early diaries

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May 1980: The last of the little red diary

 From the red diary of the little girl who tells the tales in
When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder:  Tales From a Mennonite Childhood.

***
The little red diary ends there and the rest of the diaries begin.
I invite you to continue exploring old diaries with me in my new Diary Experiment which is still incubating and is due to hatch the first week of January 2015.
Hold on to your hat.

***

May 20

Yesterday I was doing a big picture and I needed to color some of it light black and Neil came up to me. He said it was good, and helped me just a little bit. Today our class went to Indian Eco cave. It was really neet! There was lots of flow stone and colores and a pool about 3 to 4 feed deep and a nother pool was 10 feet deep and there was a five foot wishing well. At the suveneer shop I got a small caraseen lamp and a big lolly pop. At last reses I had to stay inside to do my progect. And I was painting and I spilled the blue paint all over me and my new colot dress. My teacher was mad. But mommy wasn’t.

May 27

Today in school we had music class and we had a very crabby music teacher. (She was a substitute.) We had a contest at 4-H last night our teem won we got cowboy hats mine was more of a cowgirl hat, it was pink. I got new sandels today and they’re size 4. A couple of strawberries are ripe but not all of them.

 

img004One of our third grade class projects was to make a book.  The last page was our “about the author” page.  Each of us were photographed in the library with a book and we could write whatever we felt was important for readers to know about us.  At some point I must have ditched the book, but I’m glad I salvaged this!

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May 7, 1980: Ponysitting

Straight from the red diary of the little girl who tells the tales in
When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder:  Tales From a Mennonite Childhood.

May 7, 1980

Yesterday I got a pony his name is Sparckey, but he’s not mine, he’s Julie Hoffer’s. Her mom and dad are going on a trip and Julie and her brother Gary are going to her friends house, so I get to take care of him until they get back. Last night I went to ride Sparckey and he almost threw me off. But he seems to like when I brush and comb him. And when I comb his mane. I took Sparkey for a walk in the medow (he had just been in the crall).

May 9, 1980
Early this morning Matthew’s Grandpa died and when Matthew came to school he looked as if he would cry and when we were about ready to start singing he burst out crying. Today I had my first peano lesson it was fun. I had to do a hard finger exersize and play two songs that were stupid and one neat one.

img023This photo is from a few years later when I am in sixth grade and have my first horse.  Pictured with me are Missy Miller and Karen (Longenecker) Carter.  Dandy met an unhappy fate after he bit me on the leg and sent me into the house crying.

The next post from my Red Diary will be the last one.  The Red Diary ends there and others continue.

I am working on a new diary project to be announced next month and launched at the beginning of 2015.  If you liked this ride, hold onto your hat because the next one is even more fun.

 

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May 4,1980: Too High For the Bugs!

Straight from the red diary of the little girl who tells the tales in
When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder:  Tales From a Mennonite Childhood.
Click the title for the link to buy.

 

May 3, 1980
I was outside almost all day. Roger caught a lamb so I could pet it.

May 4, 1980
This afternoon we hiked up the Gouvener Dick mauntin and we climbed up the tower, I like it on top of the tower because we got all the air the whole way up there and it was too high for the bugs. It was neat!

May 5, 1980
We watched little House on the Prarie. Almonzo said he wanted Laura to be his wife. But Pa said “No.” Almonzo was cross at Pa. Then Almonzo went to Sleepy eye (another town) and later Laura went there when Almonzo was there. We also got our sheep sheered and Oh are they scroney!

 

img05919721972
Daddy and me riding Ringo in the yard

 Get When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder from Amazon.com or if you buy it directly from the publisher, eLectio Publishing, a free e-book comes with the purchase of the paperback.

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April 23, 1980: Neil Hates Me

Straight from the red diary of the little girl who tells the tales in
When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder:  Tales From a Mennonite Childhood.
Click the title for the link to buy.

April 23, 1980
Today our class went in to the H.C Bergard school to hear a conserd. Now I am sure that Neil hates me. But I still like him. I mean it’s just written all over his face that he hates me. We have a unit about bike safety in school, it’s fun.  And tonight I was deid tired, but I still had to do some homework.

April 25, 1980
Yesterday we went to Uncle Earl’s house. We stayed over night so Daddy uncle Earl and Roger could go turkey hunting. My bike is just an itty-bitty little thing and way too small for me but I have to make do with it. Mitchell has a three speed and it’s just a little bit too small for me and it’s just a little bit too big for Mitchell. I had fun on that

May 1, 1980
Bobby L. went to the hostpittle so Karen stayed over night last ngiht. I had a party for Karen Wanda and Yvonne. Karen and Wanda liked the party so they threw dandielions all over me for it. It was a really nice and hot and sunny day then it had to rain. I was really mad! Daddy took us out for ice cream cones. They were good!

img0701979

 1979.
Daddy and his three girls on what was probably a Sunday afternoon: Yvonne on the top, me on the side, Wanda in front, mom behind the camera.

 Get When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder from Amazon.com or if you buy it directly from the publisher, eLectio Publishing, a free e-book comes with the purchase of the paperback.

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April 17, 1980: It’s not fair!

Straight from the red diary of the little girl who tells the tales in
When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder:  Tales From a Mennonite Childhood.
Click the title for the link to buy.

April 17, 1980

Today I was sad and mad because in line I was behind Neil and Karen and I were pretending to fight about who was behind him. And Neil said to us, “One thing, just stay off my back.” And that did it and so from now on I’ll just act normal so Neil doesn’t hate me, and maby some day he’ll change his mind about me. And who says I don’t like him? Well I do like him. I went fishing today. In the evening we played Rook. Daddy won. I don’t think it’s fair that Wanda, Yvonne and Roger can mouth off to mommy and daddy all day and neighthor of them bother to say any thing about it. And after the Roock game I asked If I could have a cookie mommy said “No”.  I asked again if I could have a cookie and I got mommy after me yelling.  I went on my way to the lundry and I said, “Come on you guys!” Then I had mommy and daddy yelling at me. Karen can’t stand to be pushed around a little bit, but she can be yelled at all day, Well I can stand to be pushed around all day, but I can’t stand to be talked mean to or yelled at even just a little bit.

April 21, 1980

Today I got a letter from my penpal on the out side it said Do Not Bend. Inside where 2 post cards from the Neil (drawing of heart) Armstrong museum. Wanda’s cat, Cinnimin had kittens and so did another wild cat. I tried to make a wheel barrel today, but I didn’t get very far.

 

img0671979
1979.
Celebrating my 9th birthday about 4 months before I started keeping this diary.  Around the table clockwise are:  Yvonne, Wanda, Grandma Zimmerman, Mom, Grandpa  Zimmerman, Great Grandpa Horning, Great Grandma Horning and me.  Dad is taking the picture.  You can’t see it all that well, but I am wearing an infamous coloutte skirt with flaps, explained in When the Roll Is Called A Pyonder.

Get When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder from Amazon.com or if you buy it directly from the publisher, eLectio Publishing, a free e-book comes with the purchase of the paperback.

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April 13, 1980: Worm Hunting

Straight from the red diary of the little girl who tells the tales in
When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder:  Tales From a Mennonite Childhood
Get it now by clicking on the title.

April 11, 1980
Today Roger and I got up early and went fishing. It was really good. I moved my pigoens from the top rabbit pen to the empty fox pen  Its alot bigger and  I can sit inside it with them.

April 13, 1980
Today after church and dinner Velda’s came to our house. We had fun! Then Wendall, Reagena, Mell Martains and Carl Zisets came over after supper. Larry, Jeff, John, Sharen and me went to hunt night crallers. They are giant worms that come up out of the dirt and you need a flashlight.  We got a bunch!

April 15, 1980
Today in school we had a substitute her name was Miss Barthold. She wasn’t that mean but she was weard!

img06319741974
Making Christmas cookies with mom and Wanda in the old kitchen.  Looks like peanut blossoms which are still my favorite.

Get When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder from Amazon.com or if you buy it directly from the publisher, eLectio Publishing, you get a free e-book with the purchase of the paperback!

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April 1980: New Pets and a Great Big Bass

Meet the little girl who tells the tales in
When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder:  Tales From a Mennonite Childhood
Get your paper or electronic copy now by clicking on the title.

 

April 8, 1980
Today Daddy and I went to a 4-H Club meating, I signed up for Horse Club.  Neil was there too, but he signed up for Rocketry. We had about 1,000,000 blanks to fill in with all sorts of dumb questions and answers. Mrs. Alen is the leader of Horses. She is our neighbor.

April 9, 1980
I have the pet pigoens Ashes and Charcoal and Vanala.  Ashes and Charcoal are both blue-gray but I can tell them apart because Charcoal has a little bit of white in the very back in between it’s wings (drawing) and Ashes doesn’t.  Vanala is easy to tell apart from the others in fact if someone couldn’t I think there crazy, because Ashes and Charcoal are blue-gray and Vanala is white.

April 10, 1980
Today we only had a haulf a day of school. And so Roger and I went fishing Roger caught a bass 16 inches long (drawing) and 4 inches wide (drawing). The fishing was souper!

 

img003Spring 1980.
This is a trout that I caught in my uncle’s pond.  At 10 years old I was very enamored of fishing!

The book is out, available from Amazon.com or if you buy it directly from the publisher, eLectio Publishing, you get a free e-book with the purchase of the paperback!

(And now let us join in a  rousing rendition of …”When the Roll Is Called A Pyonder!”)

 

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First Days of April 1980: “The Ghost on Saturday Night”

Meet the little girl who narrates
“When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder: Tales From A Mennonite Childhood”
coming next week from eLectio Publishing.

April 2, 1980
Today in school I was sitting in my seat doing my work and Neil came up to me holding a book and said “Do you like books?”  And I said “yes.”  And he layed a book on my desk and told me I could read it, it was called The Ghost On Saturday Night.  I said I would take it.

April 3, 1980
Today we didn’t have any school.  So we went to Grandma Zimmerman’s house all day.  I rode her Big wheel and I played with a thing that looked like this (in the journal follow three attempts I made to draw it).  And you hit the bottem up and a ball poped out like this (another drawing)  I got 100 caches and 6 misses.

 April 4, 1980
Today in the morning I heped mommy clean.  Then mommy boiled 12 eggs and we colored them.  We boiled them so the colors dind’t run.   We hid them then.  It was fun.

 img008about 1975
Our mom would pack “picnic” lunches for Wanda (left) and me (right) in paper bags from the drugstore and we could eat them where ever we wanted.  It looks like time we are in the living room on the floor beside the couch, pre-carpet era.

 

Read an preview of the When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder: Tales From A Mennonite Childhood at http://www.mennonitewriting.org/journal/6/2/when-roll-called-pyonder-preview/

More diary entries and a new old picture next week…

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March 29, 1980: Easter Eggs, Yvonne’s Birthday and More Unrequited Love

 Meet the little girl who narrates
“When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder: Tales From A Mennonite Childhood”
coming in two weeks from eLectio Publishing.

March 29, 1980
Tonight we went to Bob Brubaker’s house his boy Bobby is in my school class Bobby’s big sister is in 4th grade she is the most beauitiful and mannerly and creative and kind person I ever saw. Her name is Karen. We had loads of fun we colored Easter eggs when they where boiling hot. Karen’s mother boiled the eggs then she boiled thee eggs in inion leaves they got a pretty rust color. Bobby didn’t feel good tonight.

April 1, 1980
Today I felt so bad becaous Kristen Hope asked Neil if he liked me and he said “Who do you think I am? I don’t like the kid hardly.” Yvonne got her birthday presents a day eairly I gave her a coloring book crayons 4 marbles and a little piece of my tablet. Yvonne got a Big Wheel from Mommy and Daddy. I am going to go to 4-H this summer I am going to tak Horses and Pet Care.

 

img07119801980
Left to right:  Yvonne, Wanda and me coloring Easter eggs that year in the kitchen. 

Read an preview of the When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder: Tales From A Mennonite Childhood at http://www.mennonitewriting.org/journal/6/2/when-roll-called-pyonder-preview/

More diary entries and a new old picture coming each week through September…

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March 25, 1980: Of Mice and Haley’s Comet

 Preparing for the release NEXT MONTH of
“When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder: Tales From A Mennonite Childhood”

March 25, 1980
Today after school I went to Kristen’s house to play. We went out side and David (Kristen’s little brother) started following us. Kristen said “David you’d better not be following us.”  David said he wasn’t, but he was! We knew it too. So we where running away from him in their pinetrees. Then Kristen had to go to bathroom. I hid in the grain room of the chicken house. I saw 3 mice one I saw once and another one I saw 5 times. Then we went and layed on her bed and talked about the boys we like. It was fun.

March 28, 1980
Today in school at work time I did a bunch of reading work book pages 3 math sheets 1 spelling book page 2 handwriting pages and one S.R.A. story. We saw a film it was about Hershey’s Choloclate, from cocoa bean pod in Nigira to candy in our stores in the U.S.A.  My teacher said we could pick what we wanted from a bunch of things one was Meteorites and Metores and another Comets. I had trouble deciding on the two, finly I decied on Comets. I learned a lot. Halley’s Comet can be seen every 75 to 77 years the last time was in 1910 the next time will be 1985 to 1987. A comet’s tail has gases around it, when it goes past the sun the tail get more gases the radetion of the sun makes the whole tail glow with light we can see it from hear. I gave Neil a school picture of me.

thrid grade

The school picture that ungrateful Neil got from me would have been this one:
Third grade, 1980

Read an preview of the When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder: Tales From A Mennonite Childhood at http://www.mennonitewriting.org/journal/6/2/when-roll-called-pyonder-preview/

 

More diary entries and a new old picture coming next week…

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March 20, 1980: A Pet Rock Named Neil

Preparing for the August 2014 release of “When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder: Tales From A Mennonite Childhood”

March 20, 1980

Today after school I went out in the medow and followed 3 streams then one more that run from someone else’s property, that was 4 creeks running together like this. (map) Three of them made a small pond and part of it was swampy. I got a stone from the creek to be my pet rock. I named it Neil. It was very muddy! And when I steped close to the little pond to wash it off, I sunk in to the mud almost to my knee, I tried to pull it out, and I sat right down in the mud. I got up quickly and got my foot out, but then my other foot got stuck. I pulled it out and stood some plase else to wash off Neil.

March 23, 1980

Today I helped daddy in the chicken house. I made a secret hide out behind some hey bals, it’s neat! I menshind to daddy I wanted a pigin bad! So tonight daddy and I went pigin hunting. He got me one. When I went in to show Mommy daddy caught me two more two are gray-blue one is white with brown spots on it’s head and wings. I named the one gray-blue one Charcole and the white one I named Vanalla but I didn’t deside a name for the other gray-blue one.

img0641976

1976
Me with my kitten Cutie and Wanda with Andrew, hers piously named after the pastor at church.
Find out about Andrew’s (the kitty, not the pastor) grisly fate next month in “When the Roll Is Called a Pyonder.”

 

Read an preview of the When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder: Tales From A Mennonite Childhood at http://www.mennonitewriting.org/journal/6/2/when-roll-called-pyonder-preview/

More diary entries and a new old picture coming next week…

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March 15, 1980: Sledding and A Secret Clubhouse

Preparing for the August 2014 release of “When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder”, a memoir of a Mennonite early childhood

March 15, 1980

Today I went outside to play in the snow again it was a lot better sledding. I went down the hill got to the bottem hit the bump flew up in the air came down again hit another bump and smack right into a wire fence! Then I stopped.

March 16, 1980

This past week we had revivle meetings at our church. Roy Kizer was the Evanglist. Today I made Wanda a butten neckless for her birthday. We have a club Kristen and Emily and I, called a DYNAMITE club. We have a clubhouse in the barn and no one else can go there. I have 12 penpals.

March 17, 1980

Today I helped daddy in the chicken house. We wached Little House on the Praire Laura got a test on history but Nellie hadn’t given her the history book, she got mad and threw Nellie in the muddy water, they both got very muddy. Almonzo came and resqued Laura, Laura went to Almonzo’s house. Pa came and gave Almonzo two good punches.

img0651976

1976
Wanda and me monkeying around with our tired Daddy
in the farmhouse kitchen before the remodel.

 

Read an preview of the When The Roll Is Called A Pyonder at http://www.mennonitewriting.org/journal/6/2/when-roll-called-pyonder-preview/

More diary entries and a new old picture coming next week…