Nevada Trip Journal November, Saturday 21, 2015 Yerington to Lake Tahoe

Nevada Trip Journal November, Saturday 21, 2015 Yerington to Lake Tahoe

Karen Dodd and myself at Dini’s

Had an 8:30 breakfast with Karen Dodd before checking out of the Copper Inn Motel.  Karen is another fascinating person who lived part of her life on a sailboat with her husband and is an seasoned scuba diver.  We were high school classmates as well.  I really enjoyed getting reconnected despite the fact that my cold was increasing in intensity.

Mary Burns at her home in Gardnerville.  Mary “Bunz” Burns is a real Nevada history buff.  We visited in her “Nevada” family room.  She was generous enough to lend me 64 old magazine on Nevada hoping it would help on my Yerington Monday posts.  I was suppose to meet with her in Gardnerville at 11 am, but I was so weak from my cold it took me an hour and a half to load my car.  Arrived around 1:30 pm.  Was glad to hear that she would be retiring as of Dec 26 and take to traveling the back roads.  She has been an x-ray technician for over 30 years specializing in mammograms. Mary is a “first friend” who I gave a blood nose when we were about 8-9 years old, but she had such a great sense of humor, we remained friends after our very short Mighty Might boxing match.

Gardnerville to Lake Tahoe is only 40 miles but I had to stop twice because I was feeling drowsy from cold medicine.  This is a cloud I saw during one stop.  Pyramid Cloud between Gardnerville and Carson City.  What does it mean?

Finally, I  arrived at Dan’ & Robin’s home in Incline Village, Nevada.  I was totally spent and glad to be able to turn into a safe harbor.

Dan’s Birthday Party

Dan had a birthday party at his home in Incline Village with his backing packing friends from Carson City. They have all been backpacking together since the 70’s.  It was a make your-own-pizza party that was then barbecued on Dan’s Cadillac  grill.  I didn't know any of them except Dennis & Deirdre Pederson

Dennis Pederson rolling out dough for his pizza.

Dan cooking pizza crusts for pizzas on his grill on the deck.

The party guests on deck waiting for their pizza crusts.

Birthday boy (Happy 66), Dan, with dinner guests.

Dan modeling Dennis Pederson's gift - - a Santa loin cloth.  (Me sitting in a comfy chair in living room -tired but amused.)

This was a picture of Dan’s hiking friends in the 1970’s.  We all laughed at the short shorts.  Dennis Pederson (left) and Dan with mustache (third from left)

Yerington’s 1950’s Kids Chase The Mosquito Truck

Yerington’s 1950’s Kids Chase The Mosquito Truck

A Memoir by Mary Burns

(Published in the Mason Valley News in 1987)

Burns Kids 1950's

Mary Burns

The year is 1959(ish) in a South Yerington neighborhood after dinner on hot July evening. Twenty or so juvenile type renegades come streaming out of our houses and start gathering on the big lawn.  Our tummies now full - we are ready for some action.  

Could this be the night? It hasn’t happened in awhile. Maybe it will show tonight.  Twenty little kids, nauseous with anticipation, are impatiently shifting around the big lawn.  At dusk, the slaughter house’s pungent fragrance permeates the air.  “Where is it?”.  “A no show?” (Hissssss) -”Quiet everybody!!  Do you hear that?”  “Ah, Dennis, knock it off, you’re always imagining things.”  Dejectedly, we slowly, wander to the best hide and seek house.  I guess “it’s not coming tonight”.  What a drag.  Another boring night of hide and seek….(Hissss) Then louder (Hissss)...”Hey guys, hold on, ya hear that?”  We looked….and there it was!  The sure sign of our famous visitor -  a dark cloud about four blocks away.  We dashed for our bikes and raced our flat wheeled machines toward the dark hissing cloud - forty little legs in a blur.

We flew around the corner as one unit and immediately slammed on our brakes.  “Wow, guys, look at that!  The biggest, darkest, badest, loudest clouded ever.”  This is amazing!!...  This is better than Disneyland!…This is the mosquito  fogger!!.. And the chemicals are stronger than ever!  We each disappear into the poisonous cloud - in ecstasy - riding blindly. “This is great - I can’t even see my handlebars.  The best  fog bank in weeks!”  The noxious fumes penetrate our every pore and we reek with pleasure. My eyes are streaming hot lava and I’m sure I’m blind.  My lungs suffocating with fire, are screeching for air.  My nose is stinging and starting to run.  I start to cough, gag and choke.  “This is super and who says there’s nothing to do in Yerington?”  Eventually, one by one, we fall back out of the poisonous vapors.  As the fogger lumbers down the street, we circle our bikes for the storytelling part of the experience. I think Billy won that night.  He said he rode right up to the poison emitting spout and put his finger in it!  What a man! (What a B.S.’er!)

Darkness was near now.  Being on the downhill slope of our adrenalin highs. we were physically and emotionally spent and welcomed the calling home by our moma. (Actually Danny’s dad whistled him home,  as did Billy’s and Larry’s, and my mom honked the car horn three times,) The calm of the evening  had returned as we shuffled to our respective homes.  Just as the screen doors closed us in, we could hear twenty maternal voices shrieking through the screened windows and out into the sultry evening.  “Whew, get into the bathtub right now and take off those clothes off outside”, to which twenty little juvenile type renegades whined, “But mom, I went swimming today. ‘member?  I don’t need a bath”

I can’t speak for the Utah accountant, insurance broker, airline pilot, assessor, Governor’s chauffeur, Nevada State special investigator, telephone company retiree, M.D., R,N., Yerington businesswoman, newspaper owner/editor, attorneys, educators, trucking exec, contractor, butcher, baker and candlestick maker, who came out of that neighborhood; but I do know that the weekly dose of caustic fumes inhaled in our lungs and brain tissue didn’t bother me...bother me...bother me…  It’s the North Yerington kids I’d worry about!  Oh, yes, and as for our dogs, our ever faithful companions - who stuck with us through thick and thin or mosquito foggers - they either died from old age or car tag (as did their offspring).

The bottom line is encephalitis and other mosquito related diseases can be -and are often- deadly.  Do what it takes to get a handle on it!

You May Be From Yerington In the 50’s-70’s If…. (Part One)

You May Be From Yerington In the 50’s-70’s If…. (Part One)

(Compiled by Mary Burns and Chere Brown)

...You wait to plant your “toms” ‘till after the snow melts off Pevine. (I’m loving all the southern Californian gardeners out today - we’ll have another freeze - guaranteed) (MB)

 

...You know what a Lion’s Club Manure Haul is (was?)  (Lions club manure clean up for the fair. They haul the previous days straw and manure away to keep the fair clean.) (MB)

   

  

...You remember school sports and activities were the town’s rallying hub. (MB)

...You called in sick at school on Friday - then went to a home game.  The principal would remember you were out that day - and send you home. And on that day, you did call in sick, ”Ma” Ricketts, the schools secretary, would call your home later to check. (Did she check on teachers, too?) (MB)

...You would say you worked on “the hill” and there were no questions. (Reminds me - Dorthelia Hill, a bunch of years ago, told me her son worked on “the hill” - and when I asked her how long he’d been back home - she choked and said she meant Capitol Hill in D.C.) (MB)

   

    

...You can remember when we had one TV station. - Bob Carroll, Betty “a nip here and a tuck there” McIntyre, Stroddard, Muncie. (“We were the last family to get TV.” MB) And it would sign off at midnight with the “Star Spangle Banner”. (CB)

               

 

 

 

...You remember the only radio stations were KOH (Catus Tom) and KVLV (Eddie Pearce - Teensville, and Ted Romero, and Gallagher’s Livestock and The Trading Post) (MB)

...You remember when all drivers stopped at the crosswalk in front of the Thrifty Market and the Post Office, whether there were pedestrians or not, just to scope out all the sidewalk happenings.  And you actually enjoyed daily trips to the Post Office. (MB)