Pendelton Memories

I can’t see anything Pendleton without getting emotional. My dad was buried in a Pendleton blanket, as he requested.My father was born in Klamath Falls, Oregon. He was the youngest son of the ‘judge’ and just a wee bit of a rebel. Okay, saying ‘wee bit’ is dishonoring his memory. He put the reb in rebel. He tells of getting beat by the principal, but wouldn’t say it hurt to make him stop. He wore the principal down before he admitted how much it hurt. His freshman year, he stood on the bridge over the Klamath River and tossed his books in the river as the teachers were headed home across the bridge.He lied about his age to join the Marines and got sent to Iwo Jima. He was eating a can of peaches as he watched them raise the flag in the iconic photo. Soon after, he was shot through the lung and almost died.He met my mom on the grass of the lawn at the VA hospital in Prescott. He had gone there to have a cyst removed from his tail bone. Not really romantic, but hey, if it hadn’t been for that cyst, I wouldn’t be here. He said she was the most beautiful woman he ever laid eyes on.He was a genius, impractical, funny, troubled at times. He loved Russian history and was an expert on Rasputin and the Romanovs. I always say that I got my faith from my mother, but my sense of humor from my dad. I got a little too much of his rebel spirit, though. I spent my fifth grade year at Garcia School sequestered much of the time in the furnace room because of it. Come into Dirt Road. We have some Pendleton mystique to share with you and a little bit of rebel, too.

be blessed,

Trailer Park Jean