I was in grade school in the 1950s. The country had just come out of the largest world war in history and trying to get back to so-called normal. However, there was a “Cold War” between the United States and Russia, the threat of possible nuclear war, and Europe and Japan needed to be rebuilt. Of course, that didn’t mean much to a kid in grade school, even though I had some awareness of all this.

I lived in what seemed to me to be an ideal family. My father was a hard-working music educator who also played in the Portland Symphony and other bands, as well as traveling musical stage shows. He also played strolling violin in the restaurant at the top of the Hilton Hotel. Over the summers, when school was out, he worked many different jobs including as a fork-truck driver at a canning company, as a longshoreman with his brothers in Aberdeen, and as a fruit and hops harvester in the Yakima area at different times. All the while he went to the University of Portland and was in the first graduating class in the Masters of Music Education program. He also remodeled our little house on Oswego Avenue in Portland, Oregon. I don’t know how he did all that.

My mother, Kathryn, was a stay-at-home mom raising four kids. She was an amazing cook and housekeeper. She took real interest in all of us kids, was active in the PTA, and frequently had fresh bread and cinnamon rolls hot out of the oven when I got home from school. To me, a naïve grade schooler, this was an ideal existence. We didn’t have everything we may have wished for, but we always had what we needed. I was oblivious to how difficult life must have been for my parents.

In the 5th grade, when we moved to that above referenced house, was when I met several friends that I would have many kid adventures with. Then in the 7th grade, my life long-friend Joe Hoffman moved into the house across the street. We seemed to hit it off and he, Billy Kopczak, another neighbor, and I would have many adventures until we sort of went our separate ways after girls, and different avenues of education, entered our lives.

I have written about many of the things we did and I will chronicle at least some of them in future posts, but with the above background I will share one thing we did here.

As I said my dad worked all the time to provide for us, but we always had a summer vacation, and we always found time to spend at least Christmas with extended family in either Yakima or Portland.

Since money was limited, the only way to summer vacation was to go camping. My parents were good at it since they had been camping all their lives together and so were our relatives on both sides of our extended families. During the 1950s and ’60s we usually went camping in one or two of our favorite places where other families could join us. The one where the most relatives joined us was at Kaner Flat campground on the Little Naches River west of Yakima, Washington. Over a 10 day stay, grandparents, aunts and uncles and their families, cousins, and family friends would show up for the duration or maybe just for a day. These times were the best.

I got to go fishing with my dad and sometimes grandpa. We went on hikes, swam in the river, sat around the campfire, sometimes picked wild strawberries that my mom would make into syrup for our pancakes, played cards in lantern light, and we always had plenty to eat.

Unfortunately, this camp is not the same as it was 60 or 70 years ago. I suppose because of increased demand, the Forest Service has paved the road into this area and to each camp parking spot, allowing motorcycles and ATVs to roam the forest. The last time I was there in the early ’90s it was too busy and noisy from vehicles. What a disappointment.

In future posts I will describe in more detail my memories of some of these times, and also some trips camping on the Oregon Coast.

Ken Kaiyala
4-24-23