Cleaning in the Genes

On the blog, we feature Adria in her new job as a bagger (Being a Bagger, Then and Now), and family emails brought up some memories from Derek and Jen, as they had also been baggers as a first job. That's not the only paralleled employment in Westra family history.

Cooper got a job this year as a junior custodian at the nearby elementary school. Going in after the school day is done, and wiping down desks, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming. Looking at family history, Ate Westra was a custodian at LDS Business College. The page above is from the 1929 school yearbook. Ate was in charge of the "Y" building there. Cooper isn't the only Westra working this way ... Camden (Chris's son, also the fourth boy, same as Coop)  cleans at Midvale Middle School in the afternoons.

Grandpa/LaMar also did some cleaning (and more) at the schools in his teens, from his history:

I worked each summer for the Granite School District, starting about age 14. My dad was the purchasing agent. The main offices were in a small two story building on State Street just north of 33rd South. My dad knew everyone at the school district, and got me jobs, first in the Cannery at about 25 cents per hour, and then on the cleaning crew. The crew was made up of 5-6 teachers, and 5-6 young guys like me. We would travel from school to school and clean rest rooms and dough clean walls and ceilings with wallpaper cleaner: soft pink stuff you would wipe over the surface and it would clean the dirt off. We would build scaffolding to get to the ceilings. It got quite precarious in rooms like the Granite High School auditorium. We would be way up there on the scaffold, walking a thin 2 by 8 plank, swinging our arm wildly from side to side. Then we would throw the dough at each other. Then I got jobs on the plumbing crew, installing and repairing sprinkler systems. The last jobs I had were watering new lawns as they were planted. They planted seed, which needed watering every day. I brought up new lawns at Granger High, and several elementary schools: Eastwood, East Mill Creek, etc.

Grandma/Margie mentioned that Grandma Lucille (Grandpa/LaMar's mother) worked in the schools for many years too, although she was a secretary, not on the cleaning crew. When she remarried though, her second husband Vic Burgener was over all the janitorial work for Granite School District.

Cooper learned about his ancestor Ate as he wrote up this report for his history class. One of the most basic things he learned, is that "Ate" is pronounced "Ah-Tay" ... not ate, like the past tense of eat!

Here's the rest of Cooper's presentation - the page above was actually the final page.

See Ate's Biography and more photos HERE.

More on the various homes the family lived in HERE.

Lots of Leaves

It's Fall Y'all ... if you look up to the mountains, you'll see the leaves changing color. Facebook has been flooded with pretty images. Looking through the family Dropbox, there were lots of LEAVES photos too, and a couple of scrapbook pages, old and new.

With my recent interest in family, and local, history, I've been following a "Utah Archive" site on Facebook, they recently shared a pamphlet created by Utah State's Tourist and Publicity Council, which existed between 1953 and 1967. Their job was to publicize the scenic and tourist attractions of Utah.

Compare it to the listing on the website today!

https://utah.com/scenic-drive/fall-colors

We know many of the Westras love to spend time in the mountains!

Gray and Jen did a little Autumn driving last year ...

Will we get more unbe-LEAF-able photos this year?

Ending with a little #2020 humor ...

A Plethora of Projects and a Pair of Parodies

 

I think most families are familiar with the popular children's book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" featuring a cute little mouse who wants more and more ... and more. The parallel to home projects is pretty predictable (continuing on with my title alliteration). You start with one thing, but changing it makes you realize something else should be changed as well, and so on and so on ...

The Blackham family did some home renovations in 2020 ... as Callahan got married and moved out, Keaton would be taking over that bedroom. But the wall was damaged, so it was necessary to fix the wall. Then that wall needed to be painted, so why not paint the whole room ... I mean the whole basement? With the fresh paint, the old carpet looks awful, so replacing the flooring is next. New lights are next. Where do you stop painting? Best to just continue all the way upstairs, right? The Blackham renovations stopped there. For NOW anyway (the kitchen floors no longer match the new paint, but then the cabinets, which match the floor, would need to be replaced too, then would the furniture match?)

Derek and Danielle had numerous projects in their home during 2020 (with quarantine, there wasn't a whole lot else to do!). In August, in an email he mentioned:

I've had a dumb little idea for a parody children's book for a while. We were talking to our friends about their new sofa, and she was saying: "so, we got the new sofa, and we love it - but it doesn't match our room perfectly, so we needed to get some new throw pillows, and then a rug - but the rug was too big for the space so we had to..." then she proceeded to talk about all the things that resulted from the new sofa. I joked how it was like the kid's book "If You Give A Mouse a Cookie." So I finally sat down and wrote out "If You Give a Spouse a Sofa" in the same style. See attached.

Wendy commented that SHE had also written a parody of this SAME little story based on a drippy-door painting project back in 2009! Here's a link to her blog post about it, and the text included below ...

Have you ever heard the story "If you give a mouse a cookie?"
Well, here is our TRUE story of "If you give your husband a request..."

If you ask your husband to put the closet doors back on your daughter's room (that he took off and put in the shed two months ago to paint and never did), then he will go and rent a paint sprayer so that he can spray the door before putting it back on...

And if he rents a spray gun to spray the door, he will decide to spray all of the closet doors that are sitting in the shed before putting them back on...

And if he decides to spray all of the closet doors before putting them back on, he will also take off all of the other doors in the house in order to paint them too (even if his wife tells him over and over not to)...

And if he takes all of the other doors off their hinges, then he will carry them all into the garage and stand them up while he attempts to paint them (even if his wife tells him that it looks very precarious and perhaps he should lean them against the garage wall instead)...

And if he balances the closet doors capriciously, and begins to paint them with the paint sprayer, then right before he is almost finished painting all of them, one will fall over and knock another, which will knock another, which will knock another, until just like dominoes, all of the freshly painted doors are now all over the garage floor with paint everywhere and a husband who is covered from head to toe in splattered white paint...

And if there is a husband covered with splattered white paint and doors all over the ground, then the paint splattered husband will enlist the help of his tired wife who was almost ready to crawl into bed, while he tries to brush the drippy paint (and dirt) off the doors. 

And while brushing debris and splattered paint off the doors, the husband will ask his wife if she will hold the doors while he sprays them. The wife, not wanting to be sprayed in the face with a paint sprayer, politely declines but attempts to help brush the drippy paint. But since the wife's painting skills are no better than her husbands, she is not much help.

And after two frustrated tired people try to salvage messy doors, the husband will try again, re-spraying all of the doors making more drippy paint.

And after leaving the doors dripping with paint and the time almost midnight, the husband will ask the wife if he should go paint the outside doors now.

And if the wife exasperatedly vetoes that idea, the next morning, the husband will go check on the doors and inform his wife that all of the doors look like someone just threw a bucket of paint on them and they are now completely ruined. 

And if the doors are ruined, the determined husband will still go ahead and begin to paint the outside doors of the house.

And if the husband begins to paint the outside doors of the house, the paint sprayer will start to spray paint in every direction.

And after the paint sprayer starts to spray paint in every direction, the husband will bag the paint sprayer and start to paint with a brush.

And after the husband starts to paint with a brush, he will run out of paint and go to Home Depot to get some more.

And if the husband goes to Home Depot in order to get more paint, they will say that they don't have any more paint in that color.

And after going to Home Depot and being told they don't have any more of that kind of paint, the husband will get very indignant, and blame the sprayer and Home Depot and the doors and say, "I never should have started this project..."

And after the husband frets and complains and blames Home Depot, the sprayer, and the doors; the wife will murmur under her breath...but will refrain from thinking, "This is what I get for marrying a musician/teacher instead of a handyman.."

And after the fretting and murmuring, the husband will tell the sons to go ahead and put the dried drippy doors back on their hinges so that he and his wife can fulfill their obligation at the temple that evening...

And after the boys put the dried drippy doors back on their hinges, the husband hurries and puts the still slightly wet outside doors back on so that the baby will not escape and the kids won't freeze with the approaching evening.

And with the doors back on the hinges, the husband and wife leave the 11 year old son in charge of baby-sitting all of the kids, fixing dinner, and putting on the rest of the doorknobs, since the 13 year old daughter got a last minute invitation to see the movie, "New Moon."

And if the husband and wife get home from the temple and find that all is well (except for having to live with dried drippy doors)...

And if all of this happens on the husband's birthday...then the wife has no choice but to close her eyes so that she doesn't see dried drippy doors and ask her husband to sing her a nice soothing love song...and tell him that someday they will laugh over this day, and that they will celebrate his birthday tomorrow...

And please oh please, if you happen to come visit this particular house, just don't ask who painted the doors!

Check out the Westra Writing ~ Stories and Poetry for other creative contributions over the years! And here's a little look at a little book Derek wrote and had animated ...

 

Timeless Toys

Thinking back on days of childhood play, there were so many toys that stand out in my memory. I was able to find images of a few. Some are still available in updated formats, others may be found on ebay at inflated prices for vintage items. Mom and Dad have hung on to some of the family favorites that stand the test of time. I know I picked up a few sentimental toys at the thrift store over the years (then as kids have grown and we've purged, they've gone back to thrift store for the next sentimental person to find). 

Can you remember the little tune the Fisher-Price clock would play when you wound up the back? Or the "ding" when the little car reached the top of the elevator and slid down the ramp? Making ooey-gooey creepy crawly bugs, racing cars down the orange hot wheels tracks and trying to memorize the code on Merlin ... The colored blocks (pictured above) that had a little figure inside, matching the letter on the outside, and the many different ways those blocks could be clicked together.

I remember the big horse ... I'm still surprised I don't remember anyone's fingers getting caught in the springs. Lots of Big Wheels over the years. The Fun Fountain (clown water toy) in the summer (Derek had a memory, and here's an old commercial featuring it!) Big Henry and Little Henry (Jen's stuffed doggies) and Wendy's Toto. The "musical marble" tower. The stacking rings.  The homemade play rug with a full city for us to drive our cars around on, and the dollhouses (which became "smurf" houses when smurfs were all the rage ... you can see them in old Westra film reels, here's a link to it, starting at Christmas 1972, where you get a good glimpse of them, as well as a bike and big wheel). There was a big box of Lincoln Logs at Grandma Burgener's house, and Grandma Norman had a box of toys too. Grandma and Grandpa Westra have a huge toy cupboard! Pop beads and bristle blocks and lots of balls. Ping Pong, a mini-pool table and lots of legos. 

Big Wheel, and a glimpse of one of the homemade dollhouses in Christmas 1972. The Simon game, SO MANY stuffed animals! And SPOOLS! They work as blocks, or as bubble blowers with Grandma Norman. 

Memories from Mom/Margie ...

We still have the toybox, sans the lid. Remember colored Simon, where you had to repeat the sequence? We still have the orange hot wheels tracks, that the grandkids have loved through the years. I remember every kid in the neighborhood would come over asking to play with our big wheel in Richland.  The big wheel on the front would wear through fairly quickly with use. So it got to the point that I didn't like to let all the neighbor kids in Richland use it----especially when they weren't even playing with our kids! They would just ring the bell and ask to use the Big Wheel. No one else seemed to own one in the neighborhood and we had to keep replacing ours over and over. I don't remember that you could just replace the large wheel, and had to buy the whole thing. I remember the day when I was far pregnant with Jeni and so tired and laying down for a rest, when the doorbell rang. A big truck driver, visibly shaken, told me, "I just came this close to killing your son!" Chris, age 4, had been zooming down our little bit steep driveway and into the street on his big wheel, and the truck had almost hit him! Scary! And guilt for a mom not watching their little kids every minute of every day. I wish we had good photos of your 2 dollhouses---one 2-storied with the open side and the other a top open view. I think they were made by my dad or by LaMar or one by each. Big Henry and little Henry dogs----brings to mind the cute picture we have when you guys buried little Derek in stuffed animals and it is hard to find his little face amongst all the toys. I remember you all as toddlers, pulling the "chatter phone" and the sound it would make, as the eyes rolled and you would "call" Daddy at work. And you as toddlers would push the "popcorn popper" pictured next to the "chatter phone."

Just as kids today wouldn't know how to use a rotary phone ... the little FisherPrice pull-toy rotary phone has been replaced by toy "cell" phones with lots of buttons and noises.

What toys do you think stand the test of time? 

What toys will your kids look back on as a sentimental favorite?

Here's a little look at a toy over two generations.
Derek 1982 //Landon&Callahan 2000

Little Red Caboose ...

It was April 28, 2015 when Scott wrote an email (which is pretty momentous in and of itself), he included a picture with the note "Guess what I found? A whole box of childhood!" And sure enough, it was! Oh the memories music can create! "Little Red Caboose" is probably the most remembered song for the Westra siblings (at least for the older four kids). I remember we would take the square case and use it for a "wheel" as we "chug, chug, chugged" around the front room.  Even in today's tech-savvy world, I'd been unable to find a copy of the Chip 'n Dale version of the song we loved.

So ... take the train back to childhood. Chug, chug chug!
(click HERE for video)

I

Summer Gone To The Birds

 (this will be backdated to July 2020)

Derek's front porch has a cute swing. It's been featured in many family photos. In the summer of 2020 however, a new family took ownership of said swing. A hummingbird family! There on one of the top knots, a mama hummingbird built a nest and laid two tiny eggs. Derek's family had a front row (or front window) view of all the hummingbird happenings, and Derek got some video so family and friends could also get a peek.  Here's some of the video updates he shared on Facebook ...

https://youtu.be/5Qn6v4fWJlo

... and amazingly enough, this wasn't the only bird family to take up residence at D&D's abode, a little earlier in the year, a momma robin built a nest and laid four little eggs. Derek documented that too ...

https://youtu.be/o3JJyyEydco

In July, Derek wrote "Final hummingbird update: The birds have flown the nest, and the Westras have taken black their porch! We loved all the birds this year, and had a 6 for 6 success ratio (with all four baby robins and 2 baby hummingbirds surviving). The hummingbirds were so cute and fun to watch, but they were SO messy and pooped all over. Our Saturday chores included deep cleaning the whole porch, and removing their nests. Sad to see them go, but glad to have our space back. "

This wasn't the first hummingbird nest for one of the Westras. 

Back in 2016, when Shane's family was living in California, Alicia wrote ...

• (February 21) The girls discovered a hummingbird nest in one of the trees by our garage! We were excited to find that it even has two tiny hummingbird eggs in it. 
• (March 6) one of the hummingbird eggs in the nest hatched this week! Now there is a little ball of feather fluff with a beak in the nest. We haven't gotten a great photo yet...we'll keep trying. 
• (March 13) We've been anxiously watching our baby hummingbird grow! The other egg never hatched, sadly. The baby hummingbird is almost filling up the whole nest. It's fun to peek in at it.

The Blackham home has housed some birds too ... but they just get starlings, which aren't as cute! You can check out a post on the Blackham Blog about them (Noisy Birds). And then of course, there were the DUCKS (several blog posts about the ducks, but to see the hatching caught on camera, click HERE). Ducklings are on the go just a few hours out of the egg, very different than the helpless little robins and hummingbirds. Another winged set of progression pictures and video of  Monarch Memories is on the Blackham Blog as well. 

Old-Fashioned Film and Video

When I  finished up the "Red Pig" post, Wendy let me know about another photo of Baby Scottie on the red pig. In fact, in this photo, you could actually tell the pig was red! It was in color. The other, more familiar photo, was black&white.

Over the years, I think we'd seen many of these black&white pictures. In photo albums, and then when Wendy created the wonderful book for Mom and Dad's 50th anniversary, she took all those old negatives and had them converted to digital files. Those pictures were now easily accessible in Dropbox, and in the printed book. There was the occasional color picture in the earlier years, but they were few and far between. It wasn't until just recently, when Chris took Dad's slides, and got them converted to digital, that more of these color pictures have surfaced. There are quite a few pictures that are obviously taken at the same time (moments apart) to the more familiar b&w shots.

I've asked Dad, and I've done some Googling ... and I THINK, that there must have been different film types. If you were taking pictures for slides, or taking them for prints/negatives, you'd load different film into your camera. I guess it's possible that perhaps it was in the processing that the end result occurred, but I don't think so, I think you had to plan from the start. I don't know if the same camera could work with different types of film, and even if it did, you'd have to stick with one or the other until the film roll was completed.  I asked Dad if he remembered having two different cameras, and stopping and taking a photo with one (to get a slide shot) and then the other (to get a print/negative.) He doesn't remember that, but admitted to having two cameras ... and he said that they both likely have an unfinished roll of film in them!

When Chris went to get the slides processed, he and Dad thought they were mostly mission memories (and there are a lot of those), but we were all happily surprised to find quite a few early photos of the family as well. Some color-recreations of familiar photos, but lots of new pictures as well. All in color!

We are pretty spoiled today, being able to see the picture immediately after taking it, not having to buy film, and then wait and pay to get it developed. Then, there was often just one copy of a photo/slide/negative, and if it was lost, it was gone.  Now it is easy to take, store and share pictures. Video too ... looking back through my own video history, I recall the big VHS recorder, then the switch to a smaller camcorder with mini-tapes. Then as digital cameras were introduced, I was able to take a picture or a video using the same device ... although I still had my separate video camera as well. Now video saves to a drive and it's easy to copy, share and play with. And you can take both pictures and video on your phone!

Before the VHS even though, were film reels. I don't know exactly what that type of video camera looked like, I can't recall being filmed with it, but I DO remember when Dad would set up the reels and project the moving pictures onto the wall. No sound, just images. We'd laugh when Dad would stop and reverse it, and suddenly we were going back up the slide instead of down!

Sometime in the past, we had the old reels converted ... to VHS. Now that VHS is obsolete (Mom and Dad still have a VCR though, just FYI), time to convert them again. Skipping DVD, straight to digital. The quality isn't great. There's the original conversion, and then I'm not sure of the condition of the tape that was sent it. There was some obvious issues, but still, it's fun to get a little peek at the Westra Siblings way back in the day, IRL ...  I'll be grabbing portions and pieces to go with specific blog posts in the future, but if you wanted to look at the entire tape (it's two hours ... covering 1969-1984) it's on youtube/below, and in GoogleDrive (where you could download a copy if desired).