Here is the Red El Camino

But first, one of my favorite finds of the afternoon:



Patsy with Tracy at Sun Valley in 1976.
Below, at about the same time, Ed & Dad working (well, Dad working, Ed handing him the tools?) and the shiny El Camino on the patio.

Buss, Stan and Ed on the cutting edge of Technology

Christmas came to Southern West Virginia in 1974. Here Buss Snodgrass watches his two son-in-laws playing Pong in Pratt, WV. Everyone, including baby Tracy had travel to Pratt to be together for Christmas.

Those Halloween costumes...

Tracy Walls Strother at Maple Lake in Sept. 1977

I think that is the nurse hat Mom had made for Patsy and I. I remember a navy blue cape though, and I'm not remembering the arm band.

Barbara and Amanda Nicholson on Halloween, 1979.
I made the clown costume.

Sweet Childhood - homemade Halloween costumes and 45 rpm records

Patsy has much clearer memories of the house on Maud Street than I do. I don't remember the coal, nor could I figure out it was 10 blocks to Carlisle School....I do remember walking it and also riding out bikes there. I vividly remember Waldamore, I can still remember the musty smell as we walked up those stairs to the 2nd floor. Wide stairs, with a landing. I liked the building, loved the books. It was awesome! Much more personality than the public library today.

Ed remembers the red El Camino, he always liked that one, had a big engine I guess. Seems like 350 something or other....?

I think its fun to remember the long gone TV shows. I do not remember falling down the stairs at Handley, but I've alway had trouble walking down stairs and hiking down steep trails....sometimes on the trails I freeze momentarily and have to psych myself out to go farther. I could hike up things (like Nevada Falls, where the trail is large rocks in a stair like position for many miles) but coming down Nevada Falls was a slow process. Even now, I have to stop and take a deep breath before I being climbing down a normal staircase.

I don't remember Girl Scouts! What I remember is Mom being the 4-H leader and having 4-H meetings. (Something I also did when we lived at Maple Lake, I was a leader for a few years prior to our move to California.) I can vividly remember preparing for the 4-H demonstrations I gave.

How to Pack a Lunch with a Punch

• I demonstrated how to properly wrap a sandwich (in wax paper)

How to Iron a Man's shirt-

• I set up the ironing board and demonstrated the proper technique -- collar first, then yoke, plackets, sleeves, then body of shirt......

In Sacramento in 2003, I gave a speech at our Toastmasters meeting on my 4-H experience, they all got a big kick out of my description of how to hem a tea towel. (You know, blind stitch, carefully sewn into the edge of the fold....ironing is so important in sewing...) Of course, I had props! (Couldn't find a real feed sack though, which is what Mom bought for us to sew with.)
Remember going to Mannington Feed Store and buying the feed sacks? Found some with 4-H emblems...made blouses out of them....

Fun stuff!!

Growing up in the 1950's and 60's

It occurs to me that my younger, less fortunate relatives may not have been around in the 1950's and 1960's.
Did you know why Grandpa Buss had this yellow vehicle? Did you realize that it is not his usual Chrysler 300? Did you wonder why not?

When Patsy and I were kids:
Dad worked out of town most of the week, coming home usually on Wednesday nights and Friday nights. He worked quite a bit along the Ohio River, where he was the electrical superintendent on jobs such as the Lock and Dam construction, or the Wheeling highway tunnel. (Later, in southern WV on the East River Mountain Tunnel construction, near Bluefield, WV.) His jobs lasted years at a time generally.
Along the Ohio River, we often stayed at a cabin near Lake Austin, OH. Patsy, Mom & I spent much of our summers there for a few years. I loved swimming nearly every day, and I remember fishing, but didn't like those flat fish we would catch -- Sun Fish or Bluegill. They had fins that would stick my in the hand if I tried to take them off the hook. Daddy always seemed to take care of the fish and baiting the hook with live worms. The cabin was great - I remember Dad built a nice shower on the porch. (We only lived there in the summers.) It was on the side of a beautiful mountain and we walked down to the lake, not very far, we had a view of the lake. The mountain we were on had a spring we could walk up the steep hill and look at the spring. I think it had a fireplace. There was a lot of wildlife, snakes, and racoons, deer, and such. Even snakes in the lake water swimming along with us, on the surface of the water. I would get out until Dad came home from work. Someone there had a trampoline, which I liked to play on.

Because Daddy drove so much, along narrow, winding two lane country roads, he bought the Chevrolet El Camino. It was known as a "Gentleman's Truck" and rode more like a car than a truck. Before that, he drove Dodge trucks with a big pipe rack on the back. He owned at least two different El Camino's I remember, one blue one and this yellow one. They were very nice.

We heard lots of stories of near misses on the highway, of Dad going a zillion miles an hour and escaping wrecks.

Mother always had her own car, either a Dodge(1950's) or later Chrysler(1960;s), until he retired.

Life at Sun Valley was a little different than Delia sees it now. Patsy and I had to water the pine trees, carrying buckets of water to each tree he planted. We had to work in the yard, picking up rocks to perfect the landscaping. (Patsy took Home Beautification projects in 4-H.) Daddy worked outside and on the house every time he was home. Always a project going on.

We always had a pretty big garden. The food was great, I can still remember what it tastes like to stand up in the garden in the sun, and eat a ripe red tomato that was warm. Nothing so good! We even grew lettuce, I can remember Mom making wilted lettuce salad with lots of hot bacon grease. I liked the onions, but hated to pick corn. (Those blades on the corn stalks made me itch.) Loved to eat the corn though.
I wasn't afraid of potato bugs, or taking worms off the corn...it was so natural. I wasn't squemish about a worm in the tomato or stuff like that, just so they left enough for me.

I remember black and white TV. Then I remember the cellophane screen cover Dad brought home - it was green at the bottom area, orange in the middle and blue at the top. He delayed purchasing color TV for a while with this device.

I do not remember Sesame Street. I don't think I watched very much TV, but I do remember the Jetsons and the Flintstones, my favorites. I also remember Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Western movies on TV. I remember children did not touch the channels if an adult was watching. Adults ruled in my world. (It will be interesting to see if Patsy remembers it like this.)

I rode a bike a lot before we moved to Sun Valley. I liked that a lot. (Tree lined streets in C-Burg. I also rode a scooter a lot, until I took the hill beside our house on Maud street on my elbow. Still have cinders in my elbow.

I do not remember having a library in elementary school. (Junior High, yes.)

Our National Zoo ~ Washington, D.C. June 2008

Its All About J O E Y

Other Second children are Stan, Ed, Me, Trisha. All of us, 2 of 2.

A Couple of My Favorite Fellows

Joseph Michael Nicholson Feb. 2, 1981


Grandpa getting to know his Fourth Grandchild. Dad was about 64, Joey was 2 months.

Sometimes the Second Child Syndrome occurs -- and there aren't any baby books of photos of the second one. Don't worry Joey, this is not true in your case!

Barbara and Amanda Easter 1980

Easter in Huntington, WV ~ Barbara and Amanda

We were living in Huntington, WV while Ed built the Cam Henderson Center at Marshall University. We still had our 'real' home at Maple Lake, but we lived here to share our lives with Ed. This is the month Amanda turned two years old, and this is when I got pregnant for Joey!
Gosh, I'm having a lot of fun going through these photo albums.