BOISE — It was years before Thyra Stevenson could enjoy the taste of apricots again.
She grew up in California’s Silicon Valley after World War II. That was before it was silicon, be-fore it burgeoned with homes and freeways, back when the smell of orchard blossoms filled the air.
“You could walk out the door and smell them, the fragrance was so strong,” said Stevenson, 75, who is now a third-term representative from Nezperce. “There were oceans of fruit trees everywhere — peaches and apricots, you name it.”
Her father was a chemical engineer at a time when the degree was rare. He worked for Weyerhauser, and later moved his family to Lewiston to take a management position at what was then the PFI paper mill.
In California, they lived in Los Altos Hills, between Palo Alto and San Jose. They had a big garden and lots of apricot trees. She and her sisters would cut the fruit open and dry them in the sun before bundling them for sale.“We were free-range kids,” Stevenson recalled. “Everyone worked hard, but we played hard, too. It was a very tight-knit community. Parents would turn the kids out in the morning, and you’d come home when it was dark.
”The post-war era was a time of great patriotism, optimism and economic opportunity. Although kids still hoed gardens and yearned for real butter, the modern techno-logical world was being born.“That area was a bee-hive of aerospace development,” Stevenson said. “It was all very exciting.”
Just down the road, Moffett Field was being used for newfangled military jets like the F-86 Sabre and F-100 Super Sabre.The experience engendered a lifelong love of planes, as Stevenson went on to become a pilot her-self. She’s still not too sure about apricots, though“I never wanted to see another apricot again, but I’m starting to get over it,” she said.
A bear named Ben
If Stevenson is finally regaining a taste for apricots, Dan Johnson is still thawing out from his childhood in North Dakota.His dad flew air refueling missions from the Grand Forks Air Force Base.
They moved there when he was 2 years old, and stayed until his senior year in high school.
“Those were some cold years,” said Johnson, who is finishing his fifth term in the Idaho Senate, representing Nez Perce and Lewis counties. “I remember spending hours outside (in the winter), skating and playing in a backyard hockey rink,” he said. “When the temperature got above zero, we’d play in our T-shirts. It felt like a switch going off; you could tell the difference between -1 and+1.”
Temperatures of 30-below were not uncommon, and Johnson remembers one occasion when he and his brother bundled up and went for a walk when the windchill was 80-below.
“Some car drove by and the driver yelled, ‘You idiots! You could freeze your lungs,’ ” he said.
His family later moved to Minneapolis, where he graduated from high school. Johnson stayed there for a few years, working in the banking industry, but one day “up and walked away.”
“I moved out to Wyoming,” he said. “I’d grown up watching ‘Grizzly Adams.’ I was going to get myself a bear named Ben and life would be good.”
He never got the bear, but life was good all the same. He worked on a few ranches and then at a commercial feed mill, delivering product to ranchers who might only come to town once or twice a year.
“They were the real deal,” Johnson said.
Life was slow, but it wasn’t boring. Kenny Rogers came to town and hired Johnson as an extra in a movie he was making. The Queen of England flew in the next year, and then Prince dropped by in his purple plane.
In between the glamour shots, there was plenty of time for hikes in the hills — including a solo climb of Cloud Peak, in the Big Horn Mountains.
It was a good time to be young and carefree, John-son said. After that, “life got busy.”
Never look back
Life was always pretty busy for Mike Kingsley, largely by choice.His family moved to Lewiston when he was 2 years old. He started working when he was 10, selling ice cream bars at Bengal Field during the Broncs minor league baseball games.
“I was so young, I didn’t even know how to make change. I had to have the customers help me out,” recalled Kingsley, now a two-term state representative for Nez Perce and Lewis counties.
He ended up becoming a serial entrepreneur, opening a number of businesses over the years. Other than a few stints working for radio stations, he’s pretty much been self-employed his whole life.“It started when I was 18, and I never looked back,” Kingsley said.
He went on a Christian mission in Colorado that year and started cleaning windows during his spare time. He’d hitchhike out to the Broadmoor resort area and knock on doors until someone hired him.To be a successful entrepreneur “you have to be hungry,” he said. “To me it came natural. I just wanted to prove I could achieve.”Some of it was in his genes, though. When they first moved to Lewiston, Kingsley’s dad would head over to the paper mill. He didn’t have a job there, but he’d go in every day, ready to work.
“Then one day someone didn’t come in, and they finally hired him,” Kingsley said. “He worked there for 24 years. He was an incredible mentor for me. He’d tell me, ‘Just work. Whatever you want in life, you need to work for it.’ ”There were plenty of ups and downs over the years, but he was able to retire at 53 — a few years past his original goal of 50. He still misses the thrill of seeing something come to fruition, but his wife threatens him any time he hints at starting another business.
Besides, with the regulations that are in place these days, he’s not sure he’d be able to do what he did when he was 18 — loading up his bucket and cleaning sup-plies, knocking on doors with freedom in mind.
