Don't Be Fussy...

A few days ago, Larry and I were reminiscing about some of the foods from our childhood. I think the topic of conversation came up when I asked him if his Mom baked bread, because mine did - delicious bread!  I would love to have a slice of that bread right now, fresh out of the oven, slathered in butter.

  It wouldn't have been butter spread on the bread back in our kitchen on Farmer's Road, though - we only used margarine - usually Blue Bonnet, it seems, and since I didn't know any better, I always thought that was what butter tasted like. How wrong I was!


 I didn't appreciate Mom's bread back then, and always wished my school lunch sandwiches were made of Wonder Bread instead.  That's what all the other kids'  sandwiches were made out of - I just knew it - that doughy, gooey, oh-so-white Wonder Bread. But I had to settle for Mom's homemade bread, with the holes here and there, which actually tasted like bread, and was good for me, too.

It's funny how some episodes from childhood will stick in the memory, imbedded there forever with each and every little detail so very precise, while other moments have drifted off into oblivion. One of those forever-memories for me takes place on a summer day in out kitchen on Farmer's Road. Pat Parkins was visiting with Rusty and Nancy, so it must have been a summer day when we were out of school and the dads were at work. It was lunchtime, and the five of us kids had really worked up an appetite exploring the woods that surrounded our house. But eventually hunger pangs would send us back to the house, and we would gather around the table.

Mom would mix up a batch of Kool-Aid in a Tupperware pitcher...

But she didn't serve it up on a fancy tray in glasses with straws and lemon and orange slices. No, we drank the sugary concoction out of plastic glasses and thought we were pretty special.

On this particular summer day from my memory, Mom and Pat had whipped up "Don't Be Fussy Sandwiches."  Rather than sliced bologna, we often bought  ours in a gigantic chunk, and to make it stretch, Mom would cut off a large piece and put it through the food grinder...

then she added chopped pickles, onions, and Miracle Whip, mixed it together, and slapped it between thick slices of homemade bread. Now, this was actually delicious, but we did have it pretty often, so on this particular day, one of us (probably me) piped up with, "Are we having this again?"

Pat replied, "Don't be fussy and eat your lunch!" Thus, they were forever known as -

 "Don't Be Fussy Sandwiches."

The Elusive Brick-Faced Milk House

Usually when we drive to north Everett, we head down Broadway Ave. from our house here in Clearview, and then on to the Lowell-Larimer Road. 

 I love this drive, with the large dairies and small farms aligning the roadside.  The Snohomish River delta began to be settled in the 1870s. E.D. Smith, a former sea captain and entrepreneur, platted and resold lots to incoming settlers who wanted to farm the flat lands to the south. These farming families included the Getchels, Stechers, Cravens, and Larimers.

Dairy farming as a small business or industry came to the Lowell area in the early part

 of the twentieth century.

  About a month ago, my Mom let me borrow a book called The Barns & Outbuildings of the Lowell Neighborhood. Knowing how interested I am in the history of the area, she thought I would appreciate it.

 I keep it in my car, and whenever we take this route, I try to identify some of the old barns along the way.

On this particular day, Mount Baker was looking quite majestic!

This is Larimer Corner -
 I'm not sure what this building once was, but it may have been the Larimer Corner Store.

One of the old buildings in the book which really fascinated me was the Brick-Faced Milk House, in front of the Stecher Farm.  I've driven by this little gem of a building hundreds of times, but never paid it much mind until I saw it in this book. It looks so quaint and interesting in the drawing...

In reality, it's been sorely neglected. I feel sad because this beautiful little building has so much junk piled up around it. If I owned this pretty little place, I would plant hollyhocks around it, and surely store my trash cans elsewhere!

Through the 1930s and 1940s the Stecher Dairy competed with the emerging big business aspect of the dairy industry. They processed and distributed their own milk with small fleets of trucks and a local distribution network.

 Originally built of wood several years earlier, the milk house was faced with bricks in 1934. At the same time, brick was applied to the nearby farmhouse, which was built in 1903.Caspar Bast, Everett's first brick mason, did the work.

The Bast family built many of the early permanent structures in Everett with Bast brick. In June 1892, they completed their own business building, the Bast Block at Hewitt and Maple, which still stands and is occupied by Judd and Black.

They supplied brick for other substantial structures, including the Everett Smelter and the first schools, Monroe and Jefferson Elementary, completed in 1893.

But back to the milk house - 

 The building measures thirteen by nine feet on the outside, although it looks much smaller than that. The walls, which are white-washed on the inside, at least they still were when the little book was written, are eight inches thick. In this well-insulated room, the milk from five or six cows was kept cool inside large metal cans, which sat in a cement cooler shaped similar to a bathtub where cold spring water flowed. The milk was then put in sterilized glass bottles, and topped with paper caps for delivery.

Our family used to journey out to one of these dairies in the 1950s to buy milk - could it possibly have been this one? I'll have to ask my mom - she still remembers most of those little details from the past.

On our next journey down the Lowell-Larimer Road, I plan on taking more photos of some of the old barns that still exist. They all have a story!

The Smell of the Sea...

A DAY AT THE SEASHORE

It was a lovely day for a visit to Mukilteo - a bit chilly, but the breeze that greeted us carried the smell of the salt air. That was what I missed the most while I lived in Colorado - the smell of the sea.

 We were greeted by a seagull who posed nicely.

 We made our way to the beach. The tide had been high about a half hour before, and was just beginning to recede, leaving lots of pretty little shells behind for me to discover.

As is usually the case, Duchess led the way...

We saw a guy fishing from a rock in the water. Hope he caught something!

A handy log for resting...

The train came around the bend...this has to happen at least once during a visit to Mukilteo. 

I always wanted to live in that house in the background - what a view!

There were a lot of people flying kites - the breeze was just perfect.

 Larry had his in the car, so off he went to fetch it while Duchess and I waited on a bench.

 

It was up and soaring in no time!

The sky was gorgeous!

I must have hundreds of shots of the ferry, but I just couldn't resist one more!

Amazing clouds!

Bringing it in...

All was well until Duchess decided to be a "Bad Girl" and try to chase another dog by going under the bench where we were sitting. She almost pulled my hand off! With that, we left Mukilteo and headed for home...

A Fear of Wunda Wunda???

"Wunda Wunda is my name.

Oh boys and girls I'm glad you came.

We'll have fun as I explain

How we play our Wunda games.

Let me take you by the hand

And we'll go to Wonderland.

There we'll play with every friend

The Wunda games of "Let's Pretend"

Yesterday after Easter dinner at my Mom's, the topic of conversation somehow veered to fears of one sort or another, and many of us realized that we shared a fear of clowns! As I was trying to fall asleep last night, a clown that I hadn't thought of for years popped into my mind - Wunda Wunda!

Ruth Prins portrayed Wunda Wunda from 1952 to 1972.The show was sponsored by Bosco and Hostess cupcakes, which might explain why those little chocolate delights with the squiggle on top were my very favorite school lunchbox dessert.

Wunda was a sweet character who lived in a cottage, told stories, sang songs and hung out with pleasant puppet friends like Henry Happy Goose, Albert Owl, Friendly Tiger, Benjie Bear, Suzabella and Taggedy Andy. She was accompanied by the unseen organist, Mr. Music Man. She was a big part of my childhood, and I don't recall being frightened of her on our small TV screen, but I imagine if I met her in real life, with her clown makeup and harlequin outfit, things would be altogether different!

When I enrolled at Everett Junior College in the fall of 1967, the counselor assigned to me was Robert Prins - Wunda Wunda's husband! He was a wonderful man, and very handsome, for an old guy. I discovered later that he was screen-tested by Warner Brothers, appeared in two movies in 1940, but decided against a Hollywood career in favor of an academic one. That was fortunate, since he pointed me in the right direction as far as my course of studies went, even though English Literature isn't a very practical major. It does help me get those Jeopardy questions right every now and then!