“Cool Truck”

By

Gerry Niskern

Maybe you remember seeing a little blue Ford pickup scurrying from store to store around our valley anytime from the 60’s to the early 80’s.   The bed was always stacked eight feet high with plump, handmade evaporative cooler pads. The rumble of the straight six engine bouncing off the pavement could be heard two blocks away.

The kids in our extended family loved riding along with Grandpa on pad deliveries. One of the perks was that Grandpa had the little workhorse so well trained it automatically turned into chosen Dairy Queens along the route.

As they grew older and needed part time summer jobs the grandchildren learned to make the cooler pads. Nothing smells as good as freshly shredded aspen wood as you grab armfuls and spread it evenly into sized trays lined with cheesecloth. You tuck the cloth in and staple it all around the edges. Then you grab the foot long needle threaded with string and take long criss-cross stitch and tied it off with a flourish…two minutes tops. The boys in the family were sure they would get to make deliveries in “the truck” when they got their drivers licenses. Wrong.

When hot, tired customers came into the shop for fresh pads each spring, they were not happy campers. Heaven help the homeowner who asked for supplies for his swamp cooler. My dad gave them all the help he could, but first corrected the errant customer that they were called evaporative, not swamp coolers. He showed them how to scrape the alkali from the louvered panels of the cooler, patch any holes in the bottom pan with a thick black adhesive. Dad patiently instructed all this to newcomers just as he had been helped with his cooler by a neighbor on an August day in l942 when we moved into our first house in the valley.

He sold them a new recirculating pump and clean, plastic arms to insure even distribution of water down through the fresh pads. More likely, he encouraged them to attach a garden hose to the drain on the bottom of the cooler and let the runoff help water the grass.

On one historic hot day in our family in l942, when Dad finished changing the pads in our side draft cooler and cool, refreshing air filled our new home, Mom and we girls decided that maybe we could stay in Arizona, after all.

Lucky are the people who have both evaporative coolers and air conditioners. On warm days from April up to the 4^th of July or until the dew point reaches 55, they can enjoy the breeze wafting through doors and windows open to the fresh air, and count on a small electric bill too.

My parents started the Cooler Supply Company in the early 50’s and prided themselves in producing the best cooler pads in the valley in their small manufacturing plant. Their pads cooled a large portion of the population in Phoenix, Glendale and Scottsdale. Dad and the old Econoline pickup with wrap around windows delivered to several school districts that had standing orders each year. Other dealers that waited for the truck’s low rumble were L. L. Smiths in Glendale, Paul’s Hardware in Scottsdale and Mike Barras in Sunnyslope.

The old 64 Ford pickup lived at our house in the early 80’s. As the kids in the family married and bought family cars, we still received a call from time to time, “ Could you bring the truck? We have something big to move” Those with a little more chutzpah say, “I’d like to borrow the Econoline for a while this weekend.” They’re entrusted with the keys along with the warning, “Don’t forget, if you give the truck its head, it will head straight for the nearest Dairy Queen.”

“Can you go home again?”

By

Gerry Niskern

Are you going back to your birthplace this summer?

Thomas Wolfe warned that “you can’t go home again” but most of us try anyway, don’t we?

I had two childhood homes. I lived in West Virginia the first ten years of my life but finished growing up in Phoenix. The first home was a little farm in the beautiful hills of West Virginia and the second was a wonderful old house with a big front porch a block from the Arizona state capitol.

A few years ago, in September, I went home again.

We drove the country roads through the beautiful green hills of West Virginia, and this time I was the resident historian! I recalled stories of our farmhouse that was still there, but voiced my sadness that the rasberry vines and peach, plum and cherry orchards are gone.

. My childhood home in Phoenix no longer exists. The block was razed in order to build a State Highway Dept. building. Other wiser, states have preserved the stately older homes around their capitols.

My grade school in West Virgina was still there, out in the country and going strong. First thru 8^th grades rode the school bus together to Limestone School. It was a long, long day for a first grader who had not had a kindergarten to attend . I don’t think my older sister ever forgave me for having to sit with me at lunch while I cried from homesickness. She was the pitcher for the fifth grade and as she reminded me, “my team is waiting for me!”

In Phoenix, my new grade school was Jackson on 21^st Ave between Madison and Jackson. At the nine A. M. bell, everyone stopped wherever they were on the playground or on the street arriving, and said the pledge of allegiance as the flag was raised. Jackson is gone. Nothing is there now but a pile of rubble and the lone flagpole.

Fairview, my tiny West Virginia country church, still holds services. It was such a wonderful interlude to sit on the front steps and look out over the green valley below while the memories flooded in.

Back then the children sang and recited on Sundays. The altar was covered with canning jars filled with daisies, roses, lilacs, and wild flowers brought by farm children. I’ll never forget the Easter Sunday the Jones twins were supposed to sing “Jesus Loves Me” as rehearsed. When they took the stage they belted out “You are my Sunshine”, complete with good, old West Virginia style yodeling. That was the day the choir director resigned.

The church of my Phoenix childhood, Capitol Methodist, on West Van Buren, had rousing Sunday night sings. That church building is gone too.

So, yes, Mr. Wolfe, sometimes you actually can go home again! But, at other times, you just have to visit those visions you hold dear in your heart!

“Beware of the Photo Nazi!”

By

Gerry Niskern

Are you going to a family reunion this summer? Reunions mean only one thing: GROUP PHOTOS. We all treasure that old family photo of the entire clan together. We can identify aunts, uncles and cousins by their common family features, but mostly, we know them by the way they dressed.

I saw an ancient family photo at a friend’s house the other day.  Some of the girls had huge bows on the back of their heads. That set the time and date and brought a lump to my throat. You see, the only picture I have of my mother as a little girl shows her wearing a dress two sizes too large (in the hand- me- down era) and sporting a oversize bow in her hair (circa 1918).

Invariably we enjoy identifying individuals by their unique style as we turn the pages of old albums and that reminds us of a great story we’ve heard about that person.

Something changed on the way to the family reunions nowdays. Who decreed that everyone appear exactly alike now?

With many family reunions planned this summer, there will be one individual determined to produce a cookie- cutter group picture. No doubt she will have sent out newsletters six months in advance with the strict instructions. “Everyone, men, women and children are to wear a white shirt for the family photo. And, everyone must wear tan slacks. No Exceptions” If she is extra efficient, she will bring along a few shirts and pants for any slackers.

Think about it. What’s the worst that could happen if the “photo Nazi” just relaxed a bit and let each family member show up in what they always wear?

Is the point of reunion pictures to have a rigid, boring photo of an army of relatives faces in a sea of red, yellow or blue tee shirts or an interesting group photo celebrating the different personalities in the family?

It would be much more fun many years from now when future generations are looking at a family photo taken in 2015 if they will see teenage girls in low rise jeans, a few chubby ones with their “love muffins” showing. The boys could be in their baggy shorts. The twenty or thirty- something gals (the lines are a little blurred these days) would be sporting tube- tops and obviously a lot of new boob jobs too. The guys who work out would be showing off in muscle shirts.

There might be little boys with spiked hair in camouflage shirts or pants (Oh, yeah, that was back during the Middle East conflicts.)

They’ll remember that uncle who always had his Blue Tooth growing out of his ear; he might miss a money making deal!

There’s that aunt still wearing her bouffant hair and grandpa in his signature overalls. And there’s the cousin who joined the commune in her Hippie days, in her long braids, and granny dress.

Years from now, you will be glad everyone dressed as their personality dictated.

Viva la differences!

“July Pastimes”

By

Gerry Niskern

Every day while walking I listen to the rush of water plunging from the pumps along the irrigation ditch. The pampered, pristine lawns I pass by are watered by irrigation. The other day I was reminded of an amusing E-mail story concerning our resident’s preoccupation with grass.

‘God was talking to St Francis and asking whether the people on earth were enjoying the variety of grasses and wild flowers he had provided. He was flabbergasted to learn that people on earth got rid of all of them and planted plain grass around their houses instead. . He was even more bewildered to learn that they water it faithfully, but then pay to have it cut…..and hauled away!’

We all know the pleasure of smelling newly mowed grass. As a kid, it was right up there with rolling down a grassy knoll then climbing to the top and rolling down again.  Another summer pastime was playing in the irrigation water.

When I was a child here in Phoenix on special days shouts were heard in our neighborhood, “They’re irrigating the capitol grounds!”  Kids for blocks around the state capitol would race to don bathing suits and head for the lush grass around the capitol. (This was before the politicians decided to cover most of those beautiful grounds with government buildings). When we got there the clear, cool water was pouring into the areas between the sidewalks. We ran and played in knee high water; only once in a while accidentally splashing the state office ladies walking to lunch.

When the irrigation evaporated, we turned to lawn sprinklers.  On any hot day in July somebody’s mother would be watering their grass, using a variety of whirling sprinklers.  We kept cool running in and out of the crystal droplets.

My father cut his grass on Saturday afternoon.   He was grateful he hadn’t listened to helpful neighbors back east when they advised him, “Don’t pay to haul your lawn mower to Arizona. You won’t need it. The yards out there are all sand.”

About the age that I was playing in the irrigation water as a child, my husband said he was running a thriving lawn business.  He even had one customer out by Camelback Road and Lateral 14. He transferred twice on the city bus to reach the expansive grounds of that country home.

Years later when we moved into our first home, he couldn’t wait to get the lawn started. (How he would have loved the luxury of ordering a few rolls of sod!)   He was so proud to be the first guy in the subdivision to cut his grass.

I can’t say he was so thrilled later when he spent hours pulling and digging bullhead weeds out of the Bermuda grass. Nothing hurts the tender feet of little ones like the sharp prick of a dry bullhead burr. Daddy was happy when the owners of those little feet grew big and he decided they could take over the mowing chores. He even brought home a used riding mower.  # 1 son was delighted since he was planning on being the next Andretti.  He loved to see how fast that baby would accelerate. After we lost a couple of rose bushes and a small grapefruit tree, guess who was back in the mowing business?