Falling in Love with a Girl

It was easy for me to make friends and, before the summer was over, I had collected several.  One was Dave Daniels who lived further down Kauffman Avenue and shared my keen interest in aviation.  He and I made innumerable model airplanes, some for show and some to fly, during the next year or so before his family moved away.

Another (temporary because he quit school that fall and joined the Army) was a tall, lanky, curly-haired fellow with a big grin.  I met him on Kauffman Avenue one afternoon when he was strolling along tossing a football from one big hand to the other.  His name was Rex Lester.

We played catch with the football for a while in a vacant lot then Lester invited me to come along and see a nice girl he knew just down the street.  I told him I did not want to horn in on his girlfriend, but he insisted that she was not a girlfriend because she was too young.  He stated that the girl’s mother always had cold Coca Cola in the refrigerator.  That sounded fine and that was how I met my “first love” in Vancouver who drove thoughts of the Ozark girls clean out of my mind.

We walked down to 13^th and Kauffman.  The H&H Tavern was on the lower floor corner of a big wooden apartment building.  It was painted a nondescript gray.  We went past the tavern to the rear ground floor apartment.  She was sitting out on the concrete steps leading to the apartment door and I knew at once that she was, by far, the prettiest girl I had yet to meet.  Turned out she was not quite thirteen years old and was just finishing the eighth grade, but she was tall and slender.  Long glossy black hair framed a beautiful young face that had a radiant smile.  Her name was Patricia Cross.

                Rex Lester was right—there was Coca Cola in the refrigerator.  Patty got us each a bottle and we sat on the steps and talked.  Her voice was not high and nasal like most of the Ozark girls and when she laughed I wanted to reach right out and hug her—which, of course, I could not do right there in public and in front of Lester.  The fact remained that she was nearly three years my junior and not even in high school yet so that precluded any serious dating even after Rex Lester left for the Army.  I was strongly attracted to her, however.

                Even after school started and I began to get acquainted with and started to date pretty girls near my own age, I continued to go often to see Patty.  Sometimes, when her mother (who was divorced and worked at the Evergreen Hotel restaurant) would allow, I would take Patty to a matinee movie at the Kiggins Theater.

                My mother did not approve of my seeing Patty as she sort of looked down her nose at Pat’s mother who had a gentleman friend that used to come and see her at the apartment.  When he was there, Patty and her brother Albert would have to stay outside somewhere until the friend left.

                My mother’s objections were not all that strong and I saw Patty off and on right up to the time I joined the Navy.  She blossomed rapidly into a tall young woman and the only blemish to her beauty was slightly protruding front teeth that could have been fixed easily if her mother could have afforded braces.  She was one person in whom I could confide and with whom I could discuss problems.  We were just very good friends and no matter what sort of school “romance” I had going I frequently went back to that little apartment on Kauffman Avenue.

                The nearest Patty and I ever came to “romance” was one warm summer evening, probably in 1939, when we climbed the stairs and went out onto the roof of the apartment building to watch the stars and talk.  It was not too warm to cuddle so I held her close and finally delivered the first truly passionate kiss of my young life.  I remember that Patty sighed and said, “Conrad Frieze, if you ever kiss anybody else like that, I’ll scratch your blue eyes out!”

Falling in Love with the Navy

Richard (it was about that time we started calling him “Dick” as they did at school) and Rex still had two or three weeks of school left, so I had time to explore the town on my own.  I usually walked because Dick had not said I could use his bicycle; however, if I wanted to go quite a way I sometimes took it anyway—making sure to get it back before he got home.

I got acquainted with downtown Vancouver then, one sunny day, wandered through the Army post, Vancouver Barracks, where a division of infantry and the 7^th cavalry were stationed.  Down between the Barracks and the river there was a small airfield.  Part of it, called Pearson Field, was used by the Army Air Corps for some small bombers but part of it was private and I was irresistibly drawn to the collection of ancient biplanes and some homebuilt aircraft housed in a few small wooden hangars.  I vowed again that someday I would fly airplanes.

I was also frequently drawn to the waterfront along the broad river.  I watched the remaining big stern wheel steamboats thrashing up the river against the current and the pompously chuffing little tugboats maneuvering rafts of logs that arrived at the DuBois sawmill.

I was not a frustrated Mark Twain—I had no particular desire to be on either the steamers or the tugboats.  I did not realize, in fact, that the maritime world held an attraction for me until Navy Day weekend that year of 1937 when several Navy warships came up the Columbia River.  A cruiser and two or three destroyers went on up the Willamette River to tie up at Portland.  One destroyer tied up at a dock at the Vancouver waterfront.

I watched the destroyer come in and sat on the bollard most of the afternoon watching the activities of the white-clad sailors on the deck.  I envied them and wanted to be in one of those snazzy uniforms with a cocky white hat and flapping collar.  I even came back after supper that evening and watched from the dock with some other youngsters while they showed a movie for the crew on the open fantail.  It was a gangster film.

My feelings about the Navy solidified that weekend when the Navy ships were open for public tours.  I bummed a quarter from my mother for the fare and rode the interurban street car from Vancouver across the Interstate Bridge and into downtown Portland.  (The interurban streetcar was replaced by bus service in 1938.)

I waited in lines and toured every one of the Navy ships, marveling at the immaculate grey paintwork, gleaming brass, and the big guns.  I especially envied the naval officers in their crisp white uniforms and gold-braided peaked caps.  The desire to wear a Navy uniform was perhaps even more strong than my desire to fly.

Welcome to Vancouver

Chapter 14

Vancouver and VHS

Vancouver, Washington, on the north bank of the Columbia River, was a town of about thirty thousand people in 1937.  It was quite a metropolis to me after having just come from little Bona, population 21, in the Ozark hills.

Vancouver circa 1940

Going up Main Street from the bridge, Mother pointed out some main landmarks that would quickly become familiar.  The Evergreen Hotel and the Lucky Lager brewery were the two tallest buildings in town.  There were stores and banks lining the street including the CC Store at Eighth where I would one-day work before joining the Navy.

Dad turned left on 11^th and went west past the city park behind the brewery and the courthouse.  Across the street from the courthouse was Gerhart’s Drug Store that would become a hangout for some of us west side kids.  We went north on Kauffman past the places we had lived ten years before to 18^th, then two blocks west to Railroad Avenue where our rented house was situated.  My Uncle Austin’s house was just a block and a half further toward the railroad yards.

Vancouver 1950

The little house was a flat-roofed square grey stuccoed two-bedroom place.  The front door was at the street level on Railroad but the hillside sloping down to the railroad yards was steep and the house had a full basement.  It was to be the first of our three different houses in which we would live during the next three years before Richard and I joined the Navy as Dad moved us to progressively larger homes.

Compared to our little one-bedroom farmhouse at Bona with its coal oil lamps and two-hold outside privy, that little house on Railroad Avenue seemed quite palatial.  There was a small living room with some comfortable “early Grand Rapids” furniture, a modern kitchen with a gas cook stove and electric refrigerator, a bathroom with hot and cold running water, and two bedrooms.  There was a little bed for Sandra in with Mother and Dad and we three boys shared the other.

When the other boys came home from school (it was the middle of May and school in Vancouver would not be out until the first week in June) Rex Donald seemed to have grown quite a bit and was no longer a little tot that tagged along behind us in the Ozark woods.  He was by then in the fifth grade and was sprouting into a sturdy young man.  Eventually he would be as large as me.  Richard had not grown much and I was delighted to find that I was as tall as he was.

Richard eyed my new height with a wry grin and said, “Boy, nipple noggin, you sure are skinny!”

I snorted, “Look who’s talking!  Bet you don’t weigh a pound more than me!” (And it turned out he did not.)

Richard and I had grown up fighting and quarreling every step of the way until then.  We never did stop completely but, from then on, partly because I had been “on my own” for a while and partly because we were no longer kids, we got along better and even went out to parties and dances together sometimes.

Richard had to leave right away after he got home from Vancouver High, where he was a junior, to go on his paper route.  He had acquired a black balloon-tired bicycle with wide “steer horn” handlebars and had an evening route for the Columbian.  I was immediately envious that he was making spending money and resolved even before I ha scouted our new territory, that I would find a job also.

I recall my first morning in that little house clearly because it was so different from what I had been accustomed to.  It had a sawdust burning furnace in the basement so it was not necessary to grab clothes and run for the warmth of the kitchen stove to dress. 

The kitchen was bright and cheerful.  It had a dinette space that would seat all of us.  My mother had a new electric waffle iron and she made waffles—the first I had ever tasted.  I thought then that they beat biscuits and gravy all hallow; however, in later years one of my favorite breakfasts at times is good tough biscuits and sausage cream gravy.

(I say “good tough biscuits” because, although my mother was an excellent cook, her biscuits were a bit tough and that is the way I still like them.  Never did care much for fluffy biscuits and crumble.)

Anyway, the sun was bright that morning and I was in a new world.  It was good to be part of the family again even though I relished my time with Grandpa and Grandma.  I can still see little roly-poly Sandra that sunny morning, gurgling in her high chair and banging a spoon until she got more waffle.

Reunited

My next clear recollection of that train trip was when we came down the Columbia River Gorge on the last day into Portland.  We had been in dry and almost barren brown hills of eastern Oregon then, a few miles beyond Pendleton we were suddenly on the bank of the mighty Columbia River.

I moved to the right-hand side of the coach and gaped in awe.  I had never seen so much water in one place before.  At home in the Ozarks, especially during the drought years, I could throw a rock across the biggest river I knew about.  Now I was gazing at a mile-wide expanse of water that was headed for the Pacific Ocean.

The best was yet to come.  After a short stop at The Dalles, we were into the heart of the Columbia River Gorge.  The brown hills gave way to mountains covered with green Douglas firs and rocky cliffs over which streams tumbled in great waterfalls.

I moved back to the left side of the coach and, nose pressed firmly against the windowpane, gaped ecstatically as we passed Horsetail Falls, Bridal Veil, and Finally double-tiered Multnomah Falls.

During the final hour into Portland, I felt a kinship with old Brigham Young as I kept repeating silently to myself, “This is the place!  THIS IS THE PLACE!!!”  That train began a love affair with the Pacific Northwest that would remain steadfast during the remainder of my life, no matter how much of the rest of the world I saw.

My father had borrowed Uncle Austin’s black Plymouth sedan to come to the train station at Portland and he, holding baby Sandra, and my mother were on the platform to meet the train.

My principal memory of that reunion was the reaction of my mother.  She had left behind in Missouri a tow-headed youngster that she could kiss on the forehead but I had grown a full six inches or more during those months.  Instead of little Conrad, she was looking at a gangling youth, arms and legs hanging out of that too-small grey suit.

As I stepped down from the train, I heard my father exclaim, “There is is!” and as I turned toward them my mother stood stock still as I advanced, her mouth open in surprise.  As I came near, she finally said “Conrad?” in a questioning voice then gave me a big hug.  The top of her head came barely to my nose.

“Conrad Ross Frieze,” she said in mock severity but with delight, “I swear you have grown a foot in just seven months!  Just look at you—we are going to have to get you some new clothes!”

Shifting little Sandra, now a roly-poly one-year-old to his left arm, my father gravely shook hands with me.  He simply said “You are looking fine, boy.”

The drive to our new home was fascinating.  We crossed the long Interstate bridge over the Columbia to Vancouver.  Below on the water I saw a tugboat pulling a big raft of logs slowly downriver—just like the picture in the atlas at Bona School.  Upriver there was an honest-to-gosh sternwheeler steamer thrashing along.  My father pointed out the DuBois sawmill from the bridge where he worked.  He had taken the day off to come get me.

It was a wonderful feeling to be with the family once more.

The Way West

I woke shortly after sunrise.  The landscape outside had changed during the night.  The undulating prairies had given way to rolling hills and rocky outcroppings as we approached the Rocky Mountains.  I was enthralled.  We were getting into cowboy country. 

I was hungry and feeling the call of nature.  I made my way slowly through the swaying car to the lavatory at the end.  For a country boy fresh from a two-holer outhouse, the train lavatory was opulent.  The sink was marble with gleaming brass fittings and there was a fancy light up beside a gilt-framed mirror.  I wondered where electricity and hot and cold running water came from on the train.  The toilet was flushed by a foot treadle.  I was fascinated by the fact that the treadle simply opened a flapper valve and, peering down, I could see the ties flashing past.  Now I knew the reason for the sign that said “Do Not Flush While Train is in Station.”

I washed my face and combed my unruly mop of hair, then made my way across an open platform into the dining car.  It was a bit overwhelming.  Each table was set with a white linen cloth, heavy silverware, white coffee cups with gold rims, and water glasses that must have been crystal.

There were few passengers in the diner at that early hour.  I took a seat at the nearest empty table.  The white-coated black waiter, flashing his white teeth in a big smile, placed the menu in front of me with a flourish and a “Mawnin’, young suh!”

He waited while I studied the menu.  I was appalled at the prices.  At home in Greenfield a complete breakfast of eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, toast, juice and coffee could be had for 35 cents—twenty-five cents without the juice.  You could also get a hamburger for a dime.  Here on the train, a glass of juice was twenty cents alone and a bacon and egg breakfast was seventy-five cents.  On the lunch part of the menu, a hamburger was fifty-five cents.

I surreptitiously felt of my pocket where, after the movie in Kansas City, I had little more than four dollars to see me to Portland which was still two and a half days away.  I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair.  “We-ell,” I said, “I am not very hungry.  I’ll just have a glass of milk and some toast, I think.”

The waiter never batted an eye but I realized later that he knew the reason for my discomfort.  He smiled, “You sho’ that’s all?”  When I nodded wordlessly, he leaned down before he turned away and said in a low voice, “Tell you what—when we gets the folks from the Pullmans fed, Ah’ll be comin’ through the coach with some sandwiches—they is only two bits apiece.”  Then he turned away to get my milk and toast which was going to total thirty cents here in the dining car.

The black waiter was not only as good as his word, he was better.  About an hour and a half later he did indeed come through the coaches with a tray of ham and beef sandwiches.  When I held up my hand and dug out a quarter, he flashed that big grin again.  Without asking my choice, he pulled a sandwich from the bottom of the pile.  Instead of cold ham or beef, it was a bacon and egg sandwich still warm from the grill.

After that I did not go near that expensive diner but bought sandwiches three times a day and sometimes a bottle if pop when a vendor came through.  A grape NeHi was a dime instead of a nickel that my grandpa charged at his store.

There was not much else during the trip that made a deep enough impression on me for me to remember more than fifty years later.  I recall that there was a boy a couple of years older than me sitting across the aisle.  We struck up an acquaintance and would sometimes get off and stretch our legs when the train was in a station.  I still remembered that other trip when I thought the train was going to leave my mother behind so, even though I now knew that the train would not leave until the whistle blew and the conductor call, “All aboard!”, we never wandered very far from our coach.

I do recall one scene clearly the second day out, probably somewhere in Wyoming.  I knew that I was finally “out west”.  There was a dirt road paralleling the railroad track.  I watched as we passed a man wearing a wide-brimmed cowboy hat and driving a buckboard behind a spirited team of horses.  Behind him loped a young fellow on a pinto rocking along in a silver-mounted saddle.  I was a bit disappointed that he did not seem to be packing a six shooter.

Heading West

Chapter 13

The Way West

Even though I was fresh out of the backwoods hill country, I set off on my great adventure with complete self-confidence as becoming any fifteen-year-old.  After all, I had been to Vancouver, Washington before (ignoring the fact that I was less than five years old at the time), and we had lived for a year in Kansas City.  I did not consider myself a “hick from the sticks” but I combed my hair carefully to make sure there was no hayseed there.

There was no hitch in my travel plans at Kansas City.  One of my older cousins, Denton Hayward, met me at the bus depot and took me and my luggage to Aunt Ora Hayward’s house on 35^th a couple of blocks off the Paseo.  That was familiar territory since in 1930 or thereabouts, we had lived on 37^th just about three blocks away.  Faxon School where I had gone for the third grade was just two blocks down the Paseo beyond the big Katz Drugstore on the corner of 35^th and Paseo.

My cousins Ennis and Buddy Fulkerson, who were near my age, came to stay at Aunt Ora’s while I was there.  I forget who was getting married, but I believe it was Raymond Hayward, Aunt Ora’s youngest son.  Uncle Hubert and Aunt “Ory”, with their bevy of three sons and four daughters, had created a Kansas City branch of the family of which I could never keep track.  I mostly remember the boys (all grown then) Wilbur, Denton, and Raymond, the youngest daughter Maude who was still living at home at the time.  There was also a very pretty little second cousin, Jackie Lou who was near my age. [Not, sure but Jackie Lou may have actually been a first cousin once removed.  This sort of thing is confusing.]

Aunt Ory was the undisputed matriarch of the Kansas City branch of the family.  (Uncle Hubert had died back around 1934.)  She had a huge house that was sort of a catch-as-catch-can boarding house with all sorts of people, mostly relatives, coming and going.  It would be unthinkable to go to Kansas City and not stop in on Aunt Ory.

Needless to say, with a wedding going on the day after I got to Kansas City, Aunt Ory’s house was even more of a “madhouse” than usual.  We boys—Ennis, Buddy, and me—mostly just tried to stay out of the way.  We ate whenever and whatever we could get our hands on—which was no problem as there was food all over the place.  I believe we spent my Grandpa’s two dollars by sneaking off in the evening after the wedding ceremony and taking Jackie Lou to a movie.

A day or two after the wedding, my Uncle Elbert Fulkerson drove me to the Union Station to catch my train to the Pacific Northwest.  I recall being worried that we might be late and the train would leave without me, but Uncle Elbert would just smile and say, “Stop fretting, boy, we got lots of time.”  Not owning a watch, I had no way to dispute him.

At the Union Station and for the first time the old country boy from the Ozark hills was out of his element and bewildered.  The only other time I had ridden a train was when I was five years old when Mother brought us kids back from the Pacific Northwest.  To me, the Kansas City Union Station was a scurrying mass of people and a bewildering number of ticket windows and gates to trains that were chuffing in and out of the station.

We already had my ticket so Uncle Elbert herded me through the bustle, checked my guitar box and suitcase and led me to the right track when they called my train.  He found me a red plush seat in a coach up ahead of the dining car, patted me on the shoulder, and with a last “goodbye boy” was gone.

The train lurched, jerked, then chuffed out of the station onto a westbound track past the Kansas City stockyards.  As it picked up speed through the suburbs of Kansas City, Kansad, and out onto the plains, I had a very strange feeling.  I was completely on my own for the first time.  It was as if a door had closed behind me and another was swinging open ahead.  I liked the feeling.  Even through the long first night I had no qualms and felt no homesickness for the Ozark hills—I was on my way home and was eager to get on with it.

Heading West

Chapter 13

The Way West

Even though I was fresh out of the backwoods hill country, I set off on my great adventure with complete self-confidence as becoming any fifteen-year-old.  After all, I had been to Vancouver, Washington before (ignoring the fact that I was less than five years old at the time), and we had lived for a year in Kansas City.  I did not consider myself a “hick from the sticks” but I combed my hair carefully to make sure there was no hayseed there.

There was no hitch in my travel plans at Kansas City.  One of my older cousins, Denton Hayward, met me at the bus depot and took me and my luggage to Aunt Ora Hayward’s house on 35^th a couple of blocks off the Paseo.  That was familiar territory since in 1930 or thereabouts, we had lived on 37^th just about three blocks away.  Faxon School where I had gone for the third grade was just two blocks down the Paseo beyond the big Katz Drugstore on the corner of 35^th and Paseo.

My cousins Ennis and Buddy Fulkerson, who were near my age, came to stay at Aunt Ora’s while I was there.  I forget who was getting married, but I believe it was Raymond Hayward, Aunt Ora’s youngest son.  Uncle Hubert and Aunt “Ory”, with their bevy of three sons and four daughters, had created a Kansas City branch of the family of which I could never keep track.  I mostly remember the boys (all grown then) Wilbur, Denton, and Raymond, the youngest daughter Maude who was still living at home at the time.  There was also a very pretty little second cousin, Jackie Lou who was near my age. [Not, sure but Jackie Lou may have actually been a first cousin once removed.  This sort of thing is confusing.]

Aunt Ory was the undisputed matriarch of the Kansas City branch of the family.  (Uncle Hubert had died back around 1934.)  She had a huge house that was sort of a catch-as-catch-can boarding house with all sorts of people, mostly relatives, coming and going.  It would be unthinkable to go to Kansas City and not stop in on Aunt Ory.

Needless to say, with a wedding going on the day after I got to Kansas City, Aunt Ory’s house was even more of a “madhouse” than usual.  We boys—Ennis, Buddy, and me—mostly just tried to stay out of the way.  We ate whenever and whatever we could get our hands on—which was no problem as there was food all over the place.  I believe we spent my Grandpa’s two dollars by sneaking off in the evening after the wedding ceremony and taking Jackie Lou to a movie.

A day or two after the wedding, my Uncle Elbert Fulkerson drove me to the Union Station to catch my train to the Pacific Northwest.  I recall being worried that we might be late and the train would leave without me, but Uncle Elbert would just smile and say, “Stop fretting, boy, we got lots of time.”  Not owning a watch, I had no way to dispute him.

At the Union Station and for the first time the old country boy from the Ozark hills was out of his element and bewildered.  The only other time I had ridden a train was when I was five years old when Mother brought us kids back from the Pacific Northwest.  To me, the Kansas City Union Station was a scurrying mass of people and a bewildering number of ticket windows and gates to trains that were chuffing in and out of the station.

We already had my ticket so Uncle Elbert herded me through the bustle, checked my guitar box and suitcase and led me to the right track when they called my train.  He found me a red plush seat in a coach up ahead of the dining car, patted me on the shoulder, and with a last “goodbye boy” was gone.

The train lurched, jerked, then chuffed out of the station onto a westbound track past the Kansas City stockyards.  As it picked up speed through the suburbs of Kansas City, Kansad, and out onto the plains, I had a very strange feeling.  I was completely on my own for the first time.  It was as if a door had closed behind me and another was swinging open ahead.  I liked the feeling.  Even through the long first night I had no qualms and felt no homesickness for the Ozark hills—I was on my way home and was eager to get on with it.