A YEAR OF PLAY chapter 171

Several in the church felt sorry for our need to have boarders and the church raised our salary by the amount the boarders paid to deliver Della from that burden What a great gift for her. We both appreciated it.

Canadians began to arrive now that we had room to house them. We loved having them. It specially gave Della a connection with old friends. I wasn’t always available. Since all of our guests visited Disneyland during their stay, we were always left with a few ride tickets when they left. In those days ride tickets were lettered. The best rides were “E” tickets. We didn’t get very many of those, but there were always plenty of tickets for the less exciting rides. That was fine. Our kids were preschoolers and they loved all of them. We had so many of those we couldn’t use them all. Near the end of out stay we treated them to the big, fast rides. I’m glad we didn’t do that sooner. They liked those the best.

We got into Disney many times on someone else’s dime. Some guests paid our way. People from the church passed us their company party tickets and we went both years to the Greater Los Angeles Christian Education Disney party. All I remember is that we were there a lot.

Our neighbors were an older couple who both worked at Knott’s Berry Farm. That company held a party for their employees every year. All the food and drinks were free. The big wigs ran the rides and served the food while the grunts had a great time. In out last year, the neighbors could not go and they gave us four tickets. Take the kids or not? Big decision. We got a babysitter and called high school friends Tom and Betty Chase  who lived near and spend the evening on the log ride (at least 20 times) and drinking Boysenberry juice. Loved that stuff. We would get off the log ride and turn right around and get back on again. In the seventies it was the best ride they had.

There was more than deer at Deer Park

Also Deer Park. Della's mother is nearly cut off on the far left.
You can see deer in the back.

Faith gave our family season tickets to Deer Park. It was a very nice, kid friendly park near our house. Della often took the kids. There was a petting zoo with deer; a porpoise show and plenty for the kids to do including staff led crafts for the kids. They would have been content to go there everyday. Repetition – preschoolers love it.

Knott's Jungle Island

We managed to squeeze in a few visits to Knott’s Jungle Island. There were no rides, but plenty of places to explore for kids. Since we passed that entrance when going to feed the ducks and ride the merry-go-round the kids always asked to go there.

We ate many a meal at Mrs. Knott’s country fried chicken kitchen. Loved that meal. We went a few times with people from the church and also with several of our visitors.

Della and the kids fell in love with tacos while in the area. We had never had Mexican food of any kind before. There was a Taco Time near us that was walking distance. The hard part was getting across Lincoln Blvd.

Jungle Island

I wish I still had our blessing book. It would be fun to count up how often we went to tourist attractions and ate at great restaurants. It was clearly enough to feel like we were on vacation.

We could drive straight down Beach Blvd. to be at Huntington Beach. The kids loved playing in the sand at ocean. Our last summer there we decided we Rodney would take swimming lessons. There was a pool near by so we took him over thinking he would love it. Wrong. He hated it and screamed bloody murder the first day. By the second day he was fine.

Jungle Island

We knew he could scream. He had just begun a temper tantrum phase. We were in a large clothing store the first time Rod pulled that stunt on us. He wanted to have some item he saw. We said no. He screamed. We walked away. When he noticed we were not around he stopped screaming. When he stopped we went back to him. “Where did you go?” he said. We left because you were screaming. “Oh!” He never did it again.

However, he did scare us dreadfully while at a large mall. We were in a Hallmark Store where he sat on the floor to read some books. We were right beside him looking at cards. When we turned back toward him he was gone. We panicked. We could not find him in or near the store. We contacted security to get all the help we could. People were looking everywhere. We had no idea where to look and naturally feared the worse. About 40 minutes later I thought maybe we should check where we parked the car. There he was leaning against the car waiting for us. “I couldn’t find you so I came to the car to wait.” All we did was hug him with thanks that he was safe and found.