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Joel Oleson's BlogJoel's Thoughts, Comments, and Funny Stories.
June 29 Urkel + Mexican Food on a Date = RunsHomecoming 1991. Big football game, fun dance, and dinner... Theron asked his date and I asked mine… a girl I met while on staff at 4-H camp. If you thought I lived in a rural area where there were no more than 6 homes on our mile. She lived out in sublet a distant suburb of raft river population less than 200. After a 50 mile ride to pick up my date, we had some awkward moments of silence, but otherwise had some great funny small talk conversations. I had setup some big plans, reservations at the local Mexican resteraunt with reserved booth with a view of the TV. I knew Urkel (Family Matters), TGIF baby! …was going to be on, and we wouldn’t miss it! After enchiladas and burritos with fried ice cream for desert we headed over to the dance. The football game was pretty much over and the kids were headed to the gym for the dance. As the music began with a bit of C&C music factory, I was ready to pull out my moves. “Wanna dance?” No, not really. My friends took the floor, and I stuck with my date. As we sat there through a few songs I asked my date what was going on. She said she wasn’t feeling good and wanted to go home. I notified my friends they’d need to get other rides and I headed out on the long drive to Sublet. At the end of the year, my friend would remind me of this classic date by a note in my year book. “I’ll never forget cruising in the MVP, seeing Urkel on a date, missing you at the Homecoming dance when your date got the runs!” Amsterdam is not the same as Oakley, Idaho.I love world cultures, travel, and hearing about how different places are and meeting people from diverse places. I met a girl from Holland at a church dance and asked her out. She asked if I wanted to take her to Oakley’s homecoming dance. Sure. Sounded like a good date. When I went to pick her up, I waited for an hour while she did her hair, then went with another couple to dinner. She picked at her food, but really didn’t eat anything. We then went to the dance. We danced a bit, and I really enjoyed myself on the dance floor. Toward the end of the dance, the other couple we were with were saying the kids were going to a bomb fire up on the hill, some kind of local tradition. Cool, I thought. We jumped in the back of some guys truck and went up some crazy dirt roads a few miles up a hill. Kids were talking and hanging out. After an hour, I was looking at my watch. I was for sure going to miss my curfew. Some kids were leaving and asked if we were going. I asked my date, who was hanging out with other guys at this point if she wanted to go. She said, “nah. I’m having fun. This is the first time I’m really seeing what it’s like to be an American.” I said I’d wait for her, the gentlemanly thing to do. Another couple of hours passed and a large group were leaving the hill including our original ride. At this point she was hanging out with a couple of other guys. It was 1 in the morning and it was going to take at least an hour to get home from the bottom of the hill. I was just 16 and this was likely my 3rd date. I asked her when she was planning on going home. I hung around; wanting to make sure she got home ok. We finally went with the last group home. She was in the cab, and I was freezing in the back of the truck going over huge pot holes and bumps. She was really quiet all the way back to the house. After I dropped her off, I’ve never gone as fast. The MVP was maxed out. When I arrived home around 2am, my dad opened the door, and wiped a tear from his eyes. “I can’t talk to you right now, let’s talk in the morning..." Wow. I felt horrible. I couldn’t explain the situation well enough. The next morning I was grounded from driving for 2 weeks. Cruising in Burley Idaho – One night we grew upThomas, one of the shyest kids I know had one of the coolest trucks. He loved to take his dad’s truck with it’s shiney paint job and spin cookies or donuts or choose your favorite circular pastry. The truck would actually shake back and forth when he’d press the gas.
One day we were cruising Overland avenue in Burley, Idaho and listening to Def Leopard "Hysteria" oh yeah, Armageddon it. “Pour some sugar on me” baby. As we listened and banged our heads, we drove along banging our heads and looking for “chicks and babes.” One particular night, we were cruising along and saw some babes. We pulled up beside them after pulling through the burgers etc, parking lot. The girls started pointing and laughing at one of the girls. As we starred she flashed us. I was driving at the time and had to stop and pull over to recoup. As we all chatted about what had just happened to us. I realized we had grown up that very moment. We were no longer innocent kids. We were now peaking puberty and becoming adults. “What just happened? Tell me again.” We’d say over and over. We couldn’t believe it. These weren’t the high school girls we hung out with or chased. This was a different element we’d never been exposed to.
Thomas got a Phd at the school of hard knocks. He dated a 13 year old when he was 18, lived on a trailer on his parents property for a while, and learned that smoking was bad for your teeth and more the hard way. Poor guy. He was easily influenced by his peers. His peers were sometimes a lot lot younger than him and sometimes they took down stop signs. I hope you don’t have to learn that lesson. It’s bad. People die.
When I first met Thomas he showed me a program he’d built for his new Tandy 1000. It flashed all the colors of Basic. This RGB monitor flashed yellows, reds, blue’s over and over in sub seconds. We’d turn off the lights and rock out to the colorful strobe lights. It was like a Rave ahead of it’s time. June 20 Glory to the Lunch LadiesFrom Horse Stable to Lunch Room Our lunch room, the lunch room for 1st through 12th grade was not only the same building, but had an incredible history. In its hundred year history, this building was once a horse stable, a bus garage, and much later converted into how we knew it, the cafeteria. In first grade I learned why there was butter on the honeycomb looking ceiling. Each day with our rolls we would get a little square of butter. It fit perfectly on the end of a spoon, and the twenty high foot ceiling was high enough that even standing on the table, you couldn’t easily scrape the butter off. On those hot summers you would look up wondering if it was going to get warm enough to drip on your head. I guess the lunch ladies figured it was futile to attempt to scrape off the butter, so it simply piled up year over year.
Mentioning those rolls, oh how they were delicious home made rolls. Napoleon may have saved his tots for class, but at our school it was the hot rolls. Cold or hot those rolls were great. They were soft and gooey goodness on the inside. One day I fit at least 7 rolls into my mouth. You did have to be careful and really keep an eye on your food otherwise Curtis would pick up your cookie or roll and give it a lick and give it back. His trick worked. He got extra food after a few groans. He knew who would be grossed out and get a few laughs from buds.
In junior high part of growing up was the ability to “go downtown” during lunch. We were given choices, lunchroom (default), little classroom ($$), or the country store and Gillette’s both of which offered a combination of candy, pop, chips, frozen burritos, frozen pizza and a mini microwave at the back of the store. My buddy Kelly more than once mentioned it was the rolls that made him come back and visit us in the lunch room. Yep, he was one of the free ones. One of the cool kids whose Mom gave him cash and in 7th grade was the only kid I knew that walked around writing his own checks at lunch. It took some work, but Kelly did end up being convinced that the lunch room wasn’t a bad place even though we kids were “stuck” there. We all began to really look forward to our lunch room adventures…
Out of the darkness… Grendle’s Mom You might ask what it was that made Kelly convinced. Well, one day, after finishing off our meals we walked up to the washing station. A metal bowl in the corner of the washing area with soapy water was full of water. As I dropped my spoon a little splash of water hit the lunch lady we would later call Grendle’s Mom. We had been studying Beowulf in our English class and the description seemed fitting at the time. She growled, “Hey, you kids need to be more careful.”
The next day, we didn’t think anything of it as we walked up to return our trays.
Grendle’s Mom barked, “Are you kids going to be nice?!!”
“Sure,” we replied, and thinking we were going to be careful, we dropped our silver into the pale.
“Hey!” she snapped as she reared and pulled out her spraying wand threatening us with her curled brow.
The next day, we figured we were going to get wet. Knowing that was her plan, we walked up with a group of kids. We tossed our silver into the pale and splashed her good. Up came the sprayer and down we went hiding behind the kids. She got them good. Out we ran.
The next day, Kelly had a plan. “Let’s get her good this time!” We all were encouraged to take 3 or 4 spoons and forks. As we finished our food we couldn’t wait to really get her. She was furious this time and getting away with it, I’m sure made her even madder. The wrath of Grendle’s Mom would be upon us if we didn’t shape up.
“Are you kids going to be good?” We’d hear as we walked by with our trays… She had her evil eyes on us. We had to lay low for a while.
It was not only the rolls that made some of the other food tolerable. The no-bake cookies were to die for. In grade school, seconds weren’t an option. If you asked for more, they’d say they had to wait for junior high and high school. No option at all. In junior high, ten minutes later the high school would be around. In high school on the other hand, there wasn’t anyone following us. So, hanging out in the lunch room and asking for extra cookies became our practice, especially on no-bake cookie day.
Our stories with the lunch ladies didn’t end there… On our last week of school we didn’t find ourselves in the lunch room too often, but we got word that we should go. We stopped by one day and Grendle’s Mom asked us to come by one day after graduation. We all thought she’d either take out a super soaker and really get us, or bucket of salad dressing or the like. We were all wrong, no super soaker, no slime or anything you’d expect. Our arch nemesis over the years gave us each a pen set and wished us the best of luck in our lives. Who would have guessed?
I thought it was over. At the end of the summer I was turning 19. In my faith that means if you’re a good kid, and you’ve been preparing your whole life to serve the lord, you are called to serve. I was no exception. My faith was strong, I put in my papers and got my call to …The Virginia, Richmond Mission. I entered the MTC (Mission Training Center) and was eating the food at the MTC. Yuck. I missed my lunch ladies and the good times so much I decided to send them a post card. I told them all how much I missed the good times, and the food. My brother would later report that the lunch ladies hung up my post card on the glass in the food line. Nephi and the plates post card was proudly displayed with the kind thoughts. Grendle’s mom took it upon herself to write back. She sent a nice note and five dollar bill. She referred to my brother as picking up the “shenanigans” and keep things going. The buck had been successfully passed. The motivational note ended with Dunk ‘em while I soak your brother and friends (a subtle reference to baptisms.) On Valentines Day I was reminded of what was going on back at the Declo lunch room as I received a note with… A Twenty Dollar Bill! In it a simple, message… “Buy the biggest chocolate heart you can find!” Grendle’s mom really ended up being sweet. She made my day, and looking back on it, our fun really helped turn the monotony of washing dishes into a daily water fight.
One day we were in the salad bar line early at lunch. At the teachers table sat one of my favorite substitutes. Holyoke, we called him holey oak. He was as old as a tree and wore thick glasses. He was great. As we stood in line I noticed a resemblance between his hair and the sunflower seeds. This resemblance gave me an evil idea. I picked up some sunflower seeds and placed them onto his sparse mug. One of my buddies already sitting down saw what I was doing and almost freaked out. As the old man ate, he pulled his head forward and a couple of seeds fell into his salad. Without thinking he gobbled up the salad with the freshly added oily seeds.
One of my favorite items in the salad line was the worms. NOT. (As was said in the 90’s or n-ya as they say in Declo)
The way people talked in Declo “N-ya” on a side note was a term for saying “Yeah,” really sarcastically, enough that is was super obvious that you were not in agreement. This all started with games I use to play with my brothers. Where we’d be in sarcastic agreement cause we had to go along with my older brother. Declo really did have it’s own language. It really reached its limits when you’d get called really little orange potentate.
Back to the worms… these worms, dried and curly fried, known as figs to fogies, weren’t eaten by any of the kids.
One day I had the bright idea to see if I could get some kids to try the worms. The big tub of ranch dressing, usually watered down was super thick this particular day. The soupy substance looked like it could hide a treat. So taking a scoup of the infamous worms I dropped them into the tub and gave it a good stir. Even my buddy behind me didn’t notice the first scoop so I had to catch his attention and grab a second scoop. We had a good laugh as we took our seats. I didn’t hear anything for a few minutes. Then as I looked around I’d hear an occasional groan or Earnest sounding “eeiew”. This wasn’t enough. The next week we hid worms, grass (items you’d prefer grow on your sheep shaped chia pet), and other odd things that would show up in the salad bar that we’d seen earlier in the week in the hot lunch line.
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