I remember - - -

milking cows (by hand, no machine), hauling the milk can out to the ditch, irrigating, stacking hay (better than my brothers), driving the derrick horse (a tractor), picking potatoes (for 7 cents a bag), the outhouse (complete with catalogs), digging in the dirt hole on the other side of the fence, hanging out the clothes, bringing in the clothes (the smell was wonderful), picking up the receiver on the phone and waiting for the operator to say "number please," picking up the phone to hear one of several parties talking, our phone numer was 1J69, when we got our first indoor bathroom, swimming in the ditch in front of our house, flood irrigating the front yard, sleeping out most of the summer, playing games well into the night with all the neighborhood kids, eating green apples right off the tree, when the brush ran from the road clear up to Brown's fence (with no water and lots of trees), climbing the tree to find a quiet spot to read, the old rope swing by the big tree, where the old barn and corral were (now under water most of the summer), sleeping out all night out in the far brush, when Mom's new set of melmac arrived, surprising her and having them all put away when she got home, Dad pulling us on a sled up into the "far" brush to get a Christmas tree, the day my brother died, picking a bajillion acres of raspberries while mosquitos tried to carry you away, Dad shooting magpies out the window, canning bottles and bottles and bottles of fruit and vegies, ironing every weekend for several hours (after the clothes had been sprinkled, rolled up and stored for a day or two), bathing in a round metal tub, when there was no freeway to Salt Lake City, learning to drive in a new Dodge Dart with a three-speed on the column, ferocious migraine headaches in grade school and Dad rubbing my head to get them to go away, giant strides, jacks, jump rope, walking to Grandma Radford's with Dad and Steven for lunch, floating down the canal from Browns to VanNoys, making houses in the brush - - - -