Along the Road to Home

The night sky was totally awash with pinpoints of light in every direction as far as my eyes could see, flying into Salt Lake City.   After a short night in comfortable lodgings, I was a bit startled to see Salt Lake City in daylight.  The city had grown immensely in my absence!  With the exception of well-known landmarks, there wasn't much that felt familiar to me.  Sprawling burbs and freeways stretched out in every direction.  When I lived here, I drove wherever I needed to go without intimidation but I was glad not to be the one driving as we began our trek through northern Utah.

Had I been living in Nevada's desert so long I'd forgotten the beauty that surrounds the Salt Lake Valley?  Everything looked surprisingly green and lush to me, considering reports of drought conditions.   But even while I was loving the view of rolling foothills and towering mountains now very close along the east bench freeway, the enormity of it all made me oddly uncomfortable.   I was surprised by my discomfort.  I didn't feel at home at all in a city I had once loved and called 'Home' as a teen, a young adult, and a young mother.   Had I subconsciously thought I would return at sometime, finding it as I'd remembered?  I'd been gone some 36 years, living among the sand dunes and sagebrush that is much of Nevada.  Now, I found myself silently saying, "This is not 'Home' anymore".

My classmates from high school, Class of '62, were meeting for lunch in the cafeteria at West Side High School in Dayton, Idaho.  I'd driven this route, Salt Lake to the small towns of Cache Valley, many times, however, we welcomed the use of GPS, just in case memory failed me or something had changed with the passing of time.  Just as we were about to escape the city, our speed caught the attention of a dutiful highway cop.  The limit changed through this stretch every few miles--65, 75, maybe reduced some, then back up.  The officer said, "Just a few miles more and the sky's the limit!"  It was crazy!  Wait!  Were we in Utah or Nevada, where construction accompanied by frequent speed changes goes on pretty much all year long?  Some have suggested that the orange cone receive  special recognition in Northern Nevada!  It could become our official State flower.

With my daughter, Jennifer, at the wheel, I was freed to gaze, recognizing some things, having forgotten others.  The artist's eye in me noticed frequent changes in topography along the way, from big city buildings and towering cliffs of granite past landscaped neighborhoods into valleys where the land stretched out like a pioneer's pieced quilt in a pattern of varied crops and fields--lots of field corn, grain and alfalfa among them.  Driving past Bountiful, Kaysville, Layton, Ogden, Brigham City, to name a few, there were signs of some growth but more visible was the effect the current economy has had on these small towns; Some landmarks embedded in my memory went missing.  My granddaughter, Jessica, was mostly awake and sometimes off her cell phone enough that she and Jenn called out and counted  steeples as they spied them, much like I do with Jenn's boys as we see VW Bugs and Beatles, as we drive.  There's a lot of steeples!

Is it called Strawberry Canyon that connects the Brigham City area to Wellsville and Logan?  I should remember.  I've had some hair-raising drives through there in winter weather.  On the day of our drive, the canyon was pure splendor--variations on a green theme and no visible snow.  Main Street in Logan, Utah was lovely, with its old homes and store fronts.  The famous Bluebird Cafe was still there!  In the interest of time, some sights and visits had to wait for another time--Utah State campus, its theater notoriety created by my Uncle Floyd Morgan, a museum or library there now telling his story, and the temple grounds.  I could only shout out a big 'Hello' and call the name of many relatives and friends as we drove by.

Beyond Logan, the old Del Monte plant still stood, a relic of a former time when local farmers like my dad grew peas on small farms.  I wondered if the place of my birth, The Bergeson Maturnity Home, was still setting in place, high on a hill across from the original Cache Valley Dairy operation near Smithfield.  There were empty store fronts, crumbling barns, yards and homes in disrepair.  More trailer homes than I remembered ever seeing in these parts were stuck in here and there, mixed with old and newer traditionals.  The look of tidy, planned streets appeared to be all but gone.  Just passing through, there seemed a tired sagging, under the weight of time and sour economics, perhaps, on the face of small towns the likes of Smithfield, Richmond, Franklin, Preston and Weston.  This was not how I remembered it.  My memories of these main streets were of living storefronts, the appearance of well-kept homes, yards, and adjoining barnyards.  That tangible feeling of a town's pride appeared to have declined.

It was hot in Salt Lake but we were air conditioned there and in the car all along the way.  I'd become accustomed to heat, living in Nevada, but I was not prepared for heat with humidity.  It really hit me when we pulled into my old high school's parking lot.  There was no simple introduction--some call it 'glowing'--nor even polite perspiration.  I became a running stream of plain, ole' SWEAT !  I had thought the cause was my continued menopausal state, though I signed up for the kind that is suppose to end at some unspecified point in time, or because I had altered my 7-day drug routine to fit the 12-day trip but my girls were melting, too.  Anticipating summer heat, I had dressed in as little as I could get away with though being in Mormon country among relatives and friends, I felt I had to wear more than I might have on a hot day in Nevada.  You know what humidity does to make-up?  Mine had slid right off my face.  I'd spent lots of time on my eyes that morning.  They were my one good feature back in the day when I was a sweet, young thing.  Boobs, butts and bellies aren't the only things that sag with age.  My eye lids had taken on a Basset Hound Dog droop as time passed, something I mostly ignored until the auspicious occasion to meet old friends came along.  So my shadow and mascara wasn't all just where I wanted it to be, but close enough, I'd hoped, to soften a few wrinkles and a few years.  Smudging and illusion, that was the key to old eyes made up because no matter how I tried, with shaky, stiff or bend arthritic hands plus the glasses on, glasses off and the blended lens bifocal now-you-see-it-then-you-don't thing, there was no way I'd get the stuff exactly in the ideal target spot.  I needn't have worried about it.  With the make-up gone, my face became more ruddy than usual, the result of mopping up the continued torrent. Too strong a word?  I felt strongly about appearing for lunch in sweat and freckles!

Thanks to technology and my recognition of just enough more, we ended up at the high school and I walked into the arms of friends from long ago.  Many, I'd not seen since the night we graduated from high school.  Some I didn't recognize.  Many looked much the same.  Others remarkably resembled their parents.  It was a great idea, on the committee's part, to invite classmates we'd had along the way who moved before our senior year.  One of our teachers, Elsie Bastian, came, too.  She lived in Weston so I knew her through school and church activities.  I was good to see her, again.

As a group, we met to visit and have lunch just that one afternoon.  The time passed quickly.  I didn't get to talk with each one.  I loved that Kent Tingey greeted me with a huge smile, a huge hug, saying, "Oh, it's my best playmate!"  He and I did spend lots of play time together even before we started school.  My brother, Marion and his wife, Evelyn, lived in a little house next to Bishop Maurice Tingey's big farm house.  While playing there one day with several kids, Evelyn looked out to check on me.  One of the kids was hitting me.  I seemed frozen in place and just stood there, taking it.  Evelyn and I laughed about her yelling out to me, "Christie, HIT that kid!", during my visit with her on this trip.  Kent's grandmother, Mae Tingey, lived in Uncle Edgar's old home, beside our house on the farm.  When he came to his grandma's, we played together, often in what I now know was my Grandpa Morgan's old log cabin that stood next to Edgar's brick home.

Norlis McKay looked so much like his dad, Melvin who was a good friend of my dad's.  The Benson twins, DeAnn and DiAnn were there.  And the Beutler twins, Ivan and Ione.  Janet Greene Yamamoto was still making people laugh with her antics.  They were some of the first to greet us when we arrived.  I introduced each one to Jenn and Jessi and commented that they were cousins.  By the last of these introductions, Jenn was saying, "Of course they are cousins!"  Helen Hobbs Robbins didn't know who I was.  Must have been my missing red hair.  Aw-w-w, Dave Hansen came though he moved before graduation.  Rosie Schwartz finally figured out who I was.  Dorothy Moser Nuffer whose sister, Alice, dated my brother, Keith, laughed when I reminded her about her sister always wanting one of Mother's dill pickles to eat during any movie date.  Lorraine Rice Phillips, one of my first roommates after graduation, and I just had time for a quick hello; Much the same for Marianne Winward Day and others--just a quick hello.  Marianne and I were best friends in high school.  I loved to spend the night at her house.  Her mother made the best coffee cake for breakfast, the cake itself slightly sweet with yummy streusel topping.  Marianne got me through Home Economics.  I knew next to nothing.  She knew the basics, having to carry her share of the load within such a big family.

Oh, it was so good to see Stanley Buxton.  He must have grown taller after high school.  When we were kids, getting he and his brother home on the school bus was a sometimes scary matter.  The road, two narrow lanes, climbed two steep hills with a straight down dip between the two.  The road looked like part of a roller coaster ride to me after all these years.  More than once, our bus almost made it to the top, lost traction and poor Mr. Palmer had to ever-so-carefully back that big and lengthy, yellow school bus down the hill.

Some of the group appeared almost unchanged.  I was relieved to see name tags for those I didn't recognize.  Some expressed being pleasantly surprised that this was a fun gathering and a casual, nice way to break the ice after so many years.  Others said we should not have waited so long to meet together.  Ruth Ann Powell Johnson was kept busy throughout the time we were together so we didn't get to visit until the next day.  I'll say more about that in another post.  She helped Lynn Poulsen, Norlis and a few others continue work on a document destined to be completed after the reunion, a compilation of brief life summaries of most of us, a memory piece of those who were deceased, pictures and other memorabilia and made available to all of us.  That means that I may add to this brief summary at a later date.

We were a graduating class of 52, if I am remembering correctly.  My best guess of the count of those attending was about 35 classmates plus a few spouses, guests, and family members.  A committee was named and a date set to get together again.  Really, I've got to reduce my size and tone up a few wrinkles before then.  Would I consider a lid lift?  Maybe...

To be continued...