In the first part of August of 1969 we packed our suitcases and our dogs into Grandma's Packard and headed South to an unknown adventure.
The first day was pretty easy. We drove down to Reno and then out to
Pyramid Lake to visit Aunt Georgia (Fite) and her son, Charles. Georgia
was retired, her husband Orville had passed away a few years earlier,
and Charles owned a Music Store in Reno. We got there in the middle of
the week and Aunt Georgia gave us the grand tour of Reno. On Saturday
Charles took us out on Pyramid Lake in his boat and David and I learned how to water
ski. The hardest part of learning to water ski was knowing when to let
go of the tow rope. We both drank a lot of lake water before we had any
success standing upright and skiing. We both got pretty painful sunburns
on our legs from sitting and waiting for our next turn with the skis. We
rested on Sunday and then headed south on Monday. The further South we
went, the hotter it got. We got as far as Tonapah, in northern Arizona
and picked out a nice Motel and called it a day. Grandma rested in the
air conditioned Motel room while David and I spent the afternoon in the
swimming pool. Grandma's car didn't have air conditioning and it was
really hot.
A few hours later we drove into Wickenburg. We found
El Recreo Drive, on the south end of town and we headed up to
Mockingbird Hill where our Great Aunt Jensen's house was. We pulled
into the driveway at the top of the hill. The house was a one bedroom,
one story, cinderblock home. It had a small front porch and walkway. We
had visited our Great Aunt, back in the late 50's or early 60's, on our
way through town as we were moving back from El Paso.
We unlocked the
door and went into the house. The house had been closed up for quite
awhile and was super hot inside. I think that the outside temperature
was about 115 degrees. The first thing we did was to turn on the water
to the swamp cooler and turn it on high. Next, we plugged the
refrigerator in. We unloaded the car and let the dogs check out the new
place. Once we got the car unloaded and everything put away David and I
walked downtown. We walked about 10 blocks and went into a "soda
fountain". We went in and checked out the menu which was on the wall. We
both ordered large cherry cokes. The lady behind the counter picked out
a couple of large glasses and went to work. First, she put ice cubes
into the glasses and poured in come coca cola syrup, some cherry syrup,
and added the soda water from a spigot on a large machine. She then
stirs this mixture up with a long handled spoon and slides them across
the counter to us. My brother and I look at each other and ask "what's
this"? She smiles and says, your cherry cokes. We start drinking and it
was actually very good. It was like we had stepped into a time machine.
We had never seen soda's made from scratch before. We were used to
having the soft drinks poured into a glass with the ingredients
pre-mixed. This was just the beginning of the wonders we were about to
witness.
The next thing we had to do was to register for school. We
had to select our classes and pay for our books. Then we were assigned
gym lockers and had to purchase combination locks to secure our gym
clothes, which we purchased also. Nothing left to do except wait for the
first day of school.
