Personal History (1982) - Page 4

... let us hope that he will ne'er grow older each day
but just stay and drive all me worries away.
Sarah Lois Mabey (Grandma Ellis)

We always had lots of freedom when we played with our friends at our home. We were allowed to build things and make a mess downstairs. Like I mentioned earlier, our yard had for years been in a state of chaos. The Wise twins called our yard the "jungle". Little by little my Dad would cut deeper and further west into the waist high weeds, but I will always remember what a joy it was to play in. Army and war seemed to be the most popular of games we could plan in our weeds. When they had grown well into the summer they presented a wonderful hiding place and a dead give-away to any enemy probing into our territory. The Wise-guy twins once dug a six-foot hole to be used to trap lions and would-be predators. That was quickly filled in by our parents, but there were some sad little soldiers as each proceeding year provided less foliage.

Our first garden was located on the south side of the house where wild grass is growing now. We didn't have too much success with later gardens, but Mom always spoke of that first garden as being one of the best we every produced. Our gardens then moved further west with the receding border of weeds. When the weeds were cut back to the apple tree, my dad decided to build us a sandpile. He dug a hole in the ground and lined it with cinder blocks, but it was my mother's job to provide the sand. She called around and decided to order from Sand and Gravel of North Salt Lake. It was a good sized sandpile, so large that the sand would need to come in a truck. Since we didn't have a truck, all my Mom could think to say was we need a truck full of sand. When questioned about the amount she needed she asked for four yards. There was a pause, then to clarify he asked if she wanted four square yards and her reply was "Yes". Mom figured that the sandpile was about four yards by four yards which would be four yards square. Little did she know that the sand and other soils are measured by cubic yard, so she had ordered sand to fill a box four yards deep as well as four yards long and wide.

One afternoon when we kids were all playing in the yard, along came this dump truck with my mother's order. She remembers thinking that it was an awfully large truck to bring the sand to fill such a small box, but she brushed that off reasoning that it was probably the only truck they had. She told him where to dump it and all the children just watched in amazement as the motorized bed of the truck moved up to leave the largest pile of sand any of us had ever seen. The sand filled the hole, covered the brick lining, overflowed on all sides, and still left mountainous pile that was taller than a man. There have never been happier children? Next Page