Tribute by Arnie Grammon

Some of my earliest childhood memories were of the Toppenish Church, sitting up straight on those hard oak pews, and getting thumped by Dad for whispering. A part of those distant memories were of singing Dad's favorite songs. One song he always requested - and enjoyed singing good and loud - was "Power In The Blood". This, in spite of his slightly off-key singing. It is a mystery to me how all seven offspring inherited the in-tune, perfect pitch singing voice of our Mom.

Dad and Mom would set right next to one another (or with two or three chillens between 'em), and Mom's beautiful voice gave us all the standard to reach musically. But on Dad's favorite songs, his voice would dominate. He was singing with his heart. Good and loud, because he was singing about His Saviour. It's like he couldn't help himself. He was not singing to impress those on the pew ahead. He was singing about the amazing, free gift of salvation, bought by the precious blood of Jesus. Thanks Dad, for teaching us to sing with passion and gusto - with our hearts - good and loud.
Jan. 21, 2008

The Hard Way

For years I could out-dig anyone, especially in rock-free ground. For a summer in my late 30's, I worked for a ditching company that installed fiber optic cable on the campus of Eastern Oregon University. The crew gave me the name of "Shovel Boy", and would call me into the ditch to clean up where the backhoe couldn't reach. I'll admit I took a certain amount of pride being able to out-dig 24 year-old 6-2 linebacker types. I learned shovel technique by what most would consider to be "the hard way".

Digging ditches and postholes at the Skamania house was an 'adventure' I will never forget. Of course, as a 14 year old I considered it the worst form of human torture imaginable. There were days when I thought my dad really did have it out for me. Digging ditches and holes with a pick and shovel in fractured basalt requires perseverance. It generally means you must remove one rock at a time. Sometimes by hand. And always painfully slow and tedious. My hands would ache as I used pick and shovel, day in and day out. Meanwhile, I would daydream of doing something more glamorous like fishing, or hunting, or........pretty much anything but digging 4 foot deep ditches. Out of near-solid rock. I am convinced the joints and ligaments of my hands suffered permanent damage during those times. Inevitably, Dad would line me out for the day, leave for work with a defined goal or mark on the ditch, and one that I would regard as frankly pie-in-the-sky.

Coming home for the day, he would take one look at my "progress", register scorn or disgust on his face, and mumble some comment about me "sitting around taking it easy all day". He would then climb down in the ditch and proceed to give me another lesson on proper digging technique. In his mid-fifties. I was convinced that I would never measure up to his standard of ditch-digging excellence.

However, I did finish the job, albeit with his help. The ditch has long since been covered over with purchased topsoil, and become a distant memory. Until now. Strange as it sounds, I look back on those times with a certain measure of pride. Although my 14-year-old mind could not grasp this principle, he was teaching me how to work until the task was done.....finishing the job.

Looking back on my life accomplishments, whether it was sticking to an especially tough place of employment, or completing my Master's Degree, or any number of things that required perseverance, I am convinced the tenacity required was due in part to a little ditch-digging lesson.We all tend to learn differently. I am not proud of this fact, but I was always someone that tended to learn best by life experience. For me, I have found that finishing a task, and doing it well, has been comparatively easy. Of course, it's all relative to a certain ditch-digging experience in a glorified rock garden called Skamania.
Arnie Feb. 2, 2008

Post-Script:This is the same reason I have evaluated every purchase of land based on what comes up with the shovel. AFTER digging test holes. Here's my rule of thumb...if there are more than two rocks the size of a golf ball in the shovel, then that place gets crossed off the list. Hmmmm......I wonder why that is? ; )

Tribute by Joanna Grammon

Eye of the Storm
By Joanna Grammon
Skamania County Pioneer
Weds. Jan 16, 2008

When I was young, I didn't realize my father had unusual abilities. Couldn't everyone's dad carry a refrigerator on his back up a flight of stairs, as I once saw him do? I didn't think it that unusual when he picked up a rattlesnake by its tail and cracked the whip, sending its head flying. That happened where the lawn met the sagebrush next to the tiny church on the Yakama Reservation where he preached a year or two.

Dad grew up in Kansas in the "Double D" years, drought and Depression, and learned the rattlesnake trick while herding cattle barefoot, saving his shoes for school. Shoes were just as important years later. With 14 feet to be shod -- for several years, all seven of us were in school all at once -- we were a shoe salesman's worst nightmare. We lined up in the chairs as Dad measured feet and pinched toes to make sure there was plenty of growing room in those sturdy saddle shoes.

Dad worked his way through high school as a soda jerk, because the farm was too far away from town to take a bus every day. His mother had been an 18-year-old teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, then she met his father, a French Canadian farmer 18 years her senior.

Working at the soda counter, Dad learned to make ice cream, something we did often growing up, cranking the handle for a batch of French vanilla or peach. He worked hard to feed and clothe us, borrowing thrifty tips from his mother, who had made her own soap and canned mulberries and rhubarb, the only fresh fruit to be found on the Plains. When we were small and visiting the Kansas farm, Grandma would send us out to the garden with a salt shaker to eat tomatoes fresh off the vine, telling us to look out for rattlesnakes.

We always had a big garden. We raised our own beef, milk and eggs. Dad worked for Carnation as a fleet mechanic, and bought three surplus ice cream freezers. He crafted metal insulated lids for them, and we filled them with meat, vegetables and fruit from the bountiful Yakima Valley. We were never hungry.

Mom and Dad moved to Archer Mountain Road above Skamania in the early '70s. Dad built that house from salvaged lumber. He dug a cistern; they lived off the grid several years. They were comfortable in that house 25 years, before the winters got to him.

Now Dad is in a nursing home near Salem. His eyes are closed much of the time, and he can no longer eat solid food. My neighbor, Mary lee Delbridge, gave me a winter squash from her bounteous garden. I took it to Mom, who pureed it and fed it to him. He loved it and smiled, though he can't say much.

My brother in Louisiana, Dean Clyde Grammon Jr., worked hard last fall to transfer to digital form 377 slides taken by my father over the years. He chronicled birthdays, trout caught, days at the beach and my great grandmother. I turned those pictures into 2008 family calendars. Jan. 18 is his birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad. And thanks.