Category: Mark’s Memoirs

Hands come in all different sizes! Some people have small hands, some have medium size, some have large, and some have huge hands! My hands are in the huge category! I have had people stop me at work and tell me that I have giant hands! They put their hands up against mine, and say oh my gosh! They have taken pictures of my hands with their cell phones to share with someone they know. At church I drape my arm on top of the pew we are sitting in, and lots of times I hear people who are sitting behind us whisper “Look at the size of that hand” I have a buddy at work, and we like to give each other a bad time. He will do something to me, and when he is trying to escape from me, I will reach out and plant my hand on top of his head! I can palm his head with my hand, and he can’t get away from me, and he’s a big guy. The more he fights me the harder I squeeze his head, till he gives up and calls it a truce!

So am I blessed, or am I cursed with these huge hands? I can carry more drinking glasses to the dining room table then my wife or daughter can! But I have to ask someone to change a light bulb, because I can’t get my hand inside the light fixture to change the bulb. I can pick up items with one hand that most people need to use both their hands for. But I have a real problem using small nuts, bolts and screws. People are always asking me to open jars, plus I’m real good at catching a football and basketball one-handed. But I have a hard time working on cars, because I can’t get my hands into some of the tight areas in the engine compartment! So I really don’t have a good answer for the blessed or cursed question. All I know is, I enjoy having big hands, and I really don’t want to trade them in for small ones. So the next time you meet up with me, don’t be afraid to ask me to compare your hands with mine. Even thou I have heard it a million times, I still enjoy hearing: “Look at the size of those hands”

On a Saturday morning in 1972 my buddy Scott DeAngelo and I went to the Nevada County Fair. As we were walking through the Carnival area, Claudette and Kristlin Noe came up to us and asked if they could hang out with us! Scott and I were both very quick to say, “Of Course You Can.” I remember walking around for a while, and then we decided to go on some rides. We went on several rides, but the two rides, I remember most were the Hammer (my favorite) and the Merry Mixer. There is something about having a girl sitting next to you, screaming at the top of her lungs that has fun written all over it! Walking through the buildings was next, and they looked at me kind of funny when I said let’s go through the sewing building first! They understood why, when they saw my Grandma Madge’s Quilts and her crochet pieces all with blue ribbons on them! Next was the flower building, I remember being in awe about how beautiful this one display looked, with the little creek running through it. Then we enjoyed looking at all the art, the oil paintings are still my favorite!

I remember sitting in all the cars that were on display, and climbing on all the tractors! I’m sure the car and tractor people didn’t appreciate us one bit!  Then we walked through the big building at the front of the fair. I always liked going through that building. There is always something very educational in there, and I always found myself talking to someone for fifteen minutes or more about their product.  Scott and the girls found this unexciting, so we headed to the outdoor stage. We watched a lot of fun entertainment, which included a Magic act, Nelda Honey’s dancers, and a jazz band that was really hot! Then it was off to treat street! I remember us getting some Hot Dogs and drinks, and we sat on some chairs under those beautiful shade trees and enjoyed our meal! The rest of the day, we saw all the animals, more entertainment, more treat street and more carnival! The four of us were enjoying the carnival when we heard over the PA “The Fair is now closed.” Scott and I were not planning on being at the fair all day, but having two lovely girls with us made for a wonderful fun-filled day!

Claudette and I became close friends and we dated a couple of years during High School. After we graduated from school we lost track of each other. In 2008 I was in charge of planning a church reunion. I got in touch with Claudette’s mom and she gave me the addresses for Claudette and Kristlin! When the Reunion party first started, I was in the gym of the church helping with getting some entertainment set up when someone said I was needed in the hall outside of the gym. I walked out into the hall, and I heard this loud “Mark” and I was getting this big hug. I didn’t know who it was till she let go and then I saw Claudette’s face! Since I was in charge of this party, I didn’t have time right then to talk. So later in the evening after things calmed down, she and I sat down and we had a great visit! We talked about a lot of different things, but there was one memory that I enjoyed talking about most. That wonderful day that the four of us had at the Nevada County Fair!

 

When Kim and I were getting married, I was making sure my brothers were unable to find my 1977 Firebird!  I asked Grandma Madge if I could hide it in her garage! I had planned it so well. Kim’s brother Bart would drive it to the church as we were ready to leave the wedding reception. We got married in Oakland on a Saturday morning, then drove back to Grass Valley, arrived at Grandma’s house, put the Firebird in the garage, shut the door, locked it, and put the key in the normal hiding place, met my Dad and rode with him to his house. My mom was cooking a late lunch for the family. I sat at the kitchen bar talking to Stan and Ralph when the telephone rang. Stan answered it, “Its Kim’s brother Bart” he said as he handed me the phone. It was a corded phone, so I wasn’t able to leave the room. Bart had lost the instructions I wrote for him, and wanted me to tell him where the house and the key was. I talked to him quietly, hoping Stan and Ralph weren’t paying attention, and I thought I got away with it!

We were in the middle of opening gifts, when someone whispered to me, “your brothers found your car and it looks great!” I left Kim standing there and ran outside! There was my car all decorated and my two brothers with several of their friends standing around with big smirks on their faces! I have to say they were very nice by not putting any writing on my paint job. They wrote all over the windows and the tires, and they taped crate paper from the front of the engine to the back of the trunk. Also, Bart and Lisa, the Maid of Honor, betrayed us by filling the inside of the car with rice. They opened our luggage and filled our cloths with rice! I tried to get into the car but someone had slid the seat up really close to the stirring wheel. The tracks were full of rice and the seat wouldn’t slide back, so I got in the car, with the steering wheel up against my stomach. Then Stan came up to my window and asked: “Did you really think you could hide your car from your two brothers?”

In the 80’s my family, and our dear friends Jeff and Karen would go camping for a week at MacKerricher State Park just north of Fort Bragg CA. Our first year there, we asked the Park Ranger if there were any sites that were in a private setting. He told us to check out site 77. Site 77 was small, but it had brush growing all around it except for the trail leading to it from the parking space. Both Families had large tents, and the only way to make them fit on the small site was to have the tents actually touching each other. The next morning we had bacon with our breakfast, and Kim dug a deep hole and buried the bacon grease. That evening we sat at the picnic table playing UNO, when Jeff said “there’s a huge skunk over there staring at us!” “Yea right!” I said. I thought he was joking. “Really, there is a huge skunk right behind you!” He said! As I turned around, I saw a very large skunk looking right at us! I jumped up and ran around to the other side of the table. It wasn’t very brave of Jeff and me, as we used our wives to shield us from the spray.

We finally got the skunk to leave the camp site and then we went to bed. It started raining, and a pool of water started to form on the roof of our tent. As I took a broom handle and pushed the water off, we heard Jeff and Karen yell, “you’re getting us all wet!” The water had gone through the door of their tent landing on their heads. Later that night we heard Jeff get out of bed, and a couple of seconds later we heard “Shew Shew Shew!” then “Don’t you dare spray me”, that’s when Kim and I started cracking up! The next morning Jeff told us “when I got up last night, there were skunks everywhere! There were Mama Skunks, Daddy Skunks, Children and Baby Skunks; it looked like the ground was moving because there were so many Skunks!” We looked over at the grease pit, and the skunks had dug the hole deeper then Kim had originally dug it. We had been eating popcorn while playing UNO the night before, and when the skunk startled us we knocked the popcorn all over the ground. The next morning there was no popcorn to be found anywhere on the ground.

The third day we cooked our breakfast, but this time we put the grease in a garbage bag, and took it to the dumpster. We then headed to the beach where Jeff and I found this log, and we rolled it down to the ocean. We stood on the log as it was moving back and forth with the waves. I had planned to only get my feet wet, however, in only a short time I was wet up to my knees, then it was my waist, and a few minutes later we were 100 feet off the beach hanging onto this log with seals popping up around us in the water. When we were done playing with the seals, we went back to camp and we got cleaned up, so that we could go to Fort Bragg and have dinner at a place called the Redwood Cook House. On our way out we stopped at the front gate and told the Park Ranger all about the Skunks, and we asked if there was anything he could do about them. The Park Ranger replied “Sorry, the Skunks were here first!”

My co-worker Scott is a really nice guy, but he has this one very strange thing that he does! He puts Mustard on a lot of the foods that he eats! When he first got hired, I witnessed him eating Saltines with Mustard on them. I thought this was kind of weird, but I forgot about it as soon as lunch was over. Then one day I saw him dipping his pretzels in Mustard, and again that seemed kind of weird! Then I saw him putting Mustard on his popcorn, and I asked him, do you put mustard on everything you eat? “I love mustard” he told me, “and I put it on a lot of the food I eat.” When he eats a lot of mustard he gets this really bad gas! Sometimes I walk down an isle where he is working and I have to turn around and run, the smell is so bad that your eyes water! So when I see him eating food with mustard on it, I try to avoid him for the rest of the day. You know he’s released his Mustard Gas, when you see co-workers running in all directions!

You should see Scott when his mustard bottle becomes empty, this grouchy look comes over his face, and he goes on a search for some Ketchup or Miracle Whip. I have seen Scott put mustard on Tuna Fish, mustard on Pickles, (That almost made me throw up) mustard on Cheese, mustard on Top Ramen, mustard on French Fries, mustard on Eggs, mustard on Mash Potato’s, mustard on Burritos, mustard on Toast, and Mustard on Scones. I thought I had seen everything he could possibly put mustard on. Then last week the Store Manager bought our team breakfast. French toast from a place called “Kneaders”. We all sat down, spread the butter on the two huge slices of French toast, and poured that great tasting maple syrup on. As I was about to take another savory bite, I saw Scott go to the refrigerator and pull the mustard out. He poured the mustard on his plate and dipped his toast in it. Right about that time the Store Manager looked at Scott’s plate, and said “you got to be kidding me…You set that great tasting syrup off to the side and use Mustard instead!” “What can I say?” Scott replied “I like Mustard!”