One of the things I used to enjoy a lot was going to work with Dad. He worked for the U.S. Forest Service.  When we were little, and if Dad was doing something alone, he would sometimes let us go along to watch or “help”. I was always proud of my Dad. He wore a type of uniform and he even wore a badge part of the time. He had an official green pickup or sometimes he took us in the jeep or even in the Power Wagon if we were lucky.

Dad did a lot of different jobs for the Forest Service. Sometimes he would fill in for someone on Gentry Lookout Tower or he would be the lookout on the weekend when no one was there.  He sometimes let one of us boys go with him.  Another thing Dad did was to re-seed the logging roads after the loggers were finished using them. The logging roads were usually just roads that were cut through the forest by a bulldozer. They were usually only wide enough to accommodate a logging truck. When all the timber had been cut out of an area and the loggers moved to another area to log, Dad had the job of re-seeding the road with wild grass to prevent erosion and for grass for the animals. Usually he took the jeep when he did that and we could go along. Sometimes we used a seeder that mounted on the back of the jeep and sometimes we used a hand seeder. The hand seeder had a place to put the seed and then as you walked, you turned a crank that spun a broadcaster and the seed would fly out onto the ground. We walked many a mile re-seeding the roads.

During the Christmas season, Dad often had the Christmas Tree Patrol and we could ride along. We would drive around on the forest roads and check to see that people cutting Christmas Trees had the proper permits. If they did not, Dad usually had permits and they could buy them from him. I think a Christmas tree permit cost something like five dollars or less at that time. Especially on weekends, lots of people from the valley would come up to cut themselves a tree. Quite a few never went to the trouble of buying a permit. We were the guys that caught them. Sometimes Dad would just park at the top of the rim by the Woods Canyon Lake turn off and just stop every car that came by that had a Christmas Tree. I guess he made a lot of money for the Government that would have been missed if people were left to themselves. Usually the people were very willing to pay for their trees.

During fire season Dad sometimes had the job of trying to get people to be more careful. I can remember several times when he would put up a roadblock at the top of the rim. He would stop all traffic coming up the rim and ask them to please use their ash trays if they smoked or to not build any fires because the fire danger was extreme. I had the job of handing out Smokey Bear comic books and copies of the Smokey Bear song to the children in the cars. It was all an effort to prevent forest fires. I guess it worked to some extent. I got pretty good at the Smokey Bear song. Dad had other brochures that we passed out too. It was fun to be of some help.

Later Dad was responsible for some of the camp grounds. He would gather the trash or check to see if campers has the proper permits. Dad loved that job because he had lots of people to visit with. He was a good PR person for the U.S. Forest Service. People liked him and he liked people. It was a good fit.

Dad also did a lot of things at the Ranger Station on Saturdays and we go to help. He repaired things, washed his truck, put new handles in axes and hoes and did lots of other jobs. Working with Dad was lots of fun and he seemed to enjoy having us along.

 

The school year of 1961-62 proved to be a momentous year. It was the year I graduated from the eighth grade. Graduating from the eighth grade in Heber was a big deal. There was a special graduation program and all the town came and the graduates dressed up in suits and nice dresses and presented the program. The role each graduate played was quite important.

To give you a little background, you need to know that everyone of my older brothers had graduated from the eighth grade in the Heber Elementary School and each of them had distinguished himself by being named valedictorian of his class. As the youngest boy in the family I was expected to uphold the family tradition. I had emerged at the top of my class in seventh grade and there was little chance of any one of my friends or classmates spoiling my record. Everyone had sort of settled in knowing their relative position in the class as far as academic standing was concerned. After all, there were only eight of us so it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the class rankings.

This is where the plot thickens for early in the school year a new family by the name of Stockett moved into the quiet town of Heber . Now among the Stockett children was a girl by the name of June who was our age and as it turned out, she was a very bright young lady.

I should probably confess that I did not necessarily spend a lot of my time worrying about being valedictorian. It was just expected because  I was still doing good work in school and getting good grades. In fact, I didn’t think much about it until one day when several of us in the class were walking home after school and one of the girls mentioned that June had the highest average in our class. This information seemed to be generating quite a controversy  because many of the parents felt that it would be unfair for June to be named valedictorian when she had only been in the school for less than one year. We liked June and she had fit well into our group but to be named valedictorian????? It created quite a stir in a small place like Heber.

I don’t know how much lobbying went on or who all talked to Mr. Capps, but by the end of the school year, a decision had been made that June was not eligible to be valedictorian and I was named to that high position. I can’t remember whether June was named salutatorian or whether she was ineligible for that too. Maybe if I find a program to my graduation I can find out.

Bequeathed upon the valedictorian was the job of giving one of the major talks in the graduation ceremonies. I cannot remember a single thing I said. I think Mr. or Mrs. Capps wrote the talk and I memorized it. The theme of the graduation was something like “Reach for the Stars”. All I can remember is that we hung stars everywhere for decorations. The graduation was held on the stage at the school. I gave my talk and took my place as the last and final Porter kid from our family to be valedictorian of the eighth grade at the Heber Elementary School.

The eighth grade year was a fun year because we were the upper classmen and could get away with about anything. We had a good time as a group and we got to do some special things. At the end of school one of the parents took us all to Holbrook to buy a gift for Mr. and Mrs. Capps. I can’t remember what we bought but we went to the movie in Holbrook as a group and had a good time. We had been together for most of eight years.

 

I started driving when I was pretty young. My first memories of driving were sitting on Dad’s lap and “driving” the car or the tractor by turning the steering wheel while Dad did everything else. On the tractor I could actually stand up between Dad’s legs and drive the tractor all by myself. That tells you how small I was at the time. One advantage of owning a tractor was that I often got a chance to do the steering when we were going down the road. The tractor had no cab so I had a clear view of the tires. It was easy to avoid bumps or holes. The tractor also didn’t go too fast so it was a good place to learn to drive.

I graduated from just turning the steering wheel to actually driving the tractor by the time I was ten or so. I still wasn’t big enough to crank the tractor to start it, but if it was going, I could put it in gear, shift gears, drive and not do too badly. There was a deputy sheriff in the Heber-Overgaard area but not until I was about fourteen or fifteen. Before that, it was pretty much left to the parents to decide if kids could drive. I was allowed to drive the tractor by myself from about age twelve on. By the time I was fourteen, I was allowed to drive the car with an adult present or in an emergency. I had done quite a bit of driving by the time I turned sixteen.

In Arizona a person could get their first drivers license when they turned sixteen years of age. To get a driver’s license I had to take a written test as well as a driving test. There was no such thing as drivers education at that time in Snowflake but I was allowed to drive my car to Snowflake to take the written exam and the driver’s test to get my license. The “Driver’s License Examiner” at the time was Mr. Brinkerhoff. He happened to be the Dad of one of my high school friends.

The day I got my driver’s license turned out to be a very memorable day. At the time, our family had a dark green 1960 Volkswagen. It was a car Ted had purchased when he was going to school in Tempe. I am not sure why we had it unless he had traded Dad for the Pontiac Tempest. Anyway, I went to Snowflake to take my driver’s test in the Volkswagen. That was alright with me because it was easy to drive and parallel park and I knew that was usually the hardest part of the driving test. I thought I would have no problem with the driving test. I noticed however when I was driving to school that the accelerator was sticking a little bit. This was a bit of a problem. Every time I pushed the clutch in, the car would rev up because the gas pedal stayed depressed. I had a problem!!! I knew that I would never be able to pass the test if every time I shifted gears the car revved up.

When I got to school I did some quick checking. I found that the spring that pulls the accelerator pedal up when the car is just idling or when my foot was not on the pedal  had broken. I scrounged some rubber bands from the seminary teacher and did a quick partial fix. At least the pedal would partially return to the right position when my foot was not on it. I figured out that I could use the toe of my shoe to pull it all the way back up. I could proceed with the driving test if I could remember to use my toe at the right time.

I may have seemed a little distracted during my driving test because I was concentrating so much on getting the accelerator pedal all the way up before I shifted gears or when I stopped at a stop sign or for a light. I guess I succeeded well enough because I passed the test. Maybe the parallel parking did the trick. I wouldn’t recommend trying this at home but I made it work. I have often wondered what my friend’s Dad had to say at the dinner table that night about the driving tests he conducted that day. It didn’t matter. I was LEGAL TO DRIVE!!!

 

My birthday is January 5^th.  Since it is so close to Christmas and New Years, I didn’t have a lot of “typical birthday parties” when I was growing up. Usually my party amounted to having Chuck and maybe one or two other friends over for dinner where I got to choose the menu.

I didn’t usually get big gifts for my birthday because I had already requested them for Christmas. It was more typical for me to get books or socks or things like that. One of my favorite birthday gifts was a giant ½ lb. Hershey candy bar. I wasn’t too particular about the type. I liked Hershey’s Plain, Hershey’s Almond or Mr Goodbar about equally as well. I got one of those quite often for my birthday. I would eat one square a day and it would last several days.

I don’t have many clear memories of specific birthdays except for my 8^th birthday. It was special because it was the day I was baptized. Birthday’s were celebrated in our family but the celebrations were usually small and family oriented.

Probably more memorable than my own birthdays were other celebrations. I especially liked Mothers Day and Fathers Day. Most of the time us boys would go together to get Mom or Dad something for their special days but I remember a few times when I bought a separate gift. One of the common gifts for Dad was a “bread and milk bowl”. His bowls were always getting broken so he needed a new one about every year. Sometimes we got him socks or a box of candy bars. Mom usually got chocolates and cards and something pretty if we had the money. In our family it was the sentiment more than the gift that was important so expensive gifts were rare.

We celebrated all the normal holidays like everyone else. For New Years Eve we usually had an oyster stew supper followed by some table games. One tradition we had that was a little unique was to leave an empty plate out on New Years Eve for the New Year to put something on. When we woke up on New Years Day there was usually some candy or cookies or something on our plate from the “New Year”. Not very many families did that but we did almost every year.

For Valentines Day, we used to deliver the valentines to our friends. On valentines night, we would take the valentines and drop them by the door of our friends and then knock and run and hide and watch them come to the door to find the valentines we had left. It took quite a while to visit all the homes of our friends without getting caught. Later on we just exchanged valentines in school. That took a lot of the fun out of Valentines Day.

For St. Patrick’s Day we always made sure we were wearing something green in a visible place. If you didn’t have green on, other kids could pinch you and did. We took it seriously and those without green got quite a few pinches. You usually didn’t forget more than once. We did more around April Fool’s Day then than now. Aunt Ellen was one who loved April Fools Day. When we were living in the valley, she would show up on our doorstep early in the morning with a pan of freshly baked biscuits. We would dig in only to find that she had put cotton in the middle of the biscuits. What a disappointment but what a good joke as well. If it wasn’t cotton biscuits, it was something else but she usually caught us because she did something before we got to school and realized that it was April Fool’s Day.

Easter was always a special holiday because of the significance of the day and because we got to color Easter Eggs. We would usually buy the small pack that had the colored tablets that were used to color the eggs and we usually colored two dozen eggs. Those colored eggs were the ones we used for Easter egg hunts. By the time Easter was over, the eggs were often in pretty bad shape. We not only hunted them, we also ate them. The Easter Eggs were usually colored the Saturday morning before Easter. We heated the water to boil the eggs and then used some of it in cups to color the eggs. As I recall, you had to add vinegar to the water to get the color to stick to the eggs. I always liked the little wax pencil that I could use to write messages on the eggs before putting them in the dye. We made quite a mess but we had lots of fun working together as a family.

Fourth of July was always a fun holiday. That was when Heber had it’s Rodeo. There were lots of activities around the rodeo. Usually there was an early morning flag raising ceremony. For lunch, the ward put on a Bar-B-Que and we usually ate lunch there because Mom was usually helping with the meal. Then there was the rodeo and at night there was usually a show and a dance. We took in the show.

Labor Day was never a big holiday for us. It simply signaled that school was about to begin for another year. Thanksgiving was a different matter. We usually used Thanksgiving as a time to get wood for the winter. Sometimes Vard, Grandma Scott, Aunt Ellen and Uncle Dick would come to Heber to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. We usually had a turkey with all the trimmings for lunch and we usually got at least a couple loads of wood as well.

Christmas was a special holiday. Quite often we went to Mesa to celebrate Christmas because Vard was down there. It was a time when Dad could take off work and we would stay in the valley for a week to ten days. The older boys would wake everyone up at 4-5am and we would gather in Aunt Ellen’s front room for the “Christmas Tree”. After the gifts were passed out Aunt Ellen would prepare a breakfast for everyone. I was the littlest one in the family then but I tried to do all the things the big kids did. Christmas was a family time and I looked forward for it to come around each year.

 

Here is some information about the year 1949. Since that was the year I entered the world, I though it might be interesting for you to see some of those facts so that you have some context for some of the memories I will relate about my life. You will need to realize that many of the things that are listed below had very little impact on me or any of the people living in a small town in Northern Arizona called Heber. Here are some facts you might find interesting.

The average family income was $2,959. A new house cost $7,450. A new car cost $1,420. A gallon of gas cost 17cents. A loaf of bread cost 14 cents and a postage stamp cost 3 cents. The minimum wage was 40 cents per hour.

President Harry S. Truman was President of the United States. In 1949 he signed a bill into law that raised the salary of the president to $100,000, and the salary of the vice president to $30,000. The U.S. and eleven other nations formed NATO and the Berlin airlift ended.

There were some interesting historical events. The first Volkswagen was introduced in the U.S. and the first Emmy awards were presented. The Mayo foundation discovered a chemical compound called Cortisone. The Air Force completed the first Around-the-World non-stop flight in a Superfortress aircraft called “Lucky Lady II”.

In the music world, some of the top hits were “Mule Train” by Frankie Lane. Other hits were “That Lucky Old Sun”, “Mona Lisa”, “Ghost Riders in the Sky”, “Candy Kisses” and “You’re Breaking my Heart”.

Wrestling became a popular new TV sport with one star named “Gorgeous George”. The card game Canasta became popular. The Pillsbury Company started holding “Bake-Off’s” and Silly Putty was invented.

In the quiet little town of Heber, Arizona, no one watched TV. There was one phone in town. Most people had a radio and so they probably heard some of the new and popular tunes. They may also have heard that the New York Yankees had won the World Series and that Joe Louis had retired from boxing. Most people hadn’t seen any of the best movies of the year like “All the Kings Men”, “The Third Man”, “Twelve O’Clock High”, “Sands of Iwo Jima” and they probably wouldn’t see them in Heber for another 2-3 years.

They paid more attention to the news about the birth of the new baby boy born to Wilmer and Zina Porter than they did to the birth of John Belushi, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen or Bruce Jenner who they’d never heard of nor would they hear of them for 20 years. Their world mostly consisted of what went on within 50 miles or so of Heber. If they had put up special tall antenna’s they might hear a little of the news from Denver, Albuquerque or even Salt Lake City if they listened to the radio at night. Otherwise their only access to news was the Holbrook Tribune which was printed once a week.

For me, 1949 was a very significant year and you will be hearing about the world I knew when I was growing up. I hope some of it is interesting to you.