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About Vernonia eagle. (Vernonia, Or.) 1922-1974 | View Entire Issue (April 18, 1946)
Long Ago and Far Away 4 ROCKING W RANCH RONA MORRIS WORKMAN VERNONIA, OREGON A few weeks ago my sister and I spent an evening remembering the days when I was very young. My sister is seventeen years older than I, (as our mother was just seventeen years older than she) so she could fill in some of the details which my memory dredga could not bring up. I have the type of memory which retains al most everything that is considered unimportant by factual-minded folks and completely discards dates, time-limits and a lot of other practical things. Now the Big Boss can recall the year, month and often even the exact I’M ON MY W AY TO DESSY’S F When you rae looking for a place to rest your hands and face, make tracks for the same spot—Pronto! Bessy’s Tavern day when something happened. A most amazin' man. No wonder he can’t understand my peculiar mental processes, for they are not the least bit orderly. Time, to me, is something that exists only in our consciousness, so why bother about exact dates? For instance, they tell me it was in 1897 when I lived on the “Old White Farm” in Indiana, but the year is not important to me. I prefer to remember the old harp leaning 'in one corner of the big attic, whose three strings gave forth a ghostly whispering music as I touched them, and the sugar-maple grove ' where a chubby three-year-old in a red hood tasted the sweet thick syrup. I can still see the fireflies light ing the evening dusk, and recall the very pattern—a little white flower with three white leaves dotted over a black calico ground —of the long dress my mother made for me to wear when I was playing “grown-up lady” in my palace built in a corner of the rail fence. The dress had a tight bodice, a long full skirt with a ruffle around thè hem, and I was never Rona Morris when I had it on. I was “Mrs. Jones,” and no one could ever figure out why I chose that name, nor can I at this late date. The child mind is a strange receptive medium. Sometimes in dredging into the soil of memory you unearth the festering roots of imbedded fears which have brought forth strange blooms in later life. The other night I un earthed the memory of a visit my parents and I had made when I was only three. iWe had gone to visit with some family friends. They were not at home, but in a tiny one-room shack with a, barred window their in sane daughter was kept. One cold winter her hands and feet had frozen and dropped off. My mother went toward the little PROGRESS FOR YOU OUR GROWTH IS A VOTE OF Ci NFIDENCE $1,070,851.94 1545 1943 1941 More Money for AUTO - FARM-STOCK HOMES-PERSiNAL LOANS Washington County Bank prison room to speak to her and I followed. As I neared the win dow I heard a, scuffling, scrab bling sound from inside, and I fled, screaming with frantic ter ror, to the refuge of my father”s arms. To this day the thought of contact with a deranged per son or a scuffling, dragging noise from an unseen source, brings that same sickening impulse to ward instant flight. And once, on the long journey to Oklahoma by covered wagons, my mother and I climbed down a mossy bank to a rocky ledge jutting out over a deep, green pool of water fret ted with white from the waterfall above. She held me back from the edge, warning if I fell in I would be sucked under and would die. Through the years, that unreasoning fear of green, foam- flecked water has kept me from swimming with freedom. So long as I can glimpse the bottom of river or tank I move with sure strokes, but; when the water growi dark, fear wipes but my strength and skill. To put fear into a child’s mind is to install a poison that life and time often fails to eradicate. However, those are my only rooted fears, for I had a loved and happy childhood. Ah, the long, lovely days as I see them through the golden haze of time. Once, in a little river-threaded valley in Oregon, I whittled the top from a young fir tree which stood in the high hill-pasture and made a seat to which I often climbed. There, with some be loved book, I would stay through the long warm afternoons, the wind swaying the fragrant boughs about me, the sheep drifting and grazing on the grassy slope be low, while I dreamed , strange and lovely drcams of the magic years to come. “A child’s will is the wind’s will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,” and though my dreams were of strange and wonderful lands, at the foot of the gentle pasture slope lay the little gray house which held for me all of love and security. At this moment as I write, although the skies are gray, and few of the dreams I dreamed have been realized, I can feel the soft sweet warmth of those summer winds, can smell again the perfume of fir boughs in the sun, and hear the murmur of the river and the far sweet sound of my mother’3 voice calling to me. During that journey my sister and I took into the vanished years, we commented upon the fact that we have found it diffi cult to recall our mother’s face as it was when we were young. I can remember the atmosphere of her presence, the touch of her hands, the rustle of her heavy silken gowns, the crisp sound of her stiffly-stnrched house-dresses and the flutter of her white aprons, but I can never see her face. By the time I was old enough for my memory to retain a visual impression of her, the dark hair was snowy white and she W'as no longer slim and young, though very lovely, with a gra cious quiet dignity, a lady to her work-worn fingertips. I think this inability to remember their mother’s appearance as it was in their first years is true of most children. I know that my own gaze at me with puzzled eye., when the Big Boss tells them how I used to look twenty-five years ago. This does not trouble me too greatly, for I remember when Bob, our youngest son, was about twelve. I had shown him a photograph of me at eighteen and had said, with, I suspect, a note of wistful regret in my voice, “Your mother was pretty then, wasn’t she?” He looked wa long time at the picture of that laughing dark-haired girl, then lifted thoughtful boyish eyes to my face. “Yes,” he agreed slowly, “you were pretty then, but now you are beautiful—beautiful like a mother.” THE EAGLE, VERNONIA, ORE. THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1946 5 Perhaps that is our recompense. were Sunday dinner guests at the If we keep our children’s love, Herman Wood home and all later in their eyes we shall be always enjoyed a lunch at the Jacobson beautiful — beautiful like a home. The Woods and Jacobsons were neighbors of the Rydells in mother. Evanston for many years. • • Week end guests at the Rex Sunday and Week End Normand home Were Mrs. Nina Helland and daughter, Charlotte, Guests Visit at Norman Helland and Albert Hel Riverview Homes land all of Elensburg, Wash. Mrs. RIVERVIEW—Mr. and Mrs. Helland is a sister of Mrs. Nor Iver Rydell, their daughter, Mrs. mand and Mrs. Normand accom Betty Franz, and her son, Grant, panied the group on their return alt of Evanston, Ill., Mr. and Mrs. to assist in caring for her mother, Robert Rydell of Portland and Mrs. Albert Helland. She will be Mr. and Mrs. Olof Jacobson away a week or more. PITTSBURGH PAINTS SMOOTH AS GLASS Outside White Interior Finishes Kemtone Trimz Wallpaper WE ALSO HAVE IN STOCK: Lawn Sprinklers and Nozzles Coco Door Mats Galvanized Garbage Cans 26-Gallon FISHING TACKLE. Nehalem Dairy milk and cream assures you of all the health giving elements you ex pect to find in this delicious beverage. We process it under highly sanitary conditions, an other assurance that it is best. NEHALEM DAIRY PRODUCTS CO. Phone 471 Be prepared for the opening day of trout sea son—April 20 HOOKS, SPINNERS, LEADERS, SINKERS Other trout fishing supplies BUSH FURNITURE Phone 592 Vernonia United Electric & Supply Co. Wallington and A Sts. UNION SHOP—I.B.E.W. State License No. 510 Phone 113 Banks, Oregon Your Closest Bank, Main Road to Portland Wholesale and Retail Distributor for Gillette Custom Ruilt Tires in Columbia and the Coast Counties Let Our Expert Mechanics Keep Kour Car (OR TRUCK) Running Smoothly! FARM LOANS Modernization of equipment — from the tractor right down to the hayfork—is in store for postwar Oregon farmers. Benefit by these developments with the assistance of a Farm Loan. The United States National Bank invites loans for the purchase of new equipment. ST. HELENS BRANCH Of THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL BANK tMEMBER FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION You can make sure your car or truck will start every morning — and give you dependable "on-the-job” service—when you have it tuned up by our trained mechanics! ® Reasonable Prices DEPENDABLE Work! Our mechanics "know how” —and they have the tools, equipment, and factory-en gineered parts to do quality repair work at reasonable prices! Make an appoint ment — NOW — and save time, trouble, and expense! Greenwood Motors Phone 1121 Vernonia DODGE-PLYMOUTH COURTEOUS SERVICE We will carry a $.*5000 stock here at all times as soon as the factory is able to catch up on present orders. NOW IN STOCK— 10.00-20 14-ply 10.00-20 12-ply (Highway Tread) 7.50-20/34x7 10-ply (Highway Tread) 32-6 10-ply (Highway Tread) These 1 ires Have All Rapon Pahric PASSENGER CAR TIRES—Due to production at factory, for fast or immediate delivery, place your order for GILLETTE passenger car tires, the Bear for Wear. United Electric and Supply Co. and Mike DeCicco stand back of these tires with a workmanship and material guarantee.