Back to the Future

Pine Valley  aka  Halfway, OR

Growing up in the 40’s and 50’s in a very small rural country town allowed most children to rely heavily on their own imaginations. Hide and seek was always thrilling especially if it was starting to get dark.  Most social activities revolved around school or church. Summers were helping with haying and harvesting and church camp or vacation Bible school.   No swimming pools in my town, rare to find a sidewalk for roller skating (if you didn’t live right on the main street of town) no bowling alley (one opened years later) no fast food, no public transportation, many things were missing that most city children took for granted even in the 50s.  Still, I had a very rich and full-of-joy childhood, never missing any of the modern city attractions.  Rural life was very unique and, to my astonishment, several years behind city life.

 We had one theater in town, it was open only on weekends, there would be a main feature, a cartoon and a newsreel.  The movies shown were mostly westerns or science fiction, but some dramas and always several years old.  We never saw new releases.  I so remember waiting for “When Worlds Collide” to come to town, I was beside myself with anticipation, this was the era of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, “Forbidden Planet” and long before a moon walk.  Horror films before slashers and CGI, relied on great costumes, makeup and lighting, creaking doors and tiny models crafted to look like real life. “The Blob”;  “Frankenstein”; “Tarantula” scared the breath out of me.

Halfway, OR

The people who owned the theater usually ran the same movie for several weeks to make sure everyone in towns all around had a chance to see it.  My family didn’t go to the movies often but oh what a thrill when we did.  People dressed up, not fancy, but not farmer clothes either.  I envied the ticket lady in the little lighted kiosk.  It was my desire to have that career when I grew up.  She always looked so glamorous and Hollywood in the dark theater foyer in her tiny lit up palace.  There was even an usher and a flashlight to show us our seats.

Our ranch was 120 acres and had many fields and a creek running through it.  My sister and I had the run of the farm and so space was never an issue like in the city.  My dad had many vehicles, tractors and other rigs for farming, various trucks and pickups, and a family car.  Once he cut the back off of an old panel van and used the cab and bed of the truck for something else.  The van (the part cut off) had no wheels, no floor, and sat on the grass of a field, it was open at one end with tiny windows in the back and solid sides and top.  This turned into a space ship in a child’s eyes.  I remember many many hours playing in that perfect playhouse.  Good times.

The Hocketts  c  1925 - Hugh (my dad) Elba (my grandmother, Momoo) Joe (my grandfather)

My wonderful grandmother, Momoo, (my dad’s mom) aka Elba Rumley Hockett Engeldinger, never liked photographs of herself.  She would frown and tell me that cameras made her look old.  I always loved her looks but evidently she remembered herself younger and more beautiful.  When I looked through her albums, pictures of her had been altered, she had either cut or scratched out her face and in some she had replaced her cut out face with a younger image of herself; the sepia tones didn’t match, the new face was pasted on top, the snapshots were bumpy and  haphazard but exceedingly fascinating to an 8 yr old trying to imagine a young grandma.  Of course this was long before Photo Shop.  Now we can “yearbook” ourselves easily.  Heh heh

Momoo (with altered face), Bill, Bonnie, Judy

Mom & Dad hunting c 1940

Daddy killed a bear.  My dad loved to hunt, he hunted everything available that was in season, hunting season was always open for something.  We had many guns but daddy was very careful and warned Bonnie and I of the dangers.  We had shotguns and deer rifles, 22 pistols and 22 rifles and shells and whatever other supplies a hunter needs.  I remember the smell of the gun oil when he cleaned his guns.  I grew up eating venison and pheasant but it wasn’t under glass.  We loved deer and elk meat and my mom served it in roasts, stews, loafs, soups, and steaks.  She made fabulous mincemeat from the parts that weren’t as tender and her mincemeat pies were memory makers.  My mom even went hunting with daddy sometimes.

Bear hanging in shop next to John Deer tractor

Hunting bear was not something he usually did and I don’t remember it being a game that he actually went after.  My mom didn’t want to cook bear meat, she said it was too fat.   When he came home with the bear, the size and hugeness was astonishing.

  

Most memorable to Bonnie and I was that daddy had the bear skin tanned and made into a rug.  It was fabulous.  Bonnie and I rolled around and played on that bear rug for years.  It had a big hard stuffed head that looked life-like with glass eyes, the rest was flat and hairy and a rug. We napped on it, petted it, talked to it, looked at its teeth and big fake tongue, we stroked the hard sharp claws and stared into it’s big glass eyes.  The rug always had a featured spot in the middle of our living room floor.  Now it all sounds kind of barbaric but it really wasn’t at all in a more primitive lifetime in the country.

Our bear rug was like this one

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The Modern Prometheus meets my Mama!

By Barry

It's funny that you mention Frankenstein because ever since I first saw it on TV as a youngster, I always imagined YOU were poor Little Maria, playing with daisies by a pond on your Halfway farm.  I know it was filmed a decade before you were born but I think it's the Alpen-like setting, and the clothes styles that did'nt seem to change much.  Still today, every time I see it I think of you--it's strange I know.

Boris Karloff and Marilyn Harris at either Lake Sherwood, CA,  or Malibou Lake, Agoura, CA.
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