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Show TIME ullunaL Opinion at our office L ' J qq c..j l0cc!i o Dinion r n II: B I i i . . J n n nn Oft vonaay iu:uu a.m. All submissions are subject to editing 0 t and The Orem-Geneva Times reserves u publish or not to publish a submission A2 Thursday, February 27, 2003 rWdT ( Column ) 2003 to be a landmark year for recreation Century oF Post COMMENTARY & Q Heroes in Orem The vision statement for the City of Orem Recreation Department states: "The City of Orem Recreation Department fosters a positive lifestyle for families by supporting opportunities opportuni-ties for leisure, wellness, open space and fun." That vision is coming to life in momentous ways this year, as projects proj-ects associated with the Pool, Parks, & Play Program continue to progress and become ready for use. In an article published in Orem's online Recreation Department brochure, Recreation Director Jerry Ortiz explained what the excitement is all about. Ortiz wrote, "After a hectic hec-tic year of planning, completing architectural archi-tectural renderings, design engineering engineer-ing work, and obtaining the necessary funding, the projects associated with the Pool, Parks, & Play Program are well underway." Ortiz went on to explain where the funding for the projects has come from and what the projects are. He wrote that city officials found it could "use a portion of existing taxes being assessed as a result of redevelopment areas in Orem to fund recreation projects, proj-ects, cultural arts facilities, and convention con-vention centers." The city decided to use available funds to proceed with projects outlined in the Recreation & Parks Master Plan, including an outdoor out-door swimming pool, Nielsen's Grove, a city skate park, Foothill Park, the reconstruction of City Center ball-, fields, Canyon Park, and others. Perusing Orem City's Web site, www.orem.org. it is interesting to see how many of the projects have already been completed or are expected to be finished this year. As any traveler along State Street can-clearly see, the outdoor swimming pool is under construction on the site of the old SCERA swimming pool. City officials are looking toward a Memorial Day 2003 opening for the facility, which will have a lap pool with diving plunge, water slides, a splash pad and water toys and features. fea-tures. The Orem City Council recently selected a name for the complex City of Orem SCERA Park Pools. Another highly anticipated project is Nielsen's Grove, located at 2000 South Sandhill Road. The 22-acre park is designed to replicate as much as possible an historic pioneer park that flourished on the site in the late 1800s and into the early 20th century. Features of the unique and beautiful park will include a reflecting pond, fountain, bowery, housemuseum, barn, parterre garden, and walking paths, Nielsen's Grove is expected to be ready for use in the late summer of this year. The city's skate park at 400 North 1200 West is already complete, and will be in service for a full season of activity this spring. For skaters and boarders, the park has elements from beginner to advanced skill levels. Its features include half pipes, ledges, stairs and rails, and pyramids. It is anticipated that Foothill Park in northeast Orem, by the elementary school of the same name, will be completed com-pleted in late September of this year, and the reconstructed City Center ballfields have already been put to use. Canyon Park, which will serve as a home to the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, is scheduled to be ready for use in June of 2004. Located off of Highway 189, up Provo Canyon opposite oppo-site the'Murdock Diversion Dam, the 44-acre park will have a pavilionhost-: ing center, a large pavilion, and six open space turf areas, each with a pavilion, restrooms, and easy access to the Provo River Trail and the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. In addition to all of these projects, the softball and soccer fields at thei Lakeside Sports Park, 1800 West 400 South, are set for use this spring. This complex also has a walking track, large pavilion, tot lot and picnic tables. In a letter on the city's Web site, Mayor Jerry Washburn noted that many grassy . areas will make the facility a "haven for families." And after many twists and turns in its development process over the past decade, the long-anticipated lakeside golf course is now under construction. Surely, this era of implementing projects from the master plan will be remembered as a landmark time for recreation in Orem. Oivc Jtdw duett Memmie Quandma McfBCaiti't Jdepflane ! The Utah Valley Elder Quest of the Center of Lifelong Learning at Utah Valley State College is comprised of some 200 local senior citizens, many of whom recall and write down their memories and life experiences, experi-ences, such as the one presented here. PHYLLIS HANSEN Grandma McBlain's telephone tele-phone was always a wonder to me. It was an odd rectan gular brown box permanently perma-nently fixed to the wall. It was hung high enough for Uncle George to speak The Orem-Geneva Times 538 South State Street Orem, UT 84058 published by The Daily Herald, A Pulitzer Newspaper Subscriptions & Delivery Service 375-5103 News & Advertising 225-1340 Fax 225-1341 Email .' oremtimesnetworld.com USPS 411-700. Published Thursdays by Pulitzer Newspapers, Inc., 538 South State Street, Orem, Utah 84058. Periodicals postage paid at Orem, Utah 84059. Postmaster: Send address changes to P.O. Box 65, Orem, UT 84059. Member: Audit Bureau of Circulations NEWSSTAND PRICE $0.50 SUBSCRIPTION RATE 1 year - $26 (in county) (Sunday & Thursday plus Holiday deliveries) Holiday deliveries include delivery the week of Easter, Memorial, Independence, Pioneer, Labor, Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year's. 1 year - $35 (out of county) NEWS We welcome news tips. Call 225-1340 to' report a news tip or if you have a comment or a question. We welcome letters to the editor. edi-tor. All letters must include the author's name (printed AND signed) and a telephone number. We reserve the right to edit letters let-ters for clarity, punctuation, taste and length. Letters are welcome wel-come on any topic. Publisher Managing Editor News Editor Sports Editor Contributing Writers Pagination & Graphics Office Manager Office Printing Relations Advertising Sales Production & Press Times Publishing Staff Brent Sumner bsumnerheraldextra.com Reva Bowen Scarlett Barger Martin Harris Clyde E. Weeks Jr. Robert King Sydney Sumner Scott Sumner Sydney Sumner Sydney Sumner Brent Sumner Phil Patten Brent Sumner Steve Goodwin Josh Romero Robert Kint directly into the mouthpiece, mouth-piece, but Grandma had to stand on tippy-toe. The telephone tele-phone at my home sat on the table and could be moved as long as the cord went, and it was black. Our telephone sat upright on the table, and it was a two-handed job to speak into it because the earpiece had to be held to your ear with the one hand while you held the talking piece to your mouth with the other hand. At home, we had a private line. If you wanted to call someone, you picked up the receiver and waited a few moments until the operator said, "Number, please." And you gave her three numbers. Then you would wait a few seconds, and the operator would cause a dull ringing sound within the phone until someone on the other end said, "hello." There were only a couple of operators in our city, so they knew everything every-thing about everybody. Grandma's telephone was a party line. That made it fascinating. Grandma's party line was much more complex. There was no operator. oper-ator. If you wanted to call someone, you had to know how many long and short cranks you made with the little handle on the right side of the telephone. The crank was turned one full turn for the long and halfway around for the short ring. Each person on the party line had a different differ-ent code. There were never more than three code cranks of that handle to get the person you wanted to talk with. Whenever anyone called someone, the telephone rang the code for everyone on the party line to hear. That was the way you could tell if the call was for you or not. It sounds simple, but here is where is gets more complex. Because the people lived a long way from each other, and they didn't see neighbors every often, it was expected that the neighbors would pick up the phone and listen to your conversation, and sometimes, some-times, if they knew both parties, they would join in. It became a problem if too many people eavesdropped because the sound faded, and it was more difficult to hear the one you really wanted to talk with. When I was a young girl, I spent many summers with my Grandma McBlain. I listened lis-tened to that phone ring often and observed what I thought was a peculiar way to converse with each other. I got a kick out of listening to Grandma try to control her end of the phone calls. She and a friend would be talking back and forth when Grandma, in a loud voice, would say, "Beulah, hang up that phone. This is a private call, and I can't hear when you're on the line too. Hang up!" in that cute Danish accent of hers. Beulah would mumble something or she would say something like, "Oh, I'm sorry, I was going to make a call to Myrtle, and I didn't know you were on the line." And she would hang up. Other times, Grandma would be chatting with a friend when she would interrupt herself and say something like, "I'm sorry, dear, I can't hear you very well. Mabel must be eavesdropping eaves-dropping again. I just can't talk to anyone without her always listening in." Soon she would hear a little click. Grandma would look at me and wink, and she and I would laugh after she had hung up the phone because she had caught the listener. I hadn't seen a telephone like Grandma's for many, many years. I wanted to share my memories about Grandma, but I was afraid that my grandchildren couldn't get a mental picture pic-ture of that telephone. At the end of May last year, I visited the Nauvoo LDS Temple open house in Illinois. While there, I visited visit-ed the Hancock County Museum across the street from the Carthage Jail. There, I saw that telephone hanging on the wall. Fortunately, I had my camera. cam-era. Now my grandchildren can have a visual picture, as I describe to them how that phone worked and the rest of the story. Orem gets new postmast CLYDE E. WEEKS, JR. Times Correspondent Part 8 The post-war boom was underway in Orem in 1951. Most of Orem's military men and women had returned home. Many had married and started families. fami-lies. School classrooms were bulging with "war babies" of the many people, who had made Orem their home. No new schools had been built in Orem for more than 36 years, until the new Geneva Elementary School opened for classes during the 1949-50 school year. The new decade saw an influx of new businesses in Orem. Taverns, service stations, sta-tions, appliance dealers, grocery stores, a dairy, furniture fur-niture stores, drug stores, real estate brokers, insurance insur-ance offices, auto repair shops, sporting goods stores, nurseries, publishers, publish-ers, plumbers, trailer courts, canvas goods dealers, deal-ers, motels, metal works, automobile dealers, clothing cloth-ing stores, appliance stores, home decorators, fruit stands and other concerns chose locations, mostly along State Street. And they all depended, heavily, on the expeditious handling of their mail, both incoming and outgoing, to make the wheels of commerce com-merce run smoothly in Orem. The 1950 federal census placed Orem City's population popula-tion at 8,351. Facilities for storing Orem's culinary water were substantially increased in 1950 with the construction of a two-million-gallon steel reservoir on the hill east of the city. Immediately after my installation as permanent Orem Postmaster in 1951, 1 renewed previous efforts that had been made in obtaining postal headquarters headquar-ters approval to institute door-to-door mail delivery in Orem's new subdivisions. subdivi-sions. Until that time, the only mail delivery service that could be provided to both old and new residents of the city was rural delivery service to rural-type mail boxes, affixed to posts on property lines. Moreover, those boxes had to be grouped together, sometimes some-times at the end of a street, to receive J in order delivery. Thp three rw carriers arove their vehicles to deliver the and they had to be able place tne mail int0 j rural boxes, without le ing their cars. In early January jj; the Post Office Depart finally gave its approval establish a City Delivf Service in Orem to qu ing areas. Tn V. 1 was discontinued, door-to-door deliverv started in a number of g divisions. Initially, thee i ii ners arove meir owned to deliver mail, and time, they used bicycli mail delivery. The bicycles were venient for letter delivery, but they had tot followed by a parcel truck to deliver the part! Un January 16, ljj the date on which Ci Delivery Service was iiX gurated in Orem, the tern of mailing addres for all Orem mail pate was changed from the 1 of rural box numbers (oil. use of house and numbers. That new sya contributed towards simplifying k the delivery of mail in city, as well as in the 1 tion of homes and busii es by residents and town visitors. The new mail addrl- ing system also stimuli the entire community cooperate in the instil tion of street signs streets and house mra on homes and businei The Orem Lions Club on, as a project, the st: ing of aluminum ho numbers in the office City Building Inspected Wickman. In order to receive mail delivery, each local had to have a visible to number posted. In 1952 the Oreml Office's staff in Kenneth G. Johnson, Reed Hackine. Man' Krissman and G. PnlViam r-lerks: M. Thurber'and FredFiel rural carriers: and M B. Stratton, John SaM ' and Ted Salisbury, m tute carriers. The Orem receipts in 1952 $20,735.74. Next Week: A DecsJ of Service K "Friendship is the hardest thing inth world to explain. It's not somethings'0 learn in school. But if you haven't learn the meaning of friendship, you reall haven't learned anything." -Muhammad Ali DEADLINES Because of the increase of news stories submitted to the Oremi in H nn Tim PS. flltf vrivtUltiUlUVU 1UV " for npws & a ihi oriicSnn ic 1A.AA n m Items need to be brought to the OremLindon &w south State Street, Orem. Entries may W for length and content. If you have any questions please call our o 225-1340 iffice at in 'at ';ti as |