Mom (Margie's) Memories

We have a life history that Mom/Margie wrote, covering her childhood and bit of the married years (History of Marjorie Norman Westra) but the recent memories from older family history (Grandma Olive's Childhood Memories, I Remember Mama/Dad, the latter delves into many of Grandma Lucille's childhood memories) inspired Mom to write up some more memories from her childhood, growing up in Murray, Utah  ... 

... and a few Disney-fied photos via Voila as our accompanying image.

Margie's Memories ...

• When we were little and playing at the house where my mom grew up "Up the Creek" as they referred to it... there was a little ditch in front of the house. My cousins and I would float little boats made of leaves and twigs. We would find dandelions with long stems and pick them at the bottom of the long stem. Then we would take a bobby pin/hairpin and take off the little rubber end so it was sharp----then we would use the sharp metal end to make slices down the long stem from the floor to the base of the stem. Then we would dip it into the cold ditch and all the little strips of stem would curl up tightly, up to the flower. 
• We had a field behind our lawn. We kids would have a bonfire and roast foil-wrapped potatoes in the coals and eat them with salt. Good we didn't set the field on fire---it sure wouldn't be allowed today!
• In this same field, with long grass/weeds with the soft tops (kids would chew on the sweet stems, like you see farmers doing in movies), we would stomp down some of the weeds flat and create rooms and doorways, like a playhouse. 
• We had a little ditch just beyond this field where we played. I remember when a little neighbor boy drowned in the ditch and how I felt so sick when I heard. Our parents in the neighborhood used to warn us little kids about the "greeny-teeth monster" to keep us away from the ditch.
• One time I was roasting a marshmallow on a stick and it caught on fire. I brought it up quickly to blow it out and hit my nose and the hot marshmallow stuck on my nose and burned it. For several years, in the summer, when I would go swimming, my nose would turn red and the kids would call me "Rudolph."
• Nelva used to hate having me tag along with her and her friends on bike rides, etc. So on streets away from our street, she would call them "kidnapper's lane" to scare me so I wouldn't follow them there.
• We had a small bike shed behind our garage (our 4568 Boxelder Street home in Murray) that my dad made. It had a slanted roof and room for about 3 bicycles. I can't remember if it even had a door. I remember one night, playing night games and hiding in the bike shed with a boy a couple years older than me and he kissed me.
• Behind the bike shed, we had a dug-out shelter where we stored our bottled fruit and such. Just dirt walls and a large lift-up trap door that you would lift up and hook it to hold it up while you went down the stairs. I hated to go down there with spiders, etc.!! The trap door was part of a building which had our playhouse above the cellar. We had a little play stove there, etc. I remember one time, as a mean prank, Nelva locked me in the playhouse. I was scared and afraid she would leave me there for hours or all night.
• We had a sand pile in front of the bike shed. When I was a little girl playing in the sand pile, a bee landed on me. I was very afraid of bees and spiders, etc.---hate them to this day! For months I would not go play in the sand pile wearing the same clothes I had been wearing that day---because I was afraid the bee would recognize me and sting me!
• A lot of fun without spending money. Very different from some of the kid's lives today.