Easter was coming and time
for spring break. Tom had invited me to
his home and I had accepted. I was
interested to see his part of Washington State before my college days were
completed. Tom was giving several
students a ride over the mountains to their homes. We all contributed to gas money which made it
easy for everyone to afford the trip.
One of the students was a
girl that Tom must have known quite well as he teased her all the way. She was a good sport about it and got back at
him. The conversation was lively, so
time went quickly. I recognized the
landscape over the Cascade Mountains by way of Snoqualmie Pass. There was snow on the mountains and along the
highway on top of the pass. When we
reached the summit everyone required a rest stop and a snow ball fight
ensued. The exercise and cold snow
alerted us for the rest of the trip.
Descending the pass and
approaching Seattle brought us to where Tom had turned south and let me off to
hitch hike the previous year. It all
seemed familiar, but I was glad I wasn’t getting out there this year. The
highway ran along the low land between the mountains and the ocean. We were too far inland to see the ocean, but
the Puget Sound cut inland at Seattle and was insight as we drove down highway
99 past Tacoma. The Sound ends in the
area of Olympia which I recall from my Washington State History class, is the
state capitol. We got magnificent views
of several major mountain peaks along this stretch of road. The most spectacular and closest to us was
Mt. Rainier and the others, Mt, St Helens, Mt Hood, and Mt. Baker, all visible
as it was a clear, sunny day. They were
all dormant volcanoes. As we traveled
south from Olympia, Mt. St Helens became closer. We looked intently to see if we could detect
steam coming from the mountain. If we
looked hard enough our eyes would manufacture make-believe steam. It was evident that the mountain had been a
volcano. It had the cone shaped outline
with an open crater at the top.
We traveled further south
passing Centralia where Tom said he attended the junior college. My Washington
State history book said it was one of the oldest junior colleges in the state.
The next town, just a few miles down the road was Chehalis and not much further
we turned off the main highway and drove back into the wooded hills past
Mosyrock to Silver Creek. A beautiful
lake stretched around between hills creating what looked like a popular
recreation area. A dirt mountain road
led to Tom’s home. It was an older house
with a number of out buildings. His mom,
a pleasant woman of around fifty welcomed us in and after introductions,
invited us to come to the table for supper as she called it. I hadn’t heard that term for some time.
Tom asked where his Dad was
and was told he was doing repair on the tractor. We went ahead with supper. I could see Tom was upset that his father
hadn’t welcomed us. When his Dad did
come in, he seemed unaware that supper had been called and he was late. He was a good sized man, slightly bent from
hard work. Salem was his name. He gave
the impression he wouldn’t take any back-talk from anyone. He acknowledged my presence and commented on
my height. The rest of the evening
passed with generic conversation. Tom
tried to tell his father about the things he was doing at college, but got
minimal response. Tom tried to drag me
into the conversation and I made several attempts to visit. At one point Salem
began a discussion about how the tourists were ruining the country around the
lake. Eventually we all decided it was
time for bed. I felt relieved for a
break from the forced conversation and gladly followed Tom to my bunk for the
night.
Tom seemed cheerful at
breakfast and proceeded to lay out a plan for the day. Mrs. Plant had a large farm breakfast ready
for us and we approached it with gusto.
Tom wanted to show me around. It
had been raining during the night, so Tom decided to use the four wheel drive
pick up. He got the keys from where they
hung next to the cook stove and we climbed on board. The property was beautiful with huge
evergreen trees scattered liberally across the landscape. Some of the more open
areas were being farmed. Tom was
obviously proud of the place and he told of the many hours he had spent helping
his Dad clear and work the soil. Tom had
lost half of his middle finger on the right hand in an accident with a piece of
machinery. He loved to joke about it and
used the stub to jab people when he wanted to emphasize a point. You can imagine other unique finger signals
he always introduced in a conversation.
Tom told me he had plans for the property when he inherited it. Tom was an only child, so it was likely he
would receive the property. He said he
wanted to develop a camp ground on the wooded part of the land. With the lake near by it seemed like a
natural. Tom confided he hadn’t shared
this plan with his Dad primarily because of his negative attitude about
campers.
We spent several restful days
running around the area, visiting points of interest. The drive along the lake was one of my
favorite spots. We went into Mossyrock
and Tom pointed out Les Greer’s home. We
wondered how he was doing in the service.
It was interesting how similar my growing up in the country and the love
I had for the ranch was to Tom’s situation, only very different geography. As the end of our marvelous retreat from
reality approached, Tom suggested we go to a dance in nearby Chehalis. I agreed although I didn’t have any dancing
clothes at that point in our outing. I
had one white shirt that had been worn and was a mass of wrinkles.
The dance was in a large hall
with a live band and several hundred people, mostly high school and junior
college age. Tom knew a number of them
and introduced me to them. He was doing
well securing dance partners, so I got my nerve to ask one of the girls
standing along the side of the dance floor to dance. To my dismay she turned me down. After my motivation to approach that girl, I
moved down the line and asked another girl with the same results. This was a tremendous defeat and I decided I
was finished asking for a dance. I
wondered what was wrong with me. I had
to admit my wrinkled clothing could have been the problem. Looking around at the crowd I realized I must
have looked like a giant to them. Tom
was shorter than a lot of the kids at Eastern, but here he was taller than most. Why, I wondered did this community have so
many short people? Without an answer to
that question I decided to wonder outside while trying to heal my bruised
ego. There I found several other fellows
who had stepped out for a smoke. They
struck up a conversation and that took my mind off my dance disappointment for
a minute or two. That had to be the most
embarrassing incident for me since I did the race across the gym as a high
school freshman to get a candy kiss from the cheerleader. Eventually Tom came and suggested we leave
for home. We were planning to get an
early start for Eastern the next morning.
Tom was up before me and I
heard a heated argument between he and his father. By the time I arose and picked up my
belongings, Tom was back in the room steaming about his father’s claim that we
had damaged the pickup when we took it around the farm that first morning. Salem was no place to be seen as we had
breakfast, and loaded our things into the car.
I thanked Mrs. Plant for the hospitality and she gave me a big hug. Tom got a hug also with a plea for him to
forgive his Dad. Tom grumbled for quite
a few miles, but eventually he must have taken his mom’s advice and returned to
his jolly self.
The remainder of spring
quarter went by rapidly. Tom was so
involved in graduation and student teaching that I didn’t see much of him even
though we were room mates. He went into
the service immediately upon graduation and it was four years later that we saw
each other again.
*Taken from "Which Road Should I Follow?, Volume 1, Growing up in the country", an autobiography by Edwin K. Hill.
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