I grew up in a small town in south-central Idaho. It was a farming community where folks grew acres and acres of potatoes and raised cattle in the pastures behind their farmhouses. But I wasn’t the child of a farmer. No, we moved to town in 1962 because my dad had decided California was getting too crowded. He was a construction worker and had heard there was work in Idaho.
We rolled into town towing everything we owned in a little trailer, and my dad promptly set about building a new life for us. I was an only child in a community of big families. And I mean big. Generations of families with eight, nine, even 12 children were not unusual, and family names like Kelley, Christensen and Eaton filled more than a couple pages in the small local phone book.
I never quite fit in. I was the only student in my class at school whose mother worked “outside the home.” That meant that I always brought store-bought cookies on my birthday. How I wished, just once, that I could bring in a box of homemade treats like the other kids, treats that smelled of cinnamon and vanilla, and were warm from the oven!
Other things set me apart. I wore store-bought pants while the other girls wore beautiful dresses hand-sewn by their mothers. Instead of joining the popular local church, we drove two towns over to attend my parents’ denomination. I wore thick glasses, had crazy curly brown hair and played a wicked game of marbles — all rather unusual traits for a young girl.
In those days it felt like no one we knew had much money, but I guess my little family had less than most. Construction work pretty much dries up during the harsh Idaho winters, so one fall my dad joined the Navy and shipped out to Vietnam so he could provide for us. Mother and I moved into the basement of a co-worker’s home. Money was tight and my mother worked long days at the spud-processing plant.
I was in the fourth grade at the time, and hung out with a ragtag group of “townies.” I was the only girl, but worse, I was the only one without a bicycle. Usually I would just ride on someone’s back fender, but it was uncomfortable for both parties.
Christmas came and went without a bicycle. I didn’t really expect one, but did not think it would hurt to ask. But there were lots of presents from Vietnam — new dishes for my mother, a beautiful Vietnamese doll for me, and a reel-to-reel tape recorder with recordings from my dad. Now we could hear his voice and send recorded messages to him! I was so happy, I almost forgot about the bike.
Almost, until spring rolled around and there I was again, hanging on for dear life on the back of Bernie’s Schwinn.
One day in early March, we were hanging out in Moulton’s Rexall Drug Store, reading comic books and hoping for free warmed nuts from the roaster, when Mr. Moulton, the pharmacist, rolled out the most glorious banana bike any of us had ever seen. It was painted gold, with gold streamers on the high handle bars and a white-and-gold leather banana seat. It was a boy’s bike, but I did not even notice. I was smitten.
Mr. Moulton told us there would be a jar filled with jelly beans, and whomever came closest to guessing the number of jelly beans in the jar would win the bike!
I had a plan. I would use the size of one bean and the volume of the jar to calculate the number of beans. Imagine my disappointment when the jar showed up on the counter with a variety of sizes and shapes of jelly beans. Oh, well. Mr. Moulton said we could enter once a day for the whole week of the contest, and I did, studying the jar, turning it around slowly, filling out the little slips of paper and stuffing them in the box. I spent more time than most, and I had a good feeling about this.
Finally, on Friday afternoon, Mr. Moulton picked up the guess box and headed to the back room, closing and locking the door behind him. “May as well go home,” his wife told us. “We’ll post the winner tomorrow and call you tonight if you won.”
Around 6:30 that evening, our phone rang and my mother picked it up. “Oh my! Well, that IS good news! Yes, thank you so much, Mr. Moulton, we will be happy to pick it up tomorrow.”
We won! To be clear, it was actually my mother who had won, guessing the number of jelly beans nearly exactly, in only one guess! I was proud and amazed at her skill, and over the moon with excitement. The next morning we arrived to pick up our prize, and there, taped to the underside of the glass counter, was my mother’s winning guess in her small, neat handwriting: “511.” It was our own little miracle, and I could not wait to record the great news to send to my dad!
Fast forward almost 40 years. Mother and I were going through some of her old boxes and I picked up a well-worn receipt from Moulton’s Rexall Drug Store. I scanned it, seeing nothing of note. “Look at this, Mom. Do you know why you kept it?”
“Turn it over,” she said, smiling. Written there on the back of that receipt, faded but still legible, were three numbers: “511” in a large, bold hand, just like a pharmacist might write.
Mr. Moulton, your thank you is long overdue.
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