After moving from a Prairie Creek farm to Enterprise in August 1939, I enrolled in the fifth grade in September. Nirvana – here were as many students in my fifth-grade class as in the entire student body at Pratt School. Although I had made many friends from my neighborhood before school started, I now had many more to choose from in my age group. Plus the class work was more challenging because there was far more competition. Bob Rutherford, Jean Best, Jean Ratcliff and Dick Adey come to mind.

Recess was always fun. Games varied from touch football to wrestling. Also the swings and “teeter totters” sometimes got a workout. We didn’t always use them as intended. We would sometimes see who could unseat the hapless person on one end of the board by double teaming. We would see who could swing the highest or who could jump the farthest by catapulting from the swing. Once snow fell, the girls, and occasionally the boys, made snow angels. More often the boys threw snowballs at each other or at the girls. We also played basketball on the sidewalk in front of the school. The baskets were far from regulation, just chalk circles drawn on two pillars that used to stand in front of the school building. Many arguments ensued about whether a basket should be counted.

I studied harder in the fifth grade because of the competition. I also must confess that I didn’t want to be categorized as a “country bumpkin.” The school year went much too fast.

I didn’t enjoy as much free time during the summer of 1940. Dad had purchased a machine to sharpen reel type lawnmowers. Everybody owned reel mowers back then. Even the large pull mower at the golf course was a reel mower. In preparation for sharpening the mower one had to take off the handle and the wheels and slightly increase the space between the reel and the cutter bar. One then attached the mower to the sharpener. This included attaching a power drive to the reel. The operator then used a scoop to pick up the sharpening compound and to pour it in the mower between the cutter bar and the spinning reel. The compound, a sand like emery grit, sharpened both the cutter bar and the reel blades. The operator had to constantly feed compound during the half hour to hour it took to sharpen the bar and reel. My sister and I took turns doing this.

One of the drawbacks to this type sharpener was that it would grind down any part of the cutter bar or reel that might be composed of slightly softer steel. This was the case quite often with less expensive mowers. Dad then had to use a flexible shaft emery to repair the damage. Recognizing the product deficiency, the company came out with a new vastly improved sharpener the following year. This one used a precision driven grinding wheel to sharpen each reel blade and the cutter bar.

The highlight of the summer of 1940 was a first ever family vacation. Until then LaGrande was the farthest I had been. We spent ten days visiting Grand Coulee Dam, friends in Canada and friends and relatives in Seattle. The relatives were the two uncles that dad had first accompanied to the United States and Wallowa County twenty years before.

While visiting one of the uncles his daughter allowed my sister Dolores and me to make several phone calls. A first and a real thrill for both of us.

We also shopped. One of the things I bought was a “whoopee” cushion. I had a lot of fun with that novelty for years.

From Seattle we traveled to Portland where we visited the Grotto and did some additional shopping.

After two days, we headed home. For once in my life I had many exciting experiences to share with fellow school mates when school started a week after we returned to Enterprise.