Last Summer at the Ranch and the River

Adam Dumphy

Description

Herding caterpillars; raiding a neighbor’s tall peach tree by means of stilts; constructing a fake “Loch Ness Monster” with canvas and a derelict canoe; machinations in a Pawn Shop to obtain the fur coat of a ‘genuine’ Eskimo Princess: or even adding paddling (with a real paddle) as the initiation fee for the prestigious San Francisco based Paddle and Canoe Club are hardly crimes. To the participant they rate more properly as just boyish exuberance.

In such affairs as these Johnny was the brain, Chuck the muscle and the author as youngest and smallest, was the unfortunate shuttle cock sent aloft to the winds of chance in walking, swimming or producing any chicanery necessary, to complete the plan.

And as for an author age eighty, like Adam, memories can expand or recoil like a worn out accordion or a “Slinky” going down stairs, it is no problem for him to combine the actual happenings of eight summers spent in a cabin in the tourist town of Monte Rio on the Russian River in Northern California into one summer’s adventure.

Add the first burgeoning forth of a very shy, very tentative romance and you have this story.

Locale, circumstances and incidents are true. It has been colored in part for reader interest.

Sujets

• Biography
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 29 juin 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781467824934
• Langue: English

Extrait

Last Summer at the Ranch and the River
…and just 67 years ago this fall.
 
 
by
Adam Dumphy
 
 
 
 

 
AuthorHouse™
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: [phone]
 
AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.
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Central Milton Keynes, MK9 2BE
www.authorhouse.co.uk
Phone: [phone]
 
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
 
© 2006 Adam Dumphy. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
First published by AuthorHouse
 
ISBN: 1-4259-2707-6 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4678-2493-4 (ebk)
 
 
Printed in the United States of America
Bloomington, Indiana
 
Contents
Hut Sut
Grandma Sascha
The Loveless Monster
The McLeans At Home.
That Alaskan Fur
Hidden Valley
Those Weaver Boys
The Paddle Club
The Dance
YPF
The Hitchhiker
Toughy
Stanley
About the Author:
 
 
 
To
Jay Muranaka
 
 
And all the present day teenagers of this TV raddled generation who have no idea of the peace, joy, the tingling excitement and limitless hopes of the teens of the last (Best?) Generation
 
 
 
  Hut Sut
“Hut sut ralston on the riddle rah and a brawla brawla suet….”
Early summer of 1937 and the Hut Sut song was very popular. Everybody was singing it. It didn’t matter that we didn’t know what the words said; besides everybody pronounced them differently anyway. The high school band had just got the arrangement and was kicking it out at the best party I had ever seen.
“Hey, Timmy. You got to dance with my sister.”
That is, I amended, it had been the best party just up until that minute. Not that I had expected a little kid’s party with paper hats and balloons. Johnny was sixteen today and his party was class.
Firstly best ever because it was couples. Twelve boys and twelve girls. The girls in billowy, party frocks and the boys in suits. Well mostly. Actually I was wearing a new sport coat and the same old slacks I wore on Sunday to church, which didn’t exactly match, but I thought I was beautiful.
The affair started with a sit-down dinner, with waiters even, in the sunken dining room of the big, new house on Arbor Drive in San Leandro. Just a short commute across the Bay from San Francisco, San Leandro was becoming a rich man’s suburb of “The City”. Springing up in the midst of the cherry orchards just across the bay from Trolley Town were new houses everywhere you looked. Set in orchards over a low rolling landscape, free of fog and sunny like in the California ads. But the McLean’s new house was the biggest and the newest.
Called Nordic Modern or something it meant all natural wood outside. And inside three stories almost with steep roofs and skinny windows and lots of gables. Inside it was all natural wood too. Stairs led up and down to four different levels, some even on the same floor.
This party was a kind of open house and birthday party combined. Parents dropped by to say ‘how do’ and ‘oh my’ but out of sight and sound of the birthday festivities.
So at dinner we gourmeted and generally caroused in a genteel way. After dinner we trooped out into the back yard where a dance floor had been laid down and a couple of green and white tents were waiting. Johnny opened a bunch of presents including a couple of ‘nickel-brick’ baseballs and then came THE present. A 1935 Ford V-8 pick up, a little banged up but in bright red.
Only one guy in the whole school had a car at that time. A shiny green Studebaker but it had so much chrome on it, it was called the ‘tinsel monster’ and the owner ‘tinsel Tony’ and both were looked down on.
But the truck in red was just the right touch and with elan. For fishing or hunting trips, hauling stuff to the ranch or just piling it full of kids to drive up to the Russian River in Northern California for a swim. But for now there was the six-piece band and the ‘Hut Sut’.
“You heard me, Timmy. Dance with my sister.”
“Why me? Why should I? She is taller than I am and besides Chuck is the one who is crazy about her. Follows her around and moons a great sigh when ever she even smiles. Which isn’t that often.”
“Because my Mom says.”
“Why me?”
“Because she wants the kids to start dancing. The band is only hired for two more hours. If Chuck dances with Lois it’s just because he wants to, and if I dance with her it’s because I have to. But if you do all the kids will too.”
“Your Ma says to?”
I looked over to where Mrs. McLean was fussing over the refreshment booth. She was a short lady, stocky but very lady. Johnny had got his tight blonde curls from her, but the happy, pretty face and all that charm was solely hers. When you were around her things seemed happy and you weren’t ignored either, or put aside. When you said something she listened.
She wasn’t a San Francisco girl like a lot of the fancy mothers. The family ranch at Napa had been her folks’ originally and she grew up there. The society ladies didn’t really feel comfortable with her then. She just went her own way but she dressed so beautifully and was always so well groomed she was included. And most everything she did became the fashion. Also she didn’t try to act young.
I guess I first got to like her because Johnny gave her such a bad time and she took it so well. He did give her fits and he seemed to have a genius for trouble starting. She said herself, of the three of us Johnny was the head devil, Chuck the muscle, and I was the only sensible one. But she didn’t mean it. We all got treated the same which I thought was pretty nice.
Lately Johnny had a new torment. When she would make him do something he didn’t want to do he would look behind her and say, “Yes, Miss Pratt.”
Now Pratt was her maiden name so she really couldn’t complain but with her shape and the way he said it, it was not exactly complimentary. It embarrassed her I know, but she would only say, “Oh Johnny just do it.” And in that tone of voice he would.
I didn’t want to dance with that Lois but I guess I’d do anything to please her Mother. So I marched across the patio to where the girls were clustered. Lois saw me coming immediately and watched me cross the room and then when I just got to her she turned to a neighbor and seemed to be listening to something momentous.
“Lois. May I have the pleasure…”
Right in the middle of my speech she burst out talking to her friend. I waited and when it went on and on I yelled. “Hey, Lois.” Loud. “Come on we have got to dance. Your Mom says.”
She put on that disgusted, irritated look she wore when I was around. “Timothy Andrews, that is no way to ask a girl to dance. You should say…”
“I did and you interrupted. Come on. Your Mom wants the other kids to start dancing and we got to start it.”
She stood up then and said, “I accept your gracious invitation with the utmost repugnance. And while I would prefer Ghengis Kahn instead, I submit to my fate.” Which was pretty weak for her.
But she had a nervous look as I led her to the empty dance floor and trying to reassure her I said, “Don’t worry. My sister just taught me the latest steps. I just have to figure out which step to use.”
She wasn’t helpful. “Just do the jig or the Balboa, Dummy.”
I was all right then. I knew where I was. But I guess I was a little nervous too as we started. I almost stepped on her pump and had to hop quick to keep off her foot.
I added. “My sister says not to worry if you step on the girl’s toe. The girl is supposed to follow… Follow, Lois… F O L L O W.”
But she just turned up her nose and looked away.
“And,” I said, “she says if a girl wants a second dance with a fellow she should smile a lot and talk and be complimentary.”
She gave me her sweetest smile and said demurely. “Bully for your sister.”
Just the same things were better now. Two other couples were on the dance floor and the music continued to be great.
“You know you really are a very good dancer, Lois.”
I got only a suspicious look.
“And you sure look pretty tonight. I like your dress.”
She continued to glare.
“And what’s that smell?”
“Actually,” she said in her Mother’s voice, “It is Chanel Number 5. From Paris.” She pronounced it ‘Payree’
“No, no. Not that. It smells like ginger bread.”
I got the disgusted look again. “It is ginger bread for the break. And if you are a good little boy there is ice cream to go on it. Try not to spill it all down your shirt front for once.”
The music stopped and I looked around for Ruth Malm but she had just been captured by Max Shelton and led onto the dance floor. And as we were still standing there when the music started I danced another with Lois.
The music was slower now and it was easier to talk.
“Lois, there is something I’ve been wanting to ask you, well… for a long time, but I’ve been too embarrassed to ask, I guess.”
“Oh?”
“Well…ah.”
“What is it Timmy?” She smiled her Mama’s sweet smile at me. I was surprised, as she hadn’t called me ‘Timmy’ for years.
“Listen. Do you really walk in your sleep?”
“Who told you that?”
“Johnny.”
“And what business is it of yours if I do?”
“Because living as I do so far out of town it’s hard for my Dad to always pick me up at times. There is a family dinner at home tonight so