Some continued remembrances of Michael Beach of our family’s early membership in the church as requested by my sister Crystal Dunn.
I earlier mentioned our little branch moved from renting some rooms at the local justice-of-the-peace courthouse building to a purchased old schoolhouse outside of town. At this point I was probably nine or ten years old. The building needed a lot of work to change it from its original purpose to that which we had in mind. I remember standing outside in a long line of members (our numbers were growing slowly) with a paint scraper. We had the task of chipping away paint that was cracked or coming loose from the old wood siding. I still remember the pain I felt when a scrapper caused that screeching sound of fingernails on a chalk board. You know the feeling. Maybe you are feeling it right now as you read this (hee hee). Adults with power sanders followed. I wasn’t all that tall so I really only helped with the bottom portion. No kids were allowed on the ladders… darn it! We had more fun a few weeks later when the outside was ready for painting. It was the first time I can remember doing that sort of work, though I know we had done similar work to our own house previously. I just don’t remember doing that.
After the outside was protected there was a lot of inside work. We ripped down wall coverings and hauled the rubbish to big dumpsters. I have a particular remembrance of seeing the entire inside main floor as nothing but 2x4 framing where the walls used to be. I could see all the way from one end to the other. One weekend before the new wall framing went up we had a branch party in the open rough space. At the time my dad, Fred Beach, played in a country western band. He played the base guitar. My grandfather, Lester Miller, played the mandolin, and several other instruments. My uncle, Carl Miller, played the drums. There were I think three others in the band, a woman singer, a guitar player and a guy who played the steel guitar. I seem to remember this last guy’s name as Lou Albano (though that could be wrong, and no I’m not mixing him up with the professional wrestler… or maybe I am). He had hunched shoulders and his neck seemed fused. He couldn’t turn his head, so to look around he had to move his whole body. The only reason I bring all this up is because for this branch party the band played and we had a dance. We also had lots of food. In particular, at one point in the night as the band played my dad started laughing. His belt had gotten very tight from eating all the party food and all of a sudden his belt buckle broke and flew across the room mid-laugh.
One other memory I have from that building reconstruction period of the branch was when a few of us boys were in the basement making noise. This was a basement that was all concrete floors and walls with the wood structure above. The adults had taken the stuff from the main floor and stored it down in the basement. This included all the old school desks. You know the kind. Metal framed with a wood desk top that opened on a hinge. The seat was hard wood as were the slats in the back rest. I wouldn’t call anything about these desks restful. I remember living with this sort of school furniture pretty much right up until attending high school. We boys (maybe three or four of us) somehow started chanting some refrain and simultaneously banging on the tops of the desks with sticks of wood. We got louder and louder. It was not a Sunday by the way. We must have been making quite a racket, because at one point the branch president, Richard Long, came down and chewed us out. Who knows how these sort of mischievous ideas get into the heads of boys?
I’m sure I helped with more inside building construction projects after that, but I really don’t seem to remember any.
I earlier mentioned our little branch moved from renting some rooms at the local justice-of-the-peace courthouse building to a purchased old schoolhouse outside of town. At this point I was probably nine or ten years old. The building needed a lot of work to change it from its original purpose to that which we had in mind. I remember standing outside in a long line of members (our numbers were growing slowly) with a paint scraper. We had the task of chipping away paint that was cracked or coming loose from the old wood siding. I still remember the pain I felt when a scrapper caused that screeching sound of fingernails on a chalk board. You know the feeling. Maybe you are feeling it right now as you read this (hee hee). Adults with power sanders followed. I wasn’t all that tall so I really only helped with the bottom portion. No kids were allowed on the ladders… darn it! We had more fun a few weeks later when the outside was ready for painting. It was the first time I can remember doing that sort of work, though I know we had done similar work to our own house previously. I just don’t remember doing that.
After the outside was protected there was a lot of inside work. We ripped down wall coverings and hauled the rubbish to big dumpsters. I have a particular remembrance of seeing the entire inside main floor as nothing but 2x4 framing where the walls used to be. I could see all the way from one end to the other. One weekend before the new wall framing went up we had a branch party in the open rough space. At the time my dad, Fred Beach, played in a country western band. He played the base guitar. My grandfather, Lester Miller, played the mandolin, and several other instruments. My uncle, Carl Miller, played the drums. There were I think three others in the band, a woman singer, a guitar player and a guy who played the steel guitar. I seem to remember this last guy’s name as Lou Albano (though that could be wrong, and no I’m not mixing him up with the professional wrestler… or maybe I am). He had hunched shoulders and his neck seemed fused. He couldn’t turn his head, so to look around he had to move his whole body. The only reason I bring all this up is because for this branch party the band played and we had a dance. We also had lots of food. In particular, at one point in the night as the band played my dad started laughing. His belt had gotten very tight from eating all the party food and all of a sudden his belt buckle broke and flew across the room mid-laugh.
One other memory I have from that building reconstruction period of the branch was when a few of us boys were in the basement making noise. This was a basement that was all concrete floors and walls with the wood structure above. The adults had taken the stuff from the main floor and stored it down in the basement. This included all the old school desks. You know the kind. Metal framed with a wood desk top that opened on a hinge. The seat was hard wood as were the slats in the back rest. I wouldn’t call anything about these desks restful. I remember living with this sort of school furniture pretty much right up until attending high school. We boys (maybe three or four of us) somehow started chanting some refrain and simultaneously banging on the tops of the desks with sticks of wood. We got louder and louder. It was not a Sunday by the way. We must have been making quite a racket, because at one point the branch president, Richard Long, came down and chewed us out. Who knows how these sort of mischievous ideas get into the heads of boys?
I’m sure I helped with more inside building construction projects after that, but I really don’t seem to remember any.
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