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SL: What did you use it for?

SRL:. For fun. Pure fun, and it was fun. When we would ...
particularly, I remember the times we had classmates_ who
would come ... - we were so far away in those days, no ·five
lane highways; if somebody came to visit, they stayed. You
don't just come for a visit and go away again.
We'd have six or eight friends here for the week-ends,
and Dad would hitch that stagecoach up to a Ford Ferguson
tractor, the ones that had the huge rubber tires on it?
And we'd go tearing around the ranch, these dirt roads,
in a cloud of dust, and of course you always feel as if
you're going so fast in something like that. (Laughing)
It was a great fun thing to do. We always had to do
that when we had an excuse to do it.

SRL: (Still laughing) Oh, it really was.

SL: That's amazing.

SRL: And you know, there were the five of us, 'mostly. Peter was
so muc_h younger, but he always managed to get in on things.
We always had games.going, of some kind.

SL: I can picture just hide and seek in the house, because it's
so big.

SRL: Yes,· we did that. And if we had a big long rainy season,
Mother would relent and let us in the living room, move all
the furniture into houses, you know, with blankets over them
and cubbyholes, and we'd have room after room with chairs·
upside down, and tables.

SL: Does an adobe feel cold and damp in rainy weather?
250
SRL: It's hard to keep them warm. We only had heat coming up
into half of the main living room, and one bedroom. Every-
thing else was fireplaces, so those were going lickety-split
all the time. But, yeah, of course we thought it was great.
We always dressed for the weather. (Laughing)

SL: Indoors or not. Did you play on the courtyard corridors in
the rain?

SRL: Oh yes, we certainly did that. You can do lots of things on
them. You can kick balls, you can skate, you can race, you

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