Wild Tiger Lilly on Flower expedition lead by Del.

Flower hunting group with Del in the front and center.

I'm in the purple jacket wearing a white cap to the rear right.

Why I'm alive today I don't know, but I did all the things kids are not supposed to do today and survived. Me and the neighbor boy, were pals.

To begin with...

I slept in a crib in my parents room until I was 3 years old. When my little sister came along, I moved onto the back porch with my older sister in a bunk bed. Even though I had to leave the crib, I remember leaving my bite marks on the painted enamel bars. No doubt the lead based paint didn't cause too much damage... or did it?

I was 4 years old when I was dancing and twirling around in our small living room. I lost my balance and ran my hand and fist through the window. I was bleeding profusely from my wrist. My mother wrapped up my wrist and my 14 year old brother, Bill... placed me on his bicycle and told me to hang on to his belt with my good hand. Without sitting down, my brother bicycled me to Dr. Asmundson's clinic. As my wrist and hand received its stitches my brother fainted and slumped down into a lump on the floor. We went home the same way we got there, with my hand all bandaged and stitched, while I hung on to my brother's belt as he peddled me home on his bike.

We definitely drank out of the garden hose, because that's what our Dad showed us to do. The neighbor boy and I would build dams in the OPEN sewer ditch at the border of our lot along side a dairy field that mingled with the cow manure. I brought my Mom home a perfectly good "used balloon" I found in the ditch one day, to my Mother's horror.

One night a rat presented his head in our toilet bowl doing his own expedition of Enumclaw's early sewer system. I can still hear my mother's screams!

My little sister and I would ride on top our family’s car luggage rack to help our dad spot deer at dusk when he drove us up into the woods for early scouting before hunting season. When I wanted to drive, he'd put me in his lap and I would DRIVE, except my feet couldn't touch the peddles yet. I would "drive" to the garbage dump in my Dad's lap to get rid of our trash and I was allowed to go outside and look for RATS! This was long before the more civil (and boring) transfer stations.

Sometimes Dad would take his 22 rifle and he'd let me shoot at the rats. I have that 22 rifle today and it's a collector's item. I'm an excellent shot with it. It's as light as a feather and a beauty.

95% of the time we were never far enough away that we couldn't hear the call of my mother's voice who was a stay-at-home Mom. If we were too far away, I always made sure to bring her home a handful of wild daisy's to calm down her worry. Sometimes it worked. The Hampton's dairy field yielded daisies, hay bales for forts and tractor rides from Mr. Hampton. Every now and then Mr. Hampton would send us a warm gallon of milk, fresh out of one of his cows. There was no pasteurization of course. Thick cream would rise to the top of the glass, gallon jug at least 3 inches thick. Mom would make the most heavenly whipped cream from it.

The neighborhood boy and I discovered that one of Mr. Hampton's dairy cows was very friendly. I convinced my friend to give me a boost up on the cows back and luckily she stood there and grazed while I proudly and bravely proved I could conquer a wild beast. We named her "Nature Cow". I chuckle to myself embracing that innocent memory. Everything was an adventure to us.

In late summer, we'd climb our large cherry tree, plant ourselves on a sturdy branch and proceed to have cherry fights. Wearing a white tee-shirt was most beneficial to detect the hits and was no doubt the precursor to the early paint-ball sport. The only tree incident was when my older sister fell out of Mr. Muth's cotton wood tree trying to capture our parakeet that had escaped his cage on a warm summer day. She fell nearly 30 feet and broke her back in 3 places. I was only around 6 years old, but I remember the fire truck and ambulance arriving and taking her away. Today her back bothers her now and then, but she grew into an amazing woman and has 2 wonderful grown children of her own.

I remember when I would steal my mother's cigarettes and dare the neighbor boy to try one, but he always refused as I demonstrated how it was done. We were at least the mature ages of 8 and 9 years old. It was then I learned it never paid to lie to your mother, because she did have eyes in the back of her head. I'm glad I learned this at an early age.

I did get my first BB gun at 10 years of age at the Firestone Hardware store in Enumclaw. It's now where The Salt Shaker is. I saw the BB gun behind the cashiers stand one day with my Dad. I know I heard the same glorious music in my head that "Ralphie" did in A Christmas Story when I first laid eyes on it.  I saved up and bought it myself with a note from my mother. She didn't drive, so I rode my bike into town and made my first independent purchase despite the sideways, skeptical look of the cashier. 

I'd play catch with my friend's baseball and fortunately he had baseball mitts that I could use. We'd take turns pitching and hitting pop-fly balls to each other. For a girl, I got to be pretty good and wasn't afraid to have a speeding baseball zoom toward my head. I'd simply catch it in the provided mitt that fit my hand perfectly. It was such a satisfying skill for me to do well. I had become a fearless tomboy.

By 11 years of age, the neighbor boy and I would ride several miles from home to Newwakum Creek and catch giant brown frogs. Even though we wore barn boots up to our knees we always came home soaking wet up to our arm pits. Getting wet was part of the deal. One time we scooped up a freshwater crawfish and we new we had barely missed loosing our lives from being stung by a deadly scorpion! I'll never forget that rush of danger and our screams of excitement.

Sometimes we'd take a swim in a giant mud puddle located in a private gravel pit across the Hampton's dairy field from my house. Of course there was a No Trespassing sign on the property, but that couldn't have been meant for us. Jean "cutoffs" and tea shirts were our swim suits. At 10 and 11 we were the Indiana Jones' of the neighborhood. Once we saw a giant dead snake floating in that same water, so we agreed we probably shouldn't swim in it any more. You see, we were capable of making some sound decisions. We then decided to start catching and releasing snakes for fun.

We'd follow construction crews around on our bicycles and watch them lay giant drain pipe throughout town. The neighbor boy and I could pretty much name all the crew members by name and by 11 years of age I suddenly had my first crush on a young man who would wink at me with a shovel in his hands. His name was Jim and it was then I realized I wasn't as much of a tomboy I thought I was. Young crushes really do happen, complete with innocence and daydreams that never come to fruition...which is a good thing at the tender age of 11 years.

Reading comic books by flashlight and eating popcorn, we'd sleep outside in our sleeping bags in the middle of our adjoining yards or Mr. Hampton's freshly mown hay field and watch for UFOs. Of course we saw many. On some nights we'd count shooting stars and gasp at the brightest that would streak across the sky. I'll never forget the warm summer night when we could see heat lightening on the horizon and figured that the aliens had begun their attack. Waking up with our dogs next to us and our hair wet with morning dew was the end of our alien scouting adventure for the night. It was then on to the next discovery on our bicycles.

I was never "walked" to school, but my Mom always waved to me from our living room’s window until I was out of sight. She was always at that window, just like she was yesterday at 87 years of age, when I dropped her off back at her apartment after we had gone grocery shopping.

Growing up, we lived on the border of Clover Crest so I had several large blocks to travel. I walked to kindergarten by myself from our house. Beginning at 1st grade I rode my bicycle to school every day until Junior High. Sometimes Christine Walden would come out and say hi to me as I walked by her house. Her husband, Les Walden was already at work, preparing his band class for its next lesson. In the 60's it wasn't cool for a girl to ride her bike to school. I was really bummed. My bike was part of me. It was a hand-me-down from my older sister. (One speed!) The walk to school did give me time to create a great excuse as to why I hadn't finished my homework.

I believe it was in 6th grade, being influenced by countless Lawrence Welk episodes and a wonderful music teacher by the name of Joann Torgrum, I began focusing an an untested, natural draw to music and singing. I was both a tomboy and a girl. I felt like I could do anything! By my Junior High and High School years, music had become like breathing to me and I’d anticipate our concerts and special performances eagerly, mostly due to the passion our director Bob Estby would instill in us.

The neighbor boy and I parted while I became a young lady interested in music and my small group of girlfriends. The neighbor boy who shared my most treasured parts of my childhood grew into a successful athlete in school while bringing down straight A’s. He went on to college, graduating with honors and getting his masters in Architecture Design. He has taught as an associate Professor in Moscow University in Idaho. He has traveled Europe and slept overnight at Stonehenge. He has drawn the inside of cathedrals and ancient sights with such precision that it takes your breath away. His photography takes you to places you'd never been and stirs your imagination with light and shadows. He has led many student groups into the high Cascades on nature walks and taught secrets that only the wisest of Native American scouts could offer. He has mined quartz crystals and gone on archeological digs. He is responsible for leading a private conservation group that prevented a well known lumber company from logging off an exquisite area of old growth timber in the Cascades because a certain specie of rare frog existed only in that location. He is one of the finest human beings I know and he is once again my brother in spirit, nature and art. His stain glass work is exquisite. He is a gentle giant of a man who loves mother earth with a passion. He enjoys taking his friends wild flower hunting in the summer up in the Cascades. He was the best part of my childhood. He is soft spoken and very polite. He is my friend now, and my past then. He is Del Sonneson... a brilliant and wonderful man.