Cars

 

Maren:

I vaguely remember the yellow Honda Civic hatchback.  I have a fuzzy memory of Marné driving me in it once to buy ice cream. 

 

The memories of the brown station wagon are also very vague.  I do remember being excited when I got to sit in the back seat that faced backwards, so you could wave to the people driving behind us.

 

The navy blue Pontiac was Mom's car through most of my elementary school years.  I'm pretty sure that that car and the white Pontiac 6000LE were the cars that made the most trips to Utah to take older siblings to BYU.  I was often forced to sit in the back middle seat which was the most uncomfortable for the bump on the floor of the car, so no place to put your feet really, and no window to rest your head to sleep.    The two Pontiac cars were also where I came to memorize many of the songs from Phantom of the Opera, Barbra Steisand, and Neil Diamond.  It was likely the blue Pontiac that I remember listening to Marné's tape of the Thompson Twins on the drive to Utah and being excited whenever the song "Hold Me Now" came on.  It was definitely my favorite song of that album.

The white Chevrolet Cavalier was mainly driven by Corey and Curtis in high school, if I remember correctly.  Corey would sometimes pick me up from school and I thought that increased my coolness factor for some reason.  I'm not sure if it was because it was older brother picking me up, or for some reason I thought the Cavalier was a really nice car.  Weird.  One time, after Corey had picked me up, we stopped to fill the gas tank.  When Corey got back in the car, he said, "It sure feels good to have gas....in the car."  We got a little chuckle out of that.  It was eventually inherited by Curtis and Dani.

The gray Ram van was bought when I was still relatively young.  I have a distinct memory of driving in it, in the back bench with Marné on Christmas Day on the way home from Grandma and Grandpa's house in Camarillo, with my new twin Cabbage Patch Dolls.  I seat-belted them in, between me and Marné, concerned for their upmost safety, as they were my new responsibility.  In high school, Cary often drove the van and the benches could be removed to accommodate surfboards and wetsuits. One time we were driving to seminary on Pederson road.  It was dark and all of a sudden a cat darted out in front of the car.  We were devastated by the experience of running over a cat.  Mom also used the van for her doll shows and also had a bench or two removed to fit all the boxes she took with her.

The second Cavalier was the car that I was fortunate enough to drive when I was in high school.  I have no recollection of where it came from.  It just appeared.  It was there on my 16th birthday, so I had it to drive to school the same day I got my license (Mom let me skip school in the morning to take the driving test).  It was a pretty great car to have, even if it wasn't as fancy as some of the other cars driven by students at Westlake High School.  I have no memory of when or how it was sold.

Once I left the doors of the Cavalier unlocked at night, thinking that it would be safe on the driveway.  The next day I found my planner missing that had my driver's license, as well as a Shell gas credit card.  About $100 was charged on the gas card after it was stolen, but I think we were able to get out of paying it.  We reported it to the police, but they weren't of any help.  I don't remember how long afterward it was, but eventually my planner was found in a bag of trash dumped on the side of the road somewhere in Westlake.  It still had my driver's license in it, so the woman who found it while out jogging, called me and I was able to get it back.  The trash bag also had a bunch of schoolwork from a kid that also went to Westlake High School.  I didn't know him personally, but I probably scowled at him whenever I saw him.  I don't think the police were ever able to charge him with anything.  I just remember it made me angry and left me feeling vulnerable having something stolen from me.

Dad's little blue truck was also a fun car to drive.  I mainly remember driving this is college during the summers.  When I was working, I would often have to take Dad to the train station early in the morning so that I could then use the truck to drive to my job.  Afterwards, I'd have to pick him up from the train station again.  Once or twice he fell asleep on the train and I'd have to go to the following train station in Camarillo to pick him up. Dad was pretty good about not showing too much fear being in the passenger seat while I drove his truck, but I'm sure he probably felt a generous dose of wariness at my driving style. 

The day that Mom and Dad moved from 1926 Rosewood Ct.  to 211 Venus St., I drove that little truck back and forth between the two houses, loading up the bed of the truck with odds and ends, the contents of the refrigerator, clothes,  basically anything that the movers didn't take.  At some point, Dad got in a car accident and it was totaled.  I'm thinking that was around 2002, soon after I got home from my mission.  I think I got my Nissan Maxima really close to the time that he got his Nissan Altima.

Marné:
The VW Beetle was green, I mostly remember that distinctive Beetle sound it made and the fact that the vinyl upholstery was torn on the top of the back seat. Dad repaired it with some kind of epoxy, but it was never really the same.

The Honda! That was my first car. Before I took my driving test, dad took me out in it so I could learn how to drive a stick shift. It was a test of our relationship, and we failed miserably. I could not get it and flooded the engine and stalled so many times that we gave up and went home. After I passed my test, in mom's blue Pontiac, I went out alone in the Honda and finally figured it out. I still regularly flooded the engine and stalled embarrassingly at stop signs, but I credit that car for making me a competent stick-shift driver today. Around the same time we sold the old brown station wagon, but not before I had the cassette player removed so I could have it installed in the Honda, which only had AM radio. I saved up my money from my job at the Pumpkin Patch doll shop to pay for that. I also remember that it was never more than $10 to fill the tank, which would last for a couple weeks. I probably didn't keep it as clean as dad would have liked, he made jokes about driving it and being afraid of being knocked in the head by flying apples or other debris if we had to stop too fast. I also remember trips to Penguins for frozen yogurt and the record store next door to by the latest Eurythemics or U2 cassettes, and going to Sav-on for candy and gum. 

The first Cavalier-I finally got to have a car in college when Corey was a freshman. We were supposed to share. His argument for having it more than me was that he needed it for dating. So sexist! I was going through a classic rock/hippie phase at the time, so I got a big Grateful Dead sticker, which I applied slightly off center in the back window. It was eventually Curtis & Dani's wedding present, and I think it died spectacularly on them while on a long road trip (or was that the second Cavalier? I'm not sure).

Dad:

What Marne' and Maren wrote pretty much tells the story about the cars that we had. there were several more cars that we had before any of the kids were born and when they were very young. When Mom and I first met I had a blue 1963 Volkswagen Bug.  Mom had a white  1957 Oldsmobile Super 88. Before Marne was born, we decided to downsize and we sold the Volkswagen and kept the Oldsmobile because it was a much bigger "family car."  We put some money into it and had the engine rebuilt. Then I kept hearing weird sounds coming from the transmission. So, thinking that the transmission was dying, and not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars more, we decided to sell it and buy a newer car. I sold it to a co-worker, and lost contact with him so never knew what happened with the transmission. It was a nice car, and I think we made a mistake by getting rid if it so soon after spending money on the engine rebuild. Then I found this really cool 1969 Chevy Impala two door hardtop, (as they were called back then) and bought it. It had lots of power, and kind of radical styling with huge fins and large taillights in the back. Then when I started working full time and taking college classes part time, we needed to go back to two cars and that is when we bought the green Volkswagen. It cost about $2,500 new at the time and over several years,I eventually wore it out with the long 45  mile commutes to work. Also, we then decided to downsize again to save money on gas, so we sold the Impala, and bought a used 1963 Ford Falcon. Mom drove the Falcon to work. She didn't like it very well because it was small and had very uncomfortable seats. I didn't like it because it was underpowered and not very cool looking. About the time we moved to Thousand Oaks from Canoga Park, and just about the time Corey was born, we needed a bigger car. So that is when we bought the used 1972 blue Chevy station wagon. So that takes us up to the brown Chevy station wagon that I didn't like. It was good for paper routes and carrying lots of passengers, but I just didn't like the looks  of it. A few years after we bought it, and when I was buying the Dodge Van, I asked the salesman if he would take the Brown Chevy as a trade in. He took one look at it and told me no, and to get that thing off their lot. I thought that was a little offensive, but I could understand why he didn't want that piece of junk anywhere near his car lot. The Dodge van was a pretty good car, but hopelessly underpowered with the small six cylinder engine rather than the bigger V8 engine. When I drove it up the Camarillo Grade, I would get a run at it as fast as it would go, but it would still downshift  about halfway up the hill and be creeping along about 30 miles per hour by the time I would get to the top. It had some mechanical problems. The drive shaft, differential and transmission all died and had to be replaced or rebuilt.

 

Over the years, especially when the kids started getting their drivers licenses, we bought and sold several cars. When I was working for Tandon Corp., I was given a stock option. So with some of the stock option money that I got, we bought the Dodge van, the blue 1983 Pontiac, and, I think about a year later a white 1984 Chevrolet Cavalier.  The van was the family car, Mom drove the Blue Pontiac, and I commuted to work with the Cavalier. This worked out well until the kids started driving to school, etc. I don't remember the exact time line, of all of this, but  the Cavalier ended up as a wedding present for Curtis and Dani, but not before it was used in Provo at  BYU by Marné, Corey, and, I think Curtis. Then we bought a used Jeep for Corey that he had in Provo for one or two semesters. I thought the Jeep was pretty cool looking, even though it was close to being a lemon. Then we got a used 1976 Yellow Honda station wagon, that I used to commute with for awhile. We gave it to Marne' as her very first car. It was a good car for awhile, but started to have some serious engine problems. I think Marne drove it until she left home, and then I sold it to a co-worker who said he could fix what was wrong with it. I wished him good luck as he handed me the check for it. Then somewhere along the line, we bought another Cavalier (I think it was about a 1990) which  I think was primarily for Maren to drive. Along about that time, we sold the old blue Pontiac and bought a new (about 1996) white Pontiac, which was Moms new car. Two or three of the cars we sold were bought by Mexicans who came with big wads of cash ready to spend the top price that we asked for. The van, however was sold to a dog groomer in Ventura, who was going to convert the van  to a mobile dog grooming vehicle. I often wondered how that all worked out. The white Pontiac was sold (to a Mexican) when Mom inherited Grandma Woolley's 1996 blue Oldsmobile that we continued to drive for about 16 years. Somewhere along the time line, I decided that I needed a small truck, so we bought this cool looking 1992 S-10 Chevrolet truck. It was dark blue and only had about 40 K miles on it. I drove it to work for awhile and the kids drove it sometimes. It rear ended another car, I think twice and it was rear ended once. I was driving when a guy rear ended me. I won't mention who was driving it when it rear ended other cars, but I will say their initials are C.D.J. Then, one day, when I was sitting at a stop light at an intersection in Agoura, two cars trying to beat a yellow light collided, sending one of them (A BMW)  crashing into the side of my truck. I had just purchased new tires and  recently had it in a body shop to repair the damage caused by the rear enders. This is the only accident that I remember being in and my truck wasn't even moving at the time. As fate would have it, the frame was tweaked and my insurance considered it totaled out. I really liked that truck because it was cool looking and very handy for hauling stuff. I used the insurance money for a down payment on my 2003 Nissan Altima, which I have been driving for about 12 years now. In writing this, a am reminded of how many cars we had over the years. Even the 1996 Oldsmobile is now gone, replaced by Mom's new Suburu Outback.   

Separately, and a little off the subject, I will provide a list of all the cars I owned when I was young and single. My first car that was really a truck. It was a well used brown 1947 Studebaker pickup which none of you have probably ever seen. Dads old 1936 Dodge truck died, and I thought we needed one to replace it. Between my junior and senior year in high school, I  decided to buy the used Studebaker  for the unheard price of $575, thinking that Dad would help make the payments, and I would have a vehicle to drive to school and to take girls on dates (which  never happened while I was in high school. When I got home and proudly showed it to Dad, and asked him about payment terms, he basically told me that if I wanted it, I would have to make the payments. I was upset at first, but after awhile, I realized the wisdom in Dads decision.  Then I realized that if I was going to keep it, I needed a source of income, so I started up my own little business. I made a deal with our neighbors that had dairy cows to pick up their milk (and ours) every morning and take it about five miles to a pick up point on the milk processors truck route. I would haul about 15 ten gallon cans of milk which filled up the pickup bed. I was making about $50 per week, which was more than enough to make the payments. After about a year, I decided to update to a 1948 Dodge truck which was in better shape. Then a few months later, I traded for a 1953 Chevrolet 3/4 ton truck with a longer bed, to carry the increased number of milk cans I was hauling. Then when we sold the farm, I closed my business and started working for my uncle George, By then, I had no need for a truck, so I traded it in for a 1953 Plymouth car which was blue and white. It was a nice car, and I thought better for going on dates, which I finally did a few times. Then I traded up to a 1953 Dodge 4  door sedan which had a lot more power than the Plymouth. Before I enlisted in the Air Force in 1957, I turned in the  Dodge to a local dealer with the understanding that when I got through basic training and got settled in the Air Force, I could use it as a trade in to buy another car from them. While in the Air Force and stationed in Denver, I had a girl friend and a need for a car. So I borrowed some money from a friend and paid about $300 for an old 1950 Oldsmobile 98. It didn't look very good, but it ran great. I drove it around Denver for about a year, and drove it home to Weiser on leave. I sold it to a guy in Weiser for less than I paid and bought a used 1953 Chevy Bel Air Hardtop. It was two tone green and one of my favorite cars. I drove it for about 4 years and traded it in for the 1963 Blue Volkswagen that I described earlier.

Cary:

1.  The Blue Station Wagon - The only thing I really remember is that the 3rd row of seats faced backwards, which was awesome.  You could pull faces or wave at whoever was driving behind you.  

 

2. The Brown Station Wagon - The third row had a hump in it that had a nice metallic resonance.  Being that I was 4th of 5 and 4th smallest, it was usually Maren and I stuck back there.  I didn’t mind though.  The other special feature was that the third row folded down.  If you wanted to, for example, ditch Sunday school, peel all your church clothes off (it got hot in there), and hide out, you could crouch down and fold the seat down so no one would be the wiser that there was a hot sweaty delinquent  lurking beneath the beige-brown vinyl and carpet.

 

3. Cavelier 1 - We still had this when I got my driver’s license.  It was the only car since the yellow Honda that was a manual transmission.  I took it out once a few weeks after I got my license and taught myself to drive manual. Neither me nor the car were better off for this experiment.

 

4. Yellow Honda Civic - This was the first car I remember being a symbol of freedom.  Marné and I could drive around for hours “just stopping by” her friends houses to say hello and show off her hot wheels.  This is the car that I first heard “War” by U2 and was forever changed.  “Sunday Bloody Sunday” was my jam and still a song I reference when working on music.  Everything wrong with that record is everything that’s right with it.  That drummer was just the worst in all the right ways.

 

5.  Blue Pontiac 6000LE - This was a swank piece of engineering.  I delivered pizza in it.  It had power everything.  As far as I knew, it was a Cadillac with the cushy seats and the sleek body style.  It was around this time I remember Mom wanting a Pontiac Fiero, I still get bummed she never lived that dream.  Fiero’s are hot fire, and Pontiac to this day makes the finest automobiles the middle class can buy.

 

5. White Pontiac 6000LE - All of the above, but with an EVEN SLEEKER body style.  I mean it was practically a Fiero with a back seat.  I remember mom let me take this hot ride on my very first date which included a drive all the way to the Beverly Center movie theater and The Hard Rock cafe.  Janene Snyder didn’t know what hit her with my super charged 6 cylinders of Detroit-made power and my bad-boy image.  Thousand Oaks just wasn’t hip enough for me.  Even when I take the stake president’s daughter out to eat, I still Rock hard.  She may or may not given up a first kiss that night as well.

 

6.  Cavelier 2 - This car was a perfectly dull flatline of a car.  It was white, had seats and an engine, and my foamy surf racks fit just great on top of it.  It was “a car” that blended in, EXCEPT for the hot blue pin stripe on it which I think was suppose to indicate it was a special version of this automotive yawn.  It was super DEPENDABLE.  It was the kind of car you’d want while going to college in Utah and had a 15 minute commute to school.  If I had taken it with me, I bet it would have started and got me there at least 98% of the time, which brings me to #7…

 

7.  Jeep (pronounced “heap” if you’re speaking Español) - This car was just the worst.  Corey is a genius.  Literally one of the most intelligent people I know.  The purchase of the automatic Jeep CJ-7 was undoubtedly the dumbest purchase he’s ever made.  When it did start it felt like it was going to rattle apart and do a triple flip into the ditch next to the highway.  When we drove it up to Provo, UT after his mission to be roommates and share a car, I silently cursed him as we made the 700+ mile trek at 55mph being blown all over I-80.  I love you brother, but that car was a piece of words I cannot type on this blog.  It started 50% of the time at best.

 

8.  The Dodge Ram Prospector Van (nicknamed by my friends, “The Millennium Falcon” for making the Decker Canyon Rd run in less than 23 minutes) - 6 cylinders of pure underwhelming muscle.  On the way back from grandma’s house, if there wasn’t a lot of traffic you started building up speed the minute you got on the on ramp at Las Posas Drive.  If you could maintain that speed onto the Conejo Grade you could sometimes make it over without it down shifting.  That is if you had no cargo and no one with you.  That aside, it was the best car ever.  You could fit about 10 surf boards in it with as many friends.  The stake dances in Thousand Oaks and surrounding areas didn’t officially start until the Prospector pulled into the parking lot and The Judd Dawg and his sandy band of misfits, surfers, non-members and rabble rousers bounded out.

Curtis:
I am the grateful recipient of both of the white Chevy Cavaliers. I owe my financial acumen to these cars as they both nearly soaked Dani and I in a financial sense. From those experiences, I learned that sometimes, even if it seems like buying a brand new car is not a wise choice, it is actually the only wise choice.

Please understand, I am not saying any of this sarcastically. I really mean that owning these two cars gave me the experiences I needed in financial strategy.

To illustrate, Dani and I flew to California to buy the second Cavalier and drive it back home to Arizona (after we sold the original to a fellow from Mexico for $800 - crumpled passenger side panels and all). On the way home, as we were passing through La Jolla, our new car stalled and we coasted about half way off the exit ramp. We spent the next 2 days in La Jolla and El Cajon. El Cajon is now my favorite industrial Cali city, second only Norwalk where we broke down in that same Cavalier on our way for a Christmas visit the next year. Mechanics at the Chevy dealerships (yes multiple dealerships) as well as several independent shops in Tucson never figured out the source of all the electrical problems in that car and why our heater and air conditioner only worked about 25 percent of the time. We eventually sold it for $1500 to a Physician's Assistant who bought it for his daughter to drive.

 

I learned a lot through those experiences that has made me a more resourceful person and I would not trade the experience for anything else, even a fancy Tesla Model S. Well, maybe for the Model S P85D that does 0 - 60 in 3.1 seconds, but you get the point.

Mom:

The first car I owned was in 1964.  Since I was a senior in college and had completed my mission a year earlier they decided to buy a car for me with the understanding that I would pay them back after I graduated from college.  It was a 1955 white Oldsmobile 88.  Actually I had to pay the money to my Mother since she up fronted the money that she was saving for something else.  I owned the car until 1967 when your Father decided to sell it, afraid that it would need more repairs in the near future.  I really enjoyed that car while I was at BYU, especially in the Spring, Fall and Summer.  I mostly left it parked whenever it snowed in the wintertime because I wasn't use to driving in the snow.

 

We kept the Blue VW and after Marne' was born and we added the 2 door Blue Chevy.

Next was a white Ford "Falcon" which the salesman left a set of dentures in the glove compartment.  When we moved to Rosewood and its "2 car garage" we could park both cars in the garage.

 

Next was a blue Chevy station wagon which I really liked.

 

Your father decided we needed a better used car and was looking at used cars when Grandma and Grandpa Woolley dropped by when returning from a vacation. When I told them that your Father was out looking for a used station wagon Grandpa asked if he gave us a down payment for a new car could we afford the payments.  I said no.  When your Father returned and said he had found an (ugly color brown) one that he liked, he and grandpa went and bought it.  The only good thing about the car was that I could lock all the doors before driving.   I was tired of little boys being asked to lock their doors and saying no.  Then having to threaten them if they didn't.  I just lock all the doors with the "magic" button on the driver's door!  It was like driving a long boat!

 

Grandpa's deal was that he paid for the "new" car and we would give him the blue station wagon.  (The motor mounts needed replacing) as our part of the deal.  He sold it to one of his employees that needed a car.

 

I drove the brown station wagon until your Father got a stock options worth several thousand dollars.  He cashed it in, brought the Dodge Van for cash, replaced the dishwasher, put a down payment on the Dark Blue Pontiac 6000 with bucket seats which I drove for several years. It had been a demo at the dealership and had over 7,000 miles on it.  We also spent some of  the money to fly to Salt Lake and Boise renting a big Lincoln to transport us at each location because we got a good deal through Sister Needham who was a travel agent. Flying home from Salt Lake was an adventure since the ticket agent printed our boarding passes but neglected to make the entry that we were there!  When we were seated waiting to take off people kept coming up with boarding passes with the same number for the seats we were sitting in.  I was told that we were non-revenue passengers and they had sold the tickets to standby passengers.  A man sitting near by told us not to leave our seats.  I told the airline employee that they had about $3,000.00 we had given them for our seats.  He then asked to describe the ticket agent.  I think the ticket agent was in deep trouble.  He wasn't very nice when he saw me walking up to his counter with 5 children in tow with suitcases and sleeping bags!!

 

Then there was the famous yellow Honda that we didn't keep very long.   Marne' finally got her driver's license after we bought this car because she wasn't comfortable driving the "boat"  She also happily drove the Dark Blue Pontiac.

 

Dad changed jobs so we bought a White Chevy Caviler for Dad to commute to work in since the Van took too much gas. When Curtis and Dani got married we gave them the White Chevy.  They later sold it to a Mexican in Arizona and bought another car.

We bought another used Chevy which Maren drove.  Cary drove the Van much of the time.  We finally sold the other Chevy to Curtis and Dani and it broke down before they got out of L.A.  So they found a repair job across the street from a Hilton Hotel.  We paid for the repairs and the hotel and then they were on their way to Tucson and later sold it to another Mexican.  

 

My next car was a White Pontiac 6000.  Sold this one at the used car lot after Dad paid the $35.00 fee and before he drove it  into the lot a man approached him and bought it.  The owner of the lot wouldn't refund the $35.00 fee. The new owner wanted me to write that we had sold the car to him for less than the actual price he paid so that he wouldn't have to pay as much for the taxes.  I refused!

 

When Grandma and Grandpa gave me Grandma's Oldsmobile 98 we sold this car for cash which went to tuition for someone of you kids. I would drive this car for 16 years before deciding to cash in some of our stocks and buy the Subaru Outback. Fully paid for with 4 miles on the odometer when I drove it off the lot.

 

We always managed to sell our cars by advertising in the News Chronicle or at the car lot near the freeway for cash even when the a/c wasn't working.  Several times when we advertised a car for sale someone would call and want to some see the car because they waited at the newspaper office in the afternoon to get a paper and find a car before others saw the add. 

 

I bought the Outback, White Pontiac, Dad's truck and one of the Chevy Cavaliers and the Eagle Summit.

 

When I bought the White Pontiac I had to show them a credit card with my name on it.  Previous to this Jodie Taylor had gone to buy a Mini Van for their family, while Don was at work and they wouldn't sell it to her without her husband's signature!!  Thankfully times have changed and there were no questions asked after buying that White Pontiac 6000!!

Corey:
The earliest cars I remember are the blue station wagon and the green Volkswagen "bug". I remember after my baptism trying to close the door of the blue station wagon but had a hard time because it was so windy. I remember the green "bug" actually parked in the garage with the front trunk open, and I remember tears in the upholstery along the top of the back seat from cracking and drying in the sun. Then we had the little yellow Honda wagon that Dad liked but always made fun of as a "Japanese beer can". Then we had the brown station wagon with the rear facing back seat. I remember driving to and from Grandma's house several times, sitting in the front seat, middle seat, or lying in the back with a small bag of M&Ms. Then there was the blue Pontiac sedan, Dodge Prospector "minivan", and the first white, four-door Cavalier. I learned to drive a stick shift in the Cavalier and had that as my car through high school and part of college. It was a nice car to have and was definitely a challenge to drive. If you could drive that manual transmission, you could drive anything. Then we had the white Pontiac, a second white, two door cavalier,  and the jeep. The cavalier I used to deliver papers after my mission. The jeep was Cary's favorite car. I don't remember having trouble getting it started, but he had no patience for it. I used it for washing windows and bravely took it off road a few times. But when the hood flipped up on me when driving up Provo Canyon, I was done with it.

Oakbrook Park and the Dirt Trails

Launching rockets in the dirt trails next to the park along Pederson Rd.

 

View showing what was previously considered "dirt trails" but was eventually developed into the Symphony neighborhood.  This is the area that Mom and Dad refer to where herds of sheep grazed.

 

Curtis:
Fire at the dirt trails in 1977ish. I skated down to the paseo in my metal wheeled skates one afternoon. I was just learning so the going was quite slow and once I arrived at the large rocks at the paseo, I decided to take a little break. But looking up, I noticed with horror the 15 foot tall flames right where the "fields" and paseo meet up, just below the park. So I turned to head home and tell Mom. Somehow at the ripe age of 7, I didn't have the presence of mind to just take the blasted skates off and book it home so it took me a solid 10 minutes to get there. Fortunately, Scott Kelsch had already noticed, called 911, and was trying to figure out how to lengthen their hose to put the fire out. It all ended well, nobody was hurt and no houses burned. That added a healthy dose of drama to our neighborhood.

 

The initial park was impressive by today's standards. The cable slide was so popular that it had the same effect that a trip to Disneyland has for most kids. We would wait in line for hours for a turn to ride down from the top of the hill to the sand pit. That first iteration of the slide was amazingly rustic. No hand rails for those waiting on the log that ascended to the platform, no rails around the platform, and a pretty good descent from the top of the hill. I loved that ride. But over the years, some people by bad luck or perhaps lack of care, managed to get themselves hurt. So the cable slide was downgraded several times over the years until finally they completely removed it from the park and replaced it with a 10 foot long, horizontal "slide". Boring. Perhaps there's a lesson in that story for us.

 

Dad helped finish off the sprinklers for the park one Saturday when it was new. I don't know whether there was some sort of community volunteer arrangement but it was pretty exciting to have our own park. A few years later, my soccer team would practice there on the upper grassy area some weeks when the other fields around town were not available. I think mom appreciated not having to haul me to Acorn Acres (was that what the soccer fields were called?) on those occasions.

 

After heavy rain, the sand pit at the park would sometimes fill with water which would stand for a few days. That brought a new level of interest from kids in the neighborhood because then we had a large pond to facilitate other playtime pursuits like boat races.

 

Maren:

I'm a little sad that we don't have any photos of the park.  I spent so much time there as a child.

 

The playground was in a large sand-filled area that was surrounded by grass, trees, and even a picnic bench or two.  The majority of the equipment was originally made out of logs.  There was a "two-story" metal slide on one end that also had a tire swing attached to it.  The pole holding up the tire swing was a good two-stories high, or so it seemed in my mind, and it could be swung in quite a large circle.  If you went too high, the swing would hit the post.  I vaguely remember the lazy squeaking noise it would make as we swung around.  That particular piece of equipment was good for playing pirate ship.

 

There was a smaller metal slide near the middle that had log stumps going up each side to create the steps to ascend to the top.  I believe both metal slides had a bar at the top so you could swing yourself a time of two before actually descending.  I'm not sure if we did this with the false idea that it made us go faster, but we often did it.

 

There was also a metal curly slide (why all the slides were metal, I'll never know.  Serious burning in the summertime could be caused by going down them.  One of the many safety hazards of the park), which was my personal favorite.  It could be a good hiding place and you could escape the person that was "It" in a game of tag pretty easily by climbing up the slide or going up the steps.

 

There were also swings that I enjoyed a lot, too.  I was never brave enough to do flips off of them, but I do remember swinging so high with the thought that if I could just get a little higher, I just might swing in a complete circle over the top.  It never happened.

 

There was also a triangular wall of old tires to climb, supported by logs.  This was one of my least favorite pieces of equipment.  The tires were just floppy and made it difficult to climb.  They got hot in the summer, too, and just smelled rubbery.  I'm pretty sure it was one of the least used pieces there. 

 

There was a brown metal horse on a spring that you could sit on and gallop.  Was there a second animal, too?

 

The merry-go-round was also another popular (yet incredibly dangerous) toy.  I'm not sure what animal it was supposed to represent.  It was yellow and orange, had antennae on it's head and seven or eight rungs to hold on to (for dear life) or to help push.  That thing could go fast, and I'm sure many a child got nauseated riding it.  The most coveted, and safest, spot on it was on the top of the head, between the antennae.  If you sat down lower, and if a merciless kid was pushing, you were sure to go flying off at some point.  To slow it down you could drag your foot in the sand. 

 

Speaking of which, that is how I cut my foot one time.  One Sunday afternoon, Cary and I snuck out of the house to go to the park.  I remember I was wearing my blue dress with white pinafore (the same dress I am wearing in my kindergarten photo, so I must have been about 4 or 5 years old) and no shoes.  I guess I played on the merry-go-round, and when I dragged my foot in the sand, it got cut by a piece of glass.  Cary and I went home to get some help with the blood.  I remember Marné trying to help me in the downstairs bathroom, likely to try and still hide it from Mom and Dad (we weren't supposed to go to the park on Sunday), but I guess the bleeding wouldn't stop, so I eventually had to be taken to the Emergency Room.  The doctor that stitched me up asked me if I wanted a button sewn on it, too.  I didn't think that was funny.  I still have the scar.

 

The zip line pretty much filled me with terror (bringing back these memories are making me realize that I was quite a coward).  The log that ascended to the platform alone was a massive challenge.  There were just notches cut out for your feet and you were supposed to tightrope walk up the log.  Every attempt I made ended up with me straddling the log midway up or crawling on my hands and knees.  Once up on the platform, I then had to summon enough courage to actually go down the zipline.  It was high and it went fast.  Rumor had it that several kids broke arms or legs falling off of it.  At one point it was lowered for safety reasons, with the notched log also replaced with a few stairs up to the platform, but then it was pretty useless because your feet would just drag in the sand, it was so low.

 

Much of the log equipment was replaced probably around the time I was in Jr. high or high school with more updated and "safe" structures.  It wasn't nearly as fun, though.

 

There was also space and poles for playing volleyball at the far end of the sandy area.  I don't remember a net being there much, or if there was one, it was pretty beat up.

 

There was a small hill leading up from the playground to the large field behind.  This was a good spot for kite flying and for watching fireworks on the 4th of July if we didn't want to bother with fighting the crowds and driving elsewhere.  The hills were just the right size for rolling down.  I'm feeling itchy just thinking about it.

 

The dirt trails were basically a large patch of undeveloped land.  I was also scared of rattlesnakes, as there were always plenty of snake holes that you could spot while passing through there.  It was mainly a fun place for the boys to ride their dirt bikes and do tricks.  I'm sure I rode my bike through there several times to get to the other side of the neighborhood and explore.  I even remember finding the white rocks there that could be used as chalk and we would draw on the sidewalk near the park or down the paseo.  According to Google Maps, in June of 2011, the dirt trails were being developed.  Street images show the area surrounded by chain link fence and construction equipment leveling dirt.

Dad:

When we first moved to Thousand Oaks, I remember herds of sheep in the dirt trails area with a sheepherder in his little "covered wagon". The grass, or more likely, weeds, apparently was a good pasture for sheep grazing. It was a great place for kids to explore, to hang out and to fire off rockets. I was somewhat sad when they started to develop the dirt trail area. There was a lot of dust in the air when they were grading, which seemed to go on for about 6 months or longer. But that was "progress" as many houses were jammed into that area.  

 

The park was a great area for picnics, barbecues, and kids to play. It was just a dirt field when we moved to Thousand Oaks. Eventually, the Parks and Recreation Department provided sprinkler supplies if volunteers in the neighborhood would provide the labor to install the sprinklers. Parks and Recreation planted the grass seed as I recall. I remember spending at least one Saturday (maybe two) helping to install the sprinklers. On a sad note, over the years, the park grounds kind of fell into a state of disrepair. The grass became weed infested  and the gophers moved in creating a lot of gopher holes and mounds of dirt. But it served the community well over the years that we lived on Rosewood Ct.

Mom:
I remember sitting on the rock at the paseo and talking to Barbara Kelsch and other neighbors while watching our children play in the cul-de-sac or on the grass at the paseo.  I remember the man that lived across the paseo got very angry and accused the boys of playing on the grass and killing the grass where they had "home plate" when they were playing baseball.  Actually the grass was killed by water that settled there after the rains or the sprinkler were on to water the grass.

 

For about 2 months Lila Staley and I would walk at 6 a.m. up or down the paseo and around the block for exercise.  We stopped when she went to work for the women in the 2nd ward who were making t-shirts with words appliquéd on them.  I also work for them for a short time doing sewing.

Everyone else has pretty well covered the park.  I remember Curtis and Corey riding their Big Green Machines up to the park and then forgetting them when they moved on to other places.   I had ridden a bicycle looking for them when I spotted the toys and tried to carry them home while also pushing the bicycle home and fell and injured my knee.  I then had to wear a soft cast on the knee for about a month.  I finally ditched it because it was too hard to walk down the stairs.

 

The dirt trails on the east side of Erbes Road was a favorite spot for the boys to go exploring and to get close to the sheep grazing on the hills.  Sadly, homes were eventually built there.  Cary and Alexis had a lemonade stand and took the wagon with lemonade and brownies, etc. and for a time had a good business going with the construction workers until a food truck driver told them that they were in his territory!  When Grandpa Judd came to visit he would walk with Curtis and Corey in the hills to go exploring with them.  We lost our "country" feeling when the houses were built.

Corey:
We spent nearly as much time on these trails as we did at the paseo. I remember a fire when I was really little at the edge of the trails, just above our paseo. Paul Bomb? Was that his name? I remember thinking he was the one who started it. I was always worried about rattle snakes on these trails and remember always trying to catch lizards. Curtis and I would ride our cool black bikes with yellow mag wheels down the hills. I remember jumping my bike on the jump some kids built in the far upper corner of the fields. And I remember some kid with the small motorcycle with a lawnmower engine. There was a metal drain pipe at the edge of the fields that always seemed spooky to me.

 

The Paseo

Maren:
The paseo ran for several blocks down through the Oakbrook neighborhood, where each of the streets' cul-de-sacs backed up to each other. It was a nice, relatively well maintained path that we used a lot as kids.  To go to the neighborhood park you could use the paseo to get there, or go on the street the other way, but the paseo was much more pleasant, in my opinion.

When I was really little, I didn't know how to pronounce it right and I used to think it was called the "Pa-sail."  Even when I finally did figure out that it didn't have an "L" sound at the end, I still didn't get that it was a Spanish word until much, much later.

In 6th grade when I had my pair of white roller skates with blue wheels, I got brave enough one day to ride down the gentle hill of the paseo that ran down from Parkwood to our street.  I bailed out in the grass when I was going too fast and got scared. I think I skinned my knee pretty bad.  Lesson learned.  I never got very good at rollerskating.  I wasn't brave enough.

The paseo was a great place to play hide-and-seek with all the other kids that lived on our street in the summertime.  This was one of my favorite childhood memories.  There were plenty of bushes, trees, and large, white boulders for hiding and the lamppost at the bottom of our street served as "base."  One year, around the age of 8, I would guess, I was running toward "base," being chased by whoever was "It," and I ran straight into the streetlight.  I'm not sure why I was so particularly clumsy, but I hit it hard enough that it threw me to the ground and I still have the image of looking up to all the kids standing in a circle, looking down at me to see if I was okay.  It was likely Barbara Kelsch that picked me up and carried me home.  Fortunately, I didn't break any bones or anything, but I think my arm and side were sore for a day or two.

On random late afternoons, I would often find Barbara Kelsch down there, sitting on one particular white boulder that was nice and flat and perfect for sitting.  She'd be there, with a glass of a little bit of hard liquor, cigarettes, and a knitting project.  I remember her coughing, but she was also so nice and I think all the kids felt really comfortable around her.  We would jump from boulder to boulder, climb the trees, and roll down the grass hill.

I also used the paseo for my paper route that covered Briarwood Place, whose cul-de-sac backed up to ours, as well as Sandalwood, that was down the hill under Briarwood, and then all the way down to Peppertree Court, which was down by the clock tower.  It was fun to ride a bike down all the hills and feel the breeze through my hair, and then a good little test of endurance to see how far I could pedal on the way back up without having to jump off my bike and walk up.

When I babysat for Gayle Peeples, who lived down on Sandalwood, it was easy to just walk down the hill to her house.  If it was dark when I was done babysitting, Mom wouldn't let me just come alone up the hill to come home.  She insisted that Gayle either drive me home, which was a very round about drive, or come up the hill with me.  It was slightly embarrassing, as I was 14 or 15 years old at the time, but now that I look back, it was quite dark and I suppose a stranger could be lurking somewhere. 

Dad and I would often utilize those paths when he would accompany me to go collecting for my paper route.  He'd bring Oscar along for a walk, then hang out on the sidewalk while I went up to each house that subscribed to the News Chronicle and asked them for their monthly bill.  Dad should have asked for a percentage of the money I earned for all the hours he spent taking me around doing that (not to mention driving me on the weekends to deliver the papers).

Curtis:
 The paseo served as a pretty exciting skateboard luge track and a great place to play jump-over-the-bush (once Pete Kelsch didn't quite make it over and we had to extract him from the bush), football, and basketball in the cul-de-sac. I also managed to put the Tough Skins creed to the test one time when I managed to fall off the back of somebody's go-cart and tore clean through the knee on my brand-new jeans.

Paseos and other commons type green areas are a grand idea. At our first home in Tucson, the common area between houses were a big selling point for us. But alas, no lush green lawns in Tucson, Arizona, only gravel and spiny cacti.

Dad:

The paseo was a good place for kids to play, for walking dogs, and a good shortcut to get to the shopping center on Los Arboles. Almost every time I took Oscar for a walk, I would start on the paseo and either go to the right towards the park or to the left towards Smokewood Ct.

 I remember one time, I was walking Oscar down towards Smokewood Ct, and when I got there, a very large German Shepherd who was not on a leash, came sprinting across the street in what I thought was attack mode. Oscar was growling and barking as if to say "come on, bring it on, I'm ready for you."  Oscar wasn't afraid of anything or anyone, and ready for a fight if the opportunity was there. I didn't want to be in the middle of this fight and more importantly I didn't know if the German Shepherd was after me or Oscar. As it turned out, he was after Oscar. I had to quickly decide what to do, so I grabbed Oscer and held him up so he would be safe from the attacking German Shepherd. The attacker was nipping and growling and barking, trying to get at Oscar, to no avail. Fortunately he didn't bite Oscar (or me). Soon, the owner across the street called him off and averted a potentially bad situation. After the dog was called off, Oscar was still tugging at his leash trying to get at the dog and settle things once and for all. Thinking back about this situation, I may have saved Oscar's life when I picked him up. 

Sometimes when walking on the paseo, especially when walking uphill, it was a good idea to watch for kids on runaway skateboards, roller skates, scooters, big wheels, etc. I was never in danger of runaways, but I'm sure they happened from time to time.  All in all, the paseo was a pleasant place to walk. It was maintained pretty well most of the time. Along the end of the Rosewood cul-de-sac, it was kind of a gathering place for kids playing games or adults hanging out, etc. Writing this has brought back many pleasant memories of the neighborhood where we, as a family spent many years.

Corey:
Concrete paths went down at least 4 hills or levels with crops of rocks at each level that were just the right size for sitting on. We rode bikes, skateboards, or skates down all of them at one time or another. My earliest memory is riding to the bottom of our street on my big wheel with a sandwich Mom made me for lunch. Barbara Kelsch was out on her rock, smoking and relaxing. We did all kinds of things down there. Smear the queer, bush jumping, all kinds of skate boarding, whiffle ball, Pete's basketball hoop, Frisbee golf. We would peel bark off the eucalyptus trees, swing from their drooping branches, build forts with the branches that were trimmed, before they were picked up. We had a little fort in the Dujan's bushes and a seat in their leaning pine tree that overlooked the Paseo. I never knew what a paseo was and always spelled it "pass-a-owe" in my mind. I remember the olive trees and purple stains on the concrete from the olives. I remember one of the trees fell down on Halloween from strong, eerie Santa Ana winds.

Master Bedroom

 

Corey

Curtis

 



Corey

Corey

 Corey

 

Marné and Corey

 

A fine portrait of Dad's desk

Aftermath of the Northridge earthquake 1994

Maren:
I distinctly remember this room having light blue carpeting, as shown in the photos above.  Mom and Dad tell me it was green when they first moved in.

To me it seemed like quite a spacious room. Mom and Dad's bed had a very 70's style headboard that was dark brown with lots of knobs and shapes carved into it.  For many years, at the end of their bed was Dad's desk where he displayed his accounting calculator. It was fun to watch when he used it as it clicked away like a cash register when it printed his debits and credits.  He had a little statue of a wire man that held a piece of that calculator paper that I suppose was intended to be a little accountant.  Sometimes that little statue seemed a little creepy to me, I don't know why.  The baby food jar of colored sand, painted rocks for paper weights, and a pencil jar or two made by one of his kids was always there, too.  It was fun to go digging through the top drawer to find and re-find treasures like the box of real bullets (tucked in the back) and his harmonica. 

Next to the door leading into the room was a semi-dilapidated antique dresser that served as storage for all of the board games.  Aggravation, Trouble, Sorry, and MasterMind are the games that immediately come to mind.  I think at some point that dresser was nicely restored.  Don't you now have it now, Marné?  Did it originally belong to an ancestor or another family member from Mom's side?

For many years, Mom and Dad's dresser was along the wall next to the sliding glass door that led out to the balcony.  Dad had the left side for his little collection plate that stored random coins and other child-made gifts, while Mom's side on the right had (I think) a green jewelry box...  Above the dresser hung a 70's-ish style still life of a pitcher and perhaps some other dishes (see photo above).   Anyone know the history behind that painting and where it ended up?  In the bottom of the frame Dad had tucked a few Polaroid photos - the two I remember the most are of Corey's baptism day when they were leaving the pool and one of Mom and Dad at some sort of work party (they wore name tags and both were wearing quite large glasses).

Mom and Dad's closet was extensive, with 3 sliding doors to it.  Mom's side started on the left, Dad's on the right, and they shared the middle.  The three Mexican hats (that Grandma and Grandpa Woolley had brought back for the 3 boys from a trip to Mexico) were in the middle section and pulled out every once in a while for fun.  Dad's guitar was also in there.

I don't recall the balcony ever really being used much.  Mainly just to hang Christmas lights that hung there until February or March or whenever the Home Owner's Association complained.  A basketball hoop hung from it for a few years.  White lacey curtains covered the sliding glass door.

I have memories of Mom getting ready for church on Sunday mornings, sitting on her side of the bed (nearest the balcony), drying her hair in her marshmallowy hair dryer machine that she placed over her hair curlers as she reviewed a Gospel Doctrine or Relief Society lesson that she was to teach later in the day.  Sometimes she would paint my nails there, too.

When I was very young and Mom would be reading in bed at night I would crawl into Dad's side of the bed and read, too.  I distinctly remember loving Dr. Seuss' The Foot Book and reading it there.  I would often pretend to fall asleep so Dad would carry me to my bed when he came upstairs.

Mom would also put me down for a nap on Dad's side of the bed many afternoons.  I would fight it so much, but she would lie down next to me and I would eventually fall asleep.  I always felt so deceived when I woke up and she wasn't there as I knew she had just faked sleeping to get me to take a nap.

The master bathroom had a vanity that was semi open to the rest of the room (it didn't have a door) that had a sink and a decent length of counter space with a big mirror and medicine cabinet. Mom's mirrored jewelry plate was there for her pearls and other jewelry and was surrounded by her perfumes (Poison in the dark purple bottle was one I distinctly remember) and makeup.  Sometimes she'd let me put some perfume on, too.  Beyond that was the actual bathroom with a toilet and shower that had a fiberglass door.  Sometimes one of the kids would bathe in there, likely due to the other bathroom being occupied.  When I was very young I remember being terrified to clean the toilet as some older siblings told me that when it was flushed (only after cleaning, mind you, not if it was just being used to relieve oneself) that a scary monster popped up out of it. So I helped with the cleaning, then it would be flushed, and I would run like mad around the corner to escape and leave the room as quickly as possible.

In later years, a moveable console was added to the room for what I think was the first real family desktop computer that we had (see photo above).  We could check e-mail and only have to wait 15 minutes to open a message instead of days for snail mail.  It was pretty incredible.  When I think about the beginning of the Internets, I can't help but think of that room and that computer.

The room was also spacious enough that it was useful for laying out fabric to cut for making a new dress or skirt.  Christmas gift wrapping often took place there, too, since it offered space for rolling out the paper and privacy (locking the door was often necessary to warrant that).

Curtis:
Basketballs would sometimes get stuck on the balcony with particularly bad shots. Dad's guitar was hidden in the closet and sometimes he would pull it out and play a stunning 4 note ditty for us. Hiding in that huge closet during hide and seek games was a pretty sure bet. Sometimes Mom and Dad hid Christmas presents in various places in the master bedroom, until they wised up to the antics of their boys. :)

Dad:
The master bedroom was a place of refuge, when things got frantic and I needed some space. It was my "office" for awhile, when I had my small desk located back in a corner of it. It was the one place in the house where I could study during the years when I was going to school at CSUN.

The balcony was little used, more for looks than function. It was, however a convenient place to attach the Christmas lights during the holiday seasons. It was also a convenient place to attach a basketball backboard for several years.      

 

The master bedroom was quite a bit bigger than the other bedrooms and it had a vaulted ceiling, which gave it a feeling more open and larger than it was. That part of the house was like a windbreak when the Santa Ana winds would blow from the north and the sliding glass door would rattle, sometimes waking us up during the night. 

 

It was a good room to sleep in especially during the summer when we could open the sliding glass door and get a gentle breeze through it. However during the winter when the wind blew a lot, it was one of the coldest rooms in the house.

Mom:
The master bedroom had a light green carpet which I chose because we had a medium green bedspread.  I also order really pretty 1970 era lace drapes with a blackout liner.  This was the largest master bedroom in any of our houses.  During the earthquake of 1993? the computer monitor fell into the drapes, but was not damaged.  A week later on a Sunday after church I was talking to Dad on the sidewalk in front of the house when he came home and I was leaving for a Young Woman's meeting when a 5.0 aftershock hit and as we looked up at the house, the monitor fell again against the drapes and window.  I didn't like that the bathroom was not completely self contained behind a door.  Because Dad got up at 5 a.m. to commute into Burbank it was nearly impossible to sleep while he got ready for work.  When Cary was born we had him in a port-a-crib and would roll it by the sink at night.  He slept in the regular crib during the day.  At one point I hung wallpaper on the east wall.  Because of damage to the closet doors I quickly hung wallpaper on the doors. 

 

I rarely made the bed since I only seem to go up there to go to bed and no visitors would see our bedroom.  When we moved to Venus Street I made the bed every day since I could see it every day.  We have (Dad and me) continued to make the bed every day.

Cary:
I remember several things about the master suite on Rosewood.

1.  It was the first place we graduated to taking showers. As mentioned in a previous entry, I don’t think the kid bathroom we all shared had a curtain on it till I was a teenager.

2. Aquanet hairspray in bulk on the marble counter and a bottle of Old Spice in the medicine cabinet. I think the bottle of Old Spice was consistent my entire tenure at 1926. I mean, the same exact bottle. I’m not sure dad ever used it. I’m assuming it was a good intentioned gift that he probably felt bad throwing out.

3. The computer cabinet where I did my junior year term paper and printed out on our LASER printer. I remember thinking we must have “made it”, we had a laser printer. That’s big-time.

4. I have faint memories of attempting to get in bed with mom and dad after a bad dream and being told, “it’s alright, you’re fine, sleep on the floor next to the bed”. I don’t believe I ever once slept in that bed. When mom and dad were in China and I was house sitting I lived in the guest wing bedroom, but every now and again, I’d go sleep in their bed, just because I could.

5. The balcony. Yes, the balcony was easily the most awesome part. If you were agile and brave it was especially useful on Sunday afternoons. You could go up stairs as if you were going to play in your room, rustle some toys around for a few minutes then silently make your way to the balcony. If you had the right combination of stupidity and guts (not naming any names{“me” isn’t a name}) you could jump off the corner closest to the lawn and land more or less unscathed with the proper stuntman roll.

Corey:
Green shag carpet with a big play area when I was little. There were tons of bottles and little things on the counter in the bathroom that made cleaning time consuming. There was an ugly basket garbage can too. The bathroom with the toilet and the shower had the scale. This was
Dad's only retreat. There was a sliding glass door to the balcony, which we never used. Mom hid christmas presents in the closet, though Curtis always easily found them. Dad had his pistol and rifle on the shelf on his side of the closet, along with his old guitar.

Bedroom #3

Aftermath of the 1994 earthquake

Maren:
That's pretty sad that this is the only photo I can find of this room.  I think that bed with the wooden headboard was pretty much always in that room.  It was a little wobbly so if it was positioned too close to the wall it would bang against it anytime your sat down or rolled over on the bed.  I believe I had this room through much of junior high school and through most of high school as well.  In junior high school, I remember having the wooden roll top desk in place of the newer white Ikea desk that I got later on.  On the little shelves of the roll top desk I displayed by ceramic cat collection and on top of those shelves was a great little hiding place out of view to store paper route money and other secret stuff.

The window was kind of at an odd place where the roof came up to the middle of it.  It was right over the front door, so when someone rang the doorbell or knocked on the door, your could look down to see who was there without being noticed (and if you were home alone, to see if it was worth going downstairs to open the door.  For friends, yes.  For solicitors, nah.)  In the spring and summer you could enjoy the scent of the star jasmine that climbed the pole on the front porch if you left the window open, too.  The most noteworthy thing for me about this window and it's placement was when Friskie would get in fights with other cats in the middle of the night on the roof right outside this room.  Both cats involved in the scuffle would make the most eerie whine that sounded like a baby crying.  I quickly learned I could break up the fight by opening the window abruptly and shooing the enemy cat away.  Sometimes Friskie would follow it, sometimes he would come in through the window (I thought the window had a screen, but maybe it got ruined).  But I'd get frustrated by being woken in the middle of the night so many times by these cat fights.

When the cats were in the room in the middle of the night, they would often scratch the closet doors to wake me up to let them out of the room.  Those closet doors (and wallpaper) took a serious beating thanks to those cats' claws. Writing these stories makes me realize I didn't get much sleep while I was in that room. 

I also associate this room with R.E.M., They Might Be Giants, and Queen.  The first two bands were listened to a lot in this room, and Queen was introduced to me thanks to the movie "Wayne's World" that came out when I was in jr. high. I quickly memorized "Bohemian Rhapsody" by listening to it repeatedly in a short period of time.

When the Northridge Earthquake hit around 4:30 in the morning on January 17, 1994, all I remember is waking up on the floor, stumbling to the doorway as quickly as possible, holding on for dear life, and yelling for it to stop.  It seemed to last forever.  Luckily there wasn't any severe damage to any of us or to the house, but we had plenty to clean up.  And I was happy to get a day or two off of school.:-)

In earlier years, I'd have to associate this room with Billy Idol and Metallica from the days that Cary inhabited the room.  I remember playing his Nintendo in there while sitting on the end of the bed, usually in a puddle of his bedspread and/or dirty clothes that littered the ground, while also listening to loud music.

Dad:
Here is my take on the "third bedroom". It was kind of a multipurpose room over the years. Soon after we moved in when Corey was born, it was the nursery room for him. Then, eventually, he was moved to one of the other bedrooms with Curtis. It then became the sewing room when Mom was making the back packing tents. It contained the big power sewing machine which could be heard throughout the house when it was working. A lot of completed tents were made in that room. When the room was added on downstairs, that became the sewing room and the sewing machine and "inventory", etc. was all moved downstairs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I moved my desk in the room and it became my office for awhile when I was going to school and needed a place to study. When we (Curtis) got the Commodore 64 computer, the room also became the "computer room". We also had the IBM computer and subsequent computers in that room in later years. Then it became Cary's room for awhile, although I think the computer was still kept there. My office (desk) was eventually moved into a corner of the master bedroom to make more room in the third bedroom. That room served us well over the 26 years that we lived in the Rosewood Court house. This is my attempt to describe the use of the room in chronological order, but it may not be very accurate. That was a long time and my memory of events has faded over the years. That's why it needs to be written down, (by all family members). So everyone, lets write something.

Curtis:
Small bedroom above the front door. Was mine for a couple of years. I think it had that funny blue carpeting with a strange low pile but bumpy texture.

 

Aside from that. I liked that it gave a view of the front porch--very handy for assessing whether a knock at the door was a friend coming for a visit. My first encounter with Compuserve and Q-Link online services took place in this room. Little did I know that some day I would work for the company that started Q-Link and later bought Compuserve. I'm sorry Mom and Dad for signing up for that one-month trial of Compuserve without your permission but I am happy to report that it secured a pretty decent start to my career.

Mom:
When we first moved to Thousand Oaks the smallest bedroom was my sewing room.  I was making backpacking tents at the time so I spent many hours in this room.  When Corey was born he had his crib in there and I would work while he slept.  There was also a small porta-crib that was by the sewing machine so he could see me while I worked.  There was a small "jungle gym" that he could also reach when he was a little older.  When Corey was about 4 months old we moved Corey into Curtis' room because the power sewing machine was louder and he was more sensitive to noise while he slept.  When he was a toddler he would play in his bedroom, but also bring toys into the sewing room to play near me.

 

Grandma Woolley also gave me her "quilting TV" so I could "listen" to programs and baseball games.

 

Marne' was the first to have this room when the new sewing room was built while I was pregnant with Maren.  It was also used as a guest room from time to time.  Dani and Vanessa both used this room when they came to visit before they were married.

Corey:
I never lived in this bedroom. Marné had this room for many years, followed by Curtis. I remember him having his big Joe Weider weight bench right in the middle of the room. Then Cary had this room for a while, where he learned to play Metallica on his guitar and Loopin the cat would jump out the window on to the roof.

Upstairs Bathroom

Curtis

 

Maren:

Two smells immediately come to mind when I think of the bathroom:  Zest soap and Oscar's green shampoo that filled the bathroom several hours after he got a bath with it's medicinal smell.

 

Dad was in charge of bathing us when we were small.  I remember every time initially not wanting to take a bath, but that I always enjoyed it once I got in there, playing with a washcloth and/or sloshing water around to see how big of waves I could make.

 

Washing the pets was never fun.  Even if I was downstairs, I distinctly remember hearing Oscar whining and struggling in the bathtub as Dad bathed him.  But it was satisfying to help brush his fur afterward and more pleasant to pet him when he didn't have matted fur or little weeds stuck all over him.

 

The few times that we attempted to bathe a cat were pretty disastrous and ended with someone bleeding from multiple scratches.

 

We went through many a bar of Zest soap through the years.  We didn't waste a single piece of that stuff.  When it got too small to use properly, it would be stuck to a new bar on the plastic spiky soap dishes we had.

 

I remember the bathroom getting a makeover perhaps when I was in Jr. High, maybe when Marné was home from her mission and was available to help with her sense of design.  I remember a navy blue carpet going in as well as a new ceramic blue and white toothbrush cup and a proper matching soap dish that really "dressed up" the bathroom.  Oh, and a fuzzy toilet seat cover that matched the new carpet, of course.

 

Many a zit was popped while looking into that mirror.  I know I'm not the only one that can testify to that.

 

Dad:

I didn't spend much time in the upstairs bathroom. I used it to give Oscar his baths in there. Oscar used to smell really bad, especially when he spent much time outside. He didn't like his baths, so I had to carry him upstairs and physically place him in the tub. He would give me dirty looks and try to escape, so I had to shut the bathroom door to keep him there. After he was bathed and dried off, he was a happy camper, and he would bound down the stairs in two or three leaps. 

 

Another thing I did in the bathroom was bathing you kids when you were babies. This gave us some one on one time together and it was also a good time for me to unwind after a stressful day at work. It was also a good way to help Mom as she was usually fixing dinner at the time.  

 

 Cary:

The upstairs bathroom can't be described without the nightly dialogue that echoed off it's reflective walls, "I've been giving baths for 15 years!", or a slightly different number depending where in the procession of the Judd children you fall.
For as many details as I remember from the other rooms, I have a hard time remembering pre-Netherlands makeover (complete with faux-Delft soap dish & toothbrush holder). I think I was probably 15 or 16 years old when this happened and can't remember there ever being a shower curtain before that.
The thing I remember most was having a boom box in there that I'd blast to get psyched up for the torture of Los Cerritos. I think Metallica's "Ride The Lightening" (on the bleak days) and "Master of Puppets" (for the days I wanted to go in with a good attitude) got played no less than 400 times each. Metal or die.

Corey:
This was a busy, well used bathroom. We had several carpets in here over the years, all of which got dirty and worn long before they were replaced. The tub/shower was a fiberglass insert and the drain stopper was out for many years. I remember washing Oscar in the tub and then fishing all of his hair out of the drain. He hated baths so much. I also remember making "potions" in the sink, which were always finished with that toilet cleaner that bubbled when it hit water. There was always a broken towel bar or a hole in the wall from the door knob. I can't count the number of times I cleaned this bathroom, even though it always seemed dirty with 5 kids sharing it.