June • 2011 • NEWSLETTER

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Dear ##firstname[Friend]##,

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I’m excited to tell you about the June/July collector’s edition of your favorite nostalgia magazine, Reminisce, that takes you to the summer side of life. Remember when fun filled the long, hot days of your youth after school let out? When you hit the ground running in bare feet and didn’t stop till Mom or Dad called you in? When getaways included anything from state fair visits to national park adventures or just a day trip to the beach?

In celebration of those carefree days, the staff at Reminisce has put together a big special issue that’s sure to spark memories of the things that brought you summertime smiles. It’s filled with readers’ photos and stories of backyard fun, street games, vacations, favorite summer eats, amusement parks and fairs. If you’d like to share this special collector’s edition with family and friends, you can buy extra copies online exclusively through shoptasteofhome.com/reminiscemag. It’s a look at life with the sunny side up!

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—John Burlingham at Reminisce

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In this issue:

• Woodcraft Rangers Faced Wilderness and a Ghost
• Picture From the Past
• Stirring Up Memories
• Time Capsule Trivia
• A Thought to Remember

Woodcraft Rangers Faced Wilderness and a Ghost

By Redmond John Shea Jr.
Lafayette, California

When I was about 11 years old and in the fourth grade at Glassell Park Elementary School in Los Angeles, I joined the Woodcraft Rangers, an after-school program. Our theme was Indian lore, and I belonged to the Tawasi tribe, which was made up of four wigwams, mine being the Wagions.

We salt-cured cow hides picked up on a field trip to a Los Angeles meatpacking company, removed the hair and turned the hides into heads for our wooden-nail keg drums. We also used horns from animals to make our own noisy horns.

We learned to start fires using a wooden bow with a heavy cord and a pointed hardwood stick guided by a hollowed-out block. The stick was spun back and forth with the bow in a v-cut inside a dried Yucca plant trunk. This created sparks that caused tinder under the v-cut to burst into flame.

During our weekly meetings at Glassell Park, we learned how to live with Mother Nature, and we did war dances to the beat of the drums we had made.

When we wanted to tell of our good deeds and work done around our homes and neighborhood, we addressed our leader as chief with right hand raised and the middle three fingers held down. That resembled the circle and horns of the Woodcraft Rangers’ emblem.

Every Ranger wore a sash over the right shoulder that displayed plastic feathers earned by doing chores and good deeds. I remember receiving a feather for preparing dinner for one week for my family.

A highlight of my time with the Woodcraft Rangers came in the summer of 1932 when we spent a week at Camp Adahi in the San Gabriel Mountains on Santa Anita Creek.

Our families took Rangers by automobile to the Pacific Electric Redcar Terminal in Los Angeles. The line ended at Rubio Canyon, Altadena. There we boarded a 30-seat car attached to an endless steel cable on the Rubio-Echo Mountain incline railway, which went from an elevation of 2,200 feet to 3,500 feet up Echo Mountain.

An electric trolley, The Mount Lowe Railway, covered the remaining 3.6 miles, traversing 18 trestles and 127 curves to Alpine Tavern on Mount Lowe, elevation 5,000 feet.

Here we strapped on our wooden back racks carrying sleeping bags, a knapsack with food, clothing and swim trunks, plus a mess kit, first-aid materials and fishing gear. We began a six-mile hike to Camp Adahi.

At one point, the trail ran along the face of a cliff. We were told that an old trapper named Hogan, along with his burro, fell to their deaths, and that his spirit sometimes appeared at night at Camp Adahi. Needless to say, our fears were heightened.

The camp was nestled among trees along the creek, and each Ranger found his own sleeping bag site. We cooked our own meals and were able to supplement our food supply with trout from a nearby pond.

We explored and swam during the day, and our evenings were spent storytelling around a campfire. On the final night around the campfire, we heard a rustling and moaning sound in the trees above us. We thought old Hogan’s ghost was finally making its presence known.

There were some believers and some skeptics—including me—as a whitish form flowed high in the trees, moving ever so slowly and finally disappearing into the darkness.

The next morning, I found the clothesline and pulleys that pulled a white sheet across the night sky, which was Hogan’s spirit. My leader told me to keep it to myself, and I did.

We backtracked out of the mountains, arriving back home tired and filled with memories.

I still possess the backpack, horn, sash and feathers, along with other memorabilia, from my time as a Woodcraft Ranger.

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Picture From the Past

By Faril Bea Dickens
St. Louis, Missouri

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This picture was taken in the spring of 1948 near the town of Sullivan, Missouri. The custom for Sullivan High School in those years was to dismiss the senior class the week before graduation for some free time.

Click here to see more Pictures From the Past.

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Stirring Up Memories

Grilled Italian Meatball Burgers

By Jerry Koenig
Chesterfield, Missouri

Six months after immigrating to the United States as a European refugee in 1951, I received my “greeting” from the president and headed for Army basic training. I ate my meals in the mess hall and loved every bite.

The European way of eating is fork in the left hand and knife in the right, neither being laid down during the meal to switch hands. This, of course, is an efficient way to eat but not considered proper American manners.

At one of the mess hall meals, the food tasted exceptionally good and I was devouring every bite without even looking up. I got the feeling that all eyes at the table were on me, and sure enough I looked up to see that everyone had put down their silverware to watch me in perfect silence.

The words of my sergeant still ring in my ears: “Where in the heck did you learn to eat like that?”

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Time Capsule Trivia

Relive some of radio’s daytime soap operas by matching the descriptions with the titles below. Then click on the link below for the answers.

1. An orphan girl from a Colorado mining town marries a titled Englishman.

2. Following the lives of the Barbours of San Francisco and their offspring.

3. A woman fights to prove that women can find love after the age of 35.

4. Deeply involved in the lives of others, a woman manages a lumberyard in Rushville Center.

5. A woman who’d forever made sacrifices sees her daughter marry into wealth and is suddenly alone and left out of her daughter’s newfound world.

The Soaps: A. Ma Perkins. B. Our Gal Sunday. C. Stella Dallas. D. One Man’s Family. E. The Romance of Helen Trent

Click here for the answer to Time Capsule Trivia.

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A Thought to Remember

The ones to get even with are those who have helped you.

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