Together in good times and tough times...

Tough times and Good times...

The year was 1984. The place was Grandma Susie's house. There were big trees in the front yard which were frequented with kids who spent time climbing them. During one such visit to Grandma's house, Mom and Dad had mentioned the fabled city of Wasilla in a land faraway called Alaska; which in the absence of any other information was shrouded in mystery. "We are going to go live in the bush!" We would find out later that it was not exactly the bush. The question on the minds of some was, "who would want to live inside a bush, and how are we all going to fit?" At that time, the family was living in California which either was a crossroad of relatives traveling here and there, or a hub or family living not far from each other. Grandma Leona lived not too far away and in her living room she always kept a bowel with caramels which the kids could eat when they visited. When she and Grandma Lila came to visit shortly before the move, the children told them all about the worn out swing set which had been taken away the week before in preparation for the move to first Oregon and then Alaska. But of course it took some time to get from Needles California where they were living at that time to the rumored city of Wasilla in Alaska. It involved among other things Dad being invited to come up to Alaska to be a diesel mechanic. The situation later would be seen as providential that the family moved to Alaska at that point in time. The man who offered the job to Dad gave a thousand dollars to help the move. Then Dad sold his large engine cleaner along with some other items which bought an old wonder bread step van...perfect for transporting not only Dad's tools, but lots of household items such as books, photos, kitchenware, numerous and useful truck and car repair manuals, bedding, mementos and of course people. On the top of the van there was a revolving light which the boys referred to as a wo-wo. Dad also built a sturdy little trailer for other unnamed items, and it ended up in a south sloping field in Oregon behind a barn after the family had left for Alaska. Not long before they left California, Lila, had been praying for a dog. This happened to reach the ears of the some friends, and it so happened that Lady was acquired. Not the most intelligent dog, but certainly loyal. Mom and Dad had recently gotten the old green station wagon at that point and mom drove it to pick up the new pet...always a novelty to young children. Unlike her later years, Lady was full of pep and curiosity. A rambunctious dog in confined space with five children is bound to produce a charged atmosphere. As she was scrambling from one window to the next over the children, Brain was fearful that she would not be a nice pet, and he avoided her at first as much as he could on the ride back home. 
Then the family made their way to Oregon on Lynnette Lane where they lived during 1985 with Grandma and Grandpa before the move up to Alaska. Grandpa Glen and Grandma Lila were delighted to have the them. There was a large lawn in front of the house which was a favorite place to play.

Not too far away there was the lake where Grandpa would take the children on Saturday afternoons. And of course there was Uncle David and Uncle Jonathan. Uncle Jonathan was full of interest to the children. He had a beautiful, loyal and smart shaggy dog that could climb ladders. He sometimes had baby raccoons, and when he was around there was always some fun to be had. Later in 1990, when the family minus Dad visited Grandpa and Grandma on Pataha Creek road, Uncle David in front of the boys began enumerating to Uncle Arsenio the number of little boys he had spanked throughout the years. Later they learned that Uncle David had an interesting sense of humor. 


Grandma told a lot of stories during the time on Lynnette Lane. Sometimes they were Bible stories, sometimes mission stories, and sometimes Eric B. Hare stories. The time when the family would move to Alaska approached ever closer. Mom and Dad went to get supplies just before the family left for Alaska and Grandma and Grandpa were watching the kids. Amid a favored dinner of bread and milk, they had to say the same thing over and over again.“Your mom and dad went to get you some moon boots (snow boots) and they will be back later.”The boots would last most of the children until their second year in Alaska. Just before they left, Dad welded some metal bars together which he would put on the top of the van secure some items he wanted to put up there for the drive to Alaska. Brent who had watched dad make it then asked what it was for. "Oh, well we are just making it to put you in." Then Dad and Mom prepared to go up to Alaska, and Dad drove the old wonder-bread step van which pulled the green station wagon. There was an old bus heater in the cab of the van. The weather was cold as they drove through Canada. The van's engine would sometimes have problems operating under such cold conditions. Dad had previously had another heater installed in the van, but that heater had caught fire, so Dad had replaced it with an old bus heater. The heat came out of two different spouts. 
Dad had bought two dryer vents hoses. He put one hose over one spout and another hose over the other spout. The kids did get cold in the cab, so one hose went on them. The engine did not work so well in cold weather, so the other hose was put on the engine through a movable opening in the cab.

As it was late fall, they encountered a lot of snow. And one day during a hiatus in traveling, the kids with double layers, went out to play in the snow. They made snowballs. They got in the snow and made snow angels and some of them tried to make a snowman. Afterwards, for lunch, Mom made cheese whiz sandwiches which were really good, and were not to be forgotten. It was also during that trip that the boys needed a haircut. Mom had always cut the boys hair before, but since they were on the road, the family went to a barber which was a first for the boys.

When the family first came to Alaska they settled in Anchorage where Dad's job was. 
The family moved into a beautiful house on 75th street which was not exactly the bush. It was always called the beautiful house after that, and it was very large. It had two floors, and large balcony and a Jacuzzi in one of the bathrooms. The rent at first was $1300 a month, but Mom and Dad requested that the rent might be made a little lower, and the people renting the house very decently dropped the price down to $1100 hundred dollars. a month.

For a period of time, Uncle Jim and his family lived under the same roof that we did in the beautiful house, and that was nice. Aunt Kathy had several cats, none of whom Uncle Jim liked very much. Aunt Kathy loved Roy because she thought he was so cute, which at that age was true. He would sometimes get into her make up, and he pretty much disarrange it. This happened a number of times, although Aunt Kathy would forgave him afterwards. Often when the ice cream truck would come by, Aunt Kathy would make sure that the kids all got some ice cream. When they went to Denny's where she worked at that time, she would make delicious grilled cheese sandwiches for them. One cold day, Roy decided that one of Aunt Kathy's cats was cold.

So he took the cat and looking for a warm place, he put it in the dryer among uncle Jim's pants and turned it on. Now the dryer was right near where Uncle Jim and Aunt Kathy's bedroom was. It happened to be the time late in the day when they were about to go to sleep. Uncle Jim remarked with some ire of why Aunt Kathy would turn on the dryer right when they were going to go to sleep. When he went over and opened the door, that cat fell out. It could not walk properly because it was so dizzy, and it kind of staggered off down the hall. If the cat had any sense, it would have ran when ever he saw Roy coming. But Roy had good intentions, but like many little boys he was apt to be forgetful. Later, during the summer when it was hot, Roy decided that the cat was hot, so he took the cat and looking for a cold place, he put it into the freezer. Well, the poor cat did not survive that, and Roy innocently forgot that he had put the cat into the freezer. It was a freezer that was not frequented as much as the main freezer in the kitchen, and one day Uncle Jim called Mom into where the freezer was. He opened the door, and there was that poor cat frozen solid. 


Dad was the first member of the immediate family to spend time in Alaska. He liked living there. It may have been because it was not like California with so many ridiculous laws. It might have been because of the frontier style veneer in Alaskan society and architecture, but it was probably because it complimented his high tolerance of cold and his low tolerance of hot weather, a trait he would pass on in a lesser measure to his sons. During the vietnam war, Dad was drafted. Not wanting to shoot people, he became a medic, and there were not many people who could have done it as well. Dad had interesting army stories to tell. For regular soldiers, they were required to carry 40 pound back packs. But for a medic, they were required to carry 70 pound back packs. Boot camp was not really rough on Dad since he had worked in a rock quarry with a shovel as well as various other places that allowed him to be fit. But some of the other soldiers did not fare so well. Dad said that there was this nice fellow who was about as wide as we was tall. He went to boot camp and by the end of it, he had to use rope to keep his pants up.

Dad once said that He had asked his Dad why he did not watch Laurel and Hardy movies. Grandpa had had two or three ships sunk under him in World War II, and Laurel and Hardy had gone overseas to entertain the troops. Grandpa said that Laurel and Hardy were so funny in real life that he did not have an interest in seeing them in the movies. When Dad was drafted, he went to San Antonio. He took training to become a medic.

Some years later in the Wolverine building, Roy accidentally ripped off one of his finger nails when one of his fingers got caught in the 12 foot garage style door rollers. But Dad knew what to do, and because of his prior training in the army, he bandaged it expertly. After boot camp and training were over in texas, Dad flew to Fairbanks Alaska for follow up training and the flight to Vietnam. Dad told us that medics in vietnam had a battle field life expectancy of a few minutes on average, so there was a lot of praying going on in his family. When the training had finished, the solders were ready to fly to Vietnam.

There were a thousand solders in Dad's group, but when they went to fly, the army seemingly inexplicably did not have his ticket, so he stayed in Alaska. The other guys there in winter always froze, but Dad seemed to know the right type of shoes and clothing to wear. One day, the fellows Dad was with were complaining about how cold they were. Dad was wearing a kind of arctic shoe called a bunny boot., and it really looked similar to a bunny foot., only shorter. Dad was getting pretty hot, so he took the bunny boot off. The other fellows were watching in unbelief as steam arose from from Dad's boot. The other fellows couldn't believe it. When the family moved to Alaska at first, they all wore coats except for Dad. He never seemed to get cold, and and he got sick maybe once while everyone else seemed to get sick fairly often. 
Mom and Dad moved to the house on Beverly lake road in late 1985, and the family lived there until late 1995. There were times that were difficult, and there were times that were not. About two years after moving to the old house, there were two gardens. The potato patch out front, and the vegetable garden out back next to the chicken house. There were 48 chicken all named by the boys producing eggs. There was a chicken named baldy because she did not have a comb. There was a chicken named Eggy because she laid the first egg. You could always tell when a chicken lays its first egg, and when the pullets (teenage chickens) laid their first egg, they start cackling very loudly for at least ten minutes. It is a different sort of cackle than what you would normally hear from a chicken and the boys had been watching to see which chicken would lay the first egg. There was a green jar that Mom and Dad kept the egg money in upon an upper kitchen shelf, and with ginger the goat giving milk everyday, for a short time, they bough almost nothing from the store. The chickens laid so many eggs that Mom and Dad were able to sell a lot, and the neighbors often came to buy our eggs. Dad at that point had a shop in a quonset hut and the family usually went there during the summer days while Dad worked on various vehicles.

The family had moved from the beautiful house on on 75^th street in Anchorage to what was though tthe boonies. The house they moved into was something of a disappointment and a fixer upper compared to the beautiful house. You could see distinctly through the cracks in the bathroom floor to the rocky basement down below. Hygiene seemed to be lower on the totem pole of priorities to the family who lived in the house before we lived there. There was at first a peculiar strong oder to the house and they discovered that a moose had met it's fate in the basement of the house the previous winter, not counting the many dogs who had lived there as well. Caroline, just before we moved from the beautiful house had left Alaska to go the Pathfinder Camporee in Oshkosh Wisconsin. She had left the beautiful house which she loved and when she came to the house on Beverly lake road, she cried. But the odd thing is that the old house on Beverly lake road would come to be loved more than the beautiful house on 75^th street. The property which was rocky and barren except for some scrawny trees would be transformed into a scenic property with gardens, a huge green lawn, ferns and roses growing here and there. The beloved house over time would be repainted inside, fixed up and improved, and would become a comfortable cozy house. Oddly enough, it was Caroline who was it's last occupant in the family.

The only real town close by was Wasilla. Dad's shop was in the opposite direction. The first shop he had was the quonset hut which was basically half of a very large tube cut in half and secured to a cement pad.

Over Dad's office in the quonset hut was an area where the boys could play and be out of the way. For whatever reason, Dad decided to relocate although it took a little while. Not six month after he moved out of the quonset hut, the building caved in. There was so much snow on the quonset hut that the weight became too great. It was remarked with a grateful reference to the Lord's guiding that Dad had moved out of that shop instead of staying there. The second shop was called the wolverine building, and it was very large, with a huge area in the back to play. Often, in the summer months when either public school or home school was not in session, the whole family would relocate to the shop for the day. Sometimes they would go to the shop at night and have popcorn with ice cream while watching a movie. The second summer there was a difficult one. It was while Dad had his shop in the quonset hut. That summer the electricity was shut off and the water too to the house. The reason was because money was used to pay the rent for the shop. And since the shop had water and electricity, the family spent most of the time there. There was a shower there, and during the day, the boys would play. Mom saw to it that sandwich supplies were brought as well. Around lunch Caroline would begin to make sandwiches for everybody. Most of the time, Mom acted as the de-facto secretary for Dad.

As far as main courses went, it seemed that there were about four things that the family ate all the time that summer.

Oatmeal, potatoes, peanut butter sandwiches and the dreaded soy beans, although the garden did supply a fair share of greens and vegetables. During late summer, fall and the beginning of winter, (which in Alaska came be hard to distinguish) it seemed the family ate nothing but beans, but everyone was smart enough not to complain. There was a very useful phrase which Mom and Dad milked for all it was worth. “Invention is the mother of necessity.”Looking back I never cease to be impressed with how creative they were with what was available. We had beans every way that could be conceived, and when put to it, Dad was a resourceful and creative cook...one of his lesser known talents. There was usually oatmeal for breakfast with Ginger's milk. The family did not eat many eggs since they were set aside to sell, and their sales helped with household expenses. There was usually peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, and for dinner there was almost always beans in one form or another. Looking back, I do not recall anyone complaining. To complain about food Mom made at the table in front of Dad was not done unless the senseless party wanted to get slapped. There were baked beans, fried beans, stewed beans and others I cannot remember. Something we did was put a baking pan with beans on the big black heaters with their shiny stainless steal grills. It took a couple of hours but when they were done, the soy beans were like nuts with an odd but savory nutty flavor. Knowing that things would be tight, Mom and Dad had gotten a hundred pound sack of soy beans in the spring. Also, from time to time, Grandma Lila and Grandma Leona would send boxes of dried sugar dates in the mail, and they were a delicious and welcome break from the usually fare during this period. For this period, since the water was shut off at the house, the water was taken from the shop and brought to the house to drink, wash dishes and to be used for other necessities. Showers were taken at the quonset hut, and the days were mostly spend there. But as fall arrived, the children went to school, some of them for the first time at Big Lake Elementary. The school bus went right by the quonset hut and that is where it dropped them off.

In Alaska, every member of a family who has lived there for more that two years gets what is called the permanent fund dividend. At that time, it was about 900$ per person and as fate would have it, it was dispersed about two weeks before Christmas. It was about this time that the family had lived in Alaska for two years and were eligible to receive the permanent fund dividends. Almost like a reverse tax, the point was that when the government of Alaska did this, the economy surged because everyone was out buying or selling things. During the summer you could count on one hand the variety of different foods you ate as far as main courses went aside from greens and vegetables from the garden. About two weeks before Christmas, the family received the permanent fund dividend. There were eight people in our family, and so, all of a sudden, Mom and Dad had over eight thousand tax free dollars to spend.

First of all they paid tithe and offering. Then they paid off bills, and there were a number of those. Anchorage was about 50 miles away, and going to Anchorage was a big deal. For about three days the family went to Anchorage and spent all day there. Dad and Mom bought so much food that you could not see the walls in the kitchen. Dad knew that we loved cold cereal, and he got a lot of that. We had a double cab Ford pickup truck, and when we went home each day, the back of it was filled with food. There was a restaurant called the Royal Fork and it was a favorite place to go. So for three days, we went to Anchorage, ate at nice restaurants, bought Christmas presents, and had a good time. At that time, I would have said that the permanent fund dividends constituted the good times and the time before it when we ate so many beans constituted the bad times. But now I am not so sure. As I look back, regardless of how much we did nor did not have during either time, I am inclined to say that both times hold a nostalgic and pleasant glow for me now. We may have had difficult times, but we are fortunate to know the value of food regardless of if we like it or not. My siblings and I are glad to look up to parents who have shown us how to weather tough times with creativity and a positive determination. As I look back, I no longer see tough times or good times. The transcending detail is that we were together regardless of how much we did or did not have. To me, the most important detail is that we were together, and if I scheme at all, most of the time it has to do with how to get the family together again for a visit at some point in the future. A family reunion is something that I think about a lot. That would be one advantage of being rich.“Oh you don't have the money? No problem! I'm rich right? I'll just write out a check for whatever the plane, or the train, the bus, or the gas costs!”

But as I step back, I realize,“Hey, I am rich!”I am rich in the sense of the family God has given me. That includes friends as well. Rich in family! It makes me think about how God feels about His family. Every single member of the human family...no one is the same! God looks forward to the great reunion in heaven which commences at the close of human history on this earth, and He does not want anyone to be left out! He and heaven is striving with all power to make sure that as many make it to the great reunion as possible. The devil only wants to prevent people from making it to that reunion. If we trust God, the devil won't get his way with us. What we need to do is to continually ask God in the name of Jesus for a new heart...every day. I look forward to a family reunion here on earth, but I want to impress brothers and sisters to prepare for the reunion in heaven. I very much enjoy writing down what I remember from the past. I don't live in the past, but I discovered that the more I write about family, the more I remember. I am rich in family, and it is my continual prayer that my Brothers and Sisters and friends, both in my immediate family, and in humanity will be there! Let's not forget to mention each other when we talk to the Lord. Let's remember to lift each other up when we ask the Lord to keep our siblings in the faith. I look forward to being together with family, both here and in heaven. 

The Tree House ~ By Royal Stone

THE TREE HOUSE


Long long ago and, far far away their lived four little boys,all of them in the eyes of there parents were a wonder to behold.
In actuality, it was not that long ago or quite so far away. It was the late 80s and early 90s in Knik, near Wasilla Alaska, but in the halls of ones childhood memories it was another life on another wondrous planet. They were and are THE STONE BOYS and in order of age they are Tim, Brian, Brent and of course myself. I also had two sisters Caroline and Lila. Caroline was the oldest of us all and as Dad put it, ”she was a good first sergeant.” She was also my hero, and being ten years older than me, she was the ultimate in cool. Lila was one of those people who was born with a cookbook in hand who meant business in her dealings with her mischievous little brothers but who had a kind heart. But that is another story.
This story begins on a warm Alaska spring day, warm being about thirty degrees. Since it had gotten warm enough to play
outside in shorts a t-shirts I was engaged in my favorite past time which was to turn over rocks, logs, motor homes or anything
that might house an interesting insect. I was turning over and scattering one of my fathers carefully stacked piles of scrap
lumber when the greatest idea ever conceived of popped into my head. Of Course!! We had trees, scrap lumber, and I new where
there were cans of old nails and a hammer EUREKA !! I got all my brothers together and told them my idea. “I don't know,” Brent
said, “shouldn’t we ask dad if we can use his stuff?” “Oh dad won't care,” Brian put in (incidentally Brent and Brian are twins).
Tim liked the idea immediately and we set to work. Our cousin and close confidant Wayne also joined us for the project and added his good ideas as well. Right away we realized that we would have to build it between several trees because their was no one tree big enough to house it. Behind our house there was a seemingly endless forest with lakes and game trails untouched and unspoiled, except for four mischievous little boys.

We found five trees that were big enough and in a rough circle and began to dream of the glories of our soon to be fortress of civilization in the untamed wilds. Just then we heard
Lila calling us into eat and realized that some unscrupulous power in the universe invariably put lunch time right in the middle
of a budding a epiphany. We would not even consider failing to respond to our mothers summons however, both because it would
inevitably result in a spanking and the fact that our mother was an unsurpassed cook and thus her meals were nearly always
something to look forward to.

I say nearly always because she would quite often cook a tasty meal and then introduce brussel sprouts or garbanzo beans or in the case of breakfast Oatmeal or some other unsavory dish that was "GOOD FOR US" Regardless
when mom called us for lunch WE WENT. After lunch we started looking for the longest cleanest pieces of scrap lumber
to nail from one tree to the next to form an odd looking pentagon about ten feet off the ground and ten or twelve feet across.
About that time Brent reiterated his belief that we should have asked dad if we could us his lumber or if we could build a
tree house at all. Brian and Tim and I all assured him that no one would care. In retrospect he was right, but even had we
considered that, we would not have allowed such legalism to ruin such a wondrous adventure. Fortunately Tim was about twelve
at the time and new more about "safe building techniques" than the rest of us, else we would probably have hurt ourselves
quite badly. After the frame work was complete "which took us most of the day because none of us were skilled with a hammer and we had to lift the boards into position using ropes slung over higher branches" we started looking for boards
that would work for the floor of the structure that was to be the bastion of hope against savages and aliens alike. Being spring
it still got dark at night so we had to go inside and have dinner and do the after dinner dishes.

After dinner Dad would put on
an old movie usually a western. I remember him sitting on the end of the couch with his big ceramic coffee cup and his old brass ash tray watching the movie. I remember he was such a big man then with a big grayish brown beard that started just bellow his eyes and ended somewhere under his shirt. I would always try to sit beside dad and he would put his arm over the
back of the couch and thus behind me and watch the movie. The smell of cigarettes and coffee and dad in his place on the couch made the house we lived in the home that I loved. Over the next few weeks we worked on the tree house when we could and it really came together nicely. We built walls about three feet high all around it and found some buckets
and an old bus seat for chairs. We couldn't put a roof on it because by that time we had run out of lumber and most of the nails were used up and spilled all over the forest floor. But to us, roof or no roof that was Fort Dix and the Ritz all rolled into one.
The only down side other than falling out of it more than once was a few days later Dad was clomping around the yard looking irritated and obviously searching for something and as fate would have it he found ME. I was playing out by the tree line on an old pile of shingles tearing them up to see the ants and their eggs underneath when I heard, "ROY COME HERE"
When it came to my dad you didn't hesitate when given a command. I honestly think he could get a bear to grovel through
nothing more than his intimidating presence. While I didn't hesitate to obey I felt a profound reluctance because I knew tone of voice. It was the tone that said something is broken, torn, misplaced or stolen and I know it was you, and it usually was. The question when I found him standing at the front of his homemade 'A' frame shop was, What happened to all my lumber, and where's my hammer? "Fortunately he hadn't noticed the missing hand saw". I remember giving one of those
noncommittal shrugs. You know the one that does not say "I don't know" but does not say "I don't want to tell" either.


Unfortunately though well practiced, those kind of shrugs didn't work on my dad and the truth of the matter was quickly discovered and I think it went something like this..... WHAT THE .... I CAN'T BELIEVE.....I.. ARE YOU NUTS?
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”
Looking back on that I don't remember whether we got spanked for that or not but i'll assume that we didn't since dads spankings were not something you would soon forget.
I'm afraid I have to go now because my son is disassembling my favorite headphones. AAAHHHRRRGGGG!!!


ROYAL
FRANKLIN
STONE