The winter of ‘78

I can still remember the winter of ‘78-‘79, when we had a 3 month inversion in the Salt Lake Valley.  At that time there were less than half as many people living along the Wasatch Front, so the pollution didn’t get that bad, but so much water vapor got trapped in the valley that at times you literally couldn’t see across the street.  It was eerie, and health officials kept telling people to get up in the mountain to get some sun, people were having serious psychological issues from the lack of sunlight.  After about a month of it I took their advice and drove up Emigration Canyon.  It was warmer up at the summit than in the valley, and I just laid there on the hood of my car soaking up the sun for a good hour or so.  I felt 100% better, and ended up going there once every other week or so just to save my sanity.

… I also remember driving home from Provo (about 35 miles) in fog so thick that I was going about 20 MPH on the interstate.  For a lot of the trip I couldn’t tell where I was because I couldn’t even see road signs.  I only knew I’d left Utah County and entered Salt Lake County because I felt the car going up the hill at the point of the mountain.  I was afraid of missing my exit and ending up in Ogden, but fortunately it cleared enough right around 33rd South that I knew where the I-80 turnoff was.

Click here for related story.

Serial bed-breakers

Not that the 4 of us were hard on furniture or anything (later stories will reveal this statement to be a big, fat lie), but we’ve broken beds on 2 different continents, and in I don’t know how many countries.

I don’t think  we broke one during our stay in London, but I know we broke one in Grenoble, France.  We broke at least one in Lexington, Mass and one when we stayed in Montreal, Canada.  Who knows where else, but this story is about breaking my parent’s bed right here in Salt Lake City.

The 4 of us were a very timid group, passive, quiet, reser … ok, I can’t keep a straight face any longer.  We were rambunctious.  We traveled a lot together, even if it was just going to our cabin in New Hampshire or visiting our grandparents in New York, so we were quite used to playing together as a group.  Which often manifested itself into our breaking into two groups and chasing each other around the house (coalitions changed, we didn’t always pair off in the same groups).  This continued well into our teen years, which leads into my story.

We were all in, or close to, our teens.  Who knows how long we’d been chasing each other around the house, but at this point we were headed  down the hall to my parent’s room.  The three boys were in the front, my sister behind us.  When we got to my parent’s room, the natural thing to do was a pig-pile on their bed.  As the three boys landed on the bed, we heard a big *crack* and the bed dropped to the floor.  I know this is physically impossible, but I swear my sister, who was lagging behind us, froze in mid air and, like in the cartoons, reversed through the air, landing on her feet before the bed.  To this day she still claims no responsibility in the breaking of the bed, after all she never touched it.

We immediately stopped the chase, all rivalries forgotten, as we worked together to fix the bed and cover our crime.  Who knows if we ever got caught, but if we did, I’m sure my parents weren’t all that surprised.

Yeah, I did it too…

I can’t remember how old we were, but my younger must have been at least 3 for this to have worked.

My older brother and I told him that he was adopted.  As a matter of fact, we told him, the Lexington Police had found him in on the streets and had asked our parents to take him in.  And the only condition to keeping him was that he had to do whatever his older brothers told him to. 

This worked really well for a week or so, until MOM found out what was going on.  Little brother was assured he was not adopted, that he wouldn’t be given away no matter what, and older brother and I weren’t allowed oxygen for a week.  Ok, we were allowed to breathe, but only the air in our own bedroom.

More big-brother antics.

I vaguely remember the house we rented in Waltham, Mass the year I was 3.  I do remember losing at least one night’s sleep because my big brother caught me digging with a knife into the front porch banister, and told me that if I kept it up the roof would fall in.