I amaged to scrape by in the fourth grade but it was getting harder to
fly undfer the radar scholastically. My best friend was Buddy Kelly.
Mrs. Beyerle got mad at Buddy one day and grabbed him by the ear and
dragged him out into the hallway for a couple hacks. While she was
dragging Buddy out into the hallway he was pleading with her. He said
"but I didn't do anything". She told him, that's the problem, you didn't
do "anything"! I was really glad to move on from that class.
Next up was fifth grade. My teacher in the fifth grade was Mrs. Duval.
She was very nice and her class was very pleasant. My favorite subject
was still recess. I became interested in girls in the fifth grade. I
fell in love with a girl named Donna Carr. Her family lived on Chambers
Court, right behind Sam Case Elementary School. There was a little
walkway in the back of the school that connected the school with
Chambers Court. The kids that lived there were home in five minutes. I
walked home, to Lake St. and it took about half an hour. Sometines, I
would go through Chambers Court to get home. We would go throug a ravine
and come in the back way to a property that was abandoned and used to
belong to a large construction company called E. A. White. The property
was huge and was strewn with all kinds of old equipment like tractors,
dump trucks and graders. we used to spend time playing on all the old
equipment. We used to lose track of time and when we got home Mom would
be mad at us for taking so long to get home, she presumed we were up to
no-good. She eventually put us on a schedule and only gave us thirty
minutes to get home from school.
We could cut through that property and
come out on Highway 101, right next to the "Little Store". This driveway
that we would come out on was directly opposite of 15th street. We
would then walk about five blocks west to Lake St. and we would be home.
Most streets in the Northwest part of town were still gravel and very
dusty.
The church that we attended was across the street from Sam Case, "All
Nations Luteren Church". We used to go on an irregular basis and finally
it was just my brother and I going to church on Sunday's. After a couple
of months my brother and I would go across the street and play on the
playground at Sam Case. We would then stop at the Dairy Queen, on the
way home, and buy a Coke and some tater tots with the money we were
supposed to be putting into the donation box at church. This went on
like this for a month or so until we were found out and our parents quit
making us go to church on Sunday. After they dropped us off at church
they would just go home and go back to bed, rising about fifteen minutes
before we would get home.
While we lived on Lake St. dad was still on the Police force, working on
the graveyard shift mostly. We always had to be quiet on the weekends so
he could get his sleep.The Newport City Police Department got car
mounted radar equipment. It wasn't a rolling radar unit it was for
stationary use (radar trap) only. He brought his patrol car home one day
to show off the radar unit. He parked out in the street and my brother
and I took turns running up to the car to see how fast we were running.
Dad was into guns and always seemed to be oiling his or building a new
holster. He built his first swivel holster at home. He was the only one
on the Police Force that had a swivel holster. I was always into
uniforms and guns and often daydreamed about being a Soldier or
Policeman. As children, we were always playing Cops and Robbers or
Soldiers like G.I. Joe.
