HAPPY BIRTHDAY IRENE

I called my friend Irene today to wish her a happy birthday. She lives in Oregon now but spent about 50 years in the mission field in Brazil. I told her about my blogging. She said she didn't even know what a blog was. I sent her an email with links on it to my blogs after trying to explain what blogs are. She asked me if I was on facebook. I told her I was. She said she joined it but never did anything with it and somehow whenever she tried to get on it rejected her password. So, I looked her up and this is the picture of her that was there. She says it all very confusing to her. She barely does e-mails. I don't know if she will be able to see this post or not. I think I will take a snapshot of it and e-mail it to her. She will be surprised. Irene and I have been friends like forever - since I was in the 5th grade. She was two grades ahead of me in school. I was her maid of honor at her wedding and two weeks later she was my matron of honor. I hope she is able to see this post. Happy Birthday Irene. I love you.

Knott's Berry Farm

If you’ve been to Disneyland, and who hasn’t, you have probably also been to Knott’s Berry Farm. When people visit southern California, these are on the top of their list of places to go.

The first time I went to Knott’s, back in the 1940s, it was called Knott’s Berry Farm and Ghost Town. Can you believe it was all absolutely FREE, even parking. In fact, it was all free in the early 50s as well. It was such a fun place to go. As far as I’m concerned, they destroyed it when they started changing it into another Six Flags kind of place. Now it costs as much to go there as it does to go to Disneyland. Of course, I was just a kid in the 40s and my cousin who was a year older than I convinced me that there was a rocking chair on a porch there that rocked by itself. He was always trying to convince me of some wild story. He was the one that told me there wasn’t a Santa Claus. Of course I didn’t believe him and it made me very angry. (That's him, that's Jerry, in the covered wagon behind me in the picture.) I'm the one in the middle.

Yes, I loved that place in the “old days”, but now the only thing there I care about seeing is Virginia’s Gift Shop, and maybe eating at the chicken restaurant.
Here is a picture made in their “Pitcher Gallery” in about 1945 or 46. The girl in back on the left is now Ginger’s mother-in-law. Ginger, of course, is the Ginger of “Enchanting Cottage”. The younger girls on each side of me are cousins.

The other picture made there, the one on the horse, is me in the front, and my best friend Irene behind me. This one was made in about 1949.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about “Sad Eye Joe”, one of the favorite attractions in Ghost Town.

Best Friends

Today I want to introduce you to my two oldest and “bestest” friends. Of course my first oldest and bestest friend is my husband. We first met in 1948 when I was 11 and he was 13.

Irene has been my friend since I was in the 6th grade. She was a little over a year older than I was. I first met Dorothy when I moved to Oklahoma in the 9th grade, and we became good friends. She was a year younger than I was. I have kept in touch with both of these friends all of these years. Irene was my friend in California, but now lives in Oregon. She spent most of the years in between in Brazil where she and her husband were missionaries. Dorothy left Oklahoma and lived in Arizona for several years, but now lives in Tennessee.

This picture was taken in 1954 in Oklahoma when my California friend (Irene) rode the bus to see me and attend my high school graduation. I’m so happy to have a picture of me with both of these friends.

We are all in our 70s now. I may or may not ever see these two friends again in this lifetime, but I sure expect to reunite with them and be best friends throughout eternity.

P.S. How about those hats (we also wore gloves). Can you imagine teenagers dressing like this today?