Chapter 38: Norbeck's Cabin (North of Helena)

Five decades later, I remember this day with a bold, striking clarity, as if it happened yesterday.  It was the first time in my life when I felt as though my family and I, along with our hosts, had suddenly found ourselves on the only inhabited place on Earth.  I have only  vague memories of the drive from Great Falls and back.  The Norbeck cabin was located an indeterminate (at least it was to me in 1955) number of miles north of Helena, not within view of  U.S. Highway 91. But the visit itself had a most powerful and lasting effect on me.

 

From a Google search, I assume our hosts were Rev. Nels Norbeck, pastor of St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Great Falls, and his family.  I suspect the Norbecks also spent time at the Bible camp on Whitefish Lake.  I don't remember spending any time inside the cabin, and, considering the breath-taking scenery on a perfect summer day, we had little interest in doing so.

It was my first time on a horse -- and bareback, no less.  I look quite confident, surprisingly so, considering how tentative I usually was around animals -- dogs in particular.  Wish my legs could get as tan now as they were then.

Larry appears to have just a hint of a question on his face, as though wondering if the horse might turn into a bucking bronco.  The girl holding the reins, the Norbecks daughter, I assume, looks to be about 10 years old.  She exudes the aura of an old hand at this sort of hospitality.

Not having brought her swimsuit along, Mom is content to sit on a low log bench, enjoying the God's-country setting and engaging Nels in conversation while Dad takes a picture of a very contented group.  The boy holding the innertube looks to be a couple of years older than his sister.  Barb must be inside the cabin taking a nap.  She doesn't appear in any of this series of slides.

Many years after the fact, the pond water doesn't look very inviting.  And from the way I've parked myself on the little dock, I might having been thinking the same thing.

Chapter 37: More of Whitefish Lake

In another, yet this time more careful, review of Dad's slides, I discovered that, though he might not have had much of an eye for portraiture, he knew how to frame a landscape composition.  I offer this first slide, an elevated view of Whitefish Lake, as Exhibit A.  (Exhibit B, which gets us ahead of this blog's timeline, is found here.)  The gloomy, not-quite-ominous ambience is more in tune with how I felt during an unscheduled return visit to this area in September 1974.

A view of the cabin where the Nelson family stayed for a week, I assume.  The car, a 1955 Buick, is a relatively recent purchase, one in which Dad must have offered a particularly generous "minister's" deal from a local dealership.  It is the car in which a family of six, four children ranging in age from 7 1/2 to 3 months, moved from Great Falls, Montana, to Warren, Pennsylvania, in July 1957.  I have many pleasant memories from this long trip.  Wish Mom and Dad were still around to offer an alternative perspective.

I assume that's Whitefish Lake, considerably smaller than Flathead Lake, in the background.  Best evidence.  Before returning to Great Falls, we drove through Glacier National Park, which wouldn't have taken us within viewing distance of Flathead Lake.

Chapter 36: Paul and Larry at Whitefish Lake

Vacation time, 1955.  Larry and I are enjoying the stunningly blue water of Whitefish Lake. And I seem to enjoy plopping handfuls of cool sand on my left thigh.

Not sure if this second photo was taken on the same day, but somewhere along the line I snagged myself a cool walking stick.  Something or someone on the lake has caught Larry's attention.

Beautiful backdrop.  But all I care about is my stick.  (Wish I started this project a few years ago.  I could have mined some of Mom's memories from our years in Montana.  Now I need to develop a direct, two-way line to heaven.)

Speaking of....

Where's Mom? And Barb? Dad's obviously the photographer here.

Chapter 35: Carefree Summer Days

I love this photo of Barb and Larry.  An angelic Barb stares intently, solemnly into the camera, looking as though her mind has been transported to a faraway place.  A focused Larry seems to be making an adjustment or tying something the tricycle his sister is straddling.

The building behind them to the right is George's Paints.  The building has since been expanded, a section now extends to the edge of the alley, and extensively remodeled.  According to Google Maps Street View, it houses a business named the Hearing Aid Institute.  Central Avenue, Great Falls' main drag, is a just a block beyond the paint store.  We lived on the edge of the far reaches of downtown.

Cooling off on a hot summer's day?  Perhaps.  Larry and I are running through a sprinkler, at least that's what I assume from how Larry has his arms positioned.  If Dad was still trying to grow a decent-looking lawn, our frolicking around the front yard certainly didn't help.  Partially obscured by a tree trunk, Barb can be glimpsed in the background, sitting in what looks like a large metal bowl.  At a minimum, I hope she's wearing a diaper.  Otherwise, I gotta scratch my head about this family.

Chapter 34: A Summer Sunday in Gibson Park

This is the kind of day I remember from five summers in Great Falls.  A blue Big Sky with not a cloud in sight.  Tall elm trees providing abundant shade.  A lush, welcoming carpet of green. (At least the Great Falls Parks Department knew how to grow grass.)  Colorful flowers beds in full bloom.
It's another family visit to Gibson Park after church.  Why else would the three of us be so dressed up?   That red object I'm holding is a squirt gun.  I have no idea if it's loaded.  Probably not.  If it had been, I'm sure I would have squirted Larry or Barb and Mom, in a fit of impatience, would have demanded I turn it over to her.  It would then disappear into her purse, perhaps never to be seen again.

Three months from my 6th birthday, I'm obviously tall for my age, towering almost two heads over 3-year-old Larry, who is not even a head taller than 15-month-old Barb.  Larry, a pensive, almost melancholy expression on his face, must be pondering this unfair situation.  We looked more than 2 1/2 year apart well into our 20s.  And Barb has perfected the skill of taking a nap standing up.

The above photo, featuring a priceless pose by Barb, is slightly out of focus.  And her left foot is cut off at the ankle.  Below, she isn't particular enthused about her turn in the swing.

And what's going on here?  Larry fall into the duck pond?  As for the shirt I'm wearing, I think it's one that Mom sewed for me.