Seasons and Memories: An Autobiography Full of Seasonal Memoirs

By Stanley Evans Abbott

My autobiography begins in 1939. It illustrates a rather exciting journey. However, writing this in my seventies, some events and parts of my life have been forgotten or just plain omitted due to the fact that I thought them either boring or unnecessary.

As you read through these memoirs, you may discover a new awareness that every person has their own individual journeys and quests. May mine have an impact on you!

I hope your own journey is as enlightening as mine was.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why (Mark Twain).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543411591

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Copyright © 2017 by Stanley Evans Abbott.

ISBN:      eBook         978-1-5434-1159-1

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Rev. date: 03/27/2017

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Contents

FOREWORD

SPRING

SUMMER

FALL

WINTER

AFTERWORD

Stanley Evans Abbott

FOREWORD

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

- Abraham Lincoln

Isn’t it fairly amazing that we can live life one day at a time and not totally realize the reality of it all? Decades later we can look back with eidetic memory* and suddenly realize the meaning of what we went through. This personal biography is divided into four fairly equal seasons of my life. Obviously, this is being written in the winter of my life.

Much of the evolution of my life is based upon eidetic memory, written records, and recollection of what has been told me by family, friends, and career associates. As you read through this book you will come across much of my association and evaluation concerning events of the season being covered. Because of my background in psychology, philosophy, and the performing arts, there will be much of those flavors seeping into the text.

Due to my being influenced by Michelangelo’s strong saying, Follow the masters, you will find many quotes mixed into the text reflecting a bit upon the event(s) being discussed. One example; "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." – George Bernard Shaw.

This quote by playwright Shaw sheds a little light on the fact that I did indeed experience a lot throughout the seasons of my life. I evaluate that mistakes were made. Who doesn’t do that? Many great successes were experienced as well. Sometimes nothing really unusual occurred. However, in writing this book, I found change was a large part of my life’s experiences. Since world events influenced my life, I am including some reactions to them. I also discovered that ‘nothing unusual’ was in itself quite interesting in hindsight.

May there be some enlightenment happening for you!

Stanley Evans Abbott

SPRING

"There is no cure for birth and death save

to enjoy the interval." – George Santayana

I do not know anyone who remembers their birth. My birth was so eventful that my parents, Anile and De, seemed to enjoy filling me in with great detail. I was born a C-section blue baby born on Monday, January 30, 1939 at St. John’s Hospital in Rapid City, South Dakota.

When told about this birth event, I had to do research on blue babies. If a baby is born blue, it can be one of the most frightening things one will ever witness. Sometimes, babies are born blue, but as soon as they take their first breath, they become a healthy pink color. If a child is born blue, there is bound to be a great deal of action in the delivery room. There will be many people working with the child and trying to get it to breathe properly. You may overhear nurses or doctors talking about the baby.

My father told me that he saw through the delivery room window much pounding, water immersion, and oxygen to get me going. I guess I turned pink soon after and this successful birth can be classified as my first brush with luck. Lady luck seemed to follow me the rest of my life. Strangely, I never knew I was lucky as my life happened. I just thought I was doing a good job! But, in hindsight, there really was a bunch of luck.

The day after my birth a telegram was received that was sent by my maternal grandfather Wofford Josiah Evans from Deming, New Mexico. The telegram read, Congratulations on the birth of Franklin Delano. F.D.R. And I shared the same birthday! It is obvious that W.J. Evans was a strong, vocal, and a devout supporter of Roosevelt. W.J. was also in his thirteenth year as Mayor of Deming.

Three months prior to my birth my parents visited the Black Hills to view the four Presidents being sculpted by Gutzon Borglum on Mount Rushmore. A picture I have illustrates Thomas Jefferson’s face has just begun and the Abraham Lincoln face almost complete. Work continued for two more years and stopped when Borglum died. No carving has been done since and none is planned in the future. In fact, there is no more room for any more.

When they brought me home from the hospital it was minus 20 degrees. I take great pride in the fact that for the rest of my life I was able to generate enough heat to tolerate low temperatures.

A funny and interesting sidebar to my January 30 birthday was the entry for that day in my father’s daily log he kept for thirty-five years as an employee of the Department of Agriculture. It reads, "Out of the office. He was advised by his first U.S.D.A. boss in Albuquerque, New Mexico to keep a daily (official business only) log. As he was never told to stop, he did just that for his entire 35 year career.

What a close call! Luckily my birth certificate was already filled out or I might be named Franklin today. I always wondered what mother would name me if his telegram had arrived one day earlier. Oh well, Stanley will do. Thanks to Stan Musial I really enjoyed being called Stan. I wanted to have his moniker of Stan the Man!

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. – Albert Einstein

Five months after my birth I accompanied my parents to my father’s new job as Junior Range Examiner with the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service in Berkeley, California. Because of his five years of experience on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota they also assigned him to similar problems on native reservations in Palm Springs, San Diego, and San Bernardino, California. His new salary was $ 2,600 per year.

Even though I remember my early years only through what I was told by family, they were totally packed with activity. From the perspective of twenty-first century, these early years seem very crude. As I look back through my little history, I see only the simplicity of it all. So, here I am in the midst of the five day trip from Rapid City, South Dakota to Berkeley, California. My mother drove the family 1935 Dodge two-door coupe. I have a picture of mother preparing my formula on a Coleman stove resting on the rear fender. All this in the middle of the Salt Flats west of Salt Lake City, Utah. My father drove a government pick-up which contained one hundred percent of our belongings.

We settled into an apartment on Virginia Street in July. In September we moved to Fulton Street. By December we’d be up and out again on the way to Nevada. Hmm, I’m suddenly getting used to change!

There is an interesting anecdote that occurred during our brief stay in Berkeley. I was taken to the Golden Gate Exposition located on Treasure Island, which is located on an island midway through the newly opened San Francisco to Oakland Bridge. It was later renamed the Bay Bridge.

My aunt and my uncle Earp from Deming, New Mexico had come to visit and to go to the Expo. They pronounced their last name to rhyme with harp. This was because he was the second nephew of his Great Uncle Wyatt. Wyatt Earp was a no good scoundrel with a very bad reputation, so the family changed the pronunciation of their last name. Unfortunately, Hollywood movies made Wyatt a hero.

Walking down the midway toward the dance pavilion to hear Benny Goodman’s Band I was riding on my uncle’s shoulders when he turned to my father and shouted, This sure isn’t the Deming Rodeo! I must have been only ten months old, so I do not remember any of this. But, maybe, just maybe, this is why I relish listening to Benny Goodman to this day.

We moved to Yerington, Nevada in December of 1939. Yerington is just a few miles south of Carson City. So, I was preparing for only my second year, having moved five times. Change seemed to invade the rest of my life. However, I believe I was trained to be flexible and understand change might always be for the better, which it always seemed to accomplish.

Before we continue into my second year I’d like to shed a couple of markings that are prominent in my year of birth. 1939 was the very first year manufacturers of bras started using cup sizes. I can only imagine how exciting this was for women. Also, per person share of the national debt was $180. Hollywood produced icons of many motion pictures, including Gone With the Wind, and The Wizard of Oz.

"What we call progress is the exchange

of one nuisance for another nuisance." – Havelock Ellis

Yerington is the smallest town in which I will ever live. In 1940 it had just 898 population. I remember just a little bit of our stay there. I was told I enjoyed moving vehicles and would eventually become a terror on a tricycle.

My father had paid his way during the depression through Colorado State University by joining advanced ROTC and being employed as a firefighter with the Fort Collins Fire Department. As a result, he graduated as a Reserve Commissioned Officer.

In this very year Hitler invades Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. It seems a shame because the USA was getting on a roll working its way out of the depression. The flavor of the times could be found in a few developments in 1940. There were many firsts. The first TV station debuts in New York City with 10,000 viewers. The first Bugs Bunny cartoon was released. The first Social Security checks were mailed on my first birthday (January 30). The first McDonalds opened in California. The Pennsylvania Turnpike opens and becomes the model of future freeways. Roosevelt was on a true roll!

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

– Frederick Douglas

I evidently celebrated my second birthday in fine style at a table and chair which was quite my size. From a photo of that birthday, I can see a chocolate cake with two candles on it sitting on the table with me having the biggest grin I might have ever had. Somehow the chair was retained by my parents and given to me in 1980. How it survived in the maelstrom of moves to follow is beyond me. It survived until it just plain gave out after 66 years in 2006.

From their oral and written history, Mother and Father always thought that their time in Yerington was the best of their lives. They were young and vibrant. Mother was 27 and Father was 32. His career with the Department of Agriculture was taking off very well and the country was digging itself out of the depression. Of course they did have me plus a fun Scotty dog! Things were looking very good indeed.

While in Yerington there is a wonderful story about my father almost burning down our house. This house was a rental unit on the edge of town. It was built as a ‘shotgun’ style house built upon concrete blocks so you could see under it. One Saturday my father was outside doing yard work. In those days it was the habit to burn the dry grass in early spring and thus encourage a nice new spring growth. My father always said that Mother Nature wanted this to happen. So the fire was started and tended. From somewhere came an unexpected strong breeze which fanned the fire and part of it raced under the house. The owner just happened to be driving by about then and yelled out his window, Burn the damned thing down, De! and kept on driving. My father got it under control before it did burn down. This must have been exciting!

Everything changed fairly quickly with radio broadcasting the news on December 7, 1941. The young and gay life my parents were living was jolted and permanently changed. Pearl Harbor! The whole country sprang into action!

National events strongly changed my life. While negotiations were going on with Japanese representatives in Washington, Japanese carrier-based planes under the command of Yamamoto swept in without warning over Oahu at 7:55 A.M., Hawaii Time, and attacked the bulk of the Pacific Fleet moored invitingly in Pearl Harbor. Nineteen naval vessels, including eight battleships, were sunk or severely damaged. A total of 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed. Military casualties were 2,280 killed and 1,109 wounded. Civilian casualties were 68. The next day, on December 8, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated to Congress that December 7 will be a day that will live in infamy. War was immediately declared. We had entered World War II. Everyone’s future on the planet was going to change. Our lives changed for sure!

Quickly and drastically all of our belongings were put into storage and my father was ordered to report to Camp Roberts near Paso Robles, California. He was to be inducted as First Lieutenant. As a result of his ROTC training and graduation, he bypassed Second Lieutenant. This automatic promotion only happens during wartime.

While Father was clearing things up in Yerington he sent my mother and I to Deming, New Mexico, with the help of my aunt Gladys, to live with her mother and father; my grandmother and grandfather Evans. We would rejoin my father upon his new assignment. I never knew what happened to our wonderful Scotty dog. Father probably sold it or gave it away.

While in Deming my mother got a letter from my father. I have read this letter and it actually says, There are not enough men in the Army to look throughout Nevada for me to report for duty. This was probably said in jest, but it certainly reflects his attitude at the time.

So there I was in Deming, New Mexico waiting to hear what was in the offing for the future. While the news of the war was not at all understandable to me, the tension was experienced by me and it was most certainly there. I believe I am still impacted subconsciously. However, this impact, I feature as a positive. It has become a contributing force affecting my basic ethos, I carry with me today: life does not suck and then you die, because life is full of exchanges. If these exchanges are carefully negotiated they can lead to a fulfilling journey forward. I now believe that our life on this planet can be improved.

It is well war is so horrible, otherwise we would grow too fond of it. – Robert E. Lee

At age three, in 1942, I spent my time with my mother as we traveled about following my father’s assignments. Looking back, I feel that is no wonder Tom Brokaw wrote a book about them, as they most certainly were the Greatest Generation. Because I was there, it is a good time to look at the onslaught of strange experiences that occurred. We were not alone.

Father spent only two months in California at Camp Roberts. My mother and I were still in Deming, New Mexico. He was ordered to report to Fort Sill in Oklahoma for an intensive refresher course in field artillery. He was given seven days leave to be in route. He took the train to Los Angeles. On this trip there were two or three Japanese submarines who surfaced in the harbor at Santa Barbara and fired several shells near the city. By the time he arrived in Los Angeles about sunset, the people were panicked about a possible invasion. With all the planes grounded, Father was transported