Dori's Story - She remembers that she was sick a lot, I got car sick whenever we left home for farther than Kirkland (five miles away from Juanita) Dori was counted on getting car sick, mom brought a coffee can. We called it a thunder mug because that is what is sounded like when I would barf into it, I threw up every time I got car sick,. I have a very low threshold for vomiting, I don’t care it doesn’t upset me to vomit I feel better after I do. Gary, it really. he has to be deathly ill to vomit and it really irks him to do it, The last straw to have to do it I just go in a get rid of it. I am 100% better once I do because I have done it all my life. So we drove every day and we slept in the car, I think the folks slept in the car too in the front, we slept in the back it was a station wagon. We were very tight n money and we didn’t have a lot to rent motels and I don’t remember that we had a tent or anything on the way back. I remember that we slept in the station wagon. And we would stop in the shell station to gas up and use the restroom to freshen up and empty my thunder mug and get it fresh for the new day.
Drove there to visit Dad’s father, grandpa Anderson. He was nine and I was about 7. We weren’t very old and it was the old time we went to N Dakota. We got to see some really beautiful country we went through Bad Lands, Yellow Stone Nation park, Old Faithful, and the beautiful bad lands in there, Flaming geysers and the sulfur pots almost got us sick. Saw lots of wildlife going through yellow stone, buffalo, bears elk, deer, prairie dogs, we took a lot of pictures and slides.
(Top from left to right: Hank, Grandma Peg, Grandpa Gene, Andy; Bottom: Genie, Loran)
We saw our aunts and uncles that were around our age, he had a second marriage family. And they were a few years older right around our age, it was like having cousins, we had a reunion out at Gary’s a year or two ago and Josh and Jeremy got the meet a couple of them, Jeanie (between Gary and my age), Loren (possibly younger than Dori), Melton (couple years older than Gary), Merle ( the oldest). They met all accept Lauren.
Tornado? Only tornado ever experienced, it was thrilling and exciting we went down to the cellar because we thought we would get hit with it. Name of town??? How far from Fargo??? Cecil and Grandpa out fishing they got hailed one and you know it is pretty close the tornado when you get hailed on.
There during 4th of July setting off fireworks in the town, it was exciting. We were gone for 2 weeks traveling by car, we didn’t have freeway systems that we have now days.
Gary’s Story – I absolutely loved the North Dakota trip! It was a magical time for me in my life. I was 11 years old and life could not have been better for me. 1957 cars had just hit the market; they don’t come out in January, but just after school starts. There were huge changes in body style. I memorized all of the cars, I saw every model from Cadillac to Nash Ramblers…I saw everything on that trip. That was the year the fins came out. So my parents had bought a 56 Nash Rambler Station Wagon, red and white. And of coarse back in those days there were no seat belts in the cars, none, no seat belt law either. If you wanted to load your kids on the top rack of the car you could do it. We didn’t even know what seat belts were they were only worn on race cars drivers.
I spent all my time in the back of the wagon, sleeping, dreaming, looking at cars and sights; my mind was racing with all sorts of adventures and make believe. That was, in my memory, the very best year of my life. I was making a transition from real boy hood to man hood a little bit. I could talk to my parents about cars, I knew the make and model of every car passing us better than my mom and dad did and they knew it. That was a boost of my self confidence they would go me for information, “What car do you think that one was?”, “That was an imperial”. I studied it, memorized it, and watched TV commercials. I knew them all that 1 year. They were so radically different that it was easy. There are car museums dedicated to 1957 cars only that is how big of an impact it was. Detroit changed cars. Fins were huge. Kids would put fins on their cars for decoration but this year the cars came that way. Also cars went from single headlights to double headlight. Not all cars but some. Kids customized their cars and put extra headlights on, Detroit copied it.
Some of the things we saw at Yellow Stone (I recently went with Bonnie and we only saw 1 bear) as a kid a mommy bear would walk down the road and the babies would attack your car looking for food. There were tons of bears, all sorts of wildlife and grizzlies. We also saw the badlands of South Dakota. It was called that because years ago if they would get in trouble with the law and had ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ poster the criminals would hide out in South Dakota. You could get lost out there. But there were roads through it in my day. We saw lots of Prairie Dogs, little critters that were about twice the size of a gray squirrel, they had colonies with 150 holes in the ground each hole had a prairie dog with its head sticking out barking at ya. That was fun, we saw Buffalo too and we headed to North Dakota and into city with dirt streets where Grandfather Clifford Eugene Anderson lived.
For the 4th of July we let off fireworks in the middle of the street, not safe or sane. There were no laws or safety codes against this it wasn’t until people died and there were deaths every 4th of July that people said we have got the be safe. Then all of the good fireworks went to the Indian reservation. At this fireworks show they stuck a Roman Candle in the dirt and lit it gets real bright light goes up and burns out. This Roman Candle fired up in the air then lost its footing and laid down on the ground, the second round and third rounds straight down the street and into the barn. It wasn’t a huge fire but it created a huge ruckus. The volunteer fire department came out and someone had to grab the firework and aim it some where else.
A tornado came while we were out there. I have never seen hail that size it was the size of golf balls, so huge you could not stay out in it, it would beat you to death. That was the year that Fargo was torn up pretty bad they had a lot of deaths that was North of us. My dad happened to be out on a house boat fishing, they saw a funnel come down and hit a farm but it did not get close to them.
They had a house and in front of the house was a tavern grandpa owned and operated. Under the house was a cellar, it was filled with food and cans, but was also used as an escape route in case of a tornado. It was scary hail! When golf balls start falling from the sky, it could tear a farmer’s crop up, dent cars and tin roofs. It is scary stuff. I would rather endure hurricanes then live in tornado alley.
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