Across the Ocean

My father finished his tour in Illinois and we all headed back to Colorado.  We rented a house on Lincoln Street and the women moved in and our dad headed off the Germany.  I think it was about six months that we lived there until we could join him.

I remember the classroom and the school in Boulder quite vividly.  It must have been second grade and we played as much as we learned.  In fact I don't recall any learning - just the playing.  I walked to and from school each day with Joanie and there was a very big Chow that was sometimes out in his yard scaring us to death.  We spent our spare time playing with little horses, cowboys and Indians under the trees across the street.  We made quite nice forts there.

Before we knew it we were getting ready to move again.  In order to travel to Europe we had to get a set of various inoculations, among them Tetanus.  That one hurt like the dickens and we all got to have arm slings made from tea towels to help us endure the pain.  We traveled to New York City by train and darn, I really don't remember it.  But I do remember being in the the big hotel in NY and going to the nice restaurant at the hotel and ordering a club steak for dinner.  I was seven years old and I ate the whole thing and asked for another which, I still can't believe it, but my mother allowed me to have.  And yes, I ate the whole thing.  I guess I was going through a growing spurt.  (I believe that today a Club Steak would be called a bone-in New York steak.)

After a day or two at the hotel we all boarded the USS Upshur, a large Naval transport ship.

This was our ship and it was a wonderful trip - for Patti and I.  Joanie and our mother were both terribly sea sick.  I was sick one time at a meal and that was it.  I have never been sea sick again.  Patti and I had so much fun just wandering the ship and getting the complimentary soda crackers that were handed out freely.  Can you imagine children doing that today.  Patti was four and I was seven! 

I have no idea how long the trip was but when we arrived in Germany we boarded a train for a short ride and then were met by our dad who had a new car waiting and he whisked us away to our new apartment in Bitburg.

And Then There Were Three

I was three years old when my younger sister Patti was born.  Isn't it interesting that most people can't remember when they were three.  Because of that I don't remember how I felt when she was born.  But I do remember that when she was two and in the hospital with pneumonia I was jealous of all the attention she received and the toys she got when she came home.  I don't think she was allowed visitors because I have a memory of looking through a window in a door into the room where she was in the hospital.  Our house was very festive when she came home.  I don't know if she nearly died.  My parents never said.

Joan, Patricia and Suzanne - about 1950

Pretty much from that time on until we were in high school, Patti and I shared a bedroom.  And today memories of that flood back at me.  We fought - all the time.  She had a blackboard in our bedroom that she would write things like "I hate my sister", over and over so one day I wrote on it that she was adopted.  I think she almost believed me.  Sometimes we would put tape on the floor to divide the space.  But there were also the times when at night in bed together we would tell each other our dreams.  That was one of the best times of having a sister!

At one time I was sharing a room with Joanie.  We had bunk beds and Joanie was on the upper bunk.  During the night if I needed to go to the bathroom, I would wake her up and she would use the wooden side to the bed to reach across the room and turn on the ceiling light for me and then turn it out again when I got back. 

Probably when I was about 10 or 11 Joanie made a habit of giving me a candy or a cookie.  She told me that she made them in her bed at night.  And - I believed her!  Ah, the innocence back in those days before TV and computers.  One day I was looking for something and opened one of her drawers and found a pack of cookies.  I was so mad at her for lying to me all that time!

The first time I remember living in government housing was in Illinois.  I was six years old and in first grade.  There were some really important things that happened while we were there.  I made my first best girlfriend and we were inseparable.  We even learned to talk through the wall as our bedrooms backed up to each other.  Her name was Christine and though I didn't think about it at the time I named my daughter, it probably played into my choice of a name for her.  Christine and I played dress-up often and we even managed to come down with Chicken Pox at the same time.

Suzie and Christine - best friends

While we lived there we found and rescued a baby starling.  I think we also had a parakeet at one time.  Patti and I (and probably Christine) were allowed to play in the rain water running down the gutters after big summer rains......in our panties.  That memory appalled me in my early teens!  Patti had a stuffed animal that went everywhere with her.  At one time she lost it and we were all enrolled to search everywhere for Mikie. I was scared to look in cupboards because I was afraid I would find him all torn up.  I have no idea why I was so frightened but we found him in fine condition!  This is also where we were living when I found out that boys have two balls and a bat!  Two bothers in our complex loved bragging about that and I had to ask my mother what they were talking about.  I guess it is easier if you have a brother but we didn't!

Christine and Suzie playing dress-up

I found another picture of Christine and I.  As I said, we were inseparable.

In The Beginning

I was born on November 7, 1946.  My parents had been married just a bit over a year.  They had met at a dance in Boulder, Colorado in 1945 and my father, Jim Smith, announced to a friend that he was going to marry that little dynamo named Dorothy Brines.  Dorothy already had a little girl who was about three years old.  That was my sister, Joan, whose father had been killed in World War II.  She used to say, "When we married Daddy."   I always knew she had a different father but was not sure of what it meant until I had children of my own because she was always my sister in all ways one could be a sister.

This is a picture of my parents before they were married.  My dad was from Pueblo, Co and my mother from Boulder.  I think this picture was taken in Pueblo at his parents home.

My mother, Dorothy Irene Brines Smith

Joan Elaine Sutherlund and Suzie

I was born in San Diego, CA where my father was stationed with the US Navy.  We were there only 6 months after I was born and then we moved to Boulder.  We were a very transient family and made many moves.  That may account for the fact that today I love moving and I love the change.  Now that I am old and plan on living in this same house until the end, I worry about becoming bored and antsy about wanting change and wanting to move.

Life is a Tapestry

Life is a tapestry we weave day by day with threads of different colors, some heavy and dark, others thin and bright, all the threads having their uses.  The stupid things I did are already in the tapestry, indelible, but I’m not going to be weighed down by them till I die.  What’s done is done.  I have to look ahead.  There is no fuel for bonfires of despair.  Isabel Allende, Maya’s Notebook.

This is one of my favorite quotes on life in general.  I feel that my life is made up of so many different parts - many colors - and it has made it so exciting.  Yes, I did some stupid things but who hasn't.  If you think that you haven't then maybe you just haven't lived yet.  Go ahead, make some stupid mistakes - just make sure that you are living your life to the fullest each and every day!