Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: April 26th, 2014

As a little boy, I liked Date Street and our place there.  I thought it was a big place, when years later when I saw it, it was tiny with a tiny back yard.  But pop had built me a little steam shovel that I loved.  We would take walks around the lake at Mingus Park.  His boss at Pacific Fruit lived close to the park as well.  The boss had a little girl who was about a year older than I was and once on a walk, she came along and could sing all the words to the nursery rhymes including Mary had a little lamb.  The folks and I were so impressed.  She had a room full of toys, too.  But she was not someone that I played with.  That was the little girl across the street, Norma Ann Oar.  There was an alley way there, too, and across the alley lived the Hansen family.  They had a little boy who was about in the first grade and he so wanted my wagon.  He tried to trade me some worthless toy for the wagon and when I wouldn’t do it, he threw a brick that hit me on the head.  His mother was furious about that as was mine and I remember the mother came over and rubbed butter in my hair.  That little boy never talked to me again and so his mother must have really been hard on him.  Also, close by, lived an old lady, Mrs. Marcy.  I still remember her.  She was like a real grandmother to me.  I can remember sitting on her lap. After we moved, I do not remember ever seeing her again, but I still remember her and I thought she was wonderful.  At one point, Bob and I had the idea, more precisely I had the idea, that we should have an adventure and run away from home.  Mom saw us heading out, we did not even make it to the corner and she caught us and spanked us all the way home.  That was the end of that adventure.

Then one day, mom saw in the local newspaper, The Coos Bay Times (now the World), that a place in Kentuck was up for sale.  There were twenty five acres there.  The house on Date Street had become too small.  Mom had been keeping her eye out for a place for a long time, a place like what Grandpa JB had had in mind and this looked like it.  As it turned out, the property was right next to the Selvors’ place.  Mr. Selvors was an immigrant from Norway, he never learned to speak English very well and I never could understand him, but he had an American wife who was nice.  The Selvors’ place was what grandpa had had in mind.  Louise was just three months old, Bob had just turned two, and I was three and would turn four in three months.  So, immediately after pop got home from work, they went out to look at the place.  The house was owned by an older couple named Barnes.  They must have been about fifty, maybe slightly older.  As I said, the place had twenty five acres with it and the Barnes themselves were trying to make a living on it as truck farmers.  That was possible in those days, but they were simply too old to keep going.  Mom saw the place and fell in love with it and pop liked it too, so they immediately that very day put down earnest money and signed the contract for it.  The place would cost $3,000, or actually, just a trifle more, and now the problem came about where to find the money.  The folks were young and just starting out, they had three children, no credit rating and no savings, and pop’s job did not pay enough to get a bank loan for $3,000.  But they were able to pay the ernest money.  So, now where to get the money.  The bank would give them a loan for $1,000, but that was it.  Well, there was only one place to go for the money:  Grandma Wilda.  The year was 1941, early September, the US had not yet entered the war,  grandma had inherited the farm, Uncle Dick was working on the farm, I remember visiting them all out there, but the farm was in probate, so grandma had cash but that was it.  So grandma gave them $2,000, and with that, the bankers were suddenly glad to seem them.  I remember going out to the place again, they agreed that they would take the place over and the Barnes would move to the house on Date Street.  So, the folks gave them $2,000 and prepared to move.  Neither family had much furniture and so that all went quickly.  I can still remember that last visit with the Barnes, it was just before supper time, he had come up from milking with a full pail of milk and it smelled so good.

There was a school teacher in North Bend who had wanted the place but moved too slowly and he tried to talk the folks out of taking the place.  The oldest son of the Barnes was crushed when he heard what had happened and he tried to buy the place back, but mom would have none of it.  This was the place she wanted and that was that.

I still remember the last night we were at the place on Date Street  I had a little train engine that I could ride on and Norma Ann came across the street and we played some game that required some money and there was a special weed that we used for money.  After we moved out to Kentuck, I found after a lot of searching, that weed again and growing up whenever we played, that leaves of that weed were used for money.  Mrs.  Oar and Norma Ann did come to visit us once out at Kentuck, but basically, we had little connection with the people back there in that old neighborhood.  The Oars moved away and years later, we bumped into them at the J. C. Penney’s store.  I was in about the fifth grade, but I did not recognize them.  Mom did and she and Mrs. Oar had a nice chat, but Norma Ann and I had nothing any more to talk about.

I will describe what the place was like when we moved in out there in Kentuck.  For little boys of two and three, it was a paradise.

To be continued.