Brian and Colleen Gamble, Sweet Home, Oregon, 1960

Recently I found a photo of my brother and me posing on my Dad's folks' property in Sweet Home, Oregon. Grandma and Grandpa Gamble lived there until the Army Corps of Engineers purchased their 10 acre property about 1966 to put in the Green Peter Dam downstream from their house. Brian and I used to play in the hay field while Granda worked in his wood shop. Grandma spent her time in the kitchen, filling the cooking stove with wood and making applesauce from apples grown on the property. In the summer afternoons we'd swim in the Santiam River, which ran through the back of the property, making swimming holes by piling up the river rock. It was on this property that my Dad taught me to shoot a rifle. I started with an old BB gun, and then used a 30-30.The Army Corps of Engineers moved the old house north of the river; I've never found it, but Brian told me that he'd seen it in the late 80's while on a trip through Oregon. I'm still fond of hats, but I don't have anything like the one in the photo anymore...