Things I Remembered

I was looking in a journal from when I was sixteen and came across this list which I called, "Incidents"

1. Apt. red brick - 2nd east.
- Beets on the wall - Jade & Lani
- Green carrot pie
- Dad had severe pneumonia
- Mom got hurt
- Six men played bagpipes for mom
- Too cold to walk to school

2. Black and White House
- Mom's car accident, 8mo. pregnant with Kenneth
- Jade broke her arm
- Rubber band in Shelly's eye
- Kenneth was born
- Dad was always gone, tuna fishing job.
- Tricycle wheel, Jade wrecked.

3. Condominium (1977)
- Went to Hawaii
- Maile was born
- Ken threw eggs at Maile "playing baseball"
- Auntie Pua lived next door to us
- Opening of The Hungry Hawaiian
- Jade spilled bleach on the rug

4. Provo
- The mouse and mom
- Dad baptizes Lani
- Bobby pins in Jade's eyes
- Ken and Maile bring home a snake
- Our family was sealed in the temple
- We went through bankruptcy
- Dad and Grandpa G. catch a big fish, have it mounted
- Tammy Quinn lived with us
- Dutchess (the brown basset hound) gets lost forever

5. Crosby's House (1978)
- Jade threw bat through the window
- Lani's friend sleeps naked
- Worm catching/selling company
- Charging bulls
- Jade stuck in the cherry tree
- Jade put hand through glass in screen door
- We bought our very first piano
- Mom got new job at Sirloin Stockade
- Lani and Jade dissect a chicken
- Dad in Kwajalein

6. Eastwood Drive House
- Kenneth inside the canal on the fence
- Ken went to bed with gum in his mouth and was stuck to the bed the next morning
- Maile fell out of the window
- Jade's eleventh birthday party
- Maile put blood pressure pill up her nose, went to the hospital
- Mr. Olsen, mean sixth grade teacher
- Jade is a snot

7. Oklahoma
- Buff is found. Ticks. Blue.
- Jade stays in Utah
- Maile fell and hurt her head bad
- Dad scared of sleepy hollow
- Lani got 25 Smurfs for Christmas
- Lani hives bad
- Lani tonsillitis
- Good babysitter

8. Kingman, Arizona
- Mom in bad car accident (Payson)
- Ken hurt bad in car accident. Stitches in head, sides, foot
- Bryce visited us for two months
- We went to the Grand Canyon
- We saw Lake Havasu and went on the London bridge
- Went to Katherine's Landing
- The golf course. Charlies monument.
- Las Vegas / Lisa Lana West
- Bowling team, trophies.
- Jynnae, Laddy, Troy, and Carol Beth, Sam and Sherry Dawson
- Lani gets in BIG fight
- Ken throws batteries at the window
- Jade has the lead in the Christmas musical at school and sings "Christmas on Angel Street"
- Jade goes into Mutual
- Bowling with big red glasses
- Lani threw books at me several times
- Blindfolded obstacles courses
- Lani gets a new bike

9. Grandma's House
- Lani meets Diana and Rayetta
- Phil, Victor, and David
- The guys in Mutual play baseball
- Vic hugs me
- The Mutual goes water-skiing
- Mom works at Arby's

10. Mesa, Arizona
- Go on a picnic to a lake with dad and the family

11. Ogden, Utah
- Kaylyne, Danae, Heather, John, Rob, Mark, Jessica
- Camp / Chinese Joke / Jill Linford
- Mrs. Tueller
- Shelley Crozier
- Mechelle Telford pregnant
- Crystal Springs
- Dan and Jack are nice to me
- Grandma Clark dies
- I sang at Grandma Clark's funeral
- Mom works at Sirloin Stockade again

12. Centerville
- Karen, Karina, Shree, Todd, Chris, Shel, Kif, Jodi, Ruth and Craig
- Escaped convict caught at the car wash in town
- Waterskiing with the youth
- Chased Maile with fake spiders
- Ken was hit by a car
- I scared Ken and Maile with a mask
- Centerville Junior High
- Lani told Maile that she had hemorrhoids
- Kris' super snow slide in her back yard
- Christmas party at Dago and Julie Kline's house

13. Cascade House in Orem
- 1984 A'Capella tour
- Shelly got married on March 30th to Tom Burns
- Jade, Lani, and Maile take dance
- Jade works at Annie's Pantry
- Ivan (who works at Annie's Pantry) asks me out
- We get a puppy (precious) and Ken mauls it
- Mom and I take Herbalife. Mark Hughes is gorgeous!
- Grandma takes Herbalife; loses 40 pounds
- Mom and I go to California for an Herbalife seminar
- Youth conference
- Annie's Pantry is robbed
- My Garfield collection
- The TV show "MASH" goes off the air
- Ken broke his arm at the park by cascade school
- Jade get's pneumonia; Dr. Hill is nice.
- Girls camp
- Dad made a grand debut
- We got a new car - miss grover rover
- Joe Clark's mission farewell
- Rick Springfield concert
- Marie likes Arby's
- In the play "The Redhead"
- Another space shuttle goes up
- Mark H. and Larry T. from Herbalife come to SLC for a meeting
- Heather, Troy, Steph & Kel
- Education Week
- A'Capella at Regional Festival
- Dances
- Per Lovgren
- I'm in Show & Chamber
- I'm ...

My Baby Sister

My sister, Maile, was born in April 1977 when I was nine. I loved having a baby sister. She was so small and I used to dress her in my dolls' clothes. There was no such thing as disposable diapers back then, so she wore cloth. I remember mom saying "Don't stick the baby with the pin" when I would change her.

We lived in a condo across from Sharon Elementary and I was in the fourth grade. At the time she was born, my parents were making plans to open their restaurant, The Hungry Hawaiian.

Grandpa Chu in Hawaii was sick, so Grandma Gordon, Lani, Shelly, and I went there to see him and Grandma. Grandma Clark went on a cruise to Alaska at that time and afterward also met us in Hawaii.

Here is a picture of our family before we left. Mom is holding Maile.

In 1978 we moved from Orem to Provo to be closer to The Hungry Hawaiian restaurant. We lived there for only a few months before we moved. Here is a picture of Maile in 1979 after she turned two.

In 1980 we lived in Kingman, Arizona and Maile was three.

Here are some pictures of Maile outside our house.

While we were in Kingman we also went to the grand canyon.

Here she is in 1981 when she was four.

In 1982 we lived in Ogden.

We had a family portrait taken and Maile, who was five, is sitting in the front..

Here's another picture of her in 1982.

In 1983, when she was six,we lived in Centerville, Utah for a few months.

Shes on the left listening to a book on tape.

We move to the cascade house in Orem on January 1, 1983.

This picture was taken in Orem when she was six.

In 1985 we went to Disneyland.

Here's a picture of her at our motel whe she was eight.

Here she is Feb 1986, before her nineth birthday.

In 1987 when she was ten Bryan gave her the chicken pox. Because of that, she had to stay home from a trip to Hawaii with Mom, Lani, Ken and Grandma.

I took her and her friend to the zoo that summer.

Here she is on Christmas morning.

In November 1988, when she was eleven, she, Kenneth and Mom moved to Mesa, Arizona to start a new future.

In May 1989, when she was twelve, Bryan and I visited her in Arizona.

She visited me that summer. Here she is at Lani's house in Provo, Utah.

Here she is again, in the upper right corner.

Here's she is in the fall of 1989, in her seventh grade picture.

Maile was a bridesmaid at my wedding in October 1990 when she was thirteen.

Grandpa's Sleeping Bag

Grandpa had a red cotton sleeping bag that was big enough for two people. The inside was tan-ish yellow. It had a silver metal zipper that held the bag closed when half of it was flipped onto the other half. It was rectangular when zipped and square when open.

Many times I lay in that sleeping bag with my sister, Lani, in the back of Grandpa’s truck when we were picked up from the Lagoon amusement park. I’d lay on my back looking at the stars as we drove south toward Orem on I-15. The orange lights illuminating the freeway would shine in my eyes until we drove under an overpass.  

The first time I slept outside was in that bag. I was seven years old and we lived in the black & white house. My mom put cardboard under it so the morning dew wouldn’t get it wet. Again, Lani and I lay in it together. Many times, Lani and I slept outside at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, in that sleeping bag and under the big tree in their front yard.

When I was in high school and we lived at the "Cascade house" (by Cascade Elementary,) Lani and I would sleep, in that bag, outside on the concrete slab on the West side of our house. (The house was directly to the East of the slab, and the garage was directly to the South.) The canyon breeze would whip around us in the morning. My hair would be a tangled mess and have small rocks in it if I didn’t scoot down in the bag, where the wind couldn’t touch me.

The inside of that sleeping bag wore thin from all the times it was used. I loved that thing and have fond memories of it.

The Places Where I Lived as a Child

I was born in Provo, Utah.

Before starting school I lived in California and Hawaii.

When I was five, I lived in a red four-plex (the red brick house) on 200 North near 500 East in Orem, Utah. We lived in the top east apartment if you stood outside facing the place.

When I was seven, I lived in a black & white house next door to the Maestas' on 250 East and near 500 East in Orem. I went to school, down the road, at Sharon Elementary from Kindergarten through fourth grade.

We moved to our condo not too far away and lived there for a year when I was eight.

We lived in Provo, Utah when I was ten so Mom & Dad could be closer to their restaurant, "The Hungry Hawaiian." We lived at the top of the road on Cedar Avenue on the right in place that looked like a log cabin (the mouse house). We called it "the mouse house" because you could hear mice running along the ceiling. Mice were everywhere, including in the cupboards. Our house had a really big yard and a door that went from my room to the back porch.

From Provo we moved back to Orem and lived in the cherry tree house. It was a small white ranch that had lots of cherry trees outside. There was a barn in the back that had chickens and a big, black bull. We didn't run the farm, but just lived in the house. Irrigation water came at least once a month and covered the entire lawn.

We didn't live there long. We moved to another house in Orem on the corner of Center Street and Eastwood Drive (the Eastwood house.) That's where we lived when Mom & Dad packed up the house and moved to Oklahoma.

I didn't go to Oklahoma but moved in at Grandma & Grandpa's house in Orem, and finished the sixth grade.

Next, we moved to Kingman, Arizona. We lived in a ranch almost at the end of the street near a golf course. Our backyard was dirt, but, apparently, good enough for our golden retriever, Buff, who kept jumping the chain-link fence and running away. I had my own room ,and so did Lani. However, Kenneth and Maile, who were three and five, shared a room. One day, in the spring of the following year, I came home and Mom said to me, "Pack up your things, we're moving back to Utah."

We moved in at Grandma & Grandpa's house in Orem, and I finished the seventh grade. Our family of five lived with them over  the summer, then we moved to Mesa, Arizona for two weeks. Evidently it was long enough to enroll me in school. My school was made up of classrooms connected by outside hallways. It had at least 3,000 students and was the largest school I ever attended. I wasn't there long enough to make friends and don't have many memories of that time, except for cooking a frozen steak and french fries in an electric skillet in our apartment one afternoon. (It was a blessing that both Mom & Dad worked in restaurants otherwise we would have starved. I'm sure Mom wouldn't have let that happen but at least we always had food.)

After Mesa we moved back in at Grandma & Grandpa's house in Orem, and I went to the eighth grade for a couple more months.

From Grandma & Grandpa's house in Orem we moved into a place in North Ogden, Utah that wasn't quite finished. The driveway was mud and our Ford Explorer froze to the ground when Mom parked there. The house in Ogden had so many problems that I can't list them all. As an adult, I'm horrified to think about our living conditions, when I remember how it was, but as an eighth grader, I didn't see the problems.

During the summer before my ninth grade year in school, we moved to Centerville, Utah. The Centerville house was big and had a different color of carpet and paint in every room. My bedroom was golden. It was also down stairs and at the other end of the house.

On January 1, 1983 we moved from Centerville back to Orem. We moved into the cascade house (kitty-corner to Cascade Elementary.) My sister, Lani, and I shared a room in the basement that was light blue and didn't have any windows. We lived there until I was a senior in high school.

During my senior year we moved to a duplex on 1400 North in Orem. It was a lot smaller than our last house. It had just one bathroom and two bedrooms. Ken & Maile shared one room and Lani & I shared the other. Mom's room was downstairs in the family room next to the garage.

We moved back to the cascade house several months later but it wasn't the same. We didn't have the furniture we had and it felt like just a house. A few months later I moved out, permanently, with Bryan, into my own apartment down the road.

Singing

From the time I was little until I was about seven mom used to sing to me and Lani at bedtime. She liked show tunes and sang the same songs to us over and over again. I remember her singing Honey Bun, Ragtime Cowboy Joe, "Pollyanna" (Everybody, Loves a Lover), If I Had a Hammer and Lahaina Luna.

When I was five, Mom taught me and Lani the word and actions to Happy Talk from the movie version of South Pacific. After Lani and I had it down, we went to our neighbors' houses and performed for them.

Grandma Gordon loved singing too. She sang songs like I've been working on the rail road, side by side, the skunk song and hey, look me over. When I was ten I went to camp Naheli Kai in Hawaii with Lani and my cousin, Shelly. We learned a round called rose and another song we called underneath the bamboo tree. We taught them to Grandma and she always messed up on rose. To this day I can hear her saying "wellllll!" after she realized she sang it wrong.

When I was a young girl, Mom and Grandma were in a ladies singing group called "The Chauntonettes." One year they sang Me and My Shadow and used top hats and black canes as props. I learned every word to that song as well as the words to other songs they sang, and remember a lot of words still.

Lani and I shared a bedroom in the basement of our condo. I would lay in bed every night and sing You Light Up My Life (and every other song I knew) before going to sleep. At times, Lani called the music I liked "elevator music." I listened to FM 100, an easy listening radio station in Utah, and it drove her nuts. She whined, "Can't we listen to something else?" until I changed the station.

Whenever we went anywhere in Grandpa's truck, we sat on the wheel wells in the back of the truck and sang at the top of our lungs. Music intertwined with our lives.

In the eighth grade, while Mom worked, Lani and I lip synced to her wooden fruit. Lani always had the grapes and I always had the banana. We moved our lips and held up our microphones when Barry Manilow sang "At the Copa...Copacabana." 

Whenever we went somewhere in the car, eventually, we sang. As a teenager when Lionel Richie's song All night long became famous, I droned the harmony of the backup singers singing "All Night...All Night..." Mom hated it, and would tell me, "Stop It!" or "Sing Something Else."

I had a friend who loved Barbara Streisand. As a result, I grew to love her too. I bought her album on tape called the Broadway Album; I loved it and listened to it all the time. I loved show tunes, and that album was right up my alley.

In my room I would often listen to my records of The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I loved the Top 40 Hits, but they couldn't compare to my first love of show tunes and choral music.

My Earliest Memory

I wasn't in kindergarten yet. I was being babysat with some other kids. Dad was eating prunes and throwing the pits away. The kids and I would retrieve the pits and suck on them until the fruit/flavor was gone.