The summer sun beat down with a soothing caress against our skin and life. It was idyllic for my brothers, sisters, and friends during the summer break in Richland, Washington, known as part of the Tri-Cities. I’d say life was perfect except for the winds, which in Richland were known as the termination winds. This nickname was coined during the building of Hanford, which produced the plutonium for the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Back then, substantial dust storms blew, and tumbleweeds filled the unfinished lots where the city of Richland was being built for the workers who were building the Hanford reactors. Many workers quit their jobs shortly after moving to the vast trailer courts, which were temporary homes for the workers until the housing was finished. Since then, shelter belts have been built around the city to filter the dust.
The mosquitoes were thick in Richland, and during the summer, a truck pulling a fogger would drive through Richland spraying what I think was DDT but don’t quote me on that. We had so much fun riding through the clouds of smoke, I don't know how we lived long lives.
During these days, I was struck down in my prime with a vast fascination for girls, and I zeroed in on my sister’s girlfriend, “Pam;” her young beauty intrigued me. We visited the City pool almost daily to cool off from the desert heat and were encouraged by our mothers to gain respite from kids underfoot. During these times, I tagged behind my sister and Pam, and we walked about 4 miles to and from the pool.
The summer produced many forts my brother and sisters built, and one was even built on stilts by my father. It rose over our hedge, and we loved to throw dirt clods across the street to rain destruction upon the neighbor’s forts. The dirt clods we dug up at (what we called across the tracks) were across from the vast shelter belts. When we ran out of dirt clods, we used the apricots that would drop from the trees and almost put out an eye or two and bloody noses and bruises.
In one of the forts, we built out of cardboard and engineered it to hold four or five kids. My first puppy love, Pam, visited one day in her stunning sun dress, and we were caught alone in our fort. I had heard the girls giggling about something before she came in. We sat there in silence, not knowing what to say, and I had a distinct impression that I was supposed to kiss her, and she was waiting patiently. My heart was beating so hard I wouldn’t have heard her even if she had said something. Do I dare? Does she want that? Yes, I think so. The urge to run and never look back came as the sweat broke out in force all over my body: “I chickened out.” After that, Pam would look at me disappointed with those big blue eyes, thinking I didn’t like her.
“If she only knew!”
Pam and Linda, my failed first girlfriend and sister, decided one idyllic day to go to the riding stables in West Richland. I, being still obsessed, tried to make up for my failed first kiss and show her my undivided love and devotion, which at this point was just, “Well, that ship had sailed.”
Still hopeful, I wanted to tag along but had no money.
My grandfather, Fred, had given me a silver dollar a few years before, which he said was very valuable and would become worth more as the years went by. I kept it in my beneficiary insurance bank with instructions not to lose it!
Being smitten, my vision of riches one day was entirely erased by my smitten lovesick lack of good sense.
Yes, I told my sister, “I’ll get the money and come along,” The only money I had was the off-limits silver dollar, so….
I opened the safe and fished out the silver dollar.
Arriving at the riding stables, I produced the silver dollar when asked for my money! The stable owner looked at the silver dollar and said, “This looks valuable. Are you sure…this is o.k. with your parents? I hesitated because I knew this would land me in a world of hurt; I knew my sister would spill the beans if I didn’t confess.
As I said, my good sense had fled, and I relented and paid the owner my silver dollar.
Was that sunny, warm day of horseback riding with my object of affection worth it?
Well, to this day, I will never know!
My ardor was forgotten entirely when my parents found out, and it landed me in room jail for some days: there was talk of asking the riding stable owner for the silver dollar back, but I never saw it again.
As the idyllic summer days passed, I only caught glimpses of Pam and her new boyfriends over the years.
Ric
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