OK Solberg: 00:00

I wanna get and welcome you to the 04:05 coffee break, guys. The weekend's getting close. Get you a cup of coffee, glass iced tea. You know the routine. Let's see what's happening.

OK Solberg: 00:09

Spring wheat not doing hardly a thing $5.39 a bushel. Guys, it was $5 a bushel back in 1974, but I'm not grumbling. 550lb steer calf, I'll tell you what, they weren't this high back in 1974. $4.95 a pound. They weren't even 95¢ a pound. Now we got them $4.95 a pound. Holy smokes. That's a lot of money. A butcher hog in Iowa 60¢ a pound, and a 100lb fat lamb in Billings at $2.44 a pound. But guys, there's more, much more.

OK Solberg: 00:51

So here's the deal. Several people over the years have asked, hey. Have you written down all these stories? I told them, well, not yet. They said you need to write them down. So I had me an idea. I'll tell you the stories one at a time. Right? And that way they're documented and the task won't seem so insurmountable.

OK Solberg: 01:19

You know, I like that idea. I like it allot. Kinda like getting two things done at the same time. And besides, it's fun to tell about our memories. Now I wish I could hear ears.

OK Solberg: 01:33

I really do. Now it's hard to pull memories up just at a drop of a hat. But if they're connected to something, what if I say Bub's daddy bubblegum, it may trigger a memory in your mind. Or if I mentioned that big slide that used to be down in Trafton Park in the 1960's, you remember it? You may remember well the time you got a handful of slivers as you slid down that towering monster.

OK Solberg: 02:06

Or what if I mentioned the Tasty Freeze? That makes you feel good. Can you hear the bug zapper going? If you don't have a Tasty Freeze memory I'm gonna weep for you tonight. How about the Dodson Fair?

OK Solberg: 02:22

The Phillips County fair in Dodson, Montana. Now if you don't have a Dodson Fair memory then you did have a difficult childhood. Now today I'm gonna talk about the year 1963, that's the year I started school.

OK Solberg: 02:40

But first off, our bible verse, Galatians 3:24 And it says, Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith.

OK Solberg: 02:55

That's the old King James version, and I used it because I like the word schoolmaster. Well, my first schoolmaster aka teacher was my dear old mom. Yes, sir. Eva LeMay Hallum Solberg. She was a mother of five children, ages 10, nine, six, five, and three.

OK Solberg: 03:22

And still she drove us the approximately three and a half miles to school and listen, and she was our teacher. Now just let that soak in for a moment. This wasn't homeschool, mind you. No. This was West Harb Country School.

OK Solberg: 03:40

Of course, I never appreciated the effort my parents put into raising me back then. I guess all kids do the same, but wow. Can you imagine five kids and then she's teaching and my dad's watching the two youngest ones. So yes, you figured it out. My first grade was in a country school and it's the fall of 1963.

OK Solberg: 04:04

And my 2 older sisters, well, they're my only classmates and my mother was our teacher. But I learned a lot. I remember learning to read. I remember learning to read. And the day I read a whole page from a book that didn't have any pictures on this one page, well, guys, that's the day I felt pretty important.

OK Solberg: 04:30

I had to tell my dad about it. Read the whole page and it didn't have one picture. You should have seen our Christmas program. Just imagine one adult as the leader, that's my mom, and us three children. My sisters memorized their lines perfectly.

OK Solberg: 04:49

No notes to read off. They memorized every word. My oldest sister Denise played the old lady was gonna have her niece or some relative come visit her for Christmas. That relative was my sister Vivian. Viv played the hillbilly like country kid that when asked to baste the turkey she got her needle and thread.

OK Solberg: 05:14

Betsy Mae Toddwaller was her name if I'm not mistaken. We haven't recorded on a reel to reel tape recorder. Guys, I'm gonna have to dig that out sometime. I was just a first grader so I didn't have to memorize too many long lines, but I do remember one of my lines when we were getting ready for supper in the play, I was told to go wash up and I said, I hate water. That brought a roar from the audience and I felt good.

OK Solberg: 05:47

I'll tell you some of the people who were there, Frank and Adreen and Henry Martin, Ore Lubbers, Jack and Ida Bruckner, my aunt Sarah, Harvey and Elvera Bruckner and their family, Glenn and Lois to name a few. Oh, yeah. And in the play, when I came on stage into the house, my mom gave me a dime. She said, I'll give you a dime, Orvin. If you run up and throw your arms around your sister Denise and give her a kiss.

OK Solberg: 06:23

Boy, remember a dime would buy you two full size candy bars back then, but I was pretty reluctant. Kiss my sister? Are you kidding? But the candy temptation won out. I ran in, threw my arms around her, and kissed her on the cheek, and got out of there.

OK Solberg: 06:46

Now it was only a matter of time till I purchased a Heath bar and a Reese's peanut butter cup. Oh, yeah. It was in the Harb Schoolhouse that we heard the news of JFK being assassinated. I sang my first solo in that building. I really did.

OK Solberg: 07:04

Still know the words to the song. Many years ago, our country wasn't free. We belong to England, the land across the sea, but England wasn't kind to us and so we broke away and that is how it happened that we formed The USA. No running water, outhouse outback, but we did have electricity and we haven't had a phone, a telephone, black on the wall, party line. Good memories.

OK Solberg: 07:39

So until next time. As you go out there, remember now, don't be bitter.