Nellie and Doris Adventures: Mutt and Jeff

 

My family moved to Portland in February, 1976 and settled into a small two-bedroom house in lower SE. It had a nice-sized front yard and an open lot connected to it. It was a few days after moving in before we could get any heat turned on. There was a small market across the street--Minit Mart--and as I introduced myself, I mentioned our lack of heat to the owners during this February freeze.  The owner of the store rushed home and brought me an electric heater to use until our gas was turned on. Hmmm...so this was the type of neighborhood in which we moved, a neighborhood that cared about and helped one another.

That first spring, I happily started a little garden while the boys were napping. I grew radishes, lettuce, and something else that was easy to grow. I was NOT a gardener; know that right up front. Gardening got me outside in hopes I could meet some of my neighbors.

Now that the weather was nicer, I noticed that there were a bunch of kids about my boys' ages.  Next door from the empty lot were three boys: Steve, Richard, and Tommy. Across the street one house had three kids: Teresa, Arty, and Troy. And next door to this house had three kids: Stephanie, Missy, and Robbie. I had never lived in a neighborhood with lots of kids, not even growing up. This was great!

I decided we needed a little How Do You Do potluck in the neighborhood, so I invited the families over for a neighborhood party. I met and had great friendships with Shirley and Nellie until the day they died. This potluck event turned into something we all did together for many many years. 

As a neighborhood, we had many adventures--store hold ups, neighborhood rival family fights in the store parking lot, cars crashing into the small apartment kitty-corner from my house. The list goes on. But these stories of adventures are with my wonderful beautiful best friend Nellie. We went everywhere together. I might suggest we do something and Nellie would agree. Or she had an idea and I'd jump into the game. And we'd pack up the kids and off we'd go. For example, in the ultra hot of summer, we would decide to walk up to Mt Scott Park for a swim. Great idea! The kids and we could get out of our cranky moods and get cool. Of course! Great Idea! After all, it was only 1.5 miles! The problem was the 1.5 mile walk home.  And there we were, once again hot and cranky.

I knew that Nellie was shorter than me, but then most people in my life were. Since I hit six foot tall in high school, I just stopped paying attention to heights

between people. Yeah, the downside was it did stop me from dating way back then because most the boys hadn't reached their full height yet, but I actually liked being tall. I will admit that one of the problems with being a 6 foot young woman in 1968 was that store-bought dresses were just not long enough to satisfy the "no more than two inches above the knee" dress code we had in high school. Plus these legs were long and I got sent home many times to change my clothes (as a side note, I didn't go home but drove to the beach for the day instead.  Hey! They sent me home!). By the time I was in my 20s, I wore what I wanted and I loved to wear platform shoes. 

As I said, I stopped paying attention to differences in heights...that is until one day we were walking around in the neighborhood and the sun was behind us. And there that height difference jumped in our faces. Nellie came almost to my shoulder.  That was when I started calling us Mutt and Jeff.

With all my heart I wish I could still walk the streets (hey! those quarters add up!) with my beautiful friend Nellie Barney.

and the beat goes on
peace