I Am Not Dead Yet, Almost But Not Quite

By Gordon Peterson

I am writing this book to tell about my life, relatives, pets, famous friends, people, food, and my travels. I hope the reader finds it interesting and humorous. I feel that I have had an interesting and great life so far. I do hope that I will have many more good times on this Earth.

I was born on December 24, 1937, at about eight thirty

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Sep 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781643451961

Book preview

I am Not

Dead Yet,

Almost But

Not Quite

****

Gordon Peterson

I am not dead yet, almost but not quite

Copyright © 2018 Gordon Peterson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Shutterstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-64345-195-4

ISBN (Ebook): 978-1-64345-196-1

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Growing Up

Relatives

Pets

Famous Friends

Traveling

Shopping

Food

People

My Design Career

Growing Up

I was born on December 24, 1937, at about eight thirty in the evening at a hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My mother has been mad at me ever since for ruining her Christmas.

We lived in an apartment in the city. When I was about two or three, we moved to the West Coast because my father got a job in a shipyard in Oregon. He was an inspector for shipbuilding. We lived in a new town called Vanport. Mom also worked at the shipyard, in the tool department. It was built solely for people who worked at the shipyard there. My mother’s mom came to live with us, and she was a great lady.

My parents used to rent a house on the beach each summer for a couple of weeks. Grandmother and I went beach combing almost every day. One time we were there having a good time when it began to get dark. All of a sudden, here comes Mom and Dad and chewing us out for not being home. What a couple of drags! We lived there until the war was over, and then we moved back to Twin Cities in a 1938 Ford coupe.

I started third grade in a school in Saint Louis Park. We lived in a small three-room house, and I slept on a roll-away bed. We had a large lot and a garden that my mother would grow vegetables and freeze them for later. We also had some chickens that my dad was raising to eat. Of course, they were my pets. I was devastated when they were killed.

When I was in fourth grade, there was a girl named Mary Goosen, who was the teacher’s pet. She was a drip, and no one liked her very much. I fashioned a fake spider out of black thread and tied it to a string and a long stick. I dropped it down in front of her as she sat in front of me. She really screamed, and I got detention, of course. A few days later, I put a thumbtack on her seat and when she sat down, another scream. Again, I got detention. I had to stay late, and because the bus had long gone, I decided to walk home. By the time I got home, it was dark. All the while, my parents and the cops were looking for me, and there I was. Needless to say, I got in trouble for not calling home.

I always got in trouble, and when I did, Mom made me sit in the corner on a stool. I got so used to it that I would come in the house and go sit in the corner because I knew I did something wrong. I spent many hours in that corner.