What were your favorite toys as a child?

 From my Storyworth collection

One of my favorite toys that I think about often from my early childhood was a kid’s toy jukebox that played Disney songs. You pushed a button, and it supposedly found the song on the cylinder inside and played it (I think it had a needle and read the cylinder similar to a record player). I mostly just remember that I liked it and that Dad spent a lot of time trying to repair it/make it work like it was supposed to. I don’t remember how long I had it, but I remember liking it a lot.

As a young child I also had a teddy bear that I liked. It had short arms that stuck out to the front of it allowing my toy handcuffs fit on him perfectly. He was my cops and robbers partner and was always the bad guy. I would punch him sending him flying across the room then wrestle him to the ground and handcuff him.Speaking of playing cops and robbers, I also LOVED various dart guns that I had. Why can’t kids get these anymore?? I had one that looked exactly like this, and I had a toy .357 Magnum dart gun that actually shot hard enough you would know you had been hit! There may have been a cat or two that was “hunted” with these when my parents were gone from the house.

I also had (have!) a red Tonka fire truck. I say had/have because Mom kept it for me, I still had it as an adult, and we gave it away to Amanda’s friend Brian when they were little kids. When Amanda grew up and had a son, Brian’s mom returned it us for our grandson to play with, so it’s gone through 3 generations now.

The bike Dad fixed up for me (see “What was your Dad like growing up?” post for details) was one of my all-time favorites!

The last “toy” that really sticks out in my mind was the Atari 2600. Our family went through a time where we did not trick-or-treat on Halloween, but we would go downstairs into our walk-out basement, board up with windows (so as to not be bothered by other trick-or-treaters) and play games as a family. The first year we started this (around 1981), my parents bought us the Atari. We kept it for many years.

What was your dad like as a child?

From my Storyworth collection

One of my earliest memories (age 3-4?) was of Dad building his glider and working on it in the garage and driveway. The glider port, I think, was not too far across the street at the top of the hill near our house. I vaguely remember what must have been my first glider ride, some from my perspective and some from the story as Dad told it. Dad says it was a beautiful day with plenty of lift which would make for a long flight. I guess he told me if I felt sick to let him know and we would land. According to Dad’s story, I told him I was feeling sick, so he very SLOWLY headed back to the airport since it was such a beautiful day to fly. I guess I had been around my dad and gliders enough to know there was a spoiler on the wing, which if pulled, would make you descend more quickly. When we were not coming down fast enough, I asked Dad about the spoiler, and he reluctantly pulled it and brought us in for a landing after a short flight (on a beautiful day). Like I said, I only remember this event vaguely, but I’m pretty sure I remember saying I was feeling sick to my stomach only because I was scared looking out the window and I wanted to get back on the ground. Sorry Dad!

I remember going to Dad’s optical lab. I *think* there were some days when I was in preschool that I had to go to work with Dad for a short time before getting dropped off or picked up and taken to school. I just remember eating cereal in the morning at his work. When I was 6 years old, we moved to San Diego. Dad was at another lab, and I remember him going in and taking my sister and I with him, it must have been on a Saturday because nobody else was there. As an adult now I know that was probably stressful for Dad trying to work and watch me and my sister to make sure we were not getting into trouble! I remember the lab in San Diego because it made a great “track” to ride my Kick-n-Go scooter. It wasn’t until I was close to 50 years old that I found out that Dad was a pioneer in plastic lenes. He didn’t have anything to do with the creation of them, but he created shortcuts, specialized tools and “fixes” for many manufacturing and production problems. His solutions were good enough to be shared with other labs.

I remember Dad building and flying model airplanes. He was good with the gliders, but there was something about flying powered model planes that jinxed him! I remember being with him one day and watching the plane just fly out of range, never to be seen again. But the model gliders were fun. I remember going with him when he flew them. He tried to let me fly them, but I was too scared of crashing them. I could fly them going away from me when moving the joystick left made it turn left and right turn to the right, but it was too hard when the glider was flying back towards us to remember that the joystick operation was switched.

That is the wing to a model glider that Dad is work on sitting on the front porch in the home in the Turtle Creek housing edition in Broken Arrow, OK. Circa 1978.

There was a time when Dad had 1/5 ownership in a real plane, a green and gold Cessna Cardinal. I was old enough not to be afraid of flying anymore and I remember flying to the EAA fly-in at Oshkosh with him, shooting touch-and-go’s and flying to Grandma Hurt’s. We took my Husky, Mitzi, with us a few times. She didn’t seem to mind flying at all, but I do remember one time Dad made a sharp turn and pulled a very low G and it was enough that Mitzi could feel it. She suddenly sat up and looked around like “What is happening?”

We lived in Iowa when Dad had part ownership in the plane. When we lived in town, we had a pretty good-sized back yard and Dad would take me out to throw the football or hit the softball. I remember being “afraid” of the football when we first started throwing it (6th grade). I thought it was going to hurt when I caught it, so I was kind of a panzy! One day a neighbor and his son were over, and we were all in the back yard playing catch with the football. Dad threw a long pass to me and although I believed it would hurt when I caught it, I wasn’t about to look like a wimp in front of other people, so I caught it. I discovered it didn’t hurt and it was actually fun to run plays and catch the ball. I remember Dad commenting on my “improvement” that day and throwing the football in the back yard became a “thing” for us after that.

I also played church league softball in high school, so Dad would hit fly balls to me to help me improve my game. We did that both in town and when we moved out to the country. We had a big front yard out there and we spent quite a few evenings with Dad hitting the ball and me fielding them.

I LOVED it when we moved to the country. We had 10 acres of land, horses and lots of fun things to do. Mom & Dad taught me how to ride. I remember I would go with Dad to take the horses out of the pasture to the front yard to eat some good grass. We would let them graze for 30 minutes or so and then take them back to the pasture. During one of these times, I jumped on a horse bareback. I learned how to keep my balance riding back and forth to and from the barn and that began my love of bareback riding. Dad and I also spent time building and repairing fences and doing “country work” together. I don’t think my work ethic was the best as a teen, but Dad always worked hard and didn’t let me slide. I learned how to work hard from him.

Dad on his horse, Ladybug. Circa 1986.

Me on our Arabian horse, Penny. I was using my bareback saddle in this picture. Circa 1986.

Another one of Dad’s model hobbies…remote control cars. And, of course, it was a sprint car. Circa 1986

This is the tractor Dad bought (literally) the weekend after I left for college. It took me 3 hours to mow the property. When I left and Dad had to mow, he bought this tractor. Mowing time went from 3 hours to 1 hour!

It was while we lived in Iowa that I noticed my dad’s devotion to reading the Bible. Every day, without fail, I saw him sit in his chair, pray and read the Bible. I am not sure how many years he had been doing this before I noticed, but I remember getting up early for jazz band practice and seeing Dad open the bifold doors of the piano room where he had been praying and reading his Bible. When we moved to the country, I would be up early to detassel corn or go work for the county and I saw Dad in the den reading his Bible and praying. Every house we moved to after that Dad had his chair with his Bible beside it where he would read every morning. He never lectured me, “You should read the Bible every day”, but it was his example that led me to reading the Bible through in a year for the first time when I was in college. After that I was hooked for myself, and I know it was my dad’s faithful example that planted the life-long love for God’s Word in my heart.

Dad had opened his own optical shop in Iowa. God blessed my dad’s business enough to allow me to attend a private college. During this time, Dad created and patented the Aqusizer, a hand-held tool for measuring the circumference of a lens. If I understand correctly, the money from this patent (and the eventual selling of it) was what enabled my parents to pay for my private college education. Yet another blessing of God on our family and an example of Dad’s unique gifting as an optician.

I found this image of the Acqusizer doing an image search in 2022. It was on a flash card from some (now very outdated) optical/optician test. I am not positive, but those *may* be my dad’s hands and an original picture he took for selling it.

I have 50+ years of memories with my Dad for which I am very thankful. The two legacies he has passed on to me are my love for God’s Word and an ability “figure it out and fix it”. I remember my dad fixing all manner of things growing up. I don’t think anybody taught Dad how to do all that stuff, it just needed to be done, so Dad took it apart to figure out what was wrong or broken, and he fixed it. Appliances, cars, bicycles, electrical, plumbing, my toys, etc (and he did it all before Google and YouTube!). I don’t remember Dad showing me, “Here’s how you fix this or do that” because he just fixed things as they came up, but over that past 10 years I find myself calling Dad to tell him what I figured out or fixed. I learned it from him. It’s not going to fix itself, there’s nobody else to do it…so figure it out and fix it! It’s amazing how much you can accomplish with that attitude…and I owe it to my Dad’s example.

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MISC PICS

This is one of my favorite pictures of Dad. I think this was his 40th birthday party. Mom invited a bunch of their friends over for a party and she made several different kinds of pie for Dad that year.

This is the only picture I have of “the bike”. In a previous life this bike was a banana seat, cruiser type handlebars type bike. For Christmas (circa 1976), Dad (who could build anything) put knobby tires on it, motocross handlebars, the racing number on the front, a cool black seat, a clip-on “gas tank”, a dirt bike chain guard and he painted it black. I had the BEST bike, and this was my all-time favorite Christmas gift! This picture was taken after the bike was a couple years old.

Where did you go on vacations as a child?

From my Storyworth collection

If I tried to write about all of our family vacations as a kid, I would have a VERY long post and probably not do justice to all of our trips. Two memories stand out in my mind when I think about childhood vacations. The first memory is simply our trips to visit our grandparents. I think the most frequent trip was to visit Granddad & Grandma Hurt and “Jonesy” (Grandma Hurt’s mother, Great-Grandma Jones who died not long before her 101st or 102nd birthday). On the way to Salisbury, MO there was a red light in a small town at the top of a hill. Dad would try to judge his speed correctly, put the car in neutral coast up the hill trying to stop right at the red light without using the brake. I don’t remember how many times we did that or if he ever made it, but it is a fond memory. Once we arrived, I remember dad watching us and letting us climb up their TV antenna, going to visit Grandma at Dr. Harms’ office (she was his nurse), going to Granddad’s barber shop, walking to the dime store and walking to the park. I also remember going to Grandma’s church and the hymns we sang. I remember a nasty lettuce, mayo and olive salad Grandma fixed too frequently and Mom always made us eat, Jonesy eating green onions with every meal and my sister and I hiding in the back room/porch and meowing like a cat, laughing when Jonesy came to the back door looking for a cat to let inside.

JONESEY…I THINK SHE WAS 98 IN THIS PICTURE

I remember visiting Grandma Yates/Robinette (Mom’s mom). I remember going to visit her work (the Unity Village), her sending me stuff from there including some sort of monthly magazine as well as the Little Green Dragon book and cassette tape recording that I LOVED. I remember visiting her house, playing outside, catching fireflies in her front yard and I think I remember no air conditioning.

WE ARE SITTING ON THE PORCH AT GRANDMA ROBINETTE’S HOUSE ON OUR WAY HOME FROM VISITING HORN CREEK. THE TANK TOPS WE WERE ALL WEARING WERE “STRETCH-N-SEW” MADE BY MOM.

I remember visiting Grandpa Sleighter and Gram Mert (Mom’s dad and his wife) on their farm I am not sure how many times (not very many). I remember getting to help milk a cow (it was hard work and not much fun as a little kid) and having to walk down to the basement naked (in front of everybody…I was a little kid) to take a shower with the shower head in the corner of their basement and a drain in the floor. And I remember when their cow had calves. One of the calves was standing too close behind the mother and Gram Mert said to the cow, “Well, you done sh*t on your baby’s face!” I knew that was a really bad word, but it was funny that the cow pooped on her baby!

My fondest vacation memories were our multiple trips to Horn Creek Family Camp in Westcliff, Colorado. I am not sure how many trips we made, but I remember some as a younger child and one I think as a teen. Each family had a hotel-type room in a lodge with a meeting room and dining hall in the middle. There was breakfast together with other families, a morning devotional, family time during the day, dinner together at night and then a nighttime meeting with Bible teaching all with other families. Some random things I remember:

    - Dad climbed the 13,450 mountain a couple times. One year he took me with him. I cannot imagine the patience it took to coax/drag me up the mountain, but we made it together and it is a memory I will cherish for a lifetime.

    - Horseback riding was always fun. I don’t really remember it much, but as a young child I was thrown off a horse at Horn Creek and I guess it hurt my back for a while. The Lord healed me as a child at a prayer meeting.

- There was family skit night one year that was a LOT of fun. Our family did a corny skit. It was Dad’s idea, and it was REALLY corny.

PICTURES OF DAD AND ME ON TOP OF HORN PEAK, 13,450 FEET. I LOOK OLDER IN THIS PICTURE, BUT THE PICTURE ABOVE OF US ON THE PORCH OF GRANDMA ROBINETTE’S PORCH WAS TAKEN ON THE WAY HOME FROM THIS TRIP. THE “MEDAL” I WAS WEARING ON MY CHEST AND THE PATCH I WAS HOLDING IN THE PORCH PICTURE WERE FOR MAKING IT TO THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN.

I do not remember all the details, but I also remember an enjoyable vacation to Mout Rushmore (I think this is the same trip we saw the Corn Palace and a few other tourist attractions). This may have been the trip where I have my funniest vacation memory. We stayed at a budget motel and during the night, a bunch of people (I want to say bikers, but not sure on that) came in late and drunk after partying. They were loud and carried on for quite a while. One drunk lady kept yelling, “I’m so ugly he doesn’t love me anymore. I’m so ugly. I’m so ugly.” When morning came, we headed out early and TOTALLY out of character for him, Dad rolled down the window and yelled, “I’M UGLY. YOU’RE UGLY, WE’RE ALL UGLY” as we drove out of the parking lot!

How did you get your first job?

 From my Storyworth collection.

My first job was as a paper boy when I was in the 5th grade and lived in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma in 1980. I think I got the job because somebody I knew had the route, was quitting and needed somebody to take his place. I would come home from school, fold and rubber band the newspapers, put them in a bag that I slung over my shoulder and headed out on my bike to deliver papers.

Some of the things I remember about this job:

- Wednesday was the BIG paper day. It took longer to fold them, they were heavier, and I could not carry as many at one time.

- I would collect once a month. A monthly subscription cost $2.75, I believe, and I usually got the quarter tip.

- I remember one big snow day I had to deliver. There was too much snow to ride my bike, so I loaded my papers on a sled and walked my route. It was WAY slower doing it this way and I remember Mom had to come pick me up in the car and drive me on the rest of my route because it was getting so late.

- I would try to ride by on my bike and throw the paper onto the porch. If I was too close or threw the paper too hard, the paper would WHACK the glass storm door, people would call to complain to the paper, and I would written up by the paper.

- There was a bully from school who would stop me and harass me on my route. My “boss” from the paper (must have been the guy who was over several paper delivery boys) went to the boy’s home and talked to his parents. The bully was mad at me for it, but he left me alone while I was delivering papers after that.

- There was a guy on my route that was either a then-current player or retired player from the Cincinati Bengals. I remember seeing his helmet on the fireplace one time when I was collecting my monthly subscriptions.

My first “real job” was when I was in high school, probably my sophomore year (so 1985ish) at the restaurant, Autumn Winds, just a mile from our house on Skunk River Road in Iowa. I got this job just by stopping by and filling out an application. I would go into work around 3:30-4:00 pm and do food prep before they opened at 5 pm. I worked in the kitchen doing dishes, making salads and making sure trays were ready for waitresses to take out to the dining room.

The restaurant was owned by a husband-and-wife team, Bob and JoAnn Thornburg. It was a cloth tablecloth, steaks and seafood, nice restaurant. Bob was the chef and JoAnn was the hostess. I usually worked 2 nights during the week and then Friday and/or Saturday. Bob and JoAnn treated everybody there like family and it was a great place to work.

Some of the things I remember about this job:

- We had an annual Christmas party every year. Bob and JoAnn would cook for all of us, and it was like a big family gathering. They took good care of all the teens who worked there.

- New Year’s Eve was always a BIG night and we would work late. One year the restaurant was robbed at gun point about 20 minutes after I got off work. Somehow one of the patrons thought they saw me outside before the robbery. Bob and JoAnn never thought anything of it, but I was questioned as a “person of interest” by the detectives investigating the case! They came to the restaurant one January night when I was working right after that, asked to follow me home and speak with me, Mom and Dad. They questioned me about what time I got off work, what time I got home, did I go back to the restaurant, etc. (Guess I was eventually cleared!)

- My boss, Bob, was one of the first people I witnessed to about the Lord. During the week, it was just Bob and one teen in the kitchen, so we talked some then. Sometimes Bob needed somebody to go pick up new kitchen equipment and I would go with him. There was a time that Bob had a breakdown and spent some time in a treatment center. He later told me, “One of my assignments while I was there was to write my life’s story and talk about the people who have impacted my life. You were a part of my story.” Bob never made a confession for Christ, but that was the first time the Lord let me see the impact I could have on others for the Kingdom.

- Right after graduation my senior year I had jaw surgery. Bob asked what I wanted for my “last meal” before my jaw was surgically broken and I had to eat ice cream, baby food and protein drinks for 8 weeks. He fixed a burger and onion rings for my parents to bring me the night before my surgery.

- I worked there until the summer before I left for college. When I would come home from college for Christmas break, I would pick up some shifts at the restaurant. (I LOVED coming home from college for Christmas break. Life was super stressful with finals, but they were over, I’d come home to see my family and my Husky, I could relax, read a book, listen to Christmas music and pick up some shifts at Autumn Winds…like being with family).

- Bob and JoAnn got divorced sometime after I left Autumn Winds. Brooke and I used to send out Christmas newsletters right after we were married. Bob’s newsletter got returned so I called the number I had for him. The wife he married after JoAnn answered, asked who I was and how I knew Bob…and then told me he had passed away. That was really hard on me. Bob and JoAnn and my experience working at Autumn Winds was a GREAT time in my life and I am thankful for them and my time there.

JoAnn Thornburg (left); Me circa 1987 (middle); Bob Thornburg (right)

What Is Storyworth

 

At the end of last year (2021), I began seeing links for Storyworth in my Facebook feed. The basic idea is that once a week, Storyworth will send you a prompt or question such as "What was your favorite job growing up?" or "What were your favorite cartoons as a kid?" or "Describe your father as you were growing up". You can either answer the question, pick a new question from the list, or make up your own question to answer. 

When you set up your account, you can select people who will receive each answer/story you write. At the end of the year, Storyworth will print all of your questions and answers into a nice book and send it to a person of your choice. My wife, daughter and mother receive an email copy of my question/answer each week, and at the end of the year, my daughter will receive the printed book. I thought it would be a fun way to share parts of my life she may not have heard. I have decided I will share my Storyworth questions/answer on my blog as well.