Some Vehicle Stories

Reno

Sometime during 1969 or 1970 David and I decided to go for a ride…to Reno.  It just sounded like a fun thing to do.  It must have been a Sunday, since that was the only day David had off back then.  We got in the car and were driving along having a great time.  The weather was good and we were both enjoying the ride.  We got to Reno and David said he was hungry, “let’s find something to eat”.  Sounded great to me… “how much money do you have on you?”   “None, how much do you have?”   OOOPS… “none”.  

You have to realize in 1969 or 1970 there was no such thing as an ATM or a Debit Card…or even a Visa or MasterCard.  Sears had credit cars, even Kmart had credit cards…but there was no general credit card that could be used to buy food or misc.   AND…nobody would dare take an out of area check back in those days.  The only way to find out if the check was good, was to call the bank---that was not going to happen on a Sunday!!

Chevron had credit cards, and we had one, so our gas was taken care of.   But, once again, gas stations did NOT sell food.  No such thing as a convenience store inside a gas station back then. 

It was a LONG trip home… we were starving when we finally got back to Windsor!!!

San Luis Obispo Trip

One time, shortly after we got married David said we had to go to San Louis Obispo to take his army boots to his brother Leslie.  I had never met Leslie up to this point.  It was a nice trip.  We always enjoyed going on road trips.  David ALWAYS drove…in fact, the fist time I ever drove one of our vehicles with David in it as a passenger was when he had his appendicitis’s attack and surgery.  Up until that point, if we went anywhere David did ALL the driving.  I loved it!!  He was an exceptionally good driver and he loved to drive.   So…anyway, we drove down to SLO, met his brother, talked for probably ½ an hour and then headed back home.  It was a one day trip.  Neither David or Leslie had much to say to each other.  Leslie was always a bit weird.  But he was grateful for the boots.  And I was grateful for the road trip. 

My Driving Record

I always thought I was a good driver, but thinking back on it, maybe I wasn’t all that good!!   My first accident happened shortly after I got my drivers license.  I was driving in the Safeway parking lot, saw a friend from school (I guess I had at least one), waved to her and hit the car in front of me.

Second accident was the BIG one.  I went to my friend Sigrid’s house when Mike was about 4 or 5 months old.  Going home Mike was crying.  (that’s what he did back then ALL the time).  Anyway, his crying was very distractive; it was rather nerve shattering to me, even after months of it.  Anyway, I was NOT paying attention to the vehicles ahead of me.  Coming down

3^rd street

, under Hwy 101 all the cars in front of me stopped…and I didn’t!!   I honestly totaled my 510 Station Wagon!!!   Mike loved it…when I crashed he quit crying and laughed.  Obviously he had a sick sense of humor from an early age!!   The car behind me honked it’s horn…and I got out and told them my car wouldn’t run…not with the whole front smashed in!!!   Weird thing…the car I hit drove off.  I have no idea what it looked like.  I was too busy grabbing Mike’s baby carrier when I realized I was going to hit.  Back then babies didn’t ride in car seats…nope, just “L” shaped, plastic carriers.  With little lightweight plastic belts to hold the baby in.  You just plopped that carrier right down on the front seat next to you and drove all over the place!!   That carrier wasn’t seat-belted in either.  The cop figured the car must have been stolen, why else would they just drive off when it was 100% my fault. 

Then I only had small mishaps, I backed into a car at the Print Shop.  I ran over a picket fence with a Sonoma County Transit Bus…just small stuff!!

But then… I had one more good one.  Not really that good, but it wasn’t just a mishap.  I was  delivering something for the attorney I worked for in KF.  I was looking for the address and all the cross streets had stop signs…so I was slowly driving through the intersections.   Guess what?  In KF’s they just change things for no apparent reason… I came to a street with a stop sign for me and didn’t notice it.  I went through the intersection and hit some dude broadside.  The car was smashed, but not really horribly, I was driving very slowly looking for the address.  The dude got out, grabbing his neck.  The cops showed up and knew him by name.  They told me he’s been arrested quite a few time in KF’s, all the cops knew him.  They said they thought he was lying, but sent him off in an ambulance anyway.  He was released right away with no injuries.  My bumper was smashed and had to be replaced. 

 The Red Pickup

While I’m on the subject of road trips.  There is one trip David and I took that stands out in my mind.  David bought a red pickup, did some work on it.  It was the best running pickup he ever owned.  It was FAST, very powerful.  A fun truck to drive.  One time we went over to the Valley, heading to Marysville or some place over there.   Anyway, it was just David and I.  For some reason David wanted to really enjoy that pickup on that trip…he passed EVERY other vehicle on the road.  I’d never ridden in a vehicle that went so fast.  It was exhilarating!!  Just a real exciting rush to go that fast on those back roads.  (yeah..we did go the back roads, no freeway driving).    David was usually such a cautious guy, but this one trip he just let go and drove like a fool!! 

We lent that pickup to a church member that was backing up with the door open.  He stopped suddenly and the door spun around to the hood and tweaked everything. David was so mad, cause he said he wouldn’t have a wrecked vehicle…he knew it would never be right again…so he sold it to that member.  David never could understand why a person would open the door to back up…isn’t that why they put mirrors on vehicles?  So you can back up!!!!

more on the early years of marriage

Most of the time I just worked in the office (Bills home) and dispatched the trucks to pick up and deliver equipment.  It was a great job for me.  I knew most of the roads in Sonoma County and had no difficulty visualizing where the equipment needed to go.  I got to know the names of all the different equipment also.  D9, sheepsfoot, etc.  I loved talking to the other dispatchers and setting up deliveries.  Back then a lot of the companies didn’t have their own equipment, so they rented the piece and just had it moved to their job site.  Von Arx Drayage hauled equipment all over northern California.  A lot of times the equipment had to go to some remote area and I had to get directions for David or Bill so they wouldn’t get lost.  Like I say, a perfect job for me.  

I did enjoy the times I got to drive pilot car and get out of the office though.  Mike loved riding in the backseat with his food and toys. 

Once David and I took a Barber Green Paver to some lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains.  That was a great trip.  It was a Spring or Fall day…nice comfortable temperature with clear roads.  We drove up past Sacramento and then turned north.  The job site were we took it was a tourist area.  I always wanted to go back there and stay in one of the cabins.  Back in those days we didn’t have much money and it was a real thrill to get to eat out on a “business trip”.   Most of the time it was just hamburgers, but that was better than having to cook dinner any day!!

I remember piloting for Bill once up to Ft Bragg.  We were going from Willits to Ft Bragg and the road was very twisty and narrow.  I was driving along at what I thought was a safe speed…when Bill passed me up!!   Illegal… pilot car is to be AHEAD of the wide load.  Oh well…he owns the company!!   So I had a nice drive following Bill to Ft Bragg.  We got there in the late afternoon, delivered the piece of equipment and then put the car on the low bed.  We then drove to the restaurant on the coast by the river and went in to eat.  I told Bill I didn’t think we were dressed appropriately, but he said “my money spends just as good” and in we went… Bill, Mike and I.  Another free meal…I was all over that!!  The trip home was great…I didn’t have to drive!!!

I don’t remember exactly when David quit driving for Bill…but the next job he had was as a mechanic.  The place was small and the owner had a wolf hybrid as a watch dog.  The dog was a good watch dog… he wouldn’t let anyone into the yard that the owner didn’t tell him was OK.  But the dog loved everyone he knew and was gentle as can be. Mike could play with the wolf-dog just fine.  David even brought the wolf-dog home a couple of times…when the wolf-dog wasn’t on duty he was quite playful.  The pay wasn’t too great at this job and when Kaiser offered him a job as their mechanic…David moved on.

David started out with Kaiser as their mechanic over their trucks, moved up to mechanic over all moving equipment, including the equipment that sorted, crushed and moved all the rock.  He was really good at this…and had a crew of men under him.  Finally he was hired on as Plant Manager.  He loved the job, but working with Rudy was tough.  Rudy hated David…possibly because he hated the LDS Church (his wife was LDS and he resented the Church very much – later they ended up divorced)  Anyway, Rudy always made David’s life tough…but David was good at what he did.  He could fix any piece of equipment out at Kaiser.  He kept all their trucks running, the moving equipment running and kept expenses down.  He always said he only intended to stay for 10 years though… and that’s how long he stayed. 

While working for Kaiser David put in long hours and almost always worked 6 days a week.  When it rained David stayed close to the radio so if they said anything about flooding…he’d drive out to Windsor and check on the river and move the trucks up near the front gate where they’d be safe.  Often the river flooded and his shop would be under water… the yucky mud was horrible to clean up.  David always got right in there with his guys to clean it up.  The guys that worked for David loved him…they would do anything for him because he was a good boss.  When I would go out there they always treated me with respect and told me how much they liked working for David.  At the Christmas Parties I could tell they really got along and were truly friends. 

Rudy hired some college educated guy to run the office.  He and Rudy started keeping an eye on David…Rudy truly did want to get rid of him, even though he did a great job and the employees loved him.  (They all Hated Rudy…he was a real jerk).  David started feeling like Kaiser owed him more than just his salary and was filing up our pickup and car with Kaiser gas.  I’m not sure if the college educated dude knew it all along or not…but he apparently knew it.  One year the river started rising… the trucks were moved to the front of the yard by the gate (this is where they always got moved to).  David drove out to Kaiser (from Rohnert Park) quite a few times that night.  The water just kept rising.  By the time he realized that the water was going to come clear up to the trucks…it was too late.  The trucks ended up under water.   The weatherman didn’t predict the rain would be that bad…but it was!   Rudy was MAD.  Someone had to pay.  Kaiser Corporation was upset with Rudy and David was the scapegoat.   Rudy started a fuss about it…David fought back, until the fact that he was stealing gas came up.  David knew he was busted and quit. 

It wasn’t even a week later David was hired by Francis the owner of SR Diesel.  Francis had known David for years and was trying to get him to work for him for quite some time.   

Me

So…what was I doing during all this time?   After the job at Von Arx Drayage I didn’t hold down another “real” job for some time.  When we left Von Arx I was pregnant with Patty.  David and Robert were still good buddies and continued to spend a lot of time drinking together.

One night Robert and David went out drinking.  I have no idea what time David got home…but the next morning he was asleep when I got up.  When I went out front there was a shiny new red pickup in the driveway…where our old green pickup should have been.  When David woke up he couldn’t remember whose pickup it was, or why it was at our house and the green pickup wasn’t.  After a few phone calls we found out who owned it and got it back to it’s rightful owner.  Our green pickup was still sitting at the bar. 

We move to our house on

Mayette Ave.

about 3 months after Mike was born.  Directly across the street was a family with about a million kids!  None of which seemed to have any parental supervision.  The kids would climb onto their roof and jump off the roof onto a little black car that was parked in the driveway.  After a couple of weeks of this...the little car was so smashed in it was useless. 

But…I need to back up a little here.  Back when we lived in Windsor and David drank like a fish we would often go over to Robert and Marilyn’s house to visit.  One time we were there and somehow the conversation came around to marriage and people living together before marriage.  At that point I was not attending any church.  Didn’t have a testimony of any gospel and I said “what the heck, why not”. 

That night when we got home David was pretty well smashed.  He and Robert had put away a case or two of beer.  But in that inebriated state…David bore his testimony to me!!  Way down deep somewhere inside him…he KNEW the gospel of Jesus Christ was true and he KNEW that living together outside of marriage was wrong.  And he wanted me to understand that.  He went on about the gospel and told me I should look into the LDS Church because it was the only true church. 

WOW!!   That was the first time he ever even mentioned religion… heck, I was WAY more religious than him.  (or was it self-righteous).  I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke… I didn’t cuss… wasn’t I the one that was on a higher plain!!

Anyway, I decided to check into that church that David wanted me to know about…enough that he would tell me about it in his drunken state.

I looked in the Yellow Pages, found the LDS Church and phoned…and phoned…and phoned.  Funny thing about our church…nobody is there during the week!!  Not like other religions where the preacher has an office and sits around in it all week preparing his sermon!!   Finally the janitor answered the phone.  Yep, back then the church hired a member to be the janitor.  The janitor then turned my phone number over to the missionaries.

I took the lessons from two young missionaries and the ward mission leader.  David was never around.  You know…he had to work!!  

I was amazed as I heard the gospel –everything just fit.  The missionaries never said “we don’t worry about that” like the SDA leaders always did.  The LDS church just made sense.   I had quit my job at SR General Hospital around that time (cause I was very  pregnant). I spent the afternoon reading the Book of Mormon.  Honestly…I was Golden!!   The only thing that stopped me from getting baptized right away was the fact that I was pregnant.  They thought I should wait until after Mike was born. 

So…when we moved to our house on

Mayette Avenue

I was a new member of the church.  The only ward I knew was the Healdsburg Ward…and I loved them.  David wanted me to go to church, but he sure wasn’t going to go along.  Mike was the crankiest baby I had ever known.  He honestly cried day and night!!   The longest he ever slept the first 6 months was 2 hours.  I decided to go to church one Sunday (with my crying baby, without a husband) and when I got there… the hours had been changed and someone said to me.  “I guess you should attend more regularly, then you would have known”.  That was enough…I decided I wasn’t going to church for another 10 years…. I’d wait until my crying, noisy baby was grown!!

But…those horrible kids across the street were the Andrew’s.  Very Active LDS family!!!   Noni…salt of the earth and her 9 kids!!  Bob, the dad was trying to invent a fireplace for mobile homes and the whole family was on church welfare.   But you couldn’t have found a nicer person than Noni Andrew.  She found out I was baptized and took me under her wing.  There was NO WAY I wasn’t going to attend church. 

Noni had me going to church twice on Sunday, (back then that’s how it was, for men it was 3 times on Sunday).  Then to primary each week and RS once a month.  I became very active very quickly with Noni watching over me.

I got a calling in Primary and loved it.  But when I found out they expected me to give a Spiritual Thought and say a prayer before Primary started…I about freaked out.  In the SDA church I can tell you…I never once prayed out loud in front of anyone!!   I had no idea what to say or how to say it.  I actually wrote down some thoughts and peeked during that first public prayer.  It was the scariest thing I’d done in my life!!!

I learned to love those undisciplined Andrew kids.  They spent a lot of time over at our house.  With David working long hours and those kids having no parents around… they just naturally came on over and spent time with Mike and I.  I remember serving Bill Andrew spaghetti one time…he said he thought he’d get diarrhea or something from eating so much meat…they put about ½ a pound of hamburger into enough spaghetti to feed all 11 of them!! 

Shortly after we moved in across the street from the Andrew’s, Bob bought a mountain lion cub.  Cute little thing!!  But it was a kitten… and it proceeded to chew ALL the upholstery in their new car to bits.  Then it chewed the legs off the piano…  Then it started to grow!!   The kids had to put a piece of blue tarp down on the living room floor each night with a pile of newspapers for the cat to pee on.  Each morning the kids had to clean up that mess.  The floor turned black from all the mountain lion pee.  The backyard had so many fleas you couldn’t walk outside.  Evelyn couldn’t put laundry into the machine in the garage without getting knocked down.  The mountain lion was a pain in the neck.  I remember driving Noni to the stock yard on

College Ave

to buy meat for the cat… the family ate church welfare and the mountain lion ate real meat!!  

Once Sam, the mountain lion got out and the kids came screaming over to my house.  I opened my garage door, called the cat and it came inside.  I shut the door and told the kids to call their dad NOW!! I didn’t want that cat in my garage any longer than was necessary. 

When the Andrew’s moved from that house they had to find a home for Sam… no other rental agency would consider renting to a family with 11 children and a mountain lion.  (by the time they moved Dean and Darin were born).

 That was a busy time in my life.  I joined the church, we moved to Mayette, I went to work for Von Arx Drayage and I became pregnant with Patty.  

More about David's jobs

Most of the time I just worked in the office (Bills home) and dispatched the trucks to pick up and deliver equipment.  It was a great job for me.  I knew most of the roads in Sonoma County and had no difficulty visualizing where the equipment needed to go.  I got to know the names of all the different equipment also.  D9, sheepsfoot, etc.  I loved talking to the other dispatchers and setting up deliveries.  Back then a lot of the companies didn’t have their own equipment, so they rented the piece and just had it moved to their job site.  Von Arx Drayage hauled equipment all over northern California.  A lot of times the equipment had to go to some remote area and I had to get directions for David or Bill so they wouldn’t get lost.  Like I say, a perfect job for me.  

I did enjoy the times I got to drive pilot car and get out of the office though.  Mike loved riding in the backseat with his food and toys. 

Once David and I took a Barber Green Paver to some lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains.  That was a great trip.  It was a Spring or Fall day…nice comfortable temperature with clear roads.  We drove up past Sacramento and then turned north.  The job site were we took it was a tourist area.  I always wanted to go back there and stay in one of the cabins.  Back in those days we didn’t have much money and it was a real thrill to get to eat out on a “business trip”.   Most of the time it was just hamburgers, but that was better than having to cook dinner any day!!

I remember piloting for Bill once up to Ft Bragg.  We were going from Willits to Ft Bragg and the road was very twisty and narrow.  I was driving along at what I thought was a safe speed…when Bill passed me up!!   Illegal… pilot car is to be AHEAD of the wide load.  Oh well…he owns the company!!   So I had a nice drive following Bill to Ft Bragg.  We got there in the late afternoon, delivered the piece of equipment and then put the car on the low bed.  We then drove to the restaurant on the coast by the river and went in to eat.  I told Bill I didn’t think we were dressed appropriately, but he said “my money spends just as good” and in we went… Bill, Mike and I.  Another free meal…I was all over that!!  The trip home was great…I didn’t have to drive!!!

I don’t remember exactly when David quit driving for Bill…but the next job he had was as a mechanic.  The place was small and the owner had a wolf hybrid as a watch dog.  The dog was a good watch dog… he wouldn’t let anyone into the yard that the owner didn’t tell him was OK.  But the dog loved everyone he knew and was gentle as can be. Mike could play with the wolf-dog just fine.  David even brought the wolf-dog home a couple of times…when the wolf-dog wasn’t on duty he was quite playful.  The pay wasn’t too great at this job and when Kaiser offered him a job as their mechanic…David moved on.

David started out with Kaiser as their mechanic over their trucks, moved up to mechanic over all moving equipment, including the equipment that sorted, crushed and moved all the rock.  He was really good at this…and had a crew of men under him.  Finally he was hired on as Plant Manager.  He loved the job, but working with Rudy was tough.  Rudy hated David…possibly because he hated the LDS Church (his wife was LDS and he resented the Church very much – later they ended up divorced)  Anyway, Rudy always made David’s life tough…but David was good at what he did.  He could fix any piece of equipment out at Kaiser.  He kept all their trucks running, the moving equipment running and kept expenses down.  He always said he only intended to stay for 10 years though… and that’s how long he stayed. 

While working for Kaiser David put in long hours and almost always worked 6 days a week.  When it rained David stayed close to the radio so if they said anything about flooding…he’d drive out to Windsor and check on the river and move the trucks up near the front gate where they’d be safe.  Often the river flooded and his shop would be under water… the yucky mud was horrible to clean up.  David always got right in there with his guys to clean it up.  The guys that worked for David loved him…they would do anything for him because he was a good boss.  When I would go out there they always treated me with respect and told me how much they liked working for David.  At the Christmas Parties I could tell they really got along and were truly friends. 

Rudy hired some college educated guy to run the office.  He and Rudy started keeping an eye on David…Rudy truly did want to get rid of him, even though he did a great job and the employees loved him.  (They all Hated Rudy…he was a real jerk).  David started feeling like Kaiser owed him more than just his salary and was filing up our pickup and car with Kaiser gas.  I’m not sure if the college educated dude knew it all along or not…but he apparently knew it.  One year the river started rising… the trucks were moved to the front of the yard by the gate (this is where they always got moved to).  David drove out to Kaiser (from Rohnert Park) quite a few times that night.  The water just kept rising.  By the time he realized that the water was going to come clear up to the trucks…it was too late.  The trucks ended up under water.   The weatherman didn’t predict the rain would be that bad…but it was!   Rudy was MAD.  Someone had to pay.  Kaiser Corporation was upset with Rudy and David was the scapegoat.   Rudy started a fuss about it…David fought back, until the fact that he was stealing gas came up.  David knew he was busted and quit. 

It wasn’t even a week later David was hired by Francis the owner of SR Diesel.  Francis had known David for years and was trying to get him to work for him for quite some time.   

Me

So…what was I doing during all this time?   After the job at Von Arx Drayage I didn’t hold down another “real” job for some time.  When we left Von Arx I was pregnant with Patty.  David and Robert were still good buddies and continued to spend a lot of time drinking together.

One night Robert and David went out drinking.  I have no idea what time David got home…but the next morning he was asleep when I got up.  When I went out front there was a shiny new red pickup in the driveway…where our old green pickup should have been.  When David woke up he couldn’t remember whose pickup it was, or why it was at our house and the green pickup wasn’t.  After a few phone calls we found out who owned it and got it back to it’s rightful owner.  Our green pickup was still sitting at the bar. 

We move to our house on

Mayette Ave.

about 3 months after Mike was born.  Directly across the street was a family with about a million kids!  None of which seemed to have any parental supervision.  The kids would climb onto their roof and jump off the roof onto a little black car that was parked in the driveway.  After a couple of weeks of this...the little car was so smashed in it was useless. 

But…I need to back up a little here.  Back when we lived in Windsor and David drank like a fish we would often go over to Robert and Marilyn’s house to visit.  One time we were there and somehow the conversation came around to marriage and people living together before marriage.  At that point I was not attending any church.  Didn’t have a testimony of any gospel and I said “what the heck, why not”. 

That night when we got home David was pretty well smashed.  He and Robert had put away a case or two of beer.  But in that inebriated state…David bore his testimony to me!!  Way down deep somewhere inside him…he KNEW the gospel of Jesus Christ was true and he KNEW that living together outside of marriage was wrong.  And he wanted me to understand that.  He went on about the gospel and told me I should look into the LDS Church because it was the only true church. 

WOW!!   That was the first time he ever even mentioned religion… heck, I was WAY more religious than him.  (or was it self-righteous).  I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke… I didn’t cuss… wasn’t I the one that was on a higher plain!!

Anyway, I decided to check into that church that David wanted me to know about…enough that he would tell me about it in his drunken state.

I looked in the Yellow Pages, found the LDS Church and phoned…and phoned…and phoned.  Funny thing about our church…nobody is there during the week!!  Not like other religions where the preacher has an office and sits around in it all week preparing his sermon!!   Finally the janitor answered the phone.  Yep, back then the church hired a member to be the janitor.  The janitor then turned my phone number over to the missionaries.

I took the lessons from two young missionaries and the ward mission leader.  David was never around.  You know…he had to work!!  

I was amazed as I heard the gospel –everything just fit.  The missionaries never said “we don’t worry about that” like the SDA leaders always did.  The LDS church just made sense.   I had quit my job at SR General Hospital around that time (cause I was very  pregnant). I spent the afternoon reading the Book of Mormon.  Honestly…I was Golden!!   The only thing that stopped me from getting baptized right away was the fact that I was pregnant.  They thought I should wait until after Mike was born. 

So…when we moved to our house on

Mayette Avenue

I was a new member of the church.  The only ward I knew was the Healdsburg Ward…and I loved them.  David wanted me to go to church, but he sure wasn’t going to go along.  Mike was the crankiest baby I had ever known.  He honestly cried day and night!!   The longest he ever slept the first 6 months was 2 hours.  I decided to go to church one Sunday (with my crying baby, without a husband) and when I got there… the hours had been changed and someone said to me.  “I guess you should attend more regularly, then you would have known”.  That was enough…I decided I wasn’t going to church for another 10 years…. I’d wait until my crying, noisy baby was grown!!

But…those horrible kids across the street were the Andrew’s.  Very Active LDS family!!!   Noni…salt of the earth and her 9 kids!!  Bob, the dad was trying to invent a fireplace for mobile homes and the whole family was on church welfare.   But you couldn’t have found a nicer person than Noni Andrew.  She found out I was baptized and took me under her wing.  There was NO WAY I wasn’t going to attend church. 

Noni had me going to church twice on Sunday, (back then that’s how it was, for men it was 3 times on Sunday).  Then to primary each week and RS once a month.  I became very active very quickly with Noni watching over me.

I got a calling in Primary and loved it.  But when I found out they expected me to give a Spiritual Thought and say a prayer before Primary started…I about freaked out.  In the SDA church I can tell you…I never once prayed out loud in front of anyone!!   I had no idea what to say or how to say it.  I actually wrote down some thoughts and peeked during that first public prayer.  It was the scariest thing I’d done in my life!!!

I learned to love those undisciplined Andrew kids.  They spent a lot of time over at our house.  With David working long hours and those kids having no parents around… they just naturally came on over and spent time with Mike and I.  I remember serving Bill Andrew spaghetti one time…he said he thought he’d get diarrhea or something from eating so much meat…they put about ½ a pound of hamburger into enough spaghetti to feed all 11 of them!! 

Shortly after we moved in across the street from the Andrew’s, Bob bought a mountain lion cub.  Cute little thing!!  But it was a kitten… and it proceeded to chew ALL the upholstery in their new car to bits.  Then it chewed the legs off the piano…  Then it started to grow!!   The kids had to put a piece of blue tarp down on the living room floor each night with a pile of newspapers for the cat to pee on.  Each morning the kids had to clean up that mess.  The floor turned black from all the mountain lion pee.  The backyard had so many fleas you couldn’t walk outside.  Evelyn couldn’t put laundry into the machine in the garage without getting knocked down.  The mountain lion was a pain in the neck.  I remember driving Noni to the stock yard on

College Ave

to buy meat for the cat… the family ate church welfare and the mountain lion ate real meat!!  

Once Sam, the mountain lion got out and the kids came screaming over to my house.  I opened my garage door, called the cat and it came inside.  I shut the door and told the kids to call their dad NOW!! I didn’t want that cat in my garage any longer than was necessary. 

When the Andrew’s moved from that house they had to find a home for Sam… no other rental agency would consider renting to a family with 11 children and a mountain lion.  (by the time they moved Dean and Darin were born).

 That was a busy time in my life.  I joined the church, we moved to Mayette, I went to work for Von Arx Drayage and I became pregnant with Patty.  

Early Years of Marriage

November 7, 2011

I got married when I was just a couple months away from being 20 years old.  I got pregnant and had Mike when I was 24 years old.  So there were a few years in there when it was just David and I.  During that time we had our Manx cat Dingo…best cat I’ve ever had.  Smart cat… very active cat.  He died shortly after we moved to Mayette.  He got kidney failure…the vet says most likely from us making him stay indoors at the new house and having to use a cat box.  We also had a parakeet… the cool thing about the parakeet was it could swing on his perch with a little metal bell attached and make the TV channels change.  Back then the remote to the TV was way different than today.  You had to be close to the TV and aim it directly at the spot on the TV where it was set up.  Anyway, somehow the metal bell would make the TV channels change.  Back then the remote also had buttons to adjust the color on the TV… color TV’s were weird in the late 60’s/early 70’s.  The picture was always green or red, and no matter how much you adjusted it…it still had a tint of green or red. 

I also bought a couple of chickens at our house in Windsor.  A Rhode Island Red Rooster and a Plymouth Rock Hen.  I thought I had to protect them from the neighborhood cats…until I saw the rooster take off after a cat that jumped into our yard once.  That rooster was fast…and mean!!   In fact, I had to get rid of the rooster when he got so mean that he started chasing ME!!  He came right into our living room after me once—sorry rooster, you are going to become soup!!!  And he did…a friend took him and cooked him up.

Back in those days we all did a lot of ironing.  I did more than some—because David insisted that I iron not only his work shirts – but also his work pants!!   I ironed all my clothes as well as all his.   I also cooked up a big batch of potato salad every week so David could have a bowl of it in his lunch each day.  Along with the potato salad I usually made up tuna for his sandwich.  Each night I cooked a home cooked meal…even though most of the time David did not come home “on time”.  He either worked late or went out with his buddies.  But he wanted dinner on the stove when he got home!!   Mind you…we didn’t have microwave ovens back then…he just heated it on the stove and ate his dinner late. 

I enjoyed it when his buddies came over and they all sat around talking “truck stories”.  From what I understood the biggest problems with trucks in the 60’s was lack of power and brakes that failed.  I remember hearing how the breaks would start on fire and the driver had to find anything he could to put it out…including urine.  Maybe that’s where the saying “piss on it” came from. 

David had a friend by the name of Kenny Goforth, he was married to an Indian girl named Rosalie.  I really liked the two of them.  Kenny was BIG, and usually always happy.  I guess he was a good low-bed truck driver, with no fear.  He’d take his truck anywhere—up highway 1 along the Sonoma Coast or down to SF going the wrong way on a One Way Street.  Kenny and Rosalie lived in a shack out by the Riverview shop.  There was a row of shacks there and all of them had Indian’s living in them.  Going to their house was like visiting a third world country.  Washing machine out front… plumbing didn’t work… the shacks were built with single wall construction. 

Another of David’s friends (and co-worker) was Robert Shepard.  He was married to Marilyn and had 3 kids.  Robert is a sad story.  When he moved to Sonoma County and got hired on with Riverview he only drank wine…and not all that much of it.  David and Robert really got along and David encouraged Robert to drink beer and hard liquor.  Pretty soon Robert was drinking WAY more than David.  Eventually Robert and Marilyn got divorced and Robert moved on to drugs.  The last time I saw him he was working at a rental agency as their mechanic and living in a one room shack off of

Santa Rosa Ave.

  Even David said Robert was one of the best mechanics in Sonoma County back when they first met.  It was pretty sad that David got him into drinking and Robert just couldn’t seem to stop.

David had a bunch of other buddies that he knew from growing up out at Jenner.  We’d see them off and on during those first four years of our marriage.  There were some great stories of growing up out at Jenner…but I know I can’t do justice to the stories so I won’t try. 

Larry and Rodney ended up closing Riverview Transportation and at that time Bill Von Arx and David decided to start their own trucking company.  Vonnel Transportation.  I was still working as a nurse’s aid during that time…so I didn’t have anything to do with the company.  Much as David thought he knew everything about everything…he apparently didn’t know about paying taxes…because the IRS shut down Vonnel Transportation.  The IRS just came into the lot and slapped white stickers on the trucks and posted that they were all going up for auction.   David was a bit scared..he hired a tax attorney that basically said… “You should have paid your taxes”.  The trucks all got auctioned off and Bill Von Arx bought a few of them (how does that work…I don’t know).  Anyway Bill then opened Von Arx Drayage and David went to work for him.  

Somewhere around that time I gave birth to Mike and we moved to

Mayette Ave.

  Around the same time Linda Von Arx divorced Bill and Bill moved into a small travel trailer in one of those trailer parks on

Old Redwood Highway

.  Bill then hired me to do his office work and I worked out of his travel trailer (with baby Mike).

 Bill Von Arx owned his house…it was in his insane uncles name since Bill was the conservator of his uncle and had total control of his uncle’s money.  So… anyway Bill got to move back into his house and Linda had to move away with the kids. 

I really enjoyed dispatching the trucks… Bill did low-bed trucking.  I got to know the names of all the pieces of equipment and I got to know a lot of the area around northern California.  When they needed a pilot car I got to drive.  I really enjoyed that.  I had a small sedan and I built a plywood platform in the back seat.  I padded it and covered it with fabric.  I would just put Mike back there with his toys and a bottle and I’d drive all over Northern California.  I got to go to the Sierra’s, to Ft Bragg, up around Eureka… a lot of nice places.  Mike loved having the whole back seat area to him.  He just played, ate and slept.  It was all padded…he was safe!!

One time David and I were taking a school house up to a small town outside of Eureka.  Bill had the contract for the portable schoolhouses back then.  I learned that portable schoolhouses were wider and much heavier than mobile homes.  Furthermore the way they transported them to lift the schoolhouse onto a dolly that had wheels on either end.  That means that the “trailer” you are hauling has wheels on the end…not near the end…but right on the end.  That makes cornering a bit tough when you are out in the “boonies”.  So…anyway Mike and I in my car were piloting David along a very thin road.  David told me to go at least a mile or two ahead of him and stop anyone I come to and tell them to get off the road – because he was coming and the schoolhouse took up the WHOLE road.  Mind you, this was the early 70’s…men were still men…and they didn’t want any woman telling them ANYTHING—especially men out in the woods.  So…I’d see a pickup coming towards me, I’d put my hand out holding a flag and then stop in the middle of the road.  I’d let the driver know that he needed to get off the road since the schoolhouse was coming.  Most thanked me and did as I said… one guy told me where to go and just kept driving.  David said it was great watching that guy run off the road when he came towards him.  David’s basic attitude was “Bill owns the truck; I’m going to keep going, if the truck gets wrecked…oh well”.  So…we went along for quite a few miles like that.  Then…we came to a bridge.  Not just any bridge, but a ONE WAY BRIDGE…that came off the road at a full 90 DEGREE ANGLE!!!   OOPS!!!   NO way was that school house going to make that turn. 

I was parked on the other side of the bridge… telling all the loggers that they weren’t going to get across that bridge that evening…cause that schoolhouse was TOTALLY blocking the road.  Even if David backed up…there was nowhere to back where there would be enough room for another vehicle to pass that schoolhouse.  One thing about those loggers…they were nice.  They were not happy about the whole situation, but they totally understood it.  They went over and talked to David… looked at the truck, looked at the schoolhouse and made all kinds of suggestions.  Most would say…”can’t you just jack it around like they do with the mobile homes?”   And David would have to tell them the weight of the schoolhouse.  They would let out a long, low whistle and just scratch their heads. 

First off…in order to take those schoolhouses off the highway, a person had to get a permit from Caltrans.  Caltrans is SUPPOSED to know their roads and only issue a permit where the load can go… so why were we told that the schoolhouse COULD make it!!   Hmmm

So… the only way that schoolhouse was going to make it across that bridge was to get a couple of heavy duty tow trucks up there and have them lift the schoolhouse over the railing of the bridge. 

So…the loggers helped David back up about a mile or so where they could get past him and at least get home that night.  A tow truck company was contacted and they said since it was dark they wouldn’t come out that night, but would be there in the morning. 

David and I got in the car and drove to Eureka for the night.  Mike loved all the excitement.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn and heading to the truck.  We waited for the tow trucks.  When they arrived they took a good long time surveying the situation and then got to work.  David would move the truck ever so little…as they picked up the schoolhouse and moved it over the railing and onto the bridge.  It was quite a site to see…

Once they got the schoolhouse onto the bridge and David drove it over…then on the other side…they had to do the same thing…cause the road turned a sharp 90 degree turn to the right on that side!!   It took most of the day to get that schoolhouse across the bridge.  Once we got it on the road I didn’t have to tell ANYONE to move off the road for the schoolhouse…everyone in the area knew about the schoolhouse and they got out of the way willingly. 

We arrived at the school where the portable schoolhouse was going around 2:00 PM.  When we pulled into the school yard –honestly, all the kids and teachers came running outside to great us.  They said they were waiting for their new schoolhouse and were afraid we wouldn’t be able to bring it to them.  It was pretty cool having a whole school come outside to great us.  Sure, it was a small school..but it was still pretty cool.  They even had us come into the cafeteria and served us some lunch!!

Working for Von Arx Drayage wasn’t a bad gig. 

10 24 2011 David and I

So… sometime in September 1968 I met a guy names David Nelson.  Quite a nice guy, very polite and good looking.  I met him on a Friday night and expected to hear from him the following week…but NOTHING!!   Monday came and went, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday…nothing!!  Oh well, so much for him.  Guess he wasn’t too interested in me.   You have to realize I was on unemployment at the time…so my days were kinda just moving along slowly.  I remember going to the park near the apartment, even going for rides out into the countryside in my 65 Mustang.  Life wasn’t bad then…and I sure wasn’t feeling desperate for a guy in my life.  I had dated quite a few by then…been proposed to twice…so I was feeling pretty confident the right guy was going to come along in due time. 

So…Monday morning I’m just messing around – doing a whole lot of nothing---and the phone rings!!  It’s that David dude.  He wants to know if I’d like to go downtown with him.  He states he has some errands to run.  Heck yeah…I have nothing better to do. (and maybe there’ll be a free lunch in this). 

So David shows up in his 64 Chevy with a bashed in driver-side back door and panel. 

Shall I go into WHY the car was wrecked?   Ok.   The reason was...David was coming home from the bar one night ---yep, that nice Pepsi drinking dude actually was a beer and hard liquor drinker!!  He was only drinking Pepsi the night I met him because he had a hangover!!!   Anyway, on his way home from the bar he came around

Russell Avenue

a little too fast and slid right into a tree…smashing the side of his Chevy!!

So...anyway, David shows up and we take off for downtown Santa Rosa.   Back in 1968 Downtown Santa Rosa was really only

Mendocino Avenue

.  Montgomery Wards was near to where Chevy’s restaurant is now.  Sears was across the street from the General Hospital (which is now a shelter for homeless or disadvantaged).  There was a hamburger place on

Mendocino Ave.

that had .10 burgers and fries for a while.  So… we head to Montgomery Wards first…and we go inside so David can pay off a bum check!!  YEP…first date was going from business to business watching David hand over cash for bum checks that he wrote.  He wasn’t in the least bit concerned about it…it wasn’t his fault… his paycheck had bounced!!!   I can honestly say I’d NEVER had a bum check in my life at that point.  I had no idea how a person even took care of them…. I found out that back then you just went to the business and gave them the cash and they gave you the check…no check bouncing fees, no banks involved.  Anyway…he had like 6 bum checks to pick up.   WOW…I must have found Mr. Right!!!!

BUT… I did get a free lunch!!  We went to the .10 burger joint for a couple of burgers!!!

Anyway… I can say that from that Monday until David had to go to San Francisco to do his week in the reserves ( year or so later) …we saw each other every day!!   There was just something special about him.  He was so honest, didn’t care what people thought…he would speak his mind.  He was funny, he cared about those that he liked.  He was VERY HARDWORKING… he loved his job.  He loved to work.  So many wonderful qualities – he just swept me off my feet!!!

David was working for Riverview Transportation.  He was their mechanic, but he also drove a truck when they needed.  The week I didn’t hear from him, he had gone to LA to fix one of the trucks.  Most –no ALL of Riverview’s trucks were old, pieces of junk!!!  Way beyond their useful lives!!  But David could keep them running.  Rodney and Larry loved David for that, they loved to take advantage of him and his dedication to the company.  They wrote him bum checks, worked him at least 6 days a week and paid him next to nothing (well, less than nothing if you consider most of their checks bounced). 

Shortly after we met unemployment sent me on a job interview to some horrible nursing home.  Of course the woman hired me.  I wore ratty clothes, and tried to act really dumb…but she hired me anyway.  I was perfectly happy on unemployment at that point… I sure didn’t want to work in some smelly, abusive nursing home.  When I went to work it was worse than I thought it would be.  The lady got the poor old people up each morning and set them in chairs…without even wiping their wet and/or messy behinds.  She shoved a little food down their mouths and then had me “clean them up” a bit.  It was obvious she didn’t care one bit for those poor old people.  And it was obvious I was not going to make any difference working there.  There were so many old people, and just me!!!  

So… one day I called in sick.  When David heard that he was very upset with me.  He said “if you want to quit, then quit, but don’t be dishonest about it”.  WOW…I knew he was really  honest and cared about the employer…what a guy!!  

So…I quit!!  

About that time Santa Rosa General Hospital called me back…so it all worked out. 

David worked 6 days a week, every week.  Monday was his only day off.  I worked in a hospital, and my days off usually rotated.  Of course everyone wanted weekends off, but the only day I really wanted off was Monday.  I struck a deal with my boss that I would get Friday and Monday off.  She was happy to give me those days.  And I was happy to get them…You see, I needed Friday off to FOLLOW David’s boss down to Wells Fargo Bank on Friday.   Once David got his paycheck  I would follow Rodney to the bank.  Rodney would make his deposit and I would be the next person in line…to withdraw cash from the same account!!   NO more bum checks!!!

So….one Monday shortly after we met David picked me up and we went over to his apartment.  His place was a MESS!!!  Dirty dishes everywhere, the floor needed mopping, the living room needed vacuuming…the bathroom---YUCK!!!   So, being the rather stupid person that I was, I offered to help him clean the place up.  He said he’d appreciate it, but he needed to wash his car.  He said if I’d start cleaning he’d go out front and wash the car.  Sure, sounded like a good idea to me (like I said, I was rather stupid back then).  So…I started cleaning…and cleaning…and cleaning.  I was about done and decided to check out what David was up to… yep, out front drinking beer with some of the other apartment dudes!!!   AND…I didn’t see any sign of water on the ground.  NOPE…he took the car over to

Lewis Street

to the car wash and just gave it a quick wash!!!   BUT…he appreciated what I did for him!!!!  And I was STUPID and In LOVE!!!

Another day I thought I’d make corned beef for dinner.  I bought one of those corned beef’s from Safeway with all the spices.  I put it in a big pot and let it cook.  I thought it was going along just fine… but when David came up the stairs at the apartment he started saying he thought he was going to puke…the smell was horrible.  No way was he going to try that crap.  On and on and on about how horrible my corned beef smelled.  So… into the garbage it went! And we went out to dinner to a rather nice place down the street from his apartment.  That was probably the first time I saw him being totally unreasonable…but then--- I was in love, so I thought nothing of it.

David moved out of his apartment and into a house in Windsor across the street from Bill Von Arx.  Bill was his good friend back then.  Bill and David grew up together in Jenner.  David lived in a rather run-down home on the side of the mountain and the Von Arx’s lived in a nice home that overlooked the river and ocean.

I could sit and listen for hours to David and Bill talk about growing up in Jenner.  Jenner was and still is a small town.  Everyone knew everyone.  The only sheriff that worked that part of Sonoma County knew the Von Arx and Nelson families very well. 

So…anyway, David and I dated and both of us knew we’d get married.  We were so in love!!  I always said I wanted to marry a mechanic…and what could be more impressive than a heavy-duty truck mechanic!!!   And David was a good mechanic.  He had a lot of friends and a lot of people that ask him for advice and help with their trucks. 

We met in September and in November we drove to LA to have Thanksgiving with his parents.  I figured they had to be nice people…I mean, look how nice he was!!     We got to the parents house and Harold (the dad) was outside working on a vehicle.  David started talking to his dad, then decided to take me inside to meet his mom.  We walked through the house to the back porch where Ramona (the mom) was cleaning the windows.  She came down off the stool, said hi, probably shook my hand or something…and then climbed back up on the stool and continued washing the windows.  David said “you two can get to know each other” and went out to help his dad.  UNCOMFORTABLE!!!!   That woman didn’t talk...she just kept washing those windows.  I tried small talk, but she didn’t even respond.  VERY UNCOMFORTABLE!!   Finally I said I needed to check with David for something and got out of there.  I was much happier just listening to David and his dad talk cars. 

So… that night we had chili beans and corn bread.  Then we all went into the living room and sat down and watched TV.  Nobody talked.  Nobody interacted.  We just sat there watching TV.  Mind you, I grew up in a family with NO TV.  Sure, by then I had one, but I wasn’t glued to it.  And I did have a clue how to treat visitors!!!   So..that was Wednesday.  Thursday was Thanksgiving and the whole family came over.  YIPPEE…talking!!! Socializing, people asking questions, wanting to know about me!!   Much more normal.

We ate turkey and then all sat around WATCHING TV!!  I talked Joyce into going for a walk with me around the neighborhood…so that was nice.  I really liked Joyce, we sat in her room and talked for hours. 

Friday Harold and Ramona asked me what I’d like to do.  I mentioned that I’d really like to see the Queen Mary.  So… we drove to Long Beach, drove past the Queen Mary and then they asked me if I had anywhere else I’d like to see—WHAT????  I wanted to SEE the Queen Mary, like step outside and SEE it!!!  Nope, not with the Nelson’s…a quick drive-by was sufficient!!!   So…back to the house and the TV!!!

By Saturday I was so sick of watching TV, being bored, not visiting with anyone… so at one point I got up and turned the TV OFF!!  You should have seen Harold’s face… you’d think I just hit him with a baseball bat.  I said “I’m sorry, but we drove all the way down here to visit with you guys… I have a much nicer TV in Santa Rosa, if all we are going to do is watch TV, then I’m ready to leave”  Ramona meekly said, Oh… let’s visit.  So…we tried.  It was better to just watch TV with those two!!!  

I was really happy to leave the LA area and head back to Santa Rosa.

At this point David and I were engaged and deciding where and when to get married.  David said he was a Mormon, but with the drinking and smoking…I had my doubts!!  I knew I wasn’t a Seventh Day Adventist anymore.   So we decided to get married at a Methodist Church in their small chapel.  Of course…we HAD to get married on a Monday---that was David’s only day off!!! 

I found a beautiful wedding dress at the St. Vincent de Paul used clothes store for $25.00.  Perfect!!!  I borrowed a veil.  Had a friend from beauty school do my hair… It was a very low budget marriage.  Just the way I wanted it.  Judy was my maid of honor and Bill Von Arx was David’s best man.  Only family and a couple close friends attended.  We had a small Safeway wedding cake at the house David rented after the ceremony.  Perfect!!!

Mind you…that was December 23^rd.  We were going to get married in January, but being so darn practical we decided we might as well get married in Dec. to save money on taxes!!!   Yep…we were both very romantic!!