1 My first bike

I remember getting my first bicycle. It was on Thursday, June 11, 1959, my brother Jerry's twenty-first birthday. He was off serving a mission in Canada at the time. (I know the date only because my mom recorded the purchase in her diary.)

I had been earning and saving money, selling greeting cards, thinning sugar beets, and other such stuff a nine-year-old boy was able to do. On our farm we used to get paid for thinning or hoeing sugar beets, something like 25 cents a row, as I remember. And they were long, long rows. I don't think we were paid for anything else around the farm. Except grades. I think in an effort to en­courage Ray and Dale to get better grades at school, my parents used to pay for each A on the report card. I didn't need the encouragement, since my report card was typically filled with A's, but I reaped the benefit since they had to be fair about it.

Finally, after a lot of time and effort, I had accumulated the $50 I needed. Well, I actually had $28, and my brother Gene loaned me $22. We went to the bike store in Nampa to pick out my bike. I chose a blue Schwinn. A one-speed.

And then, to my wounded sense of fair play and justice, my parents pro­ceeded to pick one out for Dale, who was seven. His was a red one. A little smaller than mine. He hadn't earned a penny toward his, and here they thought if I had one he should too. Because he was littler than I was. How unfair can life be?

I didn't appreciate it at the time, but my bike was far more fun to have because Dale had one too.

I don't remember particularly when or where I first learned to ride a bike. But I remember clearly that first day we were home with them, and we started circling the open yard where the cars and pickups and tractors and other stuff parked, and seven-year-old Dale was headed straight toward the side of the barn yelling, "How do I stop this thing?" For­tu­nately, neither boy nor bike was too seriously injured as a result of his collision with the barn.

2 Quote of the week

"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation—enlightened as it is—if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men."

— Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

3 This week in our family

Thurs, Oct 28: Andrew born and died 1966 [Kay]
Thurs, Oct 28: Meghan's birthday [Dean]
Thurs, Oct 28: Christopher & Camilla Taylor married 2004 [Dean]
Thurs, Oct 28: Nathan & Amber Thomas married 2006 [Lyle]
Fri, Oct 29: Bobbie Real's birthday [Gene]
Sat, Oct 30: Randy's birthday [Lyle]
Sat, Oct 30: Jeremy Harned's birthday [Gail]
Sun, Oct 31: Jackie Sayer's birthday [Jackie]
Sun, Oct 31: Jaxson's birthday [Kay]

Mon, Nov 1: Dorothy died 1982
Mon, Nov 1: Dylan Rager's birthday [Dale]
Wed, Nov 3: Stan & Patty married 1978 [Lyle]

If ever we are missing anyone's birthday or anniversary, please let us know.

4 Bits and tidbits

Haven't heard much from anyone in the past week or so. Hope you're all doing well. Tomorrow evening, unless it happens before then, our daughter Rachael will give birth to her fourth daughter, Eleanor Hodson. That's when the doctor will induce Rachael since hers is classified as a high-risk pregnancy. Little Eleanor will be Claudia's and my 20th grandchild.