Loni Gee Hackworth

 

I was born of goodly parents on April 8, 1944 in Pocatello, Bannock County, Idaho.  April 8 was also my uncle LaVaun Merrill’s birthday and because of that, I received the name VaLonne which is LaVaun reversed. 

 

I have not really liked that name all my life...I have always wished I were Linda or Lori or Stephanie or something easy to remember and pronounce.  I always dreaded the first day of school when the teachers would call roll because they’d come to my name and stumble over it.  I’d always turn red and everyone would giggle and laugh.  In jr.  high, I had the same teacher for two years and she called me VA-LONE-EE for two years - it was always horrid and embarrassing.

 

When I went to Ricks, my roommate, Nancy Parks began calling me Lonnie and that nickname has stuck with me for the ensuing years, although I’ve now changed the spelling to Loni.

 

At the time I was born, I had one older brother, Merrill Kaey, who was eighteen months older than I..  I was born at the end of World War II and dad was working for the federal government.  He was sent to Germany as a judge for the war crimes trials.  To get to Europe to join my father who was already there, we went by boat - a rather long voyage in those long ago days.  

 

I’m not sure if I really remember the voyage over or if I’ve just heard mom tell me about it, but it seems like I was running all over the ship while Mom & Kaey were sick below. 

 

One of the few memories that I do have of Germany is going to visit an old German man who used to do tricks for Kaey and me.  We used to watch him chop cabbage and then he’d always pull a coin from my ear.  That trick always amazed me and I loved it every time.  I also gained a distinct dislike for the smell of cooked cabbage.

 

Once in Germany, a little dog bit me on the leg and I’ve been wary of dogs ever since.  Shopping was always fun because Kaey and I spoke German and we learned to speak it quite well, but mom couldn’t understand what the clerks were saying, so we would be the interpreters for her.  That’s power - for a little child to understand but not for the mom to.

 

Very vaguely in my mind is a memory of flying home on an extremely noisy airplane, but it is not a distinct memory, so my next memory is of living in Pocatello on 8^th street.  In my mind, I remember being spanked once with a hairbrush....- dad denies it, of course, so maybe it never really happened, but I’m sure if it did really happen, I deserved it.

 

Another vivid memory I have of 8^th street is one time I was trying to get some airplane glue open with my teeth and I bit into the container.  Glue oozed into my mouth and around my tongue and teeth.  I was really scared because I thought my teeth would be permanently stuck together and I’d never be able to talk again...a pretty scarey thought for a talkative girl.

 

We moved to 18^th street when I was about 5 or 6 and I went to Lincoln School.  There was a black girl in my class and I used to try and befriend her.  It seems like I took her home to play with me a few times. 

During first grade, I got rheumatic fever.  I really loved all the attention I got from being in bed for six months - it probably wasn’t really six months -it just seemed like it at the time.  But however long it was, it was great - the first grade teacher came to our home and helped with lessons, my favorite aunt - Virginia - brought a box of presents to open on different days and being sick was actually quite fun.

 

Grade school days were mostly pleasant....like the great day in 3^rd grade.  It was after recess, and the teacher had not yet come back in the classroom.  A little boy named Jimmy literally chased me around the room trying to kiss me.  I finally sat down in my desk and Jimmy planted a big kiss on my check in front of the entire class.  It was humiliation at its finest - sort of embarrassed, but also a feeling of pride as the one being chosen out of all the girls to be kissed!  Jimmy moved away that summer, but his parents called me up to come have my picture taken with him before he moved as a remembrance of his 3^rd grade romance.  So, his parents have a picture of me, but I have nothing to remember my first kiss by!

 

There were a few unpleasant memories mostly of my own making, I’m sure.  For example, I took piano lessons from Sister Saunders and I hated to practice.  Mom always said, “you’ll be sorry.”  And of course, she’s right.  I am very sorry.  But one thing that totally killed my career was in fourth grade.  The teacher asked who played the piano.  Three of us raised our hands.  So she said we would accompany the class the following day.  Even writing this brings back the humiliation of that moment.  Beverly and Sharon played beautifully - flawlessly - effortlessly.  Then it was my turn to play while the class sang.  I stumbled, fumbled, finally giving in to one-handed accompaniment.  It was wretched.  I realized at that moment that I would never be able to play while people sang.

 

My favorite thing to do on summer nights when we lived on 18^th street was to ride my bike all the way up 19^th street.  It was a long ride with a gradual hill.  Then the most fun was coming back - a long coast all the way down.  It was sheer ecstasy after the long pump up the hill to just sit back, no hands and fly down the street...no cares, no worries, just an exhilarating sense of freedom and pleasure.  I did that on many summer nights, and it still brings back great memories of the feeling that life was wonderful.

 

Sometimes on long summer nights, our family would get in the car and go the A&W root beer drive-in for root beers.  I can still feel and see the frosty mugs of frothing root beer in the dark night of the car.  That was the good life - and it couldn’t get any better.  And usually, I loved those trips, except one.  I was a pre-teen or close to teenage years and I had just bought my very first bra.  Mom told dad and said that since I was growing up, we ought to go out to celebrate.  That was totally embarrassing for me - to know that my dad and my brothers knew why we were going out for root beers!

 

Another enjoyable activity that our family did occasionally was drive to Lava Hot Springs to swim.  Wow, I loved that!  I can still remember how great it was to drive into that little tiny town and feel the anticipation of getting in the pool.   One time when I was quite small, I asked my dad to catch me as I came down the slide.  However, someone started talking to him and he was momentarily distracted, so I went into the water and down under.  Since then, I’ve been a little wary of the water.

 

That was the good life of the 50s.  We certainly fit the stereotypical 50s family - dad went off to work, mom cleaned the house all day in a dress and apron, dad would come home from a hard day at the office, and we would gather around the dinner table for a fabulous sit-down meal with all of us chattering about the day’s events.  It’s no wonder people talk about the good ole’days - for me, at least, that’s exactly what they were!

 

Linda Peterson was a sort of best friend although she was a year younger than I.  Her dad was rich - or so it seemed to me.  Looking back, some things seem so funny to an adult.  For example, I could never understand why the Easter bunny always brought all the kids in the Peterson family this fancy, elaborately decorated Easter basket.  It was filled with stuffed animals, amazingly delicious candy, and wrapped in cellophane.  We lived right across the street and all we got were those nasty little peeps.  I could not figure out how the Easter Bunny always ran out of the good stuff just before he made it to our home.  To this day, I cannot stand those little marshmallow peeps.  I should have been grateful that I was fortunate to even get an Easter basket.  It was much later in my life that I found out many young lives were filled with tragedy, despair, horror, sadness, so getting Peeps was really nothing compared to what many children faced.  I’m ashamed now that that was even a concern, but I can only say that that was the feeling then of a very blessed child.

 

Another thing about the Peterson kids is they could just get up any time they wanted on Christmas morning to open presents...they didn’t even have to wait for their parents to wake up!  What lucky kids they seemed to be!  Now, of course, I realize that opening presents as a family is really part of the joy of that particular holiday.  But, at the time, getting up when you wanted sounded terribly appealing.  I remember going over to the Peterson’s one Christmas morning to share what we had, and Linda told me that Bucky (her older brother) had gotten up at 2 a.m. to see what Santa brought.  It was a train set.  He had played with it during the night, and had then gone back to bed.  What fun can that be to have a wonderful new train set, but no family member around to “ooh” and “ahh.”

 

Sundays were great days at the Peterson’s.  They played on Sundays...at that time, it all seemed like a great way to spend a summer Sabbath.  But I did, on some occasions, get to ride with Linda and her dad in Mr  Peterson’s jeep.  We always sat in the back as Mr. Peterson drove wickedly fast.  Our hair would fly all over - no hair spray in those days - as he whipped around corners and through the streets.  Now, that really was the life!

 

I really enjoyed Primary, although I don’t remember any teachers except Bob Scott’s mother, Sister Scott.  She was always pleasant and fun for us girls.    Her husband was not active in the church, but she faithfully came to teach us each week.  We learned to do cross stitch and I was always proud of whatever thing we did.  During my last year of Primary, I had a “crush” on Sister Scott’s son, Bob.  That crush lasted for several years, actually.

 

In fact, one day, after school when I was a sixth grader, four of us - Bob Scott and I; Rix Tillman and his girlfriend, another neighborhood girl, Bennie Kay Thomas - went to what was called the Sand Dumps - a sort of forbidden, carved out hole in the ground.  We walked down to the bottom, holding hands, and incredibly we kissed a few times!  Then Bob Scott took a pin and carved my initials in the back of his hand- VG.  Wow, was I feeling important and grown up!  But then when I got home, I felt really guilty about sneaking down in to the sand dumps and kissing a boy!

 

During my last year of grade school at Green Acres Elementary, a girl’s mother organized a sewing club for learning to do hand sewing which I joined.  I don’t think it lasted very long, but it was fun to go to after school for the time it went on.

 

During this time in my life, we went to a ward that was quite a ways from our home, so most of the girls in the ward were not in the same school.  That makes it more difficult to become really close, since we would see each other only on Sundays.  Thinking back on my elementary days, I don’t think I ever really had a best friend.  I really was kind of a loner.

 

One thing I always dreaded was the first day of school when teachers would call the roll.  I truly dreaded having my name called.  The teacher would usually mispronounce it, so the kids would tease me for a very long time as they called me whatever the teacher had mispronounced it as.  (Whenever I mispronounce a student’s name now, I feel sorrow because the kids still hoot and repeat the mispronounced name.  I have great empathy for students with unusual names.)  In 7^th grade, I had a teacher who called me Va-lone-ee all year.  It was awful.  Imagine my horror then, when I had her again in 8^th grade and she still kept mispronouncing my name!  Years later, her son would be a professor at Ricks College, and in the rare instances when I saw him, I was always reminded of how his mother called me Va-lone-ee for two years. 

 

Across the street from us on 18^th lived a girl named Bennie Kay Thomas.  She was an only child and so many times during those years, I thought being an only child would be great - especially when she did the dishes because she had so few to do!  Although we played together frequently, we did not get along well...the relationship had more than its share of ups and downs.  Basically we were totally different, but one point of our differences in particular was religion.

 

Walking to school one morning, Bennie Kay began - again - to make fun of the Mormons.  She said that she had heard that Mormons ran around the temple naked.  Boy, that made me so angry!  I wanted to hurt her as badly as she had hurt me, so I said, foolishly I might add, “Well, at least my Mother doesn’t roll around and wrestle on the floor with me.”...or something similar to that - a definite slur on her mother.  I will never forget what happened next because it totally startled me!  She slapped me across the face - and she was powerful!  (Probably from all that wrestling with her mother on the floor!)  I was so stunned!  She took off running and so did I - but I ran home to complain to Mom who promptly sent me back to school.  I don’t remember getting a lot of sympathy from mom.  Looking back on that incident, I probably deserved the slap, but that experience definitely set our shaky friendship back a notch or two.

 

Another incident that I recall during schol was when I was in 5^th or 6^th grade.  I had borrowed a very expensive violin from my neighbors - the Trimmings.  Mrs.  Johnson, the teacher, was trying to tune it and one of the strings snapped.  At that time, I did not realize that strings broke, can easily be replaced, so it is not really serious, but I was literally sick to my stomach.  I dreaded having to face Mrs. Trimming and tell her what had happened!  I really thought Mrs. Johnson had damaged the violin.  It was dreadful having to facer her and tell her about the violin!

 

 It should have cured me of borrowing things!  The broken violin string must not have been too great a tragedy because Mrs.  Trimming asked Linda Peterson and me to be her daughters’ flower girls at the wedding of the century.   Both of her daughters were getting married on the same day and would have a lovely reception in the evening.  Linda and I both had lovely new dresses, mine was pink, Linda’s was blue.  It was very flowery, with a full skirt, and off the shoulder, form-fitting bodice.  I don’t remember if my mom made my dress or not, but she certainly could have, as she made me many dresses as I was growing up.

 

Just two houses away from us, in a house identical to ours, lived my father’s law partner, George Hargraves and his wife, Dorothy.  When I was young, they had no children, however, later on after we have moved, they adopted two sons.  Dorothy Hargraves used to invite me over to her home on summer afternoons to share a glass of iced tea with her.  To this day, I can’t quite figure out why my mom or dad didn’t tell me I couldn’t drink the tea.  I also can’t figure out why I didn’t say something about the Word of Wisdom and not being able to drink tea.  One day, on my way over to her home, I tripped over a neighbor’s fence and cut open a huge gap in my knee....I still have that scar today.  I think it was a sign that I should not continue to go over and drink iced tea with Dorothy Hargraves!

 

Junior high were perhaps my most difficult years in school.  Once again, I was in a situation where the kids in the ward were not my close neighbors, so I didn’t have a close friend.  In fact, I’m not so sure I had any really close friends..it was a difficult time for me.  I was a show-off, a loud mouth, and really quite unattractive.  Thinking of those days and the kind of person I was - makes me cringe.

 

During junior high days, I had discovered the wonders of boys!  During those early MIA days, both Lyle Cottle and Lloyd Grange were my constant “crushes.”  I wrote about every encounter in my little journal that had a lock and key.  It was my best friend for I could tell that diary everything.  And I did!   And I was always sure to lock it up after writing in it.  It’s funny because it was a five year diary, so you could only write a very few lines on each page...there really could not have been much information given out in that little personal diary. (I have often wondered what happened to that secret diary - I’d certainly like to read it now from an adult perspective.)

 

I also had a short-lived crush on a very handsome kid named Terry Kidd.  He came from a large family and he was polite, religious, and to my young mind, very handsome.  We seemed destined to be together forever - or at least for a date! 

 

One night after Mutual, at dance practice, which I adored, Terry was my dance partner.  I was in seventh heaven.  Could life get any better than this?.  I knew that he would finally notice me and we could begin our life-long romance.  The whole evening, as we practiced the steps, I pictured him telling me something romantic as we finished the dancing.   At the conclusion of the dance practice, Terry walked me back to the sidelines, as he had been dutifully taught to do by our instructors, and he said - in a voice loud enough for all in the cultural hall to hear - “You sure have rough hands.” 

 

It’s amazing how one remark can stick with you for so long.  That cut me to the core - I didn’t know I had rough hands, and how was I supposed to get any other kinds of hands?!  But, that was definitely the end of my one-sided romance with Terry Kidd.  (NOTE: many years later, as I walked into the fifth ward church one Sunday  with my family, there sat Terry Kidd.  He had moved into our ward for a very short time.  I still remember thinking how grateful I was that I had married Allen.  Terry Kidd was not nearly as handsome or as exciting as Allen.)  And do you know, that I am still very conscientious about my rough hands.  Which just shows how one remark can stay with a person for a very long time!

 

Even though junior high days were challenging for me, I loved the church activities.  That is for me where the great joy was to be had - going to MIA on Tuesday nights.  (I think this was foreshadowing for me the great joy that the church has been all my life.)  After the lessons, which I really loved, there were always fun activities.  Roadshow practices, speech practices, dance practices, music, etc.  I don’t think anyone can quite understand what a great thing this was in my life for me.

 

During this time in my life, I was really a big show-off and very loud/mouthed.  It is painful to recall what I was like.  I was trying so hard to fit in, was really quite a loner, and so, to compensate, I’m sure that I was very obnoxious.  One day, after a church gathering, Roger Horrocks - a young man in the ward who was about 3 years older than I, came up to me and said, “Valon, there’s a book that I think you should read..it’s called HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE.”  Looking back, I’m sure that he was saying, “If anyone could use this book, it’s YOU!”  But, at the time I didn’t realize Roger’s suggestion was an insult, so I went home and read the book.  Reading the book became an epiphany for me.  It became my mantra - listen to others and don’t talk about yourself. 

 

On my first real date - it was a group date and this was long before the church recommended waiting till the age of 16.  After the Gold & Green Ball we all went to the Shanghai Cafe to eat.  We had been taught that since you didn’t really know how much money the young man had to spend on you, an appropriate thing to order would be whatever your date ordered.  So Judy Romney, whose date was Lloyd Grange, said when the waitress asked for her order, “I’ll have the same thing Lloyd ordered.”  Lloyd had just ordered a full course Chinese dinner.  Lloyd then turned to Judy and said, “You can’t...I don’t have enough money!”  So Judy ordered a milkshake and Lloyd still had to borrow money from someone to pay for the meal.   I think awkward moments like that are why the church recommends waiting until 16 to date, but let’s face it, the whole dating scene is really awkward no matter when it occurs!

 

Because of my earlier bout with rheumatic fever, the doctor had advised me to take it easy with physical activity.  That was just what I wanted to hear, so I did as he told me to...I hardly ever played hard.  Then I hit junior high where PE was a required course.  I HATED it.  I was so bad at everything the PE class was required to do...thinking about that class still brings a knot to my stomach.  I was always chosen last to be on the softball team.  I hated being in shorts, and trying to hit the ball, which I NEVER could do!  It was extremely difficult for me, but I never talked to anyone about it.  I was intensely private.  I just hoped the year would end soon.

 

It was during jr high that I had about a Tablespoon of wine.  I still feel guilty that I was not stronger in saying no.    Here’s how it came about: there were about eight of us who were in the same PE class at school.  One girl, Karen Kunz, was having a Christmas party so she invited all eight of us to her party.  We were all LDS, but some were from more active homes than others. 

 

Anyway, at this party, we went Christmas caroling.  Most of the people we sang for would invite us in and give us a little Christmas treat.  At one wealthy lady’s beautiful home, she asked Karen’s mother if we could all have just a little wine to warm us up.  Then she asked each of us individually if we would like some.  Each girl followed the first like sheep, saying yes, she’d have some...then she came to me.  I was scared of what everyone would think so I followed the same pattern.  Only one girl was left, Sue Lovell, and she said, “no, thank you.”  Immediately I was so sorry that I had not been like Sue.  I had been so stupid and how I admired Sue.  I didn’t back out, but drank the horrid stuff and have regretted my lack of strength ever since.  But I never did drink alcohol or smoke any other time, no matter what the situation.  I had certainly learned my lesson.  So, now, reader, there you have it, my encounters and lack of commitment in keeping the Word of Wisdom.  However, I have tried to keep the word of wisdom since that day in junior high.  I recognize its great wisdom and have, in fact, been thankful many times in my life for the Word of Wisdom.

 

Another event occurred during this time that is painful to recall.  One day after school, some sort of wild boys offered to give me a ride home from school.  When I think back to those days in my life, I was so horribly naive, it scares me that worse things never happened to me.  I had a wonderful father, great brothers, exemplary male relatives - how could I know that lots of the male species were low-down skunks?  Anyway, I accepted the offer of a ride home with these guys and they drove up into the hills of Pocatello.  I was in the front seat and several wild boys were in the back seat.  The driver was driving crazily, when one of the boys in the back leaned over the seat and squeezed my breast.  I cannot describe how horrified I was.  I was the most modest of girls - I rarely wore sleeveless shirts or shorts, etc.  This totally shocked me and even now when I think back on it, it mortifies me.  The boys took me home, and I just wanted to forget the entire ride home ever happened.

 

During my 9^th grade in school, our family was building a home out south of Pocatello.  At that time, it seemed to be out in the wilderness.  Now, the area around Johnny Creek is very built up and populated, but at the time, it was the refuge my father was seeking.  Before he started the building project, he hired a water witcher to come and find where we should dig the well.  The person walked around the large lot and when the stick pointed down, that is where the well was dug.  Our well ran dry several times when I was growing up - probably due more to low rain fall than anything, but most of the time that well gave us plenty of water.  I always thought it was amazing that my father - so intelligent and educated - would have faith in the idea of a water witcher, but it seemed to work.

 

Before we moved to our new home south of town, while I was a freshman at Franklin Junior High, my science teacher was Mr.  Tonks - his daughter would be my roommate at Ricks my first semester.  Mr.  Tonks had a passion for science that I now admire, but which I did not share, as I did not understand science principals at all, as you will see from this example. 

 

One day, Mr. Tonks was teaching a lesson on the earth’s rotation or some such thing.  He said something like, “You all know that the days are longer in summer and shorter in winter.”  Frankly, I had often wondered about that statement.  I truly did not see how that could be, so in all sincerity, I raised my hand and innocently asked, “But, Mr.  Tonks, how do the clocks know when to slow down and speed up?!?”  I was sitting in the very back of the room and every single person turned around and just roared with laughter.  Mr. Tonks led the pack - not in a mean way - but he was laughing hard.  I think he could see by my startled reaction after a moment that I seriously did not understand the concept of daylight hours being shorter or longer, so he then explained, but it was a moment that still reminds me of what true humiliation is.  It also reminds me of how I just don’t get science!  After that incident, I couldn’t change junior high schools fast enough.

 

In this same grade, I played clarinet in the band...albeit I rarely practiced.  Karen Kunz and I rotated being first chair.  She would win a challenge and sit in first chair for a few weeks, then I would win the challenge and be first chair.  This was a tremendous honor and ego booster as the band teacher, Mr.  Cullen, would always ask the first chair clarinet to give the note for tuning.  I loved that glory!  I felt, rather than deserved, that I was really something because I was first chair clarinet at Franklin Junior High School. 

 

When I arrived at Hawthorne Junior High, the new band teacher asked me to stay after school and play for him so that he could position me.  Words cannot describe how nervous I was after school as we sat in the little room and he put music in front of me.  I could hardly get a sound out, then squeaks, squawks, etc.    My fingers didn’t work either.  Then he put me in last chair, temporarily, he added, but that is where I stayed the rest of the year.  I often wonder how I could have been so good at Franklin Junior High and so horrible at Hawthorne Junior High, but at any rate, that was the end of my band career as I was unwilling to practice to regain my former position as first chair.

 

Band was not the only thing to suffer after moving that year.  I had left Franklin Junior High with straight A’s.  I had been motivated and had worked hard.  But when I moved, everything was so different, and when report cards came out, I had a D in algebra...imagine from an A to a D!!  That was a blow to my already shaky ego. 

 

Those were difficult days indeed as I tried to establish myself and make new friends.  It might not have been quite so troubling if we had moved at the beginning of the year, but since we moved in the middle of the year, it was very hard on me.  I was so lonely.  Sometimes during the noon hour, the loneliness was a tangible feeling.  It’s an interesting thing about cliques and making friends.  The wild kids will accept anyone into their group, but the good kids and the popular kids are very choosy.  I had a very difficult time those months, as I tried to see where I fit in the grand scheme of things - and, in reality, I didn’t fit anywhere!

 

Riding a bus was also a new experience, as I had always walked to school before.  Kaey and I walked down a long lane to wait as the bus came to pick us up.   On the bus, those first few days, I met a boy who was to have an influence on my life over the next few years.  His name was Fred Wynn.  Fred was like a magnet - to me- at least.  Looking back, I can’t really explain why he was so appealing to me, except that he was fun, clever, loud, sociable, and just drew my attention.  Over the next few months, I really developed a crush on Fred and that crush was to last about 4 years.  He wandered in and out of my life at different times, and I have always felt a fondness for him.  Years later, as a mother of two children, when I learned that he had died, it was like a blow to my stomach...not because I loved him, but because he had been such an important person in my life.

 

Ninth grade was so hard for me after we moved.  I wanted desperately to belong - to fit in.  I used to go to lunch with a group of kids who were more fun loving than they were interested in school and that’s when my grades began to drop.

 

Home Economics was required of all 9^th grade girls and I didn’t enjoy the class at all.  At my first junior high, we had had a young pretty teacher who made it fun.  When we moved, I had a teacher who was ancient - not really, just in my mind’s eye - and I didn’t like what we made in cooking class. 

 

Also, I really struggled when it came to the sewing part, but I loved to listen to the girls as they chattered around the table.  In fact, I listened too much and didn’t really work on my project. Everyone had to make the same thing - a gathered skirt with a zipper and an over-blouse.  On the final day of school, a fashion show was held in which each girl would model her new outfit.  Since my sewing was not going well, I asked Mrs.  Holcomb  if there were any way that I could get out of modeling and she said, “Absolutely not!”

 

Just thinking about that last day and the fashion show made me so nervous.  My skirt was a mess and the blouse was worse.  To be more specific - my gathered skirt ( a grey print with orange flowers or something) - instead of equal, smooth gathers, gathered altogether in one clump over my right hip.  The orange blouse did not match at the bottom or the top, one side was longer than the other.  So you can see why I was so hesitant to walk around on a stage with such an amateurish-looking outfit.  I dreaded the thought of the last day of school.

 

Fate intervened for me, however, because I became ill with pneumonia and couldn’t go to school for the last ten days.  No one could have been more elated than I to miss that wretched fashion show.  I had to stay in bed for quite awhile and I remember deciding that that would be the perfect time to read Gone With The Wind.  I really enjoyed that book - much more than my one chance to be a fashion model.

 

Summers were great!  No sewing, no science, no math, and especially no band, just lots of fun times with kids from the ward.  We had such a great group of kids.  I loved the MIA activities... dance festivals, gold & green balls, speech festivals, ward plays, church hayrides.  I loved it all.  That was where I really found my niche in life and some good friends.  I know that change is inevitable, but I’m sorry that the church no longer has these activities.  For our ward, at least, they were a unifying factor and we had a truly marvelous time together.

 

It was about this time that I met Lula Evenson and she became one of my really good friends.  She had not gone to the same junior high that I had, but we were in the same ward so we began to do lots of things together.  Our friendship really increased during our high school years.  Lula only had one married brother who was much older than she, so essentially Lula was raised as an only child.  I remember thinking how fun it was to go to her tidy small home because it was always QUIET!  In retrospect, however, I think it would have been very lonely for her.

 

Lula was a wonderful friend because she was strong in the church and it felt so good to have a best friend.  Actually, it was Lula who first put it into my head that working in a library would be a great job.  She had a summer job in the Pocatello library and I used to go visit her at work.  The building was old, dark, musty and so totally different from today’s bright, exciting libraries, but I remember thinking what a great place a library would be to work.

 

Tenth grade - the beginning of high school was frightening.  I was so awkward and unsophisticated and so unsure of myself.  That year, early in the year, I met a remarkable girl who was to have a life-long impact on me.  Her name was Sheri Long.  She was amazing to watch - she knew everyone’s name, she made everyone feel important, she was such a quality person.  So it surprised me when we met in the hall one day early in my sophomore year and she said, “Oh, you’re Valon...I’ve heard so much about you.”  What could she possibly have heard?  That I went from 1^st chair clarinet to last chair?  That I was sick and couldn’t model in the 9^th grade fashion show?  That I was a geek?

 

I could not even imagine what she might have heard.  But she asked me - along with another girl who would become my college roommate - Nancy Parks - if we would be in charge of the Sophomore Tea.  I couldn’t believe it.  And even though I don’t remember much about the event itself, I do know it was a great honor to have been asked to participate and to be put in charge. 

 

Sheri’s influence was profound because she respected people of all walks of life.  She was not in a clique, but made friends equally with everyone.  Although, at that point in my life, I never really followed the example she set, she helped me see the importance of knowing people and being friendly.  For that, I will always be grateful to that beautiful person.  (She apparently married a minister, and that seems so perfect for Sheri.  She was one of a kind in the cruel, harsh world of high school.)

 

That year, I took Latin, Seminary, PE, English.  I don’t really remember my other classes, but I do remember PE very well.  I hated PE desperately.  Math class was immediately after PE and I used to figure out how many hours, minutes, and seconds were left in the school year before PE would be over.  Please remember that this was long before hand-held calculators, so I was doing big-time math in my head and on paper. 

 

One day, after PE, I happened to take my deodorant with me to math class.  It was sitting on the edge of my desk, and as the math teacher walked by, he was absolutely horrified that I would display such a personal item as my deodorant.    That embarrassed me, so I quickly hid it, and never did that again.  Looking back, I agree with him, and feel it was not in good taste, but what a difference in classrooms now - where nothing is private or distasteful, it would seem.

 

One incident that I remember in 10^th grade was that I had a health teacher who was an atheist, I think.  One day she made a remark about there not being a God.  I just happened to mention her statement to my father that night while he was reading the newspaper.  He jumped up, ran and called to complain to the chairman of the school board.    It seems to me that that teacher did not return the next year, but I can’t be sure of the reason.  I think this event also became the impetus for dad to run for the school board and have a say in what was being taught in the schools.

 

My junior year of high school was the year for debate.  I took a speech class and got interested in debate, so I joined the debate club.  I had a great time at all the declamation contests that year.  When Allen and I first moved to Rexburg, I often judged debate tournaments and it would bring back some great memories of my own high school experiences. 

 

My debate partner was Linda Harris and looking back, I realize that we were very mediocre, but we sure had fun on all the debate trips.  We did quite well for awhile, but towards the end we weren’t doing very well - partly because both of us lacked the dedication it requires to be a truly good debater.  Debating with Linda was a very good experience for me personally because Linda - a non-Mormon - was a very strong member of her church youth group.  Somehow I had assumed that Mormons had a corner on youth activity, so it was good for me to be exposed to the fact that other churches had youth activities also. 

 

I still remember sort of in general the debate topic that year - whether or not the federal government should aid education funding.  Linda and I loved being on the negative side of that debate.  No, leave the federal government out of education, was our watch cry!  The government might get extravagant and wasteful!  Vaguely, I remember that we used an example of the federal government buying red curtains for a school auditorium - how utterly wasteful we would declare boldly! 

 

I can still see the little boxes of evidence that debaters carry around, and thumb through while the other debater is speaking.  I can still vaguely remember going out from a round and checking the wall to see which team won or lost - it was such a thrill to win, and then be able to go on to the next round.  Linda and I went all over to little towns in Southeatern Idaho to debate tournaments.  As I said, we weren’t good, but we tried and had a great time for a short time!

 

One afternoon, when I was a sophomore, and my brother, Kaey, was a junior, Fred Wynn came over and told us he was going to try out for an exchange assembly.  A high school would put together a talent show and take it to the surrounding high schools in the area.  It was a great way for young kids to showcase their talent.  After Fred left that day, Kaey said, “Why don’t we try out for master and mistress of ceremonies?” I didn’t think we had a ghost of a chance, but for the next few days, we spent a lot of time working out a routine.  We wrote all the lines down on little note cards and rehearsed and rehearsed. 

 

 

The night of try-outs came and we went into the cavernous auditorium.  (I recently returned to that auditorium and it seemed rather small now, but as a sophomore standing on the stage, it was HUGE!)  The room was crowded with students who wanted to perform.   To me, they all seemed to be the popular “in” crowd.  Soon it was time for those who wanted to be emcees to try out.  A set of very handsome popular twins walked on stage.  They described what they would do if they were chosen.  One would come out on one side of the curtain and after the performers’ act, the other would appear on the other side of the stage thus confusing the audience.  I thought it was terrific and very clever.  I also knew that after an act like that we didn’t stand even a remote chance.  I was ready to go home, so I told Kaey that we should just get up and leave.  Kaey said, “No, we’ve got our whole routine worked out and they don’t even have a routine, so we’ll at least stay and try out.”

 

I didn’t want to stay - it seemed ridiculous to even try, but our names were called, and shaking violently, we marched up the side stairs and faced the huge auditorium with its few performers scattered in the front few rows and the choir teacher as the judge in the center of the auditorium.

 

“Kaey,” I began, “I hear that you are going to be mastoid of ceremonies.”

Kaey: “You mean Master of ceremonies, don’t you?”

Loni: “No, mastoid....that’s a pain in the ear, isn’t it?”

 

So we went through the entire routine that we had worked out.  And we were selected because the teacher said we were prepared - we didn’t just say what we planned to do if selected, we showed what we would actually do! 

 

Those assemblies became a highlight of my school years.  To get out of school for an entire day, get on the bus and ride to Idaho Falls or Marsh Valley or some other little school and put on those assemblies was lots of fun.  One thing that was special about Kaey is that he would never let us use a joke that was in any way off-color.  We told only clean jokes.  That was such a privilege to work with my brother that year.  What a great brother he is!

 

I was certainly proud to be his brother as he was the student body president.  He won many awards that year, but the thing about Kaey is, that he always maintained humility.  Nothing went to his head, he was just good-ole, humble, great Kaey.  I think everyone loved him. 

 

After Kaey graduated, I continued on in the emcee role with a crazy kid named Benny Berg.  He was witty and clever, but it never had the class and was not the same without Merrill.  In fact, it was all rather silly and embarrassing to think about now. 

 

During my junior year, Clarence Schramm was my Seminary teacher.  I truly loved his class and loved Seminary.  He was so inspiring.  I also loved MIA, Wilma Higbee, Sister Erikson, and Sister Cora Brian, our youth leaders.  Having spent some adult time in the youth program, I know what kind of a time commitment it takes and those dear ladies were there for everything.  What great examples they set for me...wonderful, righteous women.  I wish that I could tell them now what they meant to me then.

 

We also had a wonderful group of kids in the ward.  We used to have parties together - mostly in our basement - and those were some great times.  This was long before VCRs were invented, so we had to entertain ourselves with games, dancing, whatever.  But what a great group of kids which included the year older than we were - there were Jane Brian, Ron & Scott Nielson, Bill & Bob Chandler, Richard Dorsey, Gordie and Carol Armstrong, Nancy Robinson, Devern Probart, Steve Wood, Lula Mapes.  What a marvelous group of young people.  (Just thinking about them as I retype this makes me miss them and wish that we could have a reunion.) 

 

We used to go for long rides in the mountains in Steve Wood’s old battered blue pickup. He was the only one in the group with a vehicle that would fit us all in.  We would just all pile in the back...this was long before there were regulations for seat belts.  I loved riving around in the hills in the back of Steve’s old pick-up.  When I think of Steve Wood, I cannot recall a time that he didn’t have a huge grin on his face.  He came from a large, poor family, but he was the most pleasant person I had ever encountered.  (He later purchased my dad’s law practice and building.)

 

One night we were way up in the mountains, and his pickup got stuck.  I mean really stuck.  The guys all got out to push, and the girls were frightened to death in the back.  I remember praying so hard to help us get out, which eventually we did.  That old pickup and the kids who rode around in it -  hold many memories for me. 

 

Another time, the ward gang rode our bikes on the golf course about midnight - which was just across the highway from our home.  That was scarey, but exhilarating.  I was terrified the entire time - terrified because I couldn’t see and also frightened with the fear that we would get caught!

 

One night, a group of friends and I went down on the Johnny Creek highway and with one person on one side of the road and another person on the other side with toilet paper stretched across the highway, when a car drove into sight, we would raise up the toilet paper.  This would startle the drivers as they came down around the bend.  We thought it great fun, but my dad was much wiser and knew how dangerous it could be.  He called the police on us - not to really get us in trouble, I don’t think, but rather to help us see how really dangerous what we were doing could be.

 

Some nights, I would go down to the Armstrong family home to hang with Carol Armstrong and  her older brother, Gordon Armstrong.  They were so fun to be around and their lifestyle was certainly different from mine.  They lived on a dairy farm and whatever we did as a group, revolved around Gordie’s being home to milk the cows.  I used to feel sorry for him because he had to milk those cows every day, but now I see that was a great blessing in his life because he really learned how to work.

 

One day when I was visiting Carol, she and I started playing around with an Ouija board.  I remember asking the board if I would marry Brother Schramm, the Seminary teacher.  “YES” was the answer and I put a lot of faith in that answer at the time.

 

During these teen years out on Johnny Creek, our family had a couple of pets.  One was Princess Willhelmina - Willie to my brothers and me.  She was an Alaskan Keeshond and was the greatest dog!  I used to love to take Willy and go down the mountainside to a little creek that ran downhill from our property.  Willy was a very friendly dog, but she had one peculiarity...she was terrified of thunderstorms.  Whenever it would lightening and thunder, Willy would paw at the front door until someone would let her in.  She would literally tear through the house and run hide under the bed!  I thought that was pretty funny, but I think it shows that animals are like humans - they have certain personality traits.

 

We also had a white cat - Snowball - with long white hair.  One night I awoke to find a litter of kittens at the bottom of my bed.  They were also pure white, but one little kitty, we soon learned was blind.  The mother would not feed the cat all, so I would try to feed it from a toy baby bottle.   Each day as I came home from junior high, I would wrap a towel around it to sort of cuddle it, and then I would attempt to feed it regular milk.  It really amazed me that the mother cat would not take care of its little one.  That is a trait in the animal kingdom - the weak are often not taken care of by the mother.  One day I came home from school to find it lying in the middle of the living room floor with a small amount of dried blood dripping out of its mouth.  That was the only cat I have ever even remotely been attached to.  I really do not like cats!

 

Growing up a Gee in Pocatello, was an ego-booster for me.  My father was a person of importance in the community, and I was always so proud to say that he was my father.  He sang and spoke at many events in the surrounding area, and it was fun to go hear him on those occasions.  Sometimes, I would also go to his office to see if I could help him.  One summer, he enrolled me in a summer typing class.  Does anyone even remember what typing used to be like with carriages that had to be thrown at the end of each line?  Anyway, I got to be pretty fast at typing, not as accurate as I was fast, but I was pretty good.  I won some typing awards, but I don’t remember what.  In school, I took more typing and shorthand also, and I really enjoyed those classes.

 

If I have not mentioned my younger brothers, it is because they were so far in the background that looking back on that, it makes me feel very sad that I was not closer or more in touch with their lives.  Gavin and Erin seemed so much younger than I, that they were not really a big part of what was going on in my world.  For this, I feel sad and blame only myself that I was so caught up in my world and not more involved in their lives.  I will say that one thing I remember distinctly is being at home anxiously waiting to hear from the hospital about mom’s new baby.   I already had two brothers, Kaey ( a year and a half older),  and Gavin,( five years younger than I.).   I had wanted a sister so badly. 

 

When Dad called and said it was a boy, I was - quite honestly - very disappointed.  And while I still have often wished I had a sister, I cannot imagine having greater brothers than I have.  Erin was absolutely the cutest baby.  He was very good-natured and he had olive skin which always made me jealous.  Gavin was the cutest little tow-headed brother.  He was the all-around American boy - freckle-faced blonde who loved to play!  They always seemed to be happy, but I used to be annoyed when they would get into my room and pester me - or at least what I took to be pestering. 

 

During my junior year,  I was certainly never very much in demand for dates, but I had a couple of very interesting encounters with members of the opposite sex.  One time, a returned missionary asked me out on a date.  (I can still remember what I was wearing that night - it was a multi-colored jumper with a blouse of some kind.   I think his name was Ken, but am not sure about that.)  We went to a movie and out for something afterwards, and I was having a really great time.  We were on a double date and he actually sang to me while we were sitting in the back seat.  I thought he was a lot of fun.

 

When he walked me to the door, he leaned over to kiss me and I drew back - I had just met the guy for heaven’s sake!  Anyway, he stepped back and said, with finality, “Well then, see you around.”  Just the way he said it, I knew it was the brief end of that relationship.  I could not believe that because I wouldn’t give him a kiss on the first date, he would not even consider going out again.   I never could quite figure guys out.

 

During that same year, a new girl in school asked me if I would go on a date with her brother.   She was in the same drama class I was in and she said,  “We’ve just moved here, and my brother doesn’t really know anybody.  I’ve told him about you and so will you please go to the movies with him?”  Well, sure why not?  What can one date hurt?  So a total stranger picked me up one Friday night.  We went to see a Japanese - or something like that - action movie. 

 

Looking back, it is so amusing to me.  It was a total guy movie, I was probably the only girl in the theater unless there were some other unsuspecting girls on blind dates with total strangers.  At any rate, once we were seated in the balcony, he asked me if I would like to eat anything and I said, “no, thank you.”  He, however, ate during the entire movie - hot dogs, popcorn, candy, pop, etc. 

 

When the movie had thankfully concluded, he asked me if I would like to go get anything to eat!  “I really better get home,” I said.  So he drove me out towards home with me trying to make conversation.  We had absolutely nothing in common except that we both had two legs. 

 

However, instead of stopping at the little lane to turn and go to my home, he kept going up the hill into the wilderness.  Panicking, I said, “Uhh, you missed the road...that was it back there.”  “I know,” and he continued driving up Johnny Creek.  I had been all the way up Johnny Creek.  There was not much there and after a short while, there were no homes either, so I was really getting nervous when he kept driving further away from my home.  Finally he turned the car around, pulled over on the shoulder, stopped the car, but left the music on.  He turned to me and said, putting his arm across the seat, “Now, what shall we do?”  By this time, I was literally holding on to the car door arm rest.  I was totally panicked.  I prayed so feverishly to know what to do. 

 

Then it came to me - what does this guy like more than anything?  So I said, “Would you like to come to my home and have some pie?”  His face and arm relaxed - “What kind of pie?”  Actually we didn’t really have pie, but it had been the first thing to pop into my head, so I said, “Well, we don’t have pie but my mom always has lots of cookies and stuff.  Let’s go get some.”  His arm went off the seat, he turned on the motor and headed for my home.  There are no words to describe my relief when we pulled into my driveway.  I literally dashed into the house and pulled out anything I could find to feed him!  It was with great relief that he finally left - full of goodies - I might add.  When he invited me out again a few times, I politely declined.  But, I know it was the spirit of the Holy Ghost that prompted me to remember what his great motivator was...food. 

 

With Fred Wynn, the young man I had seen on the bus the very first time I rode the bus to my new junior high, it was a different story.  I always wanted him to kiss me, but he always seemed so aloof and so totally unromantic.  We had gone to a couple of dances together and he was always so fun, but he certainly didn’t seem interested in holding hands or anything even remotely romantic.   

 

Our first dance had been when I asked him to the graduation dance at Hawthorne Junior High.  Because we were so young, it was held after school rather than at night, and how romantic can anyone be at five o’clock in the afternoon?  When I was a sophomore, he invited me to a Seminary dance.  Boy, it’s funny what a person remembers.  I remember the dress perfectly.  I hated it!  I felt so uncomfortable and immodest in it.  It was much too low cut for me ( I was miss Modest, that’s for sure),  and I was worried about it the entire evening.   But, when my name was called as Sophomore Seminary Princess, I knew that my moment had come.  Fred would surely kiss me now!  Wrong again! 

 

Later on in high school, we went to a party one night at one of his friend’s house.  The lights were low, everyone else who had a steady partner seemed to be doing a lot of kissing in the dark.  But Fred just chattered and laughed the entire night.  Even when we were doing slow dances, Fred was always one cool customer. He may have pecked me on the cheek when we got home, but that was frustratingly it.  How I liked him!

 

At the end of my sophomore year, Kaey ran for student body president.  I really wanted him to win and worked hard for him on his campaign.  He had a very formidable opponent - a Japanese student.  In my school, it was hard to beat the Japanese students in elections.  They were bright, polite, and always very popular.  Kaey gave a terrific campaign address and incredibly, he won.  He was student body president of Pocatello High School!  It’s probably the only time in history that a young man less interested in student government had achieved that high position. 

 

Kaey was so unique.  He was someone a sister could really admire and look up to in so many ways.  But he never fit the teen role.  For example, when we had these great parties in our basement with all our ward friends, no matter what games we were playing or how much fun we were having, Kaey would always say, “Well, it’s 10:00.  Time for bed.”  And he would leave the room and head for bed!  I could not believe it!  The night was still young, and he was gone.  When we gave him a great big going-away party before he left on his mission, he left at 10:00 from his own party! 

 

One afternoon, in the spring of that junior year, as my family was driving home after the morning session of stake conference, I leaned over the front seat and just casually said, “Tonight is Seminary graduation.”  Back in the early days, a person graduated from Seminary after only three years, which was happening to me in this case, and would then post-graduate if they took four years.  I’m not really sure why Kaey had not mentioned Seminary graduation since he was probably getting his post-graduate, but then Kaey was never one to talk much about what was going on in his life.  At any rate, my mother turned to me and said, “Why didn’t you tell me it was Seminary graduation?”  Then she turned to dad and said, “Merrill, did you hear that?  Tonight is Seminary graduation and Loni doesn’t have anything to wear!”  Back to me, “You should have told me!”  And she continued along that vein until we reached our destination - home. 

 

As soon as dad walked in the door, he went straight to the phone.  Mom was busy bustling about getting one of her fabulous Sunday dinners ready.  My dad said something like, “Dot, don’t wait dinner for us.  We’ll be back shortly.  Loni, get in the car.” 

 

I couldn’t imagine what was going on, but my dad has a knack for surprises and secrecy, so I got in the car.  I had no clue what was going on, but we headed back for town where we had just come from!  In town, he pulled up to the most exclusive and expensive dress shop in town - LeVines.  In those days, very few stores were open on Sundays, certainly not an exclusive dress shop!  My dad got out of the car, so I did also and I saw Sister Olson.  She was the choir director in Sunday school - quite old it seemed to me but a fabulous dresser.  She unlocked the door and we went in this dress shop - on Sunday!  “Now, Loni, get yourself a dress for Seminary graduation.”

 

I couldn’t believe it - here it was a Sunday and I had the entire shop to myself.  I picked out a wonderful yellow dress that became one of my favorites.  I literally wore the dress out!  That experience was just one of many that showed me how much my dad loved and cared about us as a family.  So, for Junior Seminary graduation, I had a wonderful new dress, but a warning from my mom to let her know in advance the following year when my Senior Seminary graduation would be!

 

Having helped Kaey run for student body president the previous year, sparked an interest in politics for me.  So, at the end of my junior year, I decided to run for Senior Class Treasurer.  I, too, faced an Oriental student, Ray Kamamoto.  Victory looked impossible  for me as it had seemed for Kaey the year before.  To help with the campaign, my dad wrote a truly unique and very delightful, entertaining speech.  (I wish that I had those note cards - maybe I could run for U.S. Senate on that speech.)  Mom made a new dress with matching purse for the occasion.  It was a brown and black shirtwaist dress and I loved that dress!    Why is it that women can remember what they wear but, in my case at least,  very little else?   Anyway, based on the humorous speech dad had written, I won the election!  It was an exciting victory for me and it was great to be involved with the other officers, none of whom were LDS.

 

Jerry Lieberg - a natural leader in any setting - was the president, Bill Duncan - vice president, Mary Lou Bolliger, secretary, and I was the treasurer.  There has probably never been anyone less qualified to deal with finances than I was, but it was basically an office in name only.  I don’t think I ever actually touched any money!

 

For years, I had complained to dad and mom about my name, which we now spelled, VALON.  I would complain loud and long at the dinner table about how people could never remember it, how everyone always mispronounced it, etc.  So maybe that is the reason that I received a call during my senior year, while I was sitting in early morning Seminary.  “I’m here at the courthouse,” dad said.  “What do you want your name changed to?”   It took me totally by surprise, and I felt very meek and humbled when he asked me that.  I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I said, “I’ll just keep it Valon.”  I’ve wished many times that I had taken the opportunity right then to actually change my name.  I really do not like my name, and there was the perfect opportunity to change it before I left home for college to start all over with a great name.  It caught me by surprise,  however.  But I think if we had talked it over, given me time to think and try out names, I feel like I would have changed my name those many years ago.

 

During that last year of high school, Ben Berg and I did a lot of comedy routines together.  We were M.C.s for many assemblies and also some church programs.  We really had some pretty zany routines and it was fun to be involved, but I missed the “high class” entertaining that Kaey and I had done together the previous year.  That year, I also became involved in individual drama competitions and won superior ratings in the Retold Story category.  These competitions were not only a great way to get out of going to class, but were memorable in other ways also.

 

Also during this last year of school, the teachers voted me as the recipient of the Daughters of the American Revolution Award (DAR).  It was quite an honor as the competition was truly outstanding. 

 

School itself was also interesting.  Some of the classes that year were: writing, English, business classes, which I loved, and of course, Seminary.  To try to encourage students to go to Ricks College, the school sponsored a Seminary Day each year in November.  As a junior and then again as a Senior, I visited the campus in Rexburg along with students from all over Eastern Idaho.  The order of the day was that the Ricks student body president would welcome all the students, there would be a short talent assembly, lunch, then a play.  I cannot quite describe the feeling I had both years as I attended that special day. 

 

As the bus pulled away from the Kirkham auditorium my Senior Year, I turned around, looked out the window and said to myself, “This is where I am going to college.  And I am going to set two goals for myself.  I will be a student body officer and I will be in a play that is presented for Seminary day.”  I loved Ricks College right from that first exposure.  How could I know then what a huge part this college would play in my entire life?  Returning home that Senior Year, I secretly applied for a scholarship to Ricks.

 

I gave my mother plenty of time to prepare for Seminary graduation this time, and she made me what became my all-time favorite dress.  Again it had a purse to match and again, I literally wore the dress out.  It was sky blue covered with white eyelet on the bodice, and blue cotton on the skirt, with white eyelet trim on the hemline.  My mom was so wonderful to work so hard for us to make these events special and memorable.  How I loved wearing that blue and white dress especially this night which I still remember.  My dad kept telling me that I would be going to ISU - he may have been joking, but what he didn’t know was that I had received a leadership scholarship to Ricks.  Mom knew, but I had asked her not to tell dad because I wanted it to be a surprise for him.  That night at graduation, the scholarship winners were announced and I felt so proud to walk up to the podium and receive that scholarship.  I hoped that dad was surprised...I loved him so much and wanted him to be proud of me as I was certainly proud of him!

 

As my Senior Year drew to a close, one thing really concerned me....the Senior Ball and party afterwards.  It was a tradition that the sr.  class officers would have their own little “bash” after the Sr.  Ball.   Since I was the only Mormon class officer, I was very concerned about alcohol being a part of the gathering.  Once again, dad and mom came to the rescue when they suggested that we have the Sr.  class officers and their dates come to our home for the after-ball party.  And that’s exactly what we did.  We played a few games, had some good food, and they left.  What they did after that, I don’t know, but I offered them a chance at an alcohol-free party. 

 

One rather amazing thing about my growing up is that I was not necessarily eager to get my driver’s license even though most kids were getting theirs at age 14.  But I didn’t get mine until the Spring of my senior year when I was 18!  My poor parents and friends had really had to drag me around a lot, as we lived quite far out of town.  But I do remember the feeling of freedom I felt after I finally got my license in April of 1962 whenever I would take our pink Dodge around town.

 

At a closing party of the Girls’ Council, (an organization of girls with good grades), I’d been asked to do a humorous dialogue.  The theme of the party was secret ambitions and each person was supposed to wear a costume depicting her secret future ambitions.  I dressed up like an Old Maid school teacher and gave some humorous reminisces.  Anyway, it must have been a great success because the girls laughed and I was asked to give a similar speech at the traditional Senior breakfast.  My clever dad helped me write both of those speeches.  I wish I had kept those little 3x5 cards on which they were written.  It would be interesting to see how humor has changed over the years.  I do know, that nothing was ever said that would not have been appropriate to say in church.  I wish today’s comedians had that same sense of appropriateness.

 

Graduation was May 1962 - a pretty major milestone in any young person’s life.  There were parties, cards, gifts, picture taking, and then it was all over!  Out into the big wide world - to what?  As I was sort of moping around the house the day after graduation, dad called to tell me he had a job for me at an appliance/tv repair shop....Zundel’s Inc. 

 

Thus began a new chapter in my life - that of working girl.  Dwight Zundel was a good boss - he was quiet-spoken, gentle, and very patient as I tried to learn the ropes of his little repair business.

 

At the end of every pay period, I would cash my check at the little neighborhood grocery store closest to our home - it was still about 2 miles from our home - but that was the closest.  I would buy a little package of doughnuts and save the cash to help pay for my housing at Ricks. 

 

 My favorite aspect of the job was meeting the customers.  I really liked dealing with the public.   As a teenager, at that time, I loved listening to the radio and I had favorite radio personalities.  They seemed larger than life and part of an incredible world that I could not imagine.  One deejay had a voice and personality that I particularly found appealing.  Since I had never seen him, I invoked a picture of this deejay in my mind.  He was very striking, young, dynamic, and of course, very handsome.  You cannot imagine my shock when one day this “famous person” walked into Zundel’s, said his name and asked to see Mr.  Zundel.  Here was the man I had envisioned in my mind’s eye - standing right in front of the counter.  But it couldn’t be - because he was very short, very round and wore cowboy clothes!!!!  I don’t think I’ll ever forget my total surprise at seeing this radio personality in person after the vision I had imagined in my mind.  Boy, did that experience ever teach me about voices versus reality.  And I was to learn that lesson in yet another way very soon!

 

My cousin, Margo Gee, was visiting our family with her parents during their yearly pilgrimage from Oklahoma to Idaho.  She and I were just goofing off and giggling one evening at my home, doing not much of anything, when the phone rang.  The voice on the other end said, “Is this Valon?”  “Yes,” I replied somewhat warily.   “My friend has seen you at work and wants to know if you are interested in going out with him...he works at the Western Auto store right next to Zundel’s.” 

 

I thought this whole thing very strange.  For one thing, why didn’t the guy call himself?  Why did he have to have his friend call?   Anyway, pretty soon the friend came on the line.  He said his name was Bob Curtis and would I go to the movies with him on Friday?  His voice sounded like he was a dip.  I can’t quite explain it, it was so weak, so puny...I could just sort of see him in my mind and it was definitely not a manly figure, but I said, “Sure.”

 

After I hung up, Margo and I were laughing about it when she reminded me or I remembered that I had promised Carol Armstrong that I would baby sit for her on Friday night.  “Hey, no problem,” I told Margo.  “ He sounds like a nerd...I’ll just go over to Western Auto first thing tomorrow morning and tell him I can’t go.” 

 

When I got to Zundel’s (my work place) the next morning, I was so nervous - I can’t describe the butterflies in my stomach as I walked down the sidewalk to go tell this total stranger that I couldn’t really go out with him after all.  I walked into the store and it seemed deserted.  Way at the back, in a storeroom, I could see two older gentlemen conversing and as I looked around, I saw a ladder with a person on it stocking shelves.  His back was turned towards me so I said, “Uh, excuse me, I’m looking for Robert Curtis.”  The body backed down off the ladder, turned around and said, “I’m Robert Curtis.”  I was staring into the most incredible brown eyes I had ever seen.  And the face that went with those incredible eyes was also quite incredible.  Now, my heart really was pounding!  I was staring face-to-face with the most handsome person I had ever seen in my life!  How could I say “no!” to that face and body!  So, in a sheer panic, I just sort of stammered out, “I just came to say that I’m really excited about our date tonight,” ran out the door and breathtakingly sat at my desk!  But now, what was I to do about my baby-sitting job.  I called good ole’ cousin Margo and pleaded with her to tend for me.

 

We went on that first date - first dates are so awkward.  I’ll never forget it.  We went to see the movie, “Music Man.”  At this point in my life, I absolutely love that musical -in fact, it’s probably one of my favorite musicals - I even had someone sing a song from that movie at my wedding reception. 

 

But that night, I had a lot of nervous energy which made me have to go to the bathroom badly - very badly.  Now, instead of just saying, “excuse me, please,” like any ordinary person would do, I leaned over at a crucial point in the movie and said, “Let’s get out of here, I’m bored.”  Bob looked at me in a strange way and said something like, “Are you sure, the movie’s not even over yet!”  I countered with, “Yes, it’s just not that good of a movie.  Let’s go.”  So we went.  I’m not really sure how I thought that leaving the movie would alleviate my problem, but it was definitely a temporary solution.  We then went to Remo’s Pizza to eat, at which point, it seemed only logical for a woman to say, “I’m going to the restroom.”  Which I finally did!  Sometimes I have to wonder about myself.  It would have just been so simple to tell him in the first place that I had to use the restroom.  It’s just that I was embarrassed - as if everyone in the world didn’t have to go to the bathroom! 

 

It’s amazing that after that experience Bob would have asked me out again, but he did several times that summer.  He was just a summer fling.  It made me feel important as he was handsome, drove a great sports car and seemed to have an endless supply of money.  One Sunday, I invited him to go to sacrament meeting with me, which he did.  He slept the entire time, so that was sort of a clue as to his spirituality. 

 

At any rate, I wasn’t really interested in him as a steady boyfriend as my focus that summer was on getting ready for Ricks.  Remember, that I had set a goal to become very involved, so I was eager all summer to the grand adventure awaiting me 90 miles to the north.  A few days before I was to leave, Bob gave me a genuine pearl ring.  It was stunningly beautiful.  I really loved that ring although it had a rather sad demise.  When he gave it to me, I was just so excited, I ran in to show my parents.  “Look at this ring Bob gave me.”  Bob was very quick to point out to my parents  that it was merely a friendship ring, nothing more. 

 

Since I loved the ring so much, whatever happened to that beautiful pearl ring? I loaned it to my cousin Marilyn Jacobs - who also thought it was a beautiful ring - and she lost it!  I truly lamented the loss of it as it was a high-quality ring and I did love it!  I still feel sad about the loss of that ring as it was a quality ring, and those didn’t come around much for me.

 

They say that all good things must come to an end, so the summer was fast ending for me.  I was truly excited to leave Pocatello and head for Rexburg.  My parents drove me up one night and I had those little butterflies in my stomach the entire way - what would college be like?  How would I get along with other girls?  Would I be able to pass my classes?  What would life be like without my brothers and parents and close friends since I was the only one in my ward headed to Rexburg?  It all loomed as a great unknown. 

 

I was scheduled to live in the old girls’ dorm on college avenue.  This was a cafeteria dorm and for one week, I really liked the food.  I remember writing home about how good the food was, but that attraction didn’t last long.  Unlike today’s wide variety of types of foods, the girls’ dorm cafeteria served mainly meat, vegetable, and mashed potatoes and gravy - nearly every night.  It became very tiresome before long.  But, the rest of dorm life was great.

 

There were four girls crowded into a very small room.  Girls today would be amazed if they saw what type of room we lived in.  There were two sets of bunk beds and two very small closets for the four girls.  Nancy had over 20 pairs of shoes - all in boxes and neatly labeled.  They took up the entire shelves in her shared closet.  I don’t recall what Sharon did for shelf space because there certainly wasn’t any room for her stuff with Nancy’s shoe boxes taking up the entire shelf space.  I had never seen so many shoes except in a shoe store. 

 

Down the hall one way was the community bathroom, and down the hall the other way was the community laundry, where we washed once a week.  It all seems so terribly old fashioned, which it was, because we did the laundry by hand in an old agitator machine, and we had to hang out our clothes on an inside clothesline. 

 

My roommates were awesome.  One, Nancy Parks, was from Pocatello.  Shortly after we had all moved in, she decided that I would be “Lonnie,” and the name stuck during my two years at Ricks.  One of my favorite roomies was Sharon Ferguson from Lava Hot Springs.  Both of these roommates were extremely beautiful and talented.  They became very good friends to each other and joined several of the same clubs and activities.  Finally, the last roommate, for one semester only, was Connie Powell, also from Pocatello.   Both she and Nancy had serious boyfriends back home in Pocatello, so they went home a lot.  Connie left school after one semester to marry her high school sweetheart, Doug.  She was pretty quiet and didn’t get as involved as the other three of us. 

 

Living right next door to us in the basement was another girl from Pocatello named Carolee Tonks.  She had such remarkable discipline, and at that time, I didn’t see that as being such a great character trait.  She was eternally cheerful, and an extremely serious music student.  She played the violin, and spent many hours in practice.  (Just a note: earlier in this story I mention a 9^th grade science teacher, whom I had had in junior high.  He was the man who explained to me what daylight savings time really meant.)  Now, all these years later, his daughter lived right next door to me in a dorm room.   She was not like Sharon, Nancy, and me.  She was very intense, very serious about her music, and not at all interested in a social life or boys.  To me, she was quite weird.   If I could call her now, I would call her and apologize to her for the way I treated her.  I was just so stupid in my youth sometimes that it embarrasses me to remember how my values were so mixed up.  She was the one who had the right values of discipline and character.

 

At the semester, when Connie returned to Pocatello, we had a new girl from Lehtbridge, Alberta, Canada,  move in.  And, what a character she was.  As quiet and unassuming as Connie had been, that’s how Lauralee wasn’t!  She came to Ricks to play and have a grand time.  Life with her around was always an adventure.  I’m not really sure, but I’m guessing that she may have flunked out, as she was there for only one semester, but what an impact she had in that short semester!

 

I have so many memories of living in that three story girls’ dorm on college avenue.  Here are some of those memories:  One day early in the fall, it started to snow.  Word spread quickly throughout the dorm that it was snowing.  To me, that was nothing, but I joined lots of the girls as they ran outside to see the white flakes.  I remember the astonishment of some of the girls from California who had never seen snow before.  It was so amazing to be around people who were experiencing something that I just took for granted. 

Another memory I have of living in the dorm really makes me smile.  I’m not sure how many girls would have been housed in the dorm, but there was only one phone for all those girls!  If the phone rang, someone who just happened to be in the lounge would answer the phone, and then yell either upstairs or downstairs for the person who was wanted on the phone.  It was quite a system, but it worked!

 

The phone was actually rarely for me, but it rang a lot for one of roommates, and then as the year wore on, it rang for another roommate also.  My two roommates, Sharon and Nancy, always had guys calling them - especially Nancy.  It’s funny, too, because she had come to Ricks as an engaged girl.  Her boyfriend was back home in Pocatello, and they planned to get married after her one year at Ricks.  As the year wore on, and the guys wouldn’t leave her alone - even though she was engaged - she couldn’t stand the pressure, and she broke off her engagement.  Then the phone really started ringing for her!

 

Sometimes I wanted to say to the guys, “Nancy’s lined up for the next three months...take me instead!”  But, I never really had the courage.

 

Another memory of the girls’ dorm was meeting the wide variety of girls from all over and hearing the stories of their lives and backgrounds.  I used to do what I still like to do, go visit people and just let them talk about themselves.  I spent far too many hours in girls’ rooms listening to their life history, when I should have been studying. 

 

The dorm mother’s name was Estelle Shail, and she had a little dog.  I don’t remember much about her, but she worked hard to see that things went smoothly.  All in all, I have many fond memories of living in that girls’ dorm.

 

As soon as Sharon and Nancy and I got settled in, we decided that we would get involved in some things.  Through the course of our two years at Ricks, we were all pretty heavily involved in lots of activities. 

 

I chose to try out for Program Bureau, which was a showcase for all the great talent.  So, right off, you are asking, well, what in the heck did Loni do in a group of talented people?  But, I wanted to be involved in the activities, so I tried out for a spot as an emcee.  After all, I’d had lots of practice in high school.  I also applied to Kappa Chi - one of the school’s three LDS sororities. 

Right from the beginning, I loved Ricks College.  I loved the professors.  It amazed me that some of them opened each class with prayer!  I loved that.  I met so many amazing, marvelous, talented people.  Some of the people I met early on, are still living in Rexburg, and it’s so fun to see an old Ricks College buddy. 

 

I set out to make my two goals come to fruition: be a student body officer, and be in a play that would be presented on Seminary day.  I became acquainted with the student body officers, I emceed some small talent shows, I joined the sorority, and on occasion, I did some homework.  Most of my life, I have enjoyed the stories of other peoples’ lives, and now I was living where there were 1500 people whose stories I had never heard...it was paradise! 

Going away to college is a time of trying out new things - being daring.  So, with that in mind, my roommates talked me into bleaching my hair.  I’m not even sure who did it, but - wowzer - it was extreme!  When I went home the weekend after I had had it bleached, mom took one look at me and started to cry!  “Oh, Loni, what have you done?” 

 

At first, Nancy - who had a car - and I went home fairly often, but as the year went on, our visits home became less frequent.  In fact, Nancy, who had come to Ricks engaged, broke off her engagement during the Christmas holidays, and then she entered a new phase of her life.  She really became involved, and she really had lots of guys asking her on dates!  That girl was simply amazing.  The guys just followed her home, called her, took her out.  She was beauty and femininity personified.  She manicured her nails, always wore perfume, dressed very stylishly.  I should have taken notice while I had the opportunity!

 

One of the many new people that I met was a beautiful girl who also lived in the dorm.  Her name was Leta Johnson, and she was from somewhere in a small town in Wyoming.  She was kind, talented, and a good student.  One day, near Thanksgiving, Leta told me about an art trip to Chicago that she was taking with the art professor, Brother Oliver Parson, and about three or four other students.  They were leaving at noon on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, would drive all night, arrive in Chicago in time for Thanksgiving dinner with a local Mormon family and then on Friday they were planning to attend some special showing of paintings in a Chicago art museum. 

 

Leta informed me that there was still room for one more student in Brother Parsons’s van.  “Why don’t you come with us?”  “Well, I’m not even an art student,” I countered.  “You should just come talk to Brother Parson,” she said.  “It’s going to be a lot of fun!”  So, I talked with Brother Parson and asked my parents if it would be alright if I went on the trip to Chicago.  Imagine - little ole me in Chicago....it was sounding all very exciting!

 

On the morning of the proposed trip, I walked up the stairs to the lounge, and I could see that the snow was coming down hard....it was, in fact, a blizzard!  After classes, with the weather still bad, I called my dad and mom in Pocatello to ask them what I should do.  Leta was standing by my side as I made the call on the dorm’s one telephone.  “Dad, what should I do about going on the trip to Chicago,” I asked.  “Well,” was his reply.  “I’m not going to tell you that you can’t go, but your mother and I would PREFER that you not go because of the bad weather conditions.”  “Okay,” I said.  “I probably won’t go...so I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”  As soon as I hung up, Leta asked me what my dad had said.  When I repeated his words, she said, “He didn’t say that you couldn’t go, did he?”  “No,” I responded.  “Well, then, you should come and go with us - it’s going to be great.”

 

So, armed with that persuasion, I joined Oliver Parson, his wife, his two daughters, and several art students and we headed east in a fierce storm.  The trip was long, dark, wintery, and long.  But, some  memories I do have of the drive out is that the Parson family sang and sang along the way.  Anita and her sister, Diane, sang one song that the family had made up about their dad and mom.  It was delightful and the Parson sisters had marvelous voices.  Leta Johnson also sang some songs - she had an incredible voice.  I loved listening to her sing.  I don’t know how Brother Parson drove all through that dark, stormy night, but we arrived in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day just about in time for dinner. 

 

We were staying the three days at the home of a Ricks College student, who had asked her parents if we could stay at their home.  It was small and modest, but what a generous thing to host all these students and two adults from the West.  We enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, and went upstairs to take a nap.  I told the girls I had better call my parents, as they might be wondering about me.  When I finally got my mother on the line, she said, “Loni, where are you?  We are all just sitting around waiting for you to get here so we can start dinner.”  “I’m in Chicago,” I said. “ I decided to come after all, and once we got through Wyoming, the weather wasn’t that bad,” I added.  “Loni, well, you’ve played a great joke - we’ve all had a chuckle, but it’s time for it to end and for you to come on home.”  “Mom,” I insisted.  “I’m really in Chicago!”  “Are you at Nancy’s?  Would you like your father to come and pick you up?”  “Mom, I’m in Chicago!”  Finally, we hung up, but I never really was able to convince my parents that I was back in Chicago, Illinois. 

 

The next day, we went several places including an art museum, toured a local television studio, and I don’t remember what else.  Then it was time to head for the west.  I don’t remember the trip back home at all.  But, I do remember that we stopped in Wyoming to visit Leta’s parents.  The year was 1962 and Leta’s family lived on a farm and they still had an outhouse!  It was unbelievable to me that people still lived like that.  Her parents were wonderful, hard-working, honest people.  But, they had very little material wealth.  I wonder how Leta was able to attend college.

 

Back at the dorm in Rexburg, I called my parents and told them I had returned from Chicago.  I think they finally believed me!

 

I had settled into life at Ricks, and I loved it!  I didn’t really have any close friends, but I was learning lots of peoples’ names.  Each day, we would walk up College Ave to our classes in the Kirkham, Spori, or lambing sheds - which were temporary classrooms that had been set up.  Some days, it was so cold that it’s hard to think about the cold, ice, snow, and wind. 

 

As the Christmas holidays approached, my roommates and I all bought matching night gowns, and had a picture taken of us wearing those delightful flannel gowns.   Then it was home for the holidays.

 

Upon returning to the dorm after Christmas, I was walking through the lounge where a young man was seated playing the piano.  I had never seen this person before, so just jokingly I sat down on the bench next to him, and said, “We could make beautiful music through the eternities.”  And, that is how I met Robert Allen Hackworth - he says he doesn’t remember that, for which I am grateful.  That was about the most stupid thing to say and do!  Allen had just returned from serving a mission to the Great Lakes Mission, and was planning to enroll in school when the new semester started in just a few weeks. 

 

Sometime during the early part of the 2^nd semester, play tryouts were being held for the school play that would be presented for Seminary Day.  Since that was a challenge I had given to myself, I tried out for the play.  I didn’t get a large part, but I was in a play that would be presented on the Saturday when all the students from Seminaries would come to visit Ricks