Yerington Monday: First Friends

 

The YHS Class of 1966 had it 50-Year Class Reunion Saturday August 13, 2016 at the Pioneer Crossing in Yerington.  We all had a wonderful time and renewed old friendships.  This was a speech that I read to our class and at their request I am posting it for all of them.

First Friends

We peaked at each other from behind our mother’s skirts;

And played tinker toys on bare floors while watching cowboy shows on TV

We compared our marble and bottle cap collections and traded

baseball cards

When we could no longer hold still, we played hide and seek, kick the can, and red rover.  Jumping on our bikes we raced each other and played follow the leader, who often lead us in the into a cloud of fog behind the mosquito truck.

As the street lights came on, we reluctantly dragged home, tired but hating to leave our first friends and begging our mother’s to let them stay for supper or overnight.

On the playground we met up with our first friends.  We shimmied across the monkey bars, and teetered on the the sawhorses

We jumped hopscotch squares and knelt in the dirt at circles of marbles

We slammed each other down at the tetherball pole and chased the boys and girls of our affection at recess

We learned to wait our turn as we stood in line for games, lunch and to going back to class.

After school and during the summer, the boys joined Little League and Mighty Might Boxing and the girls became the fans and cheerleaders.

We joined Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and 4-H

We took Square & Ballroom dance lessons (yes, even the boys)

We were awed by fireworks as we swatted away mosquitos.

As we grew and our friendships also grew and our activities changed.

We were beginning to fall in love with love.

It became the subject of every locker room and pool hall conversation.

Every song on the radio, every dance and prom promoted love.  Even sports promoted love, as boys showed off for the girls and the girls swarmed over the boys.  

Our friendships solidified as we shared confidences and hurts over our latest love interest.  We dragged Main Street on weekends looking for love.  We waited at John’s Cafe hoping love would walk in the door and sit at our booth.  We snuck out to Perk’s Slough, Lake Lahontan and Wilson Canyon to party and make out with our love.  If we needed a make out place, we needed only to drive out to the cemetery, Anaconda lookout, or go to the Sagebrush Drive In.  And if we had no transportation, the Yerington Movie theater balcony would do just fine.

We further solidified our first friendships while pantomiming the Beatles in assembly, marching in the drill team or band behind cows and elephants at the Nevada Day parades in our white Oxfords. We joined the after school clubs that were to promote our future: Future Teachers, Future Homemakers, Future Farmers, Medical Arts,, etc, etc, etc.  And despite all this activity we would still get bored.  Our first friends were our best resource at those time as we talked, complained, gossiped, and schemed on how to pull off pranks.  

We shared our dreams and fears about the future. We were shocked into the reality of the world ahead of us with JFK’s assassination and MLK’s freedom marches.  Our boyfriends and brothers were required to register with the draft for the Vietnam War.   Our first friendships had grown, but now we had to make major decisions about our lives the would separate us.   Ahead lied marriage, college, work and military service.  We were about to be scattered and separated.  

We all went on to our separate lives. Most had children, many had careers.  We had many relationships, some good, some not so good.  Each experienced their own life crises - illness, divorce, wayward children, career disappointment, loss of parents and our own old age over the years.  And through it all, many kept their first friendships going, while others, because of distance, could not.

Over the years, we had many friendships. But now, over sixty years later, we peak at our first friends again, not from behind our mothers aprons but at our 50-year class reunion. We realized how much we have all change, but despite age, distance and life's wear and tear, something has remained constant.  Our first friendships have weathered the test of time and they are still standing. Yes, first friends are the best friends and now after all this time, I have come to realize that first friends are also forever friends. Happy 50-years, Class of 1966!

By Chere L Brown, August 13, 2016, Yerington, NV

Yerington Stories: National Poetry Month: Yerington & Nevada Poetry

Yerington Stories: National Poetry Month: Yerington & Nevada Poetry

I was raised on Broadway musicals.  My mother bought every soundtrack of the musicals of our day.  So when I left Yerington to attend college in California in 1966, and people would ask me where I was from; I would burst out with this Music Man song, substituting Yerington Nevada for Gary, Indiana. Try it and you’ll see the substitute fits quite well.  Since most songs are a type of poem, I thought it alright to post it here.

Yerington, Nevada, Yerington, Nevada Yerington, Nevada,

Let me say it once again.

Yerington, Nevada, Yerington, Nevada Yerington, Nevada,

That's the town that "knew me when."

If you'd like to have a logical explanation

How I happened on this elegant syncopation,

I will say without a moment of hesitation

There is just one place

That can light my face.

Yerington, Nevada,

Yerington, Nevada,

Not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome, but--

Yerington, Nevada,

Yerington, Nevada,

Yerington, Nevada,

My home sweet home.

https://youtu.be/z39WxjSW75A

Yerington Monday: Donkey Basketball

Yerington Monday: Donkey Basketball

Are they still playing Donkey Basketball in Yerington? Inquiring minds want to know if any of you have gone to a Donkey Basketball game. The only one I have attended was in Yerington as a teenager.

Donkey Basketball in Yerington

Smith Valley resident Felicia LaFleur tries to catch the ball while holding on to her donkey during a previous Donkey Basketball game at the Smith Valley Gym, sponsored by the Smith Valley FFA Chapter and Smith Valley FFA Alumni.

Smith Valley Donkey Game

Felicia LaFleur

Posted on Facebook Oct 13, 2014

Comments

• Peggy Freitas Purintun That was it for me too. Where has all the fun gone?
• 
  
• Mary Westberg Is this for REAL????? LOL. LOL.
• 
  
• Chere Brown Yes, Mary it was for real and lots of fun to watch, although animal rights advocates were not pleased in later years and may have been successful in closing them down. They were great fund raisers.
• 
  
• Mary Westberg This must be a scream to watch!!!! I have never heard of it!!! Amazing.....just Amazing !!!!
• 
  
• Nikki Newell Bryan They have had games within the last few years. Fun!
• 
  
• Patti Chitwood Fielding They were so much fun!
• 
  
• Peggy Freitas Purintun My husband tells me that they also held them in Laramie when he was in high school.
• 
  

Dawnette Kelley They had them here but that was a loooong time ago. I had forgotten all about that:-)

Yerington Stories: The Lilacs of Yerington

Yerington Stories: The Lilacs of Yerington

Lilacs adorn many a yard In Yerington

Their fragrance floats on the summer breezes

chases you down the street

and catches you in pleasant surprise.

It stops you in your tracks

as you raise your nose to sniff in its fragrance

and laugh in its delight.

The mine kicks up its dusty snuff

the slaughter house smells like hell.

The onions are sweet enough

alfalfa harvest is fresh and swell

But in Yerington my favorite nasal dish

is lilacs, they are the most delish.

Chere L Brown April 1, 2015

Yerington Monday: What's In A Name?

Yerington Monday:  What's In A Name?

Yerington has gone by three different names in its history: Pizen Switch, Greenfield and Yerington.  Yerington is located in Mason Valley in Lyon County, Nevada  Yerington’s history dates way back to the 1850’s. 

(Information taken from The Lyon County brochure "What's In A Name")

PIZEN SWITCH

Agricultural communities have a way of becoming established before the town historians are ready to record the event for posterity. By 1881 the story was being retold that N.H.A. "Hock" Mason was driving cattle to California and happened to pass through this valley in 1854. He returned five years later and settled along the Walker River north of the present town. The valley that was named for him was known for its pasturage along the river and ability to produce crops of barley, potatoes and grain.

The area came to be called Mason Valley and a post office by that name was established on August 6, 1871. At about the same time the emerging community on the old trail was more casually referred to as "The Switch" or Greenfield. The two names seem to be used interchangeably as late as 1894. The folklore states there were at least two saloons and one was serving distinctly inferior liquor. The local patrons called it POISON but their accents made it sound like "pizen". One generally accepted version is that the saloon was a small willow thatch hut, PIZEN SWITCH continued appropriately referred to as the "Switch", and the liquor consisted of one barrel of whiskey. Instead of securing fresh supplies, this entrepreneur added a few plugs of chewing tobacco and water when the barrel ran low. The cowboys, during one of their weekly excursions to town, were racing their horses up and down the only street. One of the group must have soon tried of the sport because he is said to have said, "Oh, let's go to the Switch and get us some pizen." All within hearing distance thought the remark was hilarious. It was repeated again and again until "Pizen Switch" became a byword for the entire valley.

GREENFIELD

Aero view of Yerington

As early as 1873, it was thought the town was coming into its own with a livery stable, store, saloons, blacksmith shop and hotel, and the place needed a different name from that of the valley. It was agreed that the new name would not be Pizen Switch. There were green fields on either side of the street, so what better name than "Greenfield". The mailing address remained Mason Valley. In 1879 this item appeared in the Lyon County Times "Pizen Switch Re-Christened November 26, 1879".

About 20 Virginia and Gold Hill people including several ladies went out to Pizen Switch in Mason Valley last week to assist in dedicating the new dance hall put up lately by the Brant Brothers. Whiskey and hard cider flowed freely but there were no fights. The music was furnished by a fiddle and two banjos. The place was re-christened "GREENFIELD" and an organization was formed, to be known as the Committee of Vengeance, whose duty it shall be to murder and scalp any and every person who shall hereafter call it "Pizen Switch".

In a contemporary history of the state published in 1881, History of Nevada by Thompson and West, we read "the post office address is Mason Valley, but an effort is being made to change it to Greenfield." It is interesting that there is no reference to Pizen Switch, while Greenfield is described as "a thriving little town in the center of the rich agricultural country in Mason Valley."

YERINGTON

The name of this community honored a prominent man in Nevada and is distinctive. There is no other town named Yerington in the world.

Mason Valley Tidings and the Lyon County Times, contemporary local newspapers, record the change of the name of the post office from Mason Valley to Yerington on April 1, 1894 even though post office records show the name change officially as of February 6, 1894. Within one week the dateline of the Mason Valley Tidings was changed from Greenfield to Yerington and all references to the Switch, Pizen Switch and Greenfield quickly ceased to appear. Newly organized clubs adopted the name as did business establishments such as The Greenfield Hotel that became the Yerington Hotel overnight.

The popular legend holds that the citizens of Greenfield saw the economic value of being on the route of the Carson and Colorado Railway. The closest station to town was Wabuska, about 12 miles north. The portion of the "Slim Princess" line traversed the northern portion of Mason Valley towards Schurz and beyond. They hoped that a rail line along the west side of the Walker River would be approved, and the way to achieve this was to flatter the man with the power to decide the route - Henry Marvin Yerington. Hence, the story goes, the name of the town was changed, but the railroad did not come to town.

H.M. Yerington was an important man in Nevada as was his son, James A. Yerington. This native son was active in mining and politics at the state level. He was the Nevada Executive Commissioner at the World's Fair and gave the community a souvenir book showing "... a haying scene in Mason Valley, the only agricultural picture. Mason Valley, we presume, was considered the garden spot of the Nevada." We would go on to national politics being present at Theodore Roosevelt's inauguration.

These men were celebrities of the late 19th century and their movements were tracked by- local newspapers. As ear1y as April 8, 1893 the editor of the Mason Valley Tidings, D. L. Sayre, wrote "D.O. Mills and H.M. Yerington passed Wabuska southward bound Wednesday on a tour of inspection of the railroad. Tidings wishes they might visit this valley." On August 19, 1893 he wrote "H.M. Yerington is at present making a tour of inspection of the C Railroad. We hope Mr. Yerington will visit this valley, that he may meet our solid citizen and discuss the feasibility of extending the railroad into the valley..." January 4, 1894, "If, as many people believe, the C & C Railroad is built into Mason Valley this year - it only skirts the eastern border now - '94 will see our population and taxable property double."

Yerington Stories: Baseball and Mosquitoes

Yerington Stories: Baseball and Mosquitoes

by Chere L Brown

It was one of those hot dry-your-eyeballs-out kind of days and I was board.  My nine year old mind decided to go visit my friend Rebecca, who lived across town, which in reality was only about four blocks away, but to me seemed quite a distant.  Rebecca was a few years older than me.  She was a sandy-haired Alabama girl with a Southern accent, which made her a weird bird to us Nevada kids.  She was constantly putting on chap stick, because the dry Nevada air caused her lips to chap and split. We became acquainted through our mothers.  My mother was the hospital administrator who had hired her mother as a nurse.  Because of this, my mother made it my job to befriend her (or else).  My mother seemed oblivious to the fact that an eleven year old was not particularly interested in being friends with a stupid nine year old.  Rebecca seemed aloft and arrogant to me (although at the time I did not know the meaning of either of those words).  All I knew it wasn't easy to be Rebecca’s friend.  Everything had to be her way based on seniority.

When I got to Rebecca’s apartment, for once she seemed glad to see me.  “You want to go with me to watch the Ladies Softball team play?”  I knew better than to say anything but “Sure”, so off we went.  We walked the four blocks from her house to the baseball field talking about baseball.  When we got to the field the two teams were just getting ready to start their game.  The white ladies were playing against the Paiute ladies.  Suddenly, Rebecca piped up with, “Hey, can we play?”  The captain of the white ladies smiled and said, “OK, you can cover third base and your friend can go to right field.”

I was so excited.  I ran out to right field. Enthusiastically, I spread my legs and crouched down, rocking back and forth in anticipation of catching a fly ball.  Several innings passed, but all hits seemed to go to center field or left field.  Now the field was all dirt and as you got to the outfield it turned into small weeds and then into small sagebrush. As the game progressed the heat and dust became uncomfortable.  The worst was that the mosquitoes were eating me alive.  I was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless blouse so they had plenty of landing space.

As the game progressed, I became bored with the game, since I wasn't

getting any action, but very interested in slapping mosquitoes. I’m not talking about a few mosquitoes, no, I’m talking about hundreds of mosquitoes.  I was slapping and jumping in place and praying for the game to end.  I was so busy slapping mosquitoes, I didn't see the fly ball coming until it passed over my head.  Those Paiute ladies were powerful sluggers.  Everyone was yelling at me as I ran as fast as I could through the weeds and sagebrush to retrieve the ball. 


By the time I caught up with the ball, the hitter had already reached home plate.  I was embarrassed I had missed the ball and so angry at the mosquitoes that I closed my eyes and threw the ball as hard as I could towards the pitcher’s mound. When I opened my eyes, the pitcher was knocked out cold, laying on the ground.  Apparently she had gotten tired of waiting for me to retrieve the ball, and had turned around towards the catcher.  My throw was right on spot and hit her dead center on top of her head.

Everyone was yelling at me and for help.  I was horrified.  I was convinced I had killed her.  At that point I walked off the field thinking “I’d better go tell  Mom I killed the pitcher.”  As I walked I kept listening for the ambulance, but I didn't hear one.  I didn't want the ambulance to reach the hospital, where my mother worked, before I did, because I wanted to tell her first.  I kept looking for the police to arrest me and ran as fast as I could.  

To my surprise there was no ambulance, no police and my mom was quite understand.  Apparently the pitcher was revived and the game was finished minus me and my damn mosquitoes.