Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: March 29, 2014

We left pop and his father staying at the home of Aunt Noma and old Lester Davidson and their little daughter, Pauline.  They were heading down to Peru to take over the ranch that grandpa had bought.  That was when mom and her mother came to the Davidsons to trade beef for clams.  The depression was in full swing and people were really scurrying around to eke out a living.  Pop asked mom if he could carry the clams out to their car.  Mom had graduated from high school and was working for the Mains, but she slept at home and was home for the weekends.  Pop was smitten and mom thought he was a nice fellow, but she had actually been dating another boy from Coos River at the time.  There was nothing yet really serious going on between the two but it did look like there was a chance that the relationship would take off.  Pop had also been interested in other girls, but each time he got interested, grandpa would step in and off they would go on an adventure and you know the old saying:  If you are not near the one you love, you love the one you are near, and these girls would get discouraged and get involved with somebody else, much to grandpa’s satisfaction.  Well, a couple of days later, pop called up mom and asked for a date.  As good luck would have it, the one she had been going out with was on a hunting trip to Canada, he would be gone for about a month, and so was no longer near.  Mom only had a hazy idea of who pop was, had to ask a couple of questions of him, was worried that his brother in law was Lester, whom everyone felt was rather defective, but she did like our Aunt Noma.  So, she quickly checked with grandma who said, for heavens sakes, accept the date.  So, mom did.  The were going to the show (the movies).  Well, that evening she got a phone call, there is going to be a big hay ride, all our friends will be there, come on.  OK, said mom, let me check.  No, said grandma, you already told John Guenther you were going with him that evening.  Then grandpa JB came home.  What, said he, you are going out with somebody you do not know, we do not know, absolutely not.  Poor mom, she could not go out with pop and she could not go out on the hay ride.  She felt very sorry for herself.   Well, pop showed up, he and grandpa JB got to talking and suddenly grandpa JB looked at mom and said, if you are going to the show, you better get moving.  Mom was delighted.  Off they went.

Grandpa Sam right away smelled something unpleasant was up and decided he better get out to Ketching Inlet and put a stop to this..   After all, they had to be off to Peru soon and the boat was leaving LA in just a couple of weeks.  So, as it turned out, the Davidsons were living on top of Bay Park Hill, a part of Bunker Hill and he walked from there out to the farm in Ketching Inlet to talk to Grandpa JB.  We it turned out, they did not get along at all.  Politically, they were poles apart.  In those years, the people of German extraction living in the US kept up with political events in Germany.  It was the fall of 1934 and Hitler had just come to power.  Grandpa JB could not stand Hitler and Grandpa Sam thought he would be the salvation of Germany.  Grandpa Sam also said that pop was a worthless lout, would never amount to anything, had never been in one place very long, had never held a job for any length of time, best to be shut of him.  Of course, Grandpa Sam did not mention that he himself was the reason why pop was never able to hold a job for long and why he had never gone to college.  Grandpa JB looked at him coldly and said his daughter was of age and it was up to her to make her own decisions.  He was confident that she would make the right choices.  Grandpa Sam went home beaten.  So, mom continued to date pop.  He possible boy friend came home but there was no place for him.  Years later he saw mom at one of the Coos River reunions and as mom was leaving, he went running after her and said, there you go again, running off just as you did the last time that I saw you. As it turned out, mom had met his wife shortly before that and had said that she had never really thought of him after that and his wife said that he had thought of her and knew all about her.  Two weeks after that meeting, though, the fellow died of a heart attack, so that was the end of him.

Grandpa Sam now had another technique for keeping them apart.  He wouldn’t give pop any money, so one Saturday, they decided to go to the carnival.  In those years, carnivals came several times a year and rides on Saturday were 9 cents a ride.  They were still that way when I was growing up.  Pop had enough money to get into the carnival and enough for a couple of rides, but then it was over.  Luckily, he had gone to the dentist and he had had a tooth pulled, so every time they were ready to get on a ride, he had to run out to spit.  They went on a couple of rides, took a walk and enjoyed the afternoon.  Pop got off cheap that time, but he did decide that he needed to get a job and he went to work at a grocery store in North Bend.  Grandpa Sam was crushed.  The trip to South America was pretty much no longer a possibility, pop crossed his father for the first time in his life.  He also took mom to her first football game.  There they sat next to his sister, our Aunt Berchion, and her husband, Uncle Cliff.  It was Marshfield against somebody and pop knew everybody in the bleachers, they had all remembered that just a couple years before that he had been a star and they all knew Uncle Cliff as well.  So, pop was having a grand time, the play started, and mom was appalled.  It was just a big melee.  The teams would line up, they would run into each other, there would be a big pile up, then they would all huddle and do the same thing again.  She asked pop what was going on, but his answer was simply, oh, everybody knows that.  But Uncle Cliff explained everything to her, answered all her questions.  She said he was the most helpful and patient  person she had ever met.  The game was different in those days, the forward pass was not used as often, when a person was tackled, the ball stayed on the spot, no bringing out into the field, if you went out of bounds, the referee stepped one yard into the field and you started out from there.  Mom was especially grateful to Uncle Cliff.

To be continued.