Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: November 13th, 2013

 Well, it looks like Hero Don really came through.  Pop would get  all choked up when he tried to go to something like Pinos Altos or to  the graves of his folks.  He was emotionally not up to it.  That  summer in New Mexico was the last summer that his mother was alive.   While he and his father took off following that fake, worthless map to  the Lost Dutchman’s gold mine, his sisters, Noma and Berchion stayed  back and took care of their mother who was really failing.  Those  three children thought their mother was wonderful.

Grandpa Sam was complicated.  One should not get the impression  that he was bad or good, he had his good side and his bad side.  I  personally think he was a little too self centered.  On the other  hand, his dream was to go to South America and take over the property  that he had bought, but he immediately gave up the idea when he was  told that his wife had to travel.  He stayed up all night rubbing  pop’s arm when he pop  got blood poisoning.  He was strict and stern.   He always tried to tell his children that what he did was world class  and they believed it.  With that old violin, he said it was a great  violin and was made by a man named Schnaider from Germany.  On the  other hand, after we had the violin taken care of by Schuback, he  heard it played and said this could not be his father’s violin, it is  a piece of junk.  But it was his father’s violin.  That is the way it  was.  I think that he thought his children would not respect him  otherwise.  The little curling league that he was involved in was not  a world class curling league, either, but the children all thought  that it was.  He was just complicated, and Aunt Noma realized it, more  so than either Aunt Berchion or pop.

So, we left pop in Marcus going nowhere.  His aunt, Aunt Molly  the school teacher, invited him to come to Spokane to stay with her  and to try to get his feet on the ground, so he went, it seemed like a  good idea and he had nothing else going.  As it turned out, he got a  job in a speakeasy there and the owner realized quite early that pop  was pretty smart and good with numbers, so he soon had pop playing  cards for the house.  They played the usual poker and black jack, but  they also played things like Euchre, Five Hundred and Pitch.  Pop was  allowed to have a little of his own money on the side and it gave him  some spending money.  When I was young, pop refused to let us play  cards, he said he did not want us to become card sharks.  Grandma  Wilda like to play pinochle, though, and so they played pinochle, not  the pass across which he knew, too, but with a widow.  With the  Perrys, he played Pedro, which he had learned in the Southwest.  Later  on, he did teach us to play pedro.  He knew how to play bridge, a game  which was just getting started at the time, but he always refused to  teach us bridge.  With pedro it was funny.  At first, he and mom were  partners and Brother Bob and I were and they wiped us out, and he was  as happy as could be.  Later after Bob and I learned how to play, we  won regularly, mom did not care who won or lost, pop counted cards and  played with a plan, so it made him depressed and he would say, “good  game” and head off to bed.  Finally, he got the idea that we should  change partners and mom and I played together and he and Brother Bob  and they regularly wiped us out and then he would get a big smile on  his face and tell us where we went wrong.  Life was good under those  circumstances, but after about a forty game losing streak, I started  to see that maybe it was time to change partners again, but we never  did.

Pop also talked a couple of times with the coach at Gonzaga.   The coach there encouraged him to try out for football.  Pop was  thinking to do that.  There was no scholarship involved there, if he  made the team, then fine, and if he did not, well, so be it.  About  then, though, Grandpa Sam showed up on the scene and said, it is time  that we go to Peru and take over the property.  He would lose his  ownership in 1937 if they did not make improvements on the place, he  had fifteen years and he had bought the place in 1922.  So, pop said  OK, they got into the car, grandpa had gotten their passports and  booked passage to Peru on a ship sailing out of Los Angeles.  The plan  was to drive down there after stopping off in Coos Bay and saying good  by forever to the two sisters and their families.  By this time,  Berchion had two children, Don and Marlene and Noma had one, Pauline.   He had never seen any of the children and he wanted to see them as  well as to take leave of them.  

To be continued.