My 4-H Story--1999--Fifth Year in 4-H

Note from John, 9/9/2010

You may notice that this story will not have any photographs posted, and shorter than others.  The below story was written after the death of my grandma, Marget Vlahovitch, on June 16, 1999, in Redlands, CA.  As you will find out below, our lives were very hectic at the time record books should have been done.  This story and this year's record book was never turned in to be judged.  Even though the turn in date was passed, my mom still made me do parts of the record books.  Because of our move to a new house, all the photos were packed and were unable to get to them, which is why none were in the record book.  Today I still don't know were those photos are, and when I find them, I shall post them up.  This will be the first to two times that I didn't turn in a record book for judging.  For me this would be a sad time, not just for my grandma's death, but also for the ending of Arroyo Verde 4-H Club, and me having to move away to a different place, and leave all my good friends behind.  Between that time and High School, I would only have my 4-H friends to hang with, and a very very small amount of school friends.  

My 4-H Story

Written 1999

Age: 11

Year in 4-H: 5

     This has been a very difficult year.  It is hard to know where to start.  I guess at the beginning would be the best choice.  Hi my name is John Trammell.  I am a member of the Arroyo Verde 4-H Club.  This is my 5th year.  I started out being a great year but ended very sadly.

    In July our new club year started.  In August we planned our annual club BBQ and Day Camp at Glen Helen Regional Park.  I was the food chairman.  I really learned a lot about coordinating the food.  I had a lot of fun talking to the different club members and trying to keep track of who is going to bring what.  There was other club members in charge of the games and fun.  I got my parents to bring their BBQ so that we could do hamburgers and hot dogs.  I went shopping with mom to buy the food that the club would supply.  At the BBQ we had watermelon, buttermilk fudge brownies, salad, drinks, chips and dip, and of course the hamburgers and hot dogs with all the trimmings.  

    We started out the day with fun games.  There were prizes for everyone.  Then we ate.  And the final piece of fun, if the club members had already paid their dues, the club paid the entry fee for the all day swim and slide.  We had a lot of fun.  We swam until they closed the swimming area.  It was a great way to start out the club year.

     This year I was a fifth grader at Cram Elementary.  That meant that it was my last year at an elementary school.  Redlands Unified School District moved the 6th grade to Middle School so that they could make room for the smaller class sizes in the lower grades.  Moving to middle school is kind of scary thought.  But I know I will ahve a fun year as a fifth grader.  We are going to do several fun field trips.

     One of the best things that did happen with school is that I entered into the PTA Reflections Program.  This is something the PTA has been doing for over 20 years to promote the Arts.  They choose a theme and then the students create stories, poetry, art, or photography to match the theme.  I did that last year too and my photo won at the school level and at the Council level.  It went on to District level but didn't win there.  This year my photo won the school, Council, and District Levels and went on to State PTA.  I was really excited about that because this was a special project that I did with the photography leader as part of my photography project.  Now I have one photo that went to State Fair Best of Show Category and won 3rd place over all and one photo that went again all the way to the State level in a different category.  I love doing photography.

     Another thing I like to do is cook.  Ever since I started in the Foods & Nutrition project, I learned a lot about cooking.  I usually am very picky about what I eat and I usually don't like to try new foods.  But with this project I started trying new foods and found that most of the time I like what I try and then keep on putting it somewhere in my menu.  I have also learned how to do basic table settings.  It is something that I can use all of the time.  I like to set the table at home just to get practice.  This year we don't have a cooking leader.  So my mom tries to teach me things when she is cooking.  One of the things that I cook is pizza.  At one of the Food Fiestas I got a 4-H Cookbook.  In there I found a recipe for pizza dough.  Mom showed me how to get the yeast to rise without boiling them and how to work the dough.  Now, I make my pizza from scratch.  Mom even bought special pizza pans for me so that I can cook 2 and serve a dinner to my family.  What I don't like is the clean up afterwards and sometimes my mom helps me clean the kitchen.  I guess that is part of the cooking part too.  

    I have been collecting rocks, minerals, and fossils now since 1992.  My very first piece was a sliver of a fossilized dinosaur bone.  I have been hooked ever since.  Part of my project this year was going in October to the Trona Gem-O-Rama.  That is in the desert not far from Ridgecrest.  We had heard about it and so this year my mom and dad took us up there.  We didn't go with our trailer.  We stayed in a motel.  And it is a good thing we did.  We got so dirty that we all needed a lot of water to get clean.  Let me tell you about this fun trip.  The first day we went we all caravaned to a spot that they called the "blow hole."  It took us about 10 minutes to get there. What they do is they stick a pipe deep down into a hole and pump out minerals, rocks, and other stuff.  When that is done, you go around gathering these minerals.  They are really neat.  These minerals are only found there at Trona and no where else in the world.  We collected a lot of different sizes of minerals for my collection.  Then in the afternoon, we went to what is called the "mud."  Now this is not like any mud youi know about.  This stuff is thick, black, smelly, and really yucky.  Once it gets on your clothes, just throw them away.  The salt in this mud is so high it eats through everything.  To find the special minerals in this mud you have to dig through it with your hand.  When you think you got something, you wash it off with special brine (salt water).  IF you use plain water, the mineral will melt and then you have nothing.  After this trip, we went back to our motel room and we all took long showers.  We did get quite a few minerals.  But the really fun trip was about to start.  We decided to take a night trip to find rocks that fluoresce in black light.  We bought a small black light just for the trip.  IT was really fun.  I found a lot of rocks that "Glow in the Dark."  The next day we went home.  We took a small detour to go see the Trona Spires.  They are something like the Mono Lake Spires except there is no more water there like at Mono Lake.  After that we went home.  

     Like I said, my year started out great.  We had wonderful photography meetings, rock collecting trips, club things that were going on.  But then my mom and dad decided that we needed a bigger house.  So they started house hunting.  They found one in East Highland.  Then we moved.  What a mess.  I had to pack up all my stuff.  I really didn't want to leave me old neighborhood and my friends.  But mom and dad wanted us to stay in the Redlands School District, so we moved.  We were in the middle of moving when my Oma got very sick.  My Oma, my mom's mom, has been sick with her lungs, but this time she got really sick.  She went into the hospital.  She was there for a very long time.  The doctor wouldn't let her go home so she went to a convalescent hospital for awhile.  She got stronger and went home.  She started to get bad again and right after Easter she went back into the hospital.  This time she wasn't allowed to go home.  

     In the mean time, my sister Ashley was getting ready for her First Communion.  It was really hard for her because she wanted Oma to be there for her special day.  But that couldn't happen.

     And while all this was going on, we were trying to sell our old house and do work on it.  There just wasn't anytime for club meetings and project meetings so things just got put on hold.

     Oma lived through Ashley's First Communion.  We went to her room afterwards with a special cake and celebrated.  It was very special and I will always remember it.  Then two and half weeks later, Oma Died.  It was on the last day of school.  We were all very sad.  I like having Oma around.  I miss her very much.  She always did special things with us.  This was in June of 1999.  

     With all this going on and funeral arrangements and all, we didn't get to turn our record books in.  Even though we did do the books, they were way too late to be turned in. 

     Then mom made another change.  She decided to retired as a community leader because seh felt that she couldn't do the job properly and didn't want to hurt any of the members by not being thorough.  So we joined the Grand Terrace 4-H Club.  So the next time my record book gets turned in it will be as a Grand Terrace 4-H Club member.  I sure hope next year will end much happier than this year did.