Things stand out in my memory as happy days were summer days when it was Mom's watering turn for the pasture. We kids would swim and splash in the water ditch. It seemed vary deep and swift. After growing up and looking at the shallow ditch it disappointing to realize how small it really had been.
There were early Spring wild flowers that grew at the head of the ditch LaVerna and I called snow balls because of their white color and shape created from the many tiny white blossoms. The Snowballs had a very sweet scent. She and I searched eagerly for them each year. I have never seen them again in any other spot.
I graduated from the little watering ditch as we grew older and boys began to roam and make friends with the farmers in the fields below our house.
When Mr. Frei had a watering turn for the big fields, now that was a ditch! We would go there for a cool dip and spend the day. We'd get an old piece of wood and float under the bridge that barely had room to keep our heads above water. If only our mother knew the dangerous things we did!
The fields were a wonderful place. Along the canal banks grew wild asparagus. Mom was always happy when we showed up with a big bundle we gathered for her. We weren't always pleased when she cooked it for our suppers, but it was a taste that grew on you. We ate lots of creamed asparagus over slices of home baked bread.
From the fields we graduated to early morning hikes to the Virgin River a few miles further from home. We would take a lunch and disappear for the day. There came a point along the way where we could walk the big black water pipes that followed the road to the river.
The river was not deep, but wide and usually not very full. We would chase minnows and catch Boney fish to cook over a fire. We had to be ever on the alert for quick sand. We drank out of the river until we found a dead and bloated cow up stream from us once. It was after the cow incident that I lost interest in the river. Mom finally convinced me that was not a safe place to play.
Dad had a drinking buddy named Clyde Rosenbury who lived just beyond the bridge to the fields. He had kids in our age range and we enjoyed hiking to their home for a day.
On night Dad came home from the Rosenbury's and was really upset with his friend to prove to Dad just how much his children loved him. Clyde would slap a child across the room them tell him to come and give his Dad a Kiss. then he'd slap the weeping child again and demand further proof of devotion with another kiss.
Daddy had been disqusted with the show. those poor babies! No matter how much dad had to drink, he would never have slappped his children!
The twins and their boy friends from the neighborhood continued their games at the river for years. They would climb trees and leap out into the tamarisk bushes and give a Tarzan yell. They were GOOD!
I can still hear those two brothers in the evening as they gave the old Tarzan yell and their friend Fen Jessop and the Walters brothers, from homes two blocks away both East and West, would give the answering call.
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