Chapter 6 



Tim 3:

One of my fondest memories was a dinner in DC with "Wieb’s clan" with my dad in attendance. Johnnie picked us up and brought us to the house, which begs the question, "Did Wieb every work as a DC taxi driver?"


Cindy 2:

Speaking of horses, I remember one summer we came out to visit and Andy let us ride. We’d been to riding camp and were feeling pretty secure in our skills. I don’t remember the name of the horse he gave me, but he did tell me that he was 18 y.o. and that I shouldn’t run him too much. I thought I was in for a quiet, perhaps boring, ride through the fields. Apparently, nobody informed this horse of the rules and as soon as we left for our ride he took off and it was all I could do to stay on. Once I got used to the idea, I relaxed and had some fun (I think it was my first gallop) and enjoyed one of the most memorable rides of my life. This would’ve been the early-mid ‘70s if someone wants to figure out who the horses were.


Jim 5:

Cindy,

I recall your adventure on the horse, but for the life of me, I can’t remember which horse you might have been on. Andy had another horse (or, two?) that came along after I went away to college. I seem to be a little foggy on the details.


Dan 12:

Cindy,

You were riding a horse named "Shorty". I know because the very same kind of ride happened to me and the adventure was one of Andy’s favorite stories. He witnessed Shorty doing things that most horses aren’t suppose to be able to do. I got the ride of my life in the pasture due west of the coral.... as Shorty came around towards the chicken house, I thought he was going to run right through it, when suddenly he made a sharp right toward the barn - over the ditch pipe and right "through" those big ol’ willows............... yeeeeee ha! I felt like we were lost in Africa for a couple of seconds! When we came out of the willows, the first thing I saw was Andy’s face. His eyes were opened wide as if he was wondering how I stayed aboard. Shorty took me around to the coral gate, went in and stopped. I got off and that’s all I remember except for Andy’s subsequent stories which were all very accurate. I don’t think I’ve ridden since... I think that was around the time I took an interest in motorcycles... a much more predictable source of entertainment - as far as I was concerned.

——

Tim,

Did Abigail give you permission to call Johnny ‘Wieb’?!!! Just checking. I know it’s hard to spell Johnny (sp), but that’s no excuse to steal the name that Abigail uses.... just kidding. Your DC story reminded me of the time when I helped Jimmy move out to San Francisco in the summer of 1965 and we visited Johnny. I remember we had a hard time finding his house. It was located right in the busy hills of downtown San Francisco - right next to a shoe repair shop. Anyone could have missed his front entrance, because all it consisted of was a fence with a rope hanging out of a hole with a note that said "Pull rope hard". So we pulled and waited a minute or two and up showed Johnny. We entered through a cedar gate where upon I couldn’t believe what I was seeing... He had to have lived in the only jungle in the downtown area of San Francisco. It was amazing!

We weaved our way up through this jungle about 40-50 yards to his house. Johnny, do you have any pictures of this place? Words can’t describe it. Do you still have the old tennis shoes that were hanging on the wall? They reminded me of some shoes that I saw your Dad (Uncle John) wearing once... great shoes!!

Ok... back to why Tim’s story reminded me of this one because it was something you said Johnny. You said before you left San Francisco, you wanted to drive your little sports car ‘up’ Lombard Street... for those of you that aren’t familiar - Lombard Street is a one way ride ‘down’ the steepest street in San Francisco - so steep that it was designed in a snake-like fashion. Johnny, did you ever accomplish this trek? I’ve always wondered.

All right Tim, I take it that you don’t like the idea I had about me telling ‘the mud in the pants rope story’ and you get stuck telling ‘the sand in the toilet story’. Do you want to switch? This could be interesting. By the way, do you remember Maudie’s favorite story? I’ll give you the punch line and I’ll let you tell it, if you can remember how it goes. "Can I have a cookie?" Hint.... the Wiebensons’ dog ‘Tillie’ had a part in the story and a bigger hint is.. so did you!

P.S. Is Joanie there/here/reading her mail? - I have a story for you, but you have to ‘respond-see-vou-play’ first.

P.P.S. Hi Johnny! How is Sam doing? Hi Abigail.


Carla 2:

Hi, All!

Let me try once more to add Mary Wiebenson Gilland at Grandmary5@Yahoo.com to this list, as the first try didn't work. She indicates she cannot remember any "dirt" about the activities down at the southern end of Junglewood, so it really is safe! And I am hard-put to keep resending all of this to her!

Soon I will add some of my remembrances, but am so enjoying all of yours!

Cheers!


Benj 4:

This is a reply to a story by Jimmy and one by Kenny:

About Beechee Dunham - boy, did you make me laugh when I read that memory, "When Beechee would see a pretty girl, he'd cup his hands around his eyes like binoculars and say 'Jiggity-jig, babe!'". I laughed for 10 minutes after I read that one! Boy - what a great memory you have! How do you remember these things? Beechee said it all the time, because it got such a laugh response from everyone. Beechee also had a habit of making a terrible noise with his mouth anytime someone passed gas. I'm really surprised how some of you guys remember things that I've totally spaced out! Didn't Patsy have a "crush" on Beechee Dunham at one time?

Well - keep those stories coming. There's enough good material here for someone to try and write a book entitled, "Tales of Junglewood"! Any takers?

PS - I haven't seen any emails from Billy. What's the story on Billy? He's on our email list... I'm surprised he hasn't contributed a few memories of his own.


Susie 1:

Kenny,

Hi, there this is cousin Susie. I think these Junglewood Stories are just great. I understand from Danny that you have composed them all into a Word Document which is great. Can you do me a favor. I am not so computer wizard as are some members of this family and it came to my attention this weekend when I was at Scott and Michelle's graduation party for Scott that Michelle is not on the list to receive the Junglewood stories. Can you send her the documentation so she can have all of what has been sent out to everyone. Here is her e-mail address: bennymichelle@uswest.net I know she will really appreciate them. We also talked about another family reunion. so much has happened in the 10 years since the first one. But that will come later. I am working on a bulletin to everyone about the idea and we want to get a committee together.

Well, I have to get going. Keep up the great work on the stories. I hope to remember something I did that was sorta funny so I can submit it and maybe more. Take care.


Jim 6:

I've been trying so hard to remember Hill family names, and viola! I think I just remembered all of them -- please correct me if I'm wrong. There were Marilyn (the oldest around Patsy's age), Sherry (between Billy and me), Huck (probably around Tommy's age), and ... the youngest (and maybe somebody Kenny remembers here because I think she was around his age.) ... Gosie! The parents were Ruth Ann (Mom's good friend) and Art. They lived on the south side of Quincy across from Junglewood. I can remember riding the horses over in their pasture and coral. We had a black 1941 Cadillac that Dad bought from Art. Somehow, there are TWO identical black 1941 Cadillac sedans in my memory. The second one on the scene came from Art. I don't know where the first one came from.
Has anyone heard from any of the Hills?


Patsy 2:

There were the 3 Hill girls which Jim mentioned. Mom first met Ruthann in the maternity ward at St. Joe's. Then there were 3 younger boys: Huck, Joe and Chris. Ruthann finally understood why living rooms appeared to be boys' gymnasiums.


Jim 7:

I guess my memory isn't as good as I thought it was. I forgot about Joe and Chris. Way to go, Pats!


Dick 12:

Gosie is older than Huck I think and Huck is between me and Danny. Huck's little brother was/is Chris. So I guess that means there were 5 kids. Danny - do you remember Chris? 


Benj 5:

Jim, 

You're right about the Hill family names, as far as I'm concerned. 

As far as the black Cadillacs are concerned, my memory is not much better than yours. I don't know where Dad got the 1st black Cadillac - perhaps Patsy might remember. Anyway, your mentioning the black Cadillac touched off another memory about the '41 Cadillac Dad owned. (Didn't Dad finally give this black Cadillac to Art? I think so, as Art was quite a car buff and especially loved the black Cadillacs.) 

It must have been shortly after I got my driver's license - the summer of 1955. I had been over to visit someone in Littleton with the black 1941 Cadillac and was on my way home. I used the then gravel road that passed by the rear of the Junglewood property and continued on through to Kipling, I think. Anyway, I was coming home through "Bow Mar" heading northwest. There was about a 90 degree "bend" to the west on this road. As you curved around this bend, the road dropped down about 20 feet or so and straightened out and headed toward the rear of Junglewood property. Anyway - as I was coming home that particular day - it seems I was going a bit too fast going around this curve with the Cadillac. All I remember is the Cadillac started swerving out of control. The next thing I knew I was in the passenger seat trying to steer the car. I headed south across the dirt highway - almost hit a fence and then swerved back north across the dirt highway and ploughed into a barbed wire fence and finally stopped. I was quite pale and upset at the time... 

What really topped this little story off was that Ruth Ann Hill was coming the other direction in her car - saw the whole thing, and stopped to see if I was OK. (Her face was pale white as snow!) I was OK - and I begged her not to tell Dad or Mom what I did. What was really lucky is that there was no serious visible damage to the Cadillac - other than some minor scrapes on the front fenders from the barbed wire - and dust all over it everywhere! As I recall, it took me about 10 minutes rocking the car back and forth before I got it out of the deep dirt and weeds. It took another 10 minutes to dust it off - and finally drive home. I finally confided my "scary" experience to Mom, since she brought it up to me explaining that Ruth Ann Hill had told her about it. Mom simply said, "I hope you learned a lesson about not driving too fast!" Ruth Ann Hill apparently filled Mom in on the details later as Mom said Ruth Ann had told her. Ruth Ann Hill felt very obligated to Mom as they were such close friends back then. Fortunately, I don't think Mom ever told Dad - as he never mentioned it. Whew! I would have been spanked good and grounded for at least a month! (Anyone wanna talk about Dad's spankings? Not me...!!) 


Jim 8:

Hey Pete -- Does Ginny ("Noop") have an email address? Is she still living in New Orleans? She might have some interesting tales for us and I'm sure she'd enjoy reading this collection. Let me know and I'll add her on the list.


Tom 3:

All right - whoever asked for this:

Let me see if I can remember ....

Sung to the tune of "Midnight Special"
Well, you wake up in the mornin'
Hear that 'larm clock ring
Go down to the greeeeeeenhouse
It's the same d**n thing

REFRAIN:
OH, dem disbuddin' blues
Shine some light on me
Oh, you big bud specials......
Shine some ever lovin' light on me.

Well I get down to the greenhouse
Dang, I'm late again
Andy says no break today
You got to finish 9 and 10!!

(REFRAIN)

Well, here I'm in number niiiiiine,
Boy the time goes slow,
My back is breakin up,
I cain't do 'dis no moe....

(REFRAIN)

Ok, all you folks out there
You think this is fun?
Why don't you make up your own lines
And we'll give this song a real run.