Skunk cabbage and blackberries

Jeannette, in back on left, and Doris in front with doll

Some summers we would go to Dad's sister Rose's cabin at Little Beach at Gearhart and at low tide Bobby would take a rake and pull two or three large crabs out of holes in the estuary. It was a curvy trip to Gearhart and Doris and I always got car sick at an area covered in skunk cabbage. All Doris' life she hated yellow and said it made her sick.

Each year Mother took us blackberry picking. We took snowdrift pails and filled them to make yummy pies and jams, our favorite so we didn't mind picking in the hot sun. Once at school Mother won a raffle, a wool comforter which after 65 years we still use on camping trips. {ed note: In the early 1980s Gram took me in her room and opened her cedar chest and took out a simple wool comforter inside to give to me. She told me the story about the raffle. Several years later a new puppy in our house ate half of it and I cried for days. I have no idea what comforter Mom is referring to. I have absolutely NO memory of wool comforter as a child – it was likely her 'literary license'.}