Squid Patrol

The Squid Patrol, with me on the far right

We needed to have an emblem on our sleeves to identify our Boy Scout group, just like other boys likely do around the world who hang out together and create mischief and fun. I designed that emblem, for the Squid Patrol, something that became part of my earliest and serious artistic experience.

I was Deller.  We also had Toad, Slug, and the Squid and a few others, whose names I can't recall.  Squid was a dominant character, with the most amusing title that stuck with him for the rest of his life.  His ability to command attention led him to create technical gadgets and ideas that major companies used and that propelled him to success and riches.

We were that "Stand by Me" group.  We were the boys who sat outside the principal's office waiting our turn for scoldings and all the while making the eerie noises in the same pattern of our classroom mischief.

There is more--much more--to the Squid Patrol, just like there is more to the stories of boys everywhere who bonded like us. And more to tell you later in other selections of this ongoing story about growing up boy.

Del

Gum interrupts a stitch in time

Singer sewing machine

It was an old Singer sewing machine, with the pedals that I could barely reach, sitting down and stretching my legs.  But I was determined to sew a skirt, as it just took too long to do one by hand, as the Girl Scout instructor said was an option.

My male cousin, 10 years old as well and much shorter than me, was quite the clown, putting wads of chewing gum under both pedals while I was in the outhouse doing personal business awhile.  I was not able to figure out why the pedals would not work until my Mother came home and saw the gum.

The skirt was not finished as fast as I had hoped, as my Aunt and Uncle had to look at the evidence too, as my cousin's punishment was to get off the gum and forfeit one week's allowance.

It got quite a laugh at the time, although it was some time before I worked on the sewing machine after that.

Carol

Trip to the Loo

The Loo as rendered in art

I well remember the outside toilet at the far end of our backyard.  Our paper of choice was the Daily Herald, stuffed between the pipe between the cistern and the toilet.  We were a working class family, and the Daily Herald reflected our status.  I was born in a rural village a million miles from the industrial town where I grew up, but the toilet was still in the garden.  In this case hidden in the copse of Yew trees.  Going to the loo in the dark was not a happy time.  Much singing and whistling!

Robin Rendell
France

A car in the basement

1930's car shown being fixed, maybe the kind that drove into our basement

We lived on 23rd and Thurman in Southwest Portland.  We were having lunch and heard a big crash.  The whole house shook.   A car had driven down the hill into the corner of the house, which was at street level.  We lived on the second floor.

I was only 3 or 4 years old.  I just wondered at the time, "How did this car get into our basement."

It was lucky I wasn't playing in the basement and had been called up to lunch at the time.

This happened back in the 1930's.  But can you imagine how it could be used now at the end of the evening news, at a lighthearted look at the day.


Del

Louis Armstrong and me

Louis Armstrong and his autograph

We saw him twice on the same day.  The first time was in the Meier and Frank record department in downtown Portland.  I picked up a business card lying on the counter, and he signed it with his green pen.  He signed everything with a green fountain pen.

I was with Don Quimby, a grade school friend; but this was when I was a sophomore in high school.

The second time we saw him was four blocks away on the same day.  He was standing outside on a sidewalk calling a cab on a phone next to the curb where folks could call taxis.  We walked up and asked if he needed help getting around.  He said he was calling a cab to get to Shriner's Hospital to give a kid a present, who had written him a letter.  We told him we both played the coronet a little bit and that we liked seeing his show when he was in town. Then he started talking about Portland, how he liked it, then started talking about New Orleans a little bit as that was his favorite city.  A cab came and picked him up; and he left.  A guy came out of a tavern and wanted to know who the fellow was we were talking to, "Rochester?"  We told him it was Louis Armstrong as we walked away.

I saw him three different years when he came to town, twice in Portland, Oregon and another time in Tacoma.

The experience stuck me with me, as later in life I moved to New Orleans where I painted the musicians of the town.

The card remains with me after 65 years.  And so does my love of music, as an older musician who sees it as a way to sustain youth and health.

Del

Petticoats and poodle skirts

A poodle skirt in an Indianapolis museum, which is appropriate given my age

I ran for the bus.  It was the 1950's; early on, and  I couldn't wait to show my friends my new poodle skirt and matching blouse.  Everyone was watching.  Then, as I skipped and swirled to show off my duds, my shoe heel caught one of the several petticoats, pulling the whole bunch down.  Without skipping a beat, but still skipping, I stepped out of them and hoisted them up on my shoulder, got onto the bus, as we all had a very good laugh.

After that I found one petticoat was enough.

Carol

'Crying in the Chapel'

Outhouse shed, the type where I had been singing

I like to sing, since I was a child.  And my father taught me to project my voice at a young age.  But one morning the family had a laugh especially about that in the context of what had happened in the middle of the night.

"We heard you singing," my mother said.  "In fact the whole neighborhood heard you.  This morning I had several calls about it."

I had been singing at the top of my 12-year-old lungs "Crying in the Chapel" in the outhouse (outdoor toilet in a shed) at two a.m.!

The song, recorded seven years later by Elvis Presley as part of his gospel collection, was on the top of the charts in 1953 and like other young folks I could not stop singing it no matter the time of day---or night--or location.

Carol

Toilet paper

Toilet paper on a roll, not always available in the '40's

We stopped at a supermarket one afternoon recently at a place called Tamuras, on the Waianae Coast of Oahu, a rural area in Hawaii and a store where most locals shop.  I observed the cost of toilet paper and said to a young 20-something clerk, as she laughed, about the $12+ price for 12 rolls, "Gotta tear up the newspaper pieces the right size because these prices are simply too much."

In the 1940's in the small towns of America not everyone could afford an indoor toilet, especially if the family was poor, like ours.  And it surely could not buy toilet paper. When the war was on, many people still had outhouses. I lived in a town called La Grande in Eastern Oregon where that was true for us and others.

 Instead of indoor toilets there were small sheds, just big enough for a door and a single person to sit on a raised, box-like apparatus with a hole cut out in the center.  Beside it was a stack of torn pieces of newspaper to sanitize oneself after using the facilities,ordinarily located close enough to a house, not to trip in the dark, yet far enough so the odors would not drift into the living area. There was, you see, no cover for the hole in the box, except for a piece of butcher paper.  The newspaper pieces, however, were softer for a growing behind or even the older ones too.

Newspapers for us had more than one use years ago.  Of course, some might say, much in jest certainly, that they still should be used the same way these days after reading.

Carol

Our Histories

How do we learn history?  Surely we can read it.  We were told that in elementary school and throughout our education.  We learn some by living it too. But our narratives here won't be long, just stories about what life was like for us in the past nine decades.

This site offers observations and experiences of two people who have lived jointly more than 150 years.  We are both in our 70's, and one of us will be 80 this year.

The perspective of time can help everyone grow, including those who live long and prosper or not.

For many people of advancing age, the future is limited; the past is filled with a vast storehouse of information, much of it untouched, untold---or even unwelcome.  Very often we hear from the young about their perceptions of events, but with the perspective of time, one learns how to approach the new within the context of the old.

One of us has lived in eight decades; the other in nine. So I guess we have stories to tell.

And let us know, in comments to share,what you think and know too.