After the Final Inspection on the Bobbie Lane house, there was still a lot
of work to do, including landscaping.
The front yard was mostly planted in ivy.
When my Dad and Mom went to Mexico on their mission, I remained
behind and lived in the new home for the summer while I finished up my last
High School class, before heading to BYU in the fall.
After two years at Brigham Young University I went on a mission to Uruguay for the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for two years.
I returned to BYU following my mission, fell in love with
Kathryn McGhie, and we were married May 30, 1972. Sometime between the wedding in Oakland , California and
our reception in San Diego
two weeks later I became a bit creative and practiced what I learned from the
stone mason, and made a waterfall that spilled over into two fish ponds, in the
back yard.
I didn't have any employment lined up. My Dad and Mom were back from their mission
to Mexico, and had purchased a lot in Modesto, CA, and decided to build a house
there, in a development that was in the process of being built. He invited me and three of my brothers to
help him begin building it that summer.
He had an old one bedroom rental in Modesto which he offered for us to live
in. Initially Kathy and I shared it with
my Dad and my brother Maynard. Kathy and
I lived in the Living room while they shared the bedroom. We had to pass through the kitchen and
bedroom to get to the one bathroom. It
was an adventure.
The new home he built in Modesto was much smaller that the Bobbie Lane house. It was a single story home, three bedrooms,
and two bath. The work must have gone
fairly smoothly, as I don't have a lot of memories of the various phases. One humorous occurrence happened during the
framing phase of the job. After we had
nailed together a wall, and raised it, somehow Kathy was asked to hold it
up. Meanwhile the rest of us got called
way to consult on some other aspect of the framing. A while later it occurred to us that Kathy
was still holding up the wall, which had not been secured in place. I got a picture of it. We laugh about it to this day.
Another memory I have was how impatient we became whenever
my mom would change her mind about things after
we had framed it, so we would have to take it apart and re-do it. Once again, we participated on all aspects of
construction including framing, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, etc. One day my Dad sent me to pick up some 20'
pipes, which I tied up underneath the car.
On the way back to the job-site I got pulled over by a policeman because
he said it was unsafe to drive that way.
At the end of that summer, Kathy and I drove back to Provo , expecting to get a
place to rent, and continue with our college education. But after we arrived, it soon became apparent
that for married students to get housing, they had to have it arranged ahead of
time. So we returned to Modesto where we continued to live in the old
converted milk house that my dad had offered to us. We attended Modesto Jr. College
My Dad had rented out the converted dairy milk house for
decades, and it was in need of some repairs.
I did my first bathroom remodel job on that house. I remember going to Montgomery Wards and
picking out some ceramic tile, and I think they lent me a tile cutter, and I
tiled around the bathtub. I vaguely
remember installing a piece of linoleum on the bathroom floor. Termite damage was discovered in the bottom
of the studs, so Dad and I chipped out the stucco, cut off the damaged section
of the studs, and scabbed on a new piece of lumber.
Kathy and I both completed our Associates Degrees from Modesto Jr. College
in the spring and moved to San Diego
in search of a new career. We lived in
the Bobbie Lane Home
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