His most prominent high school memory is of being very embarrassed when his mom dropped him off at school in the their 1922 model T. Kids would laugh and ask him, "Is that your car?" His standard answer was, "Well yeah, but we have a new Plymouth but my mom can't drive a shift gear." That wasn't exactly true. They didn't have a new Plymouth, his Uncle Bill in Almira did. "Folks of many kids had pretty nice cars," he remembered.

His mom drove him to school most of his freshman year. Then he started riding the school bus from Bergin's Grocery Store on the southeast corner of Sprague and Dishman-Mica. His mom would drive him to the bus stop and she would park in the parking lot behind the store and let him walk the rest of the way.

Lloyd tried out for the baseball team his junior year. He rode his bike to school with Jack Pintler. The team was led by Coach Damon, who Lloyd doesn't remember fondly. "I tried out as a catcher until I got hit in the groin. Boy I was sore!" Dad had a good arm and could throw to 2nd base as fast as anybody, but he didn't make the varsity. Lloyd's father did not help Lloyd's baseball aspirations, "If you have so much ambition that you can play ball after school then you can do the chores when you get home." From then on Lloyd had to milk 5 or 6 cows and feed the pigs after breakfast.

Dad was a member of the school chorus both his junior and senior years. Man I liked that! I loved chorus!" Mr. Lynn Sherwood was West Valley's music and vocals director.

During his senior year Lloyd was editor of the West Valley News. Mrs. Ostreicher was the journalism advisor. "She really liked me." In class Lloyd remembers sitting between two of the prettiest girls in school, Helen Brischle and Margaret Drivdahl. "When she (Helen Brischle) sat next to me in news class I'd play with her knee. She had the prettiest legs."

Lloyd worked up the nerve to call "luscious" Margaret and ask her to go to a show. She said yes! Then he asked Uncle Dick if he could borrow his Plymouth as he would never consider taking a girl out in his parent's old model T. Dick was not understanding, "Hell no! You ain't taking that car to run around with some kids!" Dad called Margaret back and made up an excuse that his father was sick and he had to work. "I never asked another girl out until I got my own car, and then as often as possible."

Brischle's raised potatoes on Pleasant Prarie. Lloyd's father would buy the cull potatoes to feed to his pigs. "Cull" potatoes were those that were not good enough to sell. They were small, knobby, been cut by the diggers, etc. Lloyd and his family would travel to the Brishle's 2-3 Saturdays in the fall and pick up 20 sacks.

Lloyd also sang first tenor is the schools double quartet. His group got to sing on KXLY radio one time, but Lloyd doesn't remember the occasion or which song they sung.

West Valley had a dress code. The boys had to wear chords or "pants" (slacks - no blue jeans), and the girls had to wear dresses. One day a year was overall day and all the students would be allowed to wear overalls. For some reason on that day the big kids and football players would pick on the other kids. Although Lloyd never fought, he remembers there being fights all day long. He remembers future Spokane County Commissioner Harry Larned getting in a heck of a fight with Knutsen.

Lloyd graduated high school at 6' tall and weighed 145 pounds. "I was long and lean." Five years later when he got out of the service he weighed 180.

In high school, Lloyd was good friends with Roy Betlach. The Betlach's lived on Woodruff just south of where I-90 is now. The freeway actually cut across the North part of their land. Betlach's farmed 20 acres there and grew tomatoes and other vegetables. After returning home from WWII Lloyd and his parents helped out on the farm when Mr. Betlach was stricken with cancer. They would help Mrs. Betlach control traffic in the field, which consisted of instructing the customers which rows to pick their tomatos from. They would also help collect the money. Tomatos sold for $.50 an apple box.

After the harvests of '41 and once the fall plowing and work was done, Lloyd's parents started the project of getting water to the house from the spring at the end of "Grave Yard Hill". Starting in October or November, Lloyd and Old Man Evans (Bert Evans) dug ditch for the water line. Evans was an experienced powder man. When they ran into a big rock Lloyd held the drill while Evans pounded on it with a sledgehammer to make the hole for the powder charge. "He never missed with that sledge hammer. I was scared to death that he'd hit my hands." The project was completed in the Spring of '42 and the farm house finally had indoor water.

Prior to that they were able to get water from the tank house just West of the farm house. There was a well under the tank house. An engine inside the grease shed drove a pump that would fill the tank in the top story of the tank house. The well caved in during the earthquake of 1938 so they had to haul water from Boob's spring in the second pasture.

As the farm grew the Grave Yard Hill spring wasn't able to supply enough water so dad installed the 12,000 cistern just below the spring during 1957 or '58. Old Man Evans, the Montana pioneer, blasted and dug out the hole for the cistern.

Schafer Road/44th have been there ever since Dad was a child.

44th used to be called

Dad and friends used 44th as a speedway. They would fly down the road and catch air over the bumps. Then one guy wrecked and broke himself all up and they slowed down after that. He was the mechanic from Ford Motors. He had just overhauled a 1935-'36 Ford and was test driving it. He smashed up right by the graveyard (across from where the fire station is now). He rolled the car and broke his leg. He laid there suffering because someone had to drive to the nearest phone and call for the ambulance. Dad, Isaac and Martha were walking home from Chester School and happened to come by before the ambulance arrived. We just stood there and starred at him. We were just kids. Then the ambulance and cops came and told us to go on home. Dad was 11 or 12.

The graveyard was where a lot of "parking" was done. "There were a lot of nude bodies around the graveyard."

Dad walked to and from Chester School everyday, starting in the first grade. Snow or rain, hot or cold. This is were the stories about "walking to school in 3 feet of snow uphill both ways" originate from. Delbert Cox would ride a horse to school.

Chester school
Dad couldn't speak English when he started school. The teacher had to teach him English. "I was so embarrassed because the kids all laughed so I wouldn't speak Welsh anywhere after that."

Grades 1-4 teacher Ruth Berkey. Her folks ran the original Chester store. It was a general store and had a hitching rail all the way around it.

Mr. Rae was teacher one year. Then the teacher was Ms. Hammer. "Boy she was pretty. I had a crush on her and she had a crush on me. We would talk to each other and we sat together at the picnic. I really liked her. I was nice to her and she was nice to me. She was a first year teacher so she was probably 19 or so. The only teachers who taught in small schools like Chester were first year teachers. We had one teacher in 5th or 6th grade that looked Katie Couric. God she was a nasty thing! She was a small lady with a pointed face. She was quite attractive but boy she was mean. She didn't put up with any foolishness. Zero. Zilch. She just had no time for us. She was just there for the job. Her name was Ms. Schillings or Schillinger."

Between Chester store and Chester church was a winter campground for the indians. They'd set up their wigwams and dig up some sort of roots in Pleasant Prarie. (Bigelow Gulch road). Indians came from the reservation in Worley, ID. They'd stay a day or two at the camp ground and then move on to Pleasant Prairie. We were told to leave the Indians alone so we'd run on by and get the hell out of there.

Walking home on Dishman Mica was further but sometimes we walked home that way. A crazy man lived in the woods/brush on 44th just East of Shafer. We called him the "Wild crazy man" He lived in a hut there. Dad's parents owned the land from 44th all the way down to the railroad tracks. He wasn't hurting anything so they let him stay. Our parents didn't want us walking by there because they feared he'd get us. That's one reason they had to walk home on Dishman Mica until the crazy man was gone - then we could go the back way. When we got bicycles we'd always come home on Dishman Mica because there were too many hills the back way (44th). Dad cleared the area 1956. Sold it to Glenn Williams in the 60s and he put a horse ranch on it. Now it's houses (S Pondra Drive loop just off 44th)

Chester School was torn down around 1960.

Used to hang on Elva Marshall when she'd let me. She lived in a shack with here family near where Ericksons later lived.