My childhood was a happy childhood.  It seems that all my relatives lived next door, across the street, or lived with us...Grandmas grandpas, aunts, uncles cousins. It was a happy time.  Even through the depression my dad made a good living as a rural mail carrier.  He got a generous mileage allowance,  so we had a new car almost every year.  My wife Virginia’s family was one of his route customers.  She kids me about being rich, because it seemed like my dad was always driving up in a new car.

We were both little kids.  I didn’t know Virginia in those days.  In fact I left Hanford in 1942, to join the Marines, and didn’t return to live until 1989, after Betty passed way. It was at Christmas party in 1989 that I met Virginia.  We didn’t start going together until June, and were married the following Dec.  She said she knew of me in high school, but I didn’t know  her.  We were 3 years apart,  I was a senior when she was a freshman.