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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 35/125

she got another grown student to help her, but the two of them weren’t strong enough. A
third grown student held my arms behind me. When I saw that I couldn’t escape, I mustered
up a lot of saliva, and then spit a mouthful into John Obb’s face. He slapped me so hard I

saw stars, but I’d rather have taken the slap than his kiss. This incident happened on a day
when my uncles stayed home to gather com.

Back then we had picnics and cold drink stands to raise money for causes or church
programs. Neighbors cooked their best meals for a picnic. Ma put her potato salad and
chicken pileau in the bottom of the trunk and cakes and pies in the top tray. Then she closed
the lid tight to keep the dust and mule hairs from getting near the food.

Several men built a twelve by twelve-foot pen with a shelf all around like a counter
top. In Watertown, they bought several 100-pound blocks of ice and cans of crushed pine­
apple. Using ice shavers, and they shaved ice into three or four teaspoons of sugar and

several tablespoons of crushed pineapple, stirred it real good, and charged five cents a glass.
Sometimes the boys took me to these picnics when Ma and Pa couldn’t go. When the
older ones wanted to be with their sweethearts, they put Roy and me on the counter on the

back side so we wouldn’t be in the way of those working inside the stand. They gave one of
the volunteers a dollar bill to keep refilling our glasses. Roy and I took over half a day to sip

ten glasses of pineapple ice. The drink was so cold that we had to eat it real slow and rest
between glasses. At noon the boys put us in the buggy and brought us each a plate of food.
They knew how to entertain us and enjoy their day, too.

The boys were always planning something like a fish fry at Hagen Lake which was
right back of our house. One Saturday morning the boys told Pa to hitch up the wagon and

bring the wash pot and a five-gallon can of lard so they could seine the lake and have a fish
fry. They had also asked Ma’s side of the family to join them: Grandpa and Grandma Tyre
and their children who were still at home: Jess, Kate, Clara, Hilda, Essie, and Myrtle.
Grandma and Grandpa Dicks would bring their wash pot and their other children, Mabie,

Drew, and Roy.

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