Still recuperating from the bout of pneumonia, trying to get strength back to normal but was back to teaching nursery school children and the adult night class with a presentation about children’s literature. Kids home off and on with various ailments. One day I picked up Dale Kennedy’s (Rebecca’s teacher) homework at the school office. Florence brought up some granola she had made and then couldn’t get her car started. Bob couldn’t start it either. Leonard came up and got it started immediately. I wrote “That happens to me too.”
Bob came home with a big piece of chocolate cake left over from Roy Blair’s farewell party. I was delighted as that would be dessert that night. I’d fixed a cobbler the day before so we had the rest of that too.
On the 20th we awoke to find it snowing and accumulated about an inch but by 9:00 it had melted off the trees and sun was shining. Very pretty while it lasted. We were supposed to go to the scout dinner that night but Jeff was still sick The next evening I could hear frogs from toward West Weaver Creek.
Saturday evening I was reading John Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charlie”. Bob left for Bakersfield late Sunday afternoon and would be home Thursday night. After lunch I hauled four wheelbarrows of wood from the woodshed to the porch and dumped the rotten apples over the edge of the lawn. Children’s coughs were getting better.
Monday. After cleaning our room for the first time in months, I took Clarke down to Greenwood’s so he could spend his allowance on an orange racing car. Bob called Wednesday night. He sounded exhausted but pretty well satisfied with what he had been able to accomplish. He had been staying up until midnight and getting up before six. Did three more loads of wood.
Tuesday had been a nursery school day. I was still taking medication so had to wait an hour before lunch. After Jeff came home I took him to Greenwoods to spend his allowance. He bought a racing car and a little truck. Scot Lindsey came home with Clarke on the bus. Around 4:15 I took him along and we went over to the elementary school to pick up Rebecca who had stayed after. She was catching up on some more that she had missed and helping some other children with a play. That night I stayed up too late watching TV—watching the Adams chronicles and another program.
Carol Benninghoven called at 9 a.m. to see if I wanted to go down to Heryford’s to look at some carpeting for the pre-school room. I didn’t want to but went down. This took about half an hour. Then we went to the post office and came home. Took Clarke down to the bus in the VW so he would have a warm, dry place to wait in the rain.
Picked Rebecca up again at school and Clarke from Kelly Sheen’s where he’d gone after school. Tuna sandwiches (with freshly made mayonnaise), soup and a little salad for dinner. There were a few crocuses, some grape hyacinths and violets blooming in the garden.
And suddenly it was March 1st, a Monday. I wrote that on Friday afternoon I went over to Rebecca’s room and watched the children put on a play. It was the group that gets extra help in reading. Rebecca and a couple of others helped them out. Rebecca had made several props for them and was a participant as the front end of a cow! I was pleased that she was able to get along with and communicate with so many different children. After their skit I went over to the scout hall and found Linda Covert with the boys making paper flags. They needed stars to stick on them so I took Ron Lindsey and we went to the dime store. This project kept the boys busy until 3:00.
Jeffrey and I got home just as Clarke was reaching the top of the driveway. Rebecca had stayed at school to practice her flute with Kim. Rebecca tried to call me for a ride but I was on the phone with Doris for a long time and Florence ended up taking both girls to her house. I was really embarrassed. I picked up the girls and went to Kim’s to meet her mother who works for David Hammer. Rebecca was going to stay overnight at Kim’s and we needed to at least meet ahead of time! “She was very pleasant and also reassuring about fires.” Now I guess parents ask about guns—then, for me at least, it was fires.
Friday night we were invited to Florence and Leonard’s for dinner, along with Dick and his family. I took a big green salad. Florence fixed bread and a fruit salad plus pies for dessert. “She makes such good soup!” Afterwards I took Rebecca to Kim’s. Then I went back to help Florence with dishes. Rebecca and Kim went to a Walt Disney movie.
Candie Fields and her mother came by. They were looking for a lantern as there was no electricity on at their Douglas City place and they needed to work down there. Bob loaned them Florence and Leonard’s generator and our light. Around 4:00 we went down to see how they were doing. We stayed about an hour. Sunday, Bob went down with Rebecca and stayed all day. He helped them quite a bit. They put subfloor over the tile in the kitchen and put new tile on top. Candie and Jim had gotten the subfloor in the bathroom Saturday. Sunday afternoon I took Jeffrey down to the theater to see Sasquach. Kim was there with her brother and sister and said she’d keep an eye on him. Then I went to pick up Kelly Sheen because Clarke felt lonesome. Got Jeffrey at 4:00 and took Kelly home. Then Bob and Rebecca got back a little after 6:00.
Sunday night we all watched Sound of Music on tv.The next day we woke up to an inch of snow. I took the camera and tripod out to take some pictures. It was the first time I used my new tripod. Went in and started French toast and came back out again. A loud bird called from the cedar tree and I discovered that it was a White Breasted Nuthatch, although I had to look it up. So different from the Red Breasted!
Jeff came up from the bus stop a little after 8:00 to say the bus hadn’t come so I took the two children to school. It was very cold out. We saw the driver in her VW so she may have been driving around telling people the bus wouldn’t start or something. Bob stayed home to make up for all the extra time he’d worked the previous week and I didn’t have to bundle Clarke up to take him with us. Later he walked Clarke down to the bus stop. There were snow flurries off and on all afternoon.
Bob went out to the ranch, leaving town around 3:00 and dropped Jeff off at Meyer’s on his way. When Clarke got home he was feeling unhappy and tired, had fallen at school, and the bus driver almost didn’t stop to let him off. I did some comforting and then put on the Pooh record and had him lie down on the couch. Got his stuffed frog and covered him with a blanket. Then went out and hauled about four wheelbarrows of wood. Then Clarke and I went in Bob’s car to get Rebecca from piano lessons. Bob had the VW van. Jeannie brought Jeffrey home.
Cleaned the boys’ room on Saturday. They stripped their own beds. “It was like working in a dust bowl.”
On the morning of the 10th I got a phone call from Buff McDonell saying that Governor Brown had signed my appointment to the Northwest Regional Water Quality Control Board. The news came at a good time as I was feeling rather low about my abilities.
The morning of the 11th, while I was in the middle of washing dishes, I got a phone call from Clyde Bentley, from the Redding Record Searchlight. “He started out by asking me if I was a conservationist or environmentalist, no other choices. I said an environmentalist. He then asked whether I was a member of the Sierra Club. I said no. H asked whether I belonged to any other local organizations of that type and I told him about the Forest Forum (which was a mixture of environmental, forestry, Fish and Game, loggers, all kinds of interests). Then he asked what I thought about the miners’ problems with the Water Quality Control Board. I told him I wouldn’t know until I’d been on the board for a while. Then he asked what I thought I could add to the board. I said well, I didn’t represent housing or industry.
Got home a little before 2:00, changed clothes went to the grocery store and got a snack for the cub scouts. Then went over to help Linda Covert with the scouts.This was a busy week. It is the Community Concert Drive so I’ve been on the phone a lot.
One of the miners called me and wanted me to go to Canyon Creek to view the area that is under discussion on Wednesday. I told him I’d try. I called David Joseph, the board executive director, and talked to him for a while. Called Stan Martin, wanting to see anything he decided to publish. Of course he couldn’t do that. Also, he hadn’t heard about the appointment. (I was learning so much in just a few days!)
I gathered some frog eggs from the ditch near Bob and Alan Young’s place. Took some to nursery school, gave some to Jeff for his class and some to Clarke for his class. I wanted to get some more for us and for Rebecca’s class.
The previous weekend we had a lot of trouble with our car. Ed Poole worked on it and got a lot of problems taken care of but thought there was still something wrong with the carburetor. I’d done a lot of walking. Even walked up to the CD Hall on Tuesday, to vote….in the snow, about an inch. After many frustrating starts and stops at inconvenient times it we finally discovered that a wire, which touched something hot and had the insulation burned off it, was shorting out.
Wednesday night I took Rebecca and Jeff to the CD Hall to hear the Shasta Symphony. We sat right up in front so the children could see the pianist during the first piece.
On the 13th I took our staple gun and a mask over to the recreation building so the volunteers working on the nursery school room could use them while putting in insulation. I didn’t help with that but ran errands for everyone else. We had to push the car to get it started from the house. When I went from the rec. building downtown to get more staples it was OK. Went back to the rec. building and was about to leave again and it wouldn’t start. Bob came down and towed me. I kept the car running as I went to Heryford’s to get more insulation and to Valley Pharmacy for gauze masks. Delivered that and then came home to call in my Community Concert memberships. Went back to the park and was getting Rebecca who had helped by watching children when the car died. Called Bob and a little while later he and Candie came by. He towed me again and then he and Rebecca and Candie took Candie to her car and Rebecca stayed with Candie to help her pick out carpet for her Douglas City place. I came home and vacuumed all the insulation fuzz out of the car and fixed lunch for everyone. Candie and Rebecca soon arrived. I received several phone calls and a note of congratulations on my Water Board appointment.