Ferris Wheels & Black Cherry Soda

Sometimes in the summertime things happen that remind me of the summertimes of my youth. So what better way to capture some of those little reminders than here for my future enjoyment.
The Tillamook County Fair - my sister and I would stand out at the end of our driveway and watch every day from late July on until we finally saw the ferris wheel go up and then we knew the fair was open for business.


Our neighbors made homemade root beer all the time and the bottles were tipped up on shelves in their garage. It tasted really sweet (very much like Thomas Kemper) and good and every once in awhile, one of the bottles would simply explode. That was what all of us kids looked forward to most... the mess.


My mom and the neighbor mom would take all four of us kids to our favorite beach haunts, usuall Oceanside for this, to pluck starfish off the rocks, take them home and dry them out. They were really hard to pry off the rocks and of course now you would be shot if you did it. Then we would take them home and lay them out in the yard to harden (die) and boy did they stink.

This was a later summer memory when I spent the entire summer picking berries; every kind of berry you can imagine. That's how I bought my first stereo (summer of 1965), which lasted all the way through college. We would wrap our Shasta pop (black cherry was my favorite) in foil, freeze it, then by the time you had your lunch in the fields, it would still be cool and delish. This would be the only good memory I have of berry picking.

Do you see the dogs up on top of the hay in this truck, when I was little, that would have been me and my sister and cousins. Those hay trucks sway back and forth so far, it's a miracle we didn't all fall off on our heads, especially driving through the extremely bumpy fields. We screamed and giggled like banshees. Now that was fun.

That's today's trip down memory lane. Now I can revisit the lane anytime I want. Au revoir.