About all I can remember of Aspinwall was the grass-roofed low houses and the natives wearing nothing but very short shorts and peddling baskets of brown sweet bread or cakes which they carried on their heads without touching them with their hands.
After a real dinner at the hotel we took a train across the isthmus to the town of Panama on the Pacific side. The railroad all the way across ran through a regular tropical jungle; palms and ferns so thick you could not see anything except every once in a while we would pass a native village hut where all the men, women and children were dressed "au natural " not a stitch on any of them.
We arrived in Panama some time after dark and unloaded from the train on to "Lighters"- something like a big decked scow and taken out to the STD ship "Montana" which was anchored about a mile from the town.
There was no chance to see anything of Panama, only the lights seen from the ship. The Montana was just the same as the Arizona; about the only difference that they had a big Chinaman in charge of the water tank instead of a white sailor as on the Arizona. If on either vessel you wanted a drink of water you had to go to this tank and ask the man in charge and and he would turn on the tap for just so much, and not always when you asked either. For washing, the ocean water had to do.
Another change was that in place of cattle we had a lot of sea turtles, over two feet across the shell and with flippers instead of legs and claws like our turtles. As they were fenced in there was no disturbance from them.
Four weeks from the day we left New York we arrived in San Francisco and the next day took a steamer up the Sacramento River to Rio Vista where father's father, mother, brothers and two sisters were living on farms about six miles back from the river in what was called the Sacramento Valley. This valley wasn't level but hilly without a tree anywhere. We lived there at grandfather's and uncle Menzies who live nearby had four boys in the family with whom I would often go out hunting Jack Rabbits. There Jack Rabbits were almost as big as sheep with ears that stood straight up and how they could run. We had a big dog that could run them down and catch them for us.
After we settled down Dollie, Jessie and I started going to school again upon which I found that I had forgotten those multiplication tables that I had taken so many bit hinge to learn a few months before. Out teacher in this school was what would today be called a "faddish" as if any of the children showed signs of neglecting their toilets at home she would take a fine comb and comb their hair -if any game was found they would get the rawhide -no switches grew there and glad to say one of our family never had to be examined. She also used to drill us for ten minutes before noon in callisthenics -arms, legs, head and body all had their share of drill which we found the hardest part of our school life.
While here father and his brother-in-law, Dan Stewart, went down to the San Joaquin valley where they each bought a half section of land and put a crop of wheat on it, but as that happened to be a dry year no rain fell in the valley and their crop was a failure.
After a real dinner at the hotel we took a train across the isthmus to the town of Panama on the Pacific side. The railroad all the way across ran through a regular tropical jungle; palms and ferns so thick you could not see anything except every once in a while we would pass a native village hut where all the men, women and children were dressed "au natural " not a stitch on any of them.
We arrived in Panama some time after dark and unloaded from the train on to "Lighters"- something like a big decked scow and taken out to the STD ship "Montana" which was anchored about a mile from the town.
There was no chance to see anything of Panama, only the lights seen from the ship. The Montana was just the same as the Arizona; about the only difference that they had a big Chinaman in charge of the water tank instead of a white sailor as on the Arizona. If on either vessel you wanted a drink of water you had to go to this tank and ask the man in charge and and he would turn on the tap for just so much, and not always when you asked either. For washing, the ocean water had to do.
Another change was that in place of cattle we had a lot of sea turtles, over two feet across the shell and with flippers instead of legs and claws like our turtles. As they were fenced in there was no disturbance from them.
Four weeks from the day we left New York we arrived in San Francisco and the next day took a steamer up the Sacramento River to Rio Vista where father's father, mother, brothers and two sisters were living on farms about six miles back from the river in what was called the Sacramento Valley. This valley wasn't level but hilly without a tree anywhere. We lived there at grandfather's and uncle Menzies who live nearby had four boys in the family with whom I would often go out hunting Jack Rabbits. There Jack Rabbits were almost as big as sheep with ears that stood straight up and how they could run. We had a big dog that could run them down and catch them for us.
After we settled down Dollie, Jessie and I started going to school again upon which I found that I had forgotten those multiplication tables that I had taken so many bit hinge to learn a few months before. Out teacher in this school was what would today be called a "faddish" as if any of the children showed signs of neglecting their toilets at home she would take a fine comb and comb their hair -if any game was found they would get the rawhide -no switches grew there and glad to say one of our family never had to be examined. She also used to drill us for ten minutes before noon in callisthenics -arms, legs, head and body all had their share of drill which we found the hardest part of our school life.
While here father and his brother-in-law, Dan Stewart, went down to the San Joaquin valley where they each bought a half section of land and put a crop of wheat on it, but as that happened to be a dry year no rain fell in the valley and their crop was a failure.
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