My Take
DiVoran Lites
I loved to dance, so Grandmother paid for dance lessons while we still lived with her and Granddad in Canon City. However, when we got to Westcliffe, I had to find places to dance. When the tourists came, Dad put a huge dining table in the middle of the room for the tourists, so there was no room for a dancer there. But we still had the garage between the gas station and the restaurant, which smelled like tire rubber, with plenty of room for playing shadow hands and dancing.
One of the best things that happened was that we rode out to a ranch and selected a fuzzy brown puppy to keep. Dad told us to take all our money and pay for the dog when we got him. We gathered all the money we had made from washing dishes, cleaning tables, taking out the trash, and swatting flies in the summer. Between us, we had thirty cents. We never knew if Dad gave the owner more. We named the wiggly creature Brownie. As far as I recall, he was the only dog in town, and all the town loved him. We could go anywhere with him at any time, and every night he escorted us to the house and stayed as a guard as we slept.
The old railroad duplex where we lived when Jeanine and I were in third grade. My brother David, neighbor Jeanine, her baby brother Kenny, Helen, and me in the majorette boots.
We weren’t supposed to walk to the creek just out of town. The water ran too fast for children, but I started slipping in wearing my clothes when I was about ten. I could let them dry before I went to the restaurant. Unfortunately, I didn’t know when the shorts and tee shirt were thoroughly dry. When I stepped into the back room of Min’s, Mother knew where I’d been. I think she just turned me over to the Lord, and I kept on with my wild ways. I only remember one spanking from Dad and none from Mother, but I may have forgotten a few. We had the run of the town with Brownie as guardian.
The duplex had one bedroom barely big enough for a bed and a dresser. That was mom and dad’s room. There was a living room, a bathroom, and a kitchen. Dad installed a bunk bed in the kitchen for us kids. We put our clothes and toys in the kitchen drawers and cupboards. David slept on the top bunk, and I slept on the bottom. If the wind got bad or the coyotes out prairie got loud, I climbed up to join him on the top bunk. When I climbed the ladder and settled next to him, the top bunk fell onto the lower bunk. We slept on the double bunk, which was crooked, and Daddy put them back together the next day.
Min’s Café was prosperous enough for Dad to buy a Piper Cub, and several times he flew us over the mountain peaks to Canon City to visit Grandmother and Granddad. The cockpit was so small that David and I had to squeeze behind the seats and sit on a wooden platform. There wasn’t even room for luggage. One time out of boredom, I made airplane sounds, but Mother told me to stop because it might make Daddy think there was something wrong with the engine.
When we returned to the house one winter after a flying spree, I found that the goldfish I had won at a town get-together had frozen solid. I begged Daddy to thaw it out, but he wouldn’t even try, so I was in mourning for a day or two.
Another time my little brother and I went to a town dance; he was kind enough to walk with me in a marked circle as the pianist played. The quilters of the town had patched together a beautiful quilt. David and I were in the winner’s spot when the music stopped. It was a beautiful quilt with a lot of blue in it. David didn’t have any interest, so he gave it to me. I loved that quilt until I wore it out.
As children, we went to the town dances on our own while Mother and Dad worked at Min’s. As the other people of the town went for refreshments, our parents would ask how we were behaving, and we always got straight A’s.
To be continued
DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn. She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”
Old Things R New 
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