me into the house.

Sometimes Mom ran a quick errand leaving us waiting in the car. Michael had a recurring fantasy that kidnappers lurked nearby and he spun defense tactic after tactic in preparation. Once he sounded the alarm, Bruce and I were instructed to jump out of the car and run screaming at the top of our lungs into the nearest public place (a sidewalk width away) while he fought off our attackers with his trusty pocket knife, or better yet his hatchet. I don’t think Mom ever sensed the danger we’d faced in her absence.

During the school year a tiny yellow school bus picked us up at the end of our road and delivered us to the Sitkum School. The school had two classrooms, grades one through four in one, five through eight in the other. An office for the principal served double duty as a library, one wall anyway. The bookmobile arrived on a regular schedule supplementing our book supply. I checked out “Little Toot” as often as I was allowed. The school grounds had a house for the teachers, usually a married couple. A fine gym was in a third building. It had basketball grade floors where we roller-skated on Thursday afternoons. A cafeteria occupied the lower floor where hot lunch was prepared daily. A stage overlooking the gym was used for school plays, community events, and church services.

The Reynolds family went to church regularly and I often tagged along. We’d be sitting in our row of folding chairs, I’d listen as the sermon began, and then the pastor’s voice would fade to a pleasant drone in the background as I became immersed in the play of light streaming through the windows. After most sermons Mrs. Alice Stroud, a doughy faced statuesque woman dressed in a full-skirted cotton dress, would warble bird calls. It was a joy to hear. Western Meadowlarks, purple finches and golden-crested sparrows, not that I discerned the different calls, it was just so amazing to watch this grandmotherly figure pucker up her lips and create magnificent bird song.

Mom sewed all of my clothes. I loved pedal pushers. She favored dresses with puffy sleeves, full skirts with big sashes tied in the back, some vision of a demure little girl futilely lodged in her brain. Dresses were required for girls so off to school I’d go in a flouncy dress, all neat and tidy. I’d come home with my dress crumpled and dirty, and likely with new scrapes on my legs. She despaired over the state of my scratched and bruised legs.

Mild weather conditions and fertile soil produced a wealth of vegetables from our garden. We feasted on heaping plates of sliced tomatoes daily as long as the season lasted. Mom canned green beans and tomatoes from the garden. We made a yearly produce run to Roseburg for peaches and apples. Her canned peaches were highly prized; we kids preferred them to fresh. Piquant aromas scented the kitchen when Mom made mincemeat, a mix of ground elk neck meat, onions, and apples, with cider, raisins and spices. Come winter she’d bake exceptional mincemeat pie so good even the bottom crust was flaky.

We ate dinner at the kitchen table together every night. Mom must have aced nutrition in home-ec. We had meat, potatoes, and three colors of vegetables at every dinner followed by homemade dessert. Mom is a fine cook - of most things, the exception is meat, that woman can take the best cut of meat and desecrate it to a state of jerky. I was scolded every night because I’d chew that stringy meat, savoring whatever juice I could find, and then spit out the gray remains on my plate. One evening Mom called us to dinner once – where we watched in astonishment as she poured a glass of milk on the table saying “Now, we’ve got that out of the way” as she wiped up the spill then sat down to eat.

Mom and Dad were voracious readers. Dad read us our nightly bedtime stories; childrens rhymes, legends and lore. He’d change the storyline or his voice to keep our attention. He read the Book of Revelations to us, not a particularly good choice for his imaginative children. For a sixth birthday party Michael and friends (Bruce and I deemed too young) saw a horror movie, “The Blob” in Myrtle Point. Michael suffered horrendous nightmares for months, thrashing about groaning in terror until he woke screaming. That experience eliminated any chance of scary movies for me and Bruce.

Using directions gleaned from a “Popular Mechanics” magazine Dad built a cannon for sheer fun. Bruce had a big rubber ball that perfectly fit the barrel. Dad set the charge then fired the cannon and we kids retrieved the ball for round after round until Bruce tired of the chase and reclaimed his ball. We had a telescope and dark, dark nights, free from city sky glow. Dad taught us to identify stars and constellations.

We got television when I was six, a black and white Zenith. The signal was spotty, the reception cloudy with ghosts and static, but usually clear enough to catch a good western. “Have Gun Will Travel” , “Maverick” and “Gunsmoke” were favorites of the entire family. Dad bought an issue of “Mad Magazine”, the first I’d seen, the feature story spoofing Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty in “Gunsmoke”. We watched in wonder when the storyline of the next episode of “Gunsmoke” was the same as the spoof.

During the summers Dad worked the “hoot owl” shift, leaving for the woods when it was dark to cut timber before the day got too hot and increased fire danger. He’d get home early so we’d load up the car and head to one of many swimming holes for the afternoon. Mom often packed a picnic dinner. I’d dog paddle in the shady shallows near the bank, chasing after minnows and crawdads. I learned to swim in the warm, green river water.

Myrtle Point, the county seat, hosted the fair every July. I’d be overcome with excitement during the tortuously slow trip into town, imagining the scent of cotton candy in the air, the vivid colors of the merry go round, carnies hawking kewpie dolls and goldfish swimming in water filled plastic bags, the swell of music, swarms of people everywhere, the main street parade. We’d make a candy run at the dime store then line up along the street to watch the parade. Some years Jeanne would ride by, wearing a cowboy hat and dressed in fancy western garb, her horse prancing on the pavement. I’d swell with pride at that sight, my cousin in the parade. We’d meet up with Grandma and Grandpa who took us kids to the rodeo while the folks went honky tonky-ing at the fair dance.

We kids spent the weekend at Powers or at Bob and Carol’s ranch in Broadbend. Poor Uncle Bob, four women in the household and only one bathroom, an array of Avon products like a yellow bottle of Topaz lotion, decorating the counter, the bathroom always smelled sweet. Broadbend had one store/gas station, a community church, and a grade school. Betsy, Jeanne and Gayle had, wonder of wonders, a charge account at the market. The market had a small selection of toys and somebody usually bought me a minuscule plastic tea set that usually lasted for two tea parties before coming apart at the seams. I had a penchant for tea parties, sometimes Aunt Carol allowed me to use her “Desert Rose” China tea set for full blown tea parties.

We’d sleep in the screened summer porch, zipping two sleeping bags together. All of us kids would squirm into the sleeping bags, laughing and talking in the dark. We could fart at will so a dare game evolved where one by one we took turns at the bottom while the others all broke wind. Being able to hold my breath for a limited time I was delighted to find an air gap where the two bags zipped together. It later turned out that everyone had discovered the same gap.

We’d breakfast on dry cereal with fresh cream from the previous nights milking. We were water dogs, the river was nearby and warm in July and we’d spend most of the day diving and splashing in the water with a bunch of Broadbend kids, not a parent in sight. On the way home we’d swing by the market and buy fudgecicles on account.

The Oregon Centennial in 1959 was a statewide celebration of life and industry. Timber was king and the search was on for the biggest tree in the state for exhibit at the State Forestry Center. That tree, a majestic 286-foot high Douglas Fir, was found deep in the woods not far from Sitkum. International Harvester sent a photographer and a film crew from Chicago to document the event. School was closed for the day. The community flocked to the site to witness the tree being logged. There was my father putting on his spurs, wrapping his ropes around the Herculean tree trunk and climbing higher and higher with his chainsaw in one hand lobbing off branches in the way until he reached the perfect height to slice off the tree crown. It fell with a resounding boom, the big tree swaying in the wake with Dad holding tight, so very, very far from the ground. It was a glorious moment. In the aftermath Dad was dubbed “Keith the Giant Killer” in the Oregonian and on a film reel we watched at the school. Dad was kidded for years about that name.

That day was the pinnacle of logging in the area. My early childhood was one long sunny day, surely a state of mind because although Sitkum sits in a banana belt, it gets 50 inches of rain annually.

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