As soon as I heard the Pentagon was hit, as related to me by the Administrative Officer here ( US Environmental Protection Agency) , we left.

Once outside and on my bicycle the streets were dense with crowds. I decided to try to get a better look at this historic event. I did not know that the trade towers in New York had been hit. The 14th street bridge and the Key bridge were blocked, but the memorial bridge was open. I crossed and walked my bike along with an Air Force photographer who was trying to get close to get pictures. We got close to the bridge that spans near the west side of the Pentagon.

At that point there were a lot of mid-and high-ranking officers who had been initially ordered evacuated from the Pentagon who were looking on. A colonel came up and asked for volunteers to carry stretchers and go into the building to look for survivors to bring out for triage and first aid. I volunteered.

Two newsmen volunteered to be on our team of four. About 15 teams were formed and issued rigid plastic stretchers. We advanced and then had to wait. In front of us about 150 yards was the blaze. The aircraft had struck near the bottom of the first floor of the E-ring (outer ring) on the West side. The plane was completely exploded with tiny parts scattered for hundreds of yards. When it struck however, the momentum caused the jet fuel and other components to fly forward through the E-ring and into the next ring. Intense heat caused the re-enforcing bars to buckle or collapse. A 50-yard wide, 5-story section collapsed.

Our job was to go inside and look for anyone who might be alive. The building was still burning but they gave us training on how to move the wounded onto the litters. Twice there was a warning to take cover from incoming planes. We came back to the road. They gave us rubber gloves and water and sandwiches. There were up to 500 firefighters but the fire was intense and widespread.

I stayed at the site until 1:00 a.m. Some of the injured got out before we arrived, but the others were burned to death. We were relieved finally by regular duty troops from the Old Guard. The corridors were charred black, totally incinerated. The secret service gave me a cell phone so I could call to see if Julia Lee in New York was alright. She had spent hours trying to reach me. We greeted each other with great relief.

I interviewed as many people as I could and reported the story to my home town newspaper (The Fresno Bee, September 12, 2001). The officers I met were excellent, well trained. They were eager to help their comrades if only a few of them were still alive.

ries

My strongest memory about the cafeteria has to do with an empty bourbon bottle that someone brought in at lunch time. I thought it would be great to make it look real so I took the bottle, added some coke, some iced tea and water until it looked like it was bourbon. Then I paraded round the cafeteria until I was apprehended by the authorities and promptly thrown out of school for “a long time.” I enlisted some help from a few teachers and my Dad and got the suspension reduced to 3 days. All for an empty bottle...I can understand now that only a few of us knew it was ‘faux’ bourbon and everyone else could have bought into it’s being real. Thus they say I needed to be punished. I still don’t agree but that’s why I’m not a teacher.

From Connie Sanborn...

As a cub scout, we made many things including a less than memorable bird house (when it came to woodworking, I was a pretty good baseball player!). I believe I did hang it up but I don’t think any birds were attracted to it. Mr. Jensen (Steve Jensen’s father) was a great troop master and I did have many fun times!.

From Bette Jones Ranagan...

I was a brownie and a girl scout! Yes, I was very proud of my brown dress, neckerchief, special belt, brownie sox..I liked selling girl scout cookies and I remember Diane Andonian’s mother was a scout leader and we met at her house and we all thought her dad was handsome as movie star.

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Linda Shollenbarger Alstrom

I have a story to tell of a children’s book called, Honey Bear. I remember clearly it was the book I always choose to be read to me in the security of an adult lap. The pictures entranced me and in due time the words, along with the pictures, were burned into my young brain. This book had been passed down to me from older cousins, people who are now in their late sixties and seventies. They as well as I can still quote beloved passages from memory.

The original book was in my possession in the 1960's but was no longer in print even then. In fact, the last copyright date I had found was 1923. I made the first copy by typing the text and copying the pictures from my original book. An uncle who owned a printing company set the text and attempted to photograph the original pictures. But though the print was fine, the pictures would not copy well. At this time I began the tedious project of making three copies of the book, drawing the pictures and painting them so I would have a complete book for each of my three children.

This project continued on throughout their childhood and was not completed until they were all grown with children of their own! By this time somehow my original book had been lost for several years, so much of the re-creating of the pictures was done from my first copy and from memory.

Around 1996 I asked a friend about the possibility of binding my three copies. He became interested in the project and though it ended up on the back burner for more than five years, by January, 2001, with the financial backing of my silent partner—my partner of 44 years—we actually had copies of the book printed.

The completion of this labor of love has been a life goal achievement for me. I am thrilled to see this wonderful little book available to another generation of children. An added bonus has been the excitement of finding other people who grew up some 60-70 years ago loving this book, people who have cried as they opened my version and begin to read those familiar words from long past that awaken sweet memories of childhood:

“Once upon a summer in the hills by the river

Was a deep green forest where the wild things grew,

And a thousand little places where the sky looked through...” 

Happy reading.  Linda Shollenbarger Alstrom

 Editor’s note: Honey Bear is available for purchase at The Alstrom’s College Pharmacy.

My Birthday Present

by Jackie Mader Folsom

In October of 2000, my 60th birthday present from my husband was a 6-day backpacking trip along the Colorado River into Marble Canyon. Led by an experienced guide, the route would be “cross country” without trails. Being experienced backpackers it sounded perfect for us.

After meeting up with our guide and six other participants, we drove into Page, Arizona but due to heavy, heavy rain, our leader advised that we would have to wait one more day before we begin our descent into the Canyon.

Tuesday morning arrived with gray skies, but the word was, “Go,” so with out heavy packs, including one gallon of water, we started our descent and very quickly realized, this is extremely steep, so careful and steadily we finally descended, taking six hours to go two miles. We started to this is really very difficult, but usually the first day is the hardest.

But each day got more difficult, in fact, after the first day, all participants objected, claiming “We should not be on this trip, it is beyond our ability.” We encountered, many, many many ledge trails dropping off  900 to 1000 feet where we literally had to hang on the boulders to get by loose rocks with the constant fear of large boulders being hurdled down at us from wet ground. With rain every day, I prayed continuously for all our safety.

Finally, the ultimate, about 2:00 p.m., the day before the end our venture, the skies opened up and all hell broke loose. Our trusted leader immediately announced, “We are experiencing a flash flood, find a rock ledge, take cover and we will wait this out.” Soon the waterfalls began dropping off the canyon walls becoming louder and louder and the stream was becoming a river. After four hours the end was not in sight and our leader informed us that we may be awakened at 2:00 a.m., “To take a little hike to a high ledge and wait it out. With those reassuring words—I sincerely thought he was going to be sitting up all night watching over the rising water and us—we crawled into our sleeping bags at 7:30 p.m. and went to sleep. Our ledge barely held four people. Well, 16 hours later, the flash flood subsided, the horrific thundering of the waterfalls pouring off the canyon rim 1000 feet above, turning our stream into a river, subsided, and the sun came out. We ate a quick breakfast and started up a steep, steep mountain to the rim. We did see big horn sheep, ring tail cats, eagles, and a totally intact 1000-year-old Anazasi pot hidden in the rocks, but the best part of the trip was making it back safely to civilization.

 Judy's Story

I taught myself to water ski by reading a tiny pamphlet my dad had at his store. Lucky for me he sold boats and motors among other things. I memorized that little booklet and when I finally got a pair of double skis off to Millerton, off we went and I made it up on my third try. After that I was hooked. Every weekend I begged my dad to take me skiing. I liked to start the season each year on my birthday, March 3. Needless to say, that lake was freezing cold, but I had to have my fix.

After high school I went to a business college in Los Angeles, but would come home weekends to water ski.

I was skiing a lot on the Kings River where I met a man who was going to his next tournament at Cypress Gardens in Florida. I told him that would be my dream job- to work in a ski show. He told me to practice my jumping and trick skiing. So I practiced, practiced, practiced. When I next met him he had told them about me and they wrote asking for pictures. I sent everything they wanted and then received a phone call telling me I got the job.

All the female skiers stayed in the town of Winter Haven. I roomed in a house with four or five other girls from all over the U.S. They trained me to do the flag routine, ballet, doubles, (two couples, each girl climbs up onto the guy’s shoulders, then down again to lay across his arms for the landing) and top pyramid (two girls with one guy in the middle on the bottom, and two girls climb up to stand on their shoulders holding up a flag). We did three shows a day. It was the world’s lowest paying job, but really fun. 

Sometimes we could go out for tournament practice between shows. We also had to sit in the Gardens in southern belle-type dresses with big hoops under them and let tourists take pictures. We were also on a few tele-vision shows. Kodak took tons of pictures and you never knew when one might turn up somewhere! We skied in the middle of Hialeah Race Track, in Tampa Bay, on Lake Michigan near Chicago, and in Boca Raton, Florida, I loved it and stayed there for a year until homesickness got the best of me and I hitched a ride back to California late in 1959. 

Fast forward to 2001, Mother’s Day. My son-in-law found a mother’s day card with water skiers on the front and bought it. When I opened it I couldn’t believe my eyes. I knew all those girls—except the third one from the left with red hair. My husband commented he thought the card had been colorized, and I realized he was right. Our bathing suits were always the same color and the flags were always the same, too. I got out my magnifying glass and surprise! I could see it was me with red hair! Sometimes the past does come back to haunt you.

I look at those skiers and won-der now if I had the opportunity to ski again, if I still could.

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