All my life Christmas was my favorite holiday.  I loved the music, and the happiness that was in the air.  I loved the decorations.  I loved Christmas Eve when the family came together and opened their gifts.  I loved giving as well as receiving.  Seeing the faces of those I loved when they opened my gifts was special.  Then on Christmas day, the whole family came together again for Christmas dinner.

            New Year’s Eve I usually babysat until I was in college and dated.  But one year on New Year’s Day, Nan and Bryant Cothron, and daughter Susan whom I baby sat a lot, invited us over.  They had a couple of relatives and families over, and the Pastor and us.  They had one of the first television sets in the neighborhood, and some of the guests watched the Rose Bowl game.  Some of us sat in the kitchen nook and played Canasta which was new and popular at the time.  They served sandwiches made with left over turkey and they put dressing and cranberry sauce in it.  I thought they were the best I had ever tasted.  That was such a happy day.

            When I was a sophomore in high school, I wanted to earn money and still enjoy my summer.  I devised a plan to have a play group in our yard mornings and then I had my afternoons and evenings free.  I was licensed by the State of California as a foster parent as they had no other category for this.  Dad and I made a swing and a slide.  We already had a picnic table for crafts.  I had ten preschool children at $3 a week which gave me $30 a wee which was more than I could have made at an all day job.  The mothers loved having three hours to them selves. The children loved to play, have a story read, sing some songs, a juice and cookie break, and play.  Then I still did baby sitting.  And had time to read or go to the beach or try to get a sun tan.  (We didn’t know that was bad for you.  The next summer I had to close my little group before the summer was over because of a Polio (Infantile Paralysis) epidemic.  Swimming pools and all public gatherings except church were shut down.

            After my senior year in High School, I was a counselor at a Brownie Camp in the San Diego mountains (Cuyamaca,  Camp Oyaniyanka)   That was fun.

            I played with dolls until I was eleven.  Then at twelve I began baby sitting.  I loved babies, and had a lot of people who called on me to do that.  At first, when the baby would sleep, I would read the baby books that most homes with children had, to learn all I could.  Some of the families left cookies for me.  I often did the dinner dishes for the family, and if they had clean diapers in a basket, I would fold them.  Everyone had cloth diapers in those days.

            When I was babysitting I felt really happy.  I could pretend and dream of when I would have a home and a family of my own.  I could decide when and if I would do things and it gave me a feeling of freedom. I could listen to music I liked. And I loved the children.  I could get them to do things their parents couldn’t, like pick up their toys at bedtime.  One young boy was adopted and had trouble with speaking certain letters of the alphabet.  I worked with him a lot.  Once his mother had to have surgery, and I took care of Steven.  Later she gave me some beautiful clothes that fit me perfectly of a quality I couldn’t afford.  That was really fun.

            People would tell me what time they would be home, but often they were much later.  Then I would do exercises on the carpet until I heard their car drive up, to try to keep myself looking as good as I could.

One couple thought I should get to go out more.  He was Commander in the Navy so they arranged to take me on board his ship for dinner with them and a young Ensign.  They took me on a tour of the ship too. That was fun.

The going rate for babysitting was twenty five cents an hour.  One couple gave me a dollar an hour which was wonderful to me.

One of the families arranged for me to be available when the second child was born.  So I got that call in the middle of the night.  Another had me care for a three year old and a new baby when the mother became ill and had to return to the hospital.  I had many many friends through child care.

            I’m going to deviate a bit here because I’ve been asked what kinds of things Ellis and I played when we were young.  We each received a magazine that affected some of our games.  Mine was “Children’s Playmate Magazine” and his was “Wee Wisdom”.  We would get ideas from them.  I remember one game we liked to play was that a storm was coming and we had to race around and bring all the farm animals into the barn.  We had an old building in back that probably housed a tractor once so that was the barn.  We got all excited to get all the animals to safety before the storm hit.

            We had a huge Pepper Tree in our back yard and we loved to climb it.  I think Dad made a swing on one of the strong branches.

            We used to run and play “Hide and Seek in the tall wild oats that surrounded our house by blocks.  We often played this with all the neighborhood children.  Alone sometimes I liked to lay on my back in the oats, and watch the clouds roll by, guessing what the shapes looked like.  I have often wondered why we were warned so strongly to listen for a rattlesnake when walking the path through the wild oats to school, and freeze if we heard one.  But no one worried about our playing in the same fields.  I know they were there because every year, Dad would burn an area around the house for a fire break, and he would kill all the snakes that came out.  We were taught to stay away from the dead snakes because they could still strike out and poison a person for a while even when their head was chopped off.

            One time we were naughty but didn’t get caught.  Ellis found some cigarette buts so we went back of the old shed and tried to light them so we could smoke.  Fortunately we couldn’t get them lit, so that ended our efforts there.

            We had a small library in a room attached to the Pacific Beach Women’s Clubhouse.  We got to borrow books from there.

            At school we played on a jungle gym, monkey bars, a large metal slide, swings, sandbox.  That was fun for short recesses.  We girls played “hop scotch”, jump rope, and London Bridge is falling down”.  As groups we played kick ball, dodge ball, some baseball, “Here We Go Loopy Loo”.  All this was in elementary school which went only to sixth grade.

            At Pacific Beach Junior High we played basketball, volley ball, softball, track.  Ellis began to play tennis there, which has served him well as a lifetime hobby pursuit.

            At San Diego State College, I took a semester each of swimming, archery, ballroom dancing, volleyball, and music.

            I liked school and used to spend time at home with Ellis and Elin and Jean playing teacher and class.  We also formed a club of four which we named the Acne Club until Aunt Marguerite suggested we might want to look up the meaning of the word.  So we renamed it the Carmoda Club.  We each had an office and the secretary took minutes. 

            We all wanted a dog badly and our parents said “no”.  So Grandmother and Aunt Nellie got a Fox Terrier that they kept for us.  We all named him Skipper.  Aunt Nellie had a studio where she taught music and tutored children.  When Auntie would sing a scale, Skipper would sing right up the scale with her.  It was so funny.

            At our house I was allowed to have a cat, but outside only.  I spent a lot of time playing with my cat.  Ellis did too.

            President Franklyn Roosevelt was loved by many.  He was elected to four terms, but died in the fourth.  He had been crippled by Polio so used a wheel chair.  We used to have arguments about whether he should be re-elected the third and fourth terms.  Because of the war, those who wanted him to stay would argue, “You can’t change horses in the middle of the stream.” But he just kept winning.

            We were at a youth meeting at our church when someone came and told the minister’s wife that our president had just died.  She began to cry.  We were all dismissed to go home.