Bitely Lake

Just some photos of Mom and Duffy at Bitely Lake. I think this picture was taken after Dad passed away. I think Mom went a few more times to the lake after he passed. Here Mom is carrying Duffy into the water since he would not go willingly. Do you folks remember Bitely? I do not think Thom was ever there, and I am not sure if Marie visited when Mom and Dad rented the place.

As you can see in the next photo, the place was not that fancy. It was a cinder block cabin with a distinctive moldy smell about it. The owners tried to keep it clean, and I think they figured renters would probably spend more time in the lake than in the cabin. I remember one time there was a septic drain field problem and we had to use the toilet sparingly. Remember the tether ball pole in the back yard?

In the second picture, notice Duffy far ahead of Mom in getting out of the water. On the shore, a towel is hanging on some bushes next to the lake. I am not sure why anyone who had a place on the lake would allow bushes to block their view of the lake. Well, maybe the reason was those bushes produced huge blueberries! I remember one time Mom made pancakes with them. Mmmm, good!
The lake was nice but very small. Vicki, the boys, and I rented the cabin a couple of times and we had Mom stay with us. One time, the cabin was not available and we actually rented the place next door. That one had all the smells of this cabin, but was not as "nice" of a place to stay. I also remember the place (I hesitate to call it a "cabin") next door on the other side was very nice and well kept, and people lived there year 'round.

Tongue-Rolling Competition?

I did not realize I had this picture of Mom, Dad, and David. We figure this picture was probably taken in the summer of 1986 when David was about 1 1/2 years old. That would make Mom 65 and Dad 69. Dad may have just retired, I am not sure. This picture was taken in our kitchen in Minnesota. It looks like grandma and grandpa were talking to David about how you can roll your tongue. Mom and Dad made it out several summers, probably 9 out of the 12 years we lived there.

Notice the wok on top of the refrigerator? It was going out of style by that time and we only had it for another 10 years or so :-)

I think that same summer, we all went to some tourist areas in the Twin Cities. The next picture is another good one we have of Mom and Dad. I think it was taken at Minnehaha Falls.

When things got hot, we would just take a dip in our pool shown in the next picture. I am holding a video camera that weighed about 10 pounds! You know, the kind that generated a VHS tape directly. All I can say is I am glad the lawn chair in front of me was mostly blocking the shorts I was wearing! I probably should have used Photo Shop to fix that part of the picture up.


The last picture I believe is on the same trip and is at Como Park in St. Paul. I thought this photo was cute because David was wearing grandpa's hat.

More Family Cars

The first beetle I remember dad getting was tan like this one...early 60's but I think he got it used. Then he got the red one that Lou ended up with. What he failed to mention in his post is that he didn't make me duck down when all of his friends went by, just the female ones. When he "sold" Lou the red bug, I remember he went shopping for a new one. Because I was just learning how to drive and thought this next car would be mine someday, I asked that dad get a light blue one. I specifically said that it really didn't matter as long as it wasn't that bright orange. He came home that day and said that there were three orange ones on the lot and no other color. Disappointed, I said, "Well, a car is a car." To which he replied, I got your blue but it cost me extra and I have to wait for three days. I still have the Volkswagen metal sign from the trunk hood (in the back). When I sold it to Randy Brown in 1982, you could make like Fred Flinstone in that car because the floorboards had completely rusted through. The floor mats were the only thing between you and the road. I also always loved the defrost system that consisted of wiping the windshield with your hands. Not to mention the heating system that would burn your left foot while the rest of your body froze. Ahh...good times.

Family Cars

Now I am sure everyone can remember our family cars! These are obviously NOT photos that I took; I had to download them from Google Images. But some of them are close. The first one shown is the Dodge Lancer. I am not real certain of the model year we had, but I think it was a '62. It was indeed white. The reason I remember that car so well is I used to LOVE sitting in the car when it was in the driveway and shifting the gears. That's right, it had a 3-speed manual shift on the floor. The only mishap I had with the car was well before I was driving. One time when it was parked slightly down the driveway a bit, you know the part where there was a slight decline toward the street? Well one time when I was done with my "driving", I got out of the car and went into the house, probably to watch TV or something else. Then I remember hearing a horn honking impatiently. Either Mom or, more likely Dad, looked out the front door to see the Lancer in the middle of the street! I had left it in neutral after I got out and it slowly rolled into the middle of the street! I am just glad it didn't run over anyone or hit anything.


Then probably around the same time we had the Anglia. All I remember about the Anglia was that Thom got in some kind of accident with it where the mirror hit a mailbox or something on some kind of dirt road. I hope Thom can comment on the details. Then some time later, Dad was trying to sell the car and Kermit Buck was interested in buying it, but he thought Dad was asking too much for it.


And I am sure several of us remember the DeSoto. To this day, I cannot remember if it was a Dodge or a Plymouth, but I think it was an early 50's model. I think that is the famous vehicle that hit the rock when the brakes failed as Mom was driving. But much like a battleship hitting a few chunks of ice in the ocean, the DeSoto showed little damage after the accident. The picture shown here is just a ad photo, but I remember the car being like a barge: huge, heavy, flat, and slow to turn.

Then finally, the car that was to become my first car - a 1968 VW Beetle. This photo is not downloaded from Google, but rather was taken of an actual 1/32 scale metal car (of a '67) Linda gave me for something (birthday, Christmas, I'm not sure). And although it is not very visible in the picture, Linda has paper cutout figures in the front seats: me in the drivers seat, and her in the passenger seat. The cutout of her actually folds down in the seat to represent the times I ordered her to duck down whenever I drove past any of my friends. I absolutely could NOT be seen driving around with my SISTER in the car!

What was the price of gasoline back then? I remember working at Squeak's Standard Service station and selling gasoline for 19.9 cents per gallon. And that's where WE pumped the gas for the customer and cleaned their windshield. Of course, back then I think a VW Beetle new only cost a couple thousand dollars.

I drove the VW until I sold it sometime about 1975 or '76 for a couple hundred dollars. A few weeks after I sold it, the girl who bought it rolled it in a ditch and it was totalled. They said the underside was so rusted out, it probably would have fallen apart somewhere anyway. Oh well, it was a nice memory for me!

Dad's Coin Purse

One of the oldest memories I have of Dad is him carrying his coin purse. I found myself carrying one in my early teen years as well, probably to be like him. But when it was not in his pocket, do you remember where Dad kept his coin purse? Yep, that's right, in "The Val Tray". Do you remember that thing? I guess that's where he put all the stuff that was in his pocket when he took his pants off. Let's see, that would be his wallet, comb (see comment later on that), small pocket knife, and his "Key Wallet" or whatever that folding leather-like thing was called that had about 20 of his keys.

I remember he used to carry that leather thing that had a metal comb, a nail file, and a nail clipper in it. I remember he asked me if I could make him another one after his had finally fallen apart. I was not able to. I should check and see if I still have his old one down in my box of leather stuff.

Linda, I know you have a coin purse much like mine shown here in the picture. I saw it when I was at your house a few days ago. This coin purse is not the original one I got from Dad, and I am not sure where I got it. It now sits in my closet and just holds loose change I have in my pockets. It was so full of change it caused the leather to stretch in an open position so it has a hard time closing. I never noticed Dad's coin purse bulging, but then again, he probably converted a dollar's worth of change to a dollar bill whenever he could since it was more efficient to carry!

Calkins Family Christmas 2008

Megan, Jessica, Maddox, Larry, Linda, Laurel, Bill, Marie, Jason, Vicki, Jonathan, Lou, Chris, Ryan and Shannon