Terry Tales

Clell in the Closet

My parents moved to Seattle in 1959 and lived in a small rental on Capitol Hill. Dad didn’t like living in the city and soon bought a two-bedroom mobile home and set it up in a trailer park next to the Juanita Beach State Park, near Kirkland. This was before the Highway 520 bridge opened, so it was very much out in the sticks. Mom may have already been pregnant with my sister, Laurie, when we moved there. The trailer was mostly light blue with a kitchen/living area in the front and a master bedroom in the back. In between, there was a short hallway that led past the bathroom and a tiny room with bunk beds where my older sister, Linda, and I slept.

Although I was only three years old, I have hazy memories of my uncle Roy helping Dad to set the trailer up on blocks and connect the utilities. Roy had his own small trailer in the same park. They were getting close to the final level when I climbed into Roy’s pickup to play ‘drive’. I have a vague memory (or maybe I just remember hearing the story over and over) of reaching for the keys that were usually left in the ignition (oh, simpler days). I turned the key just like I had seen the grown-ups do. The pickup, nose to nose with the trailer, lurched forward on the starter motor. There was no interlock back then, a vehicle left in gear could be ‘walked’ quite a distance just using the starter motor. This time, it walked far enough for the front bumper to make contact with the trailer hitch. It wasn’t a big bump, there was no damage to the pickup, and no one was under the trailer when it fell off the blocks. It was more funny than tragic. Still, Dad wasn’t very happy about starting over with the trailer and the way it’s fixed in my memory leads me to wonder if maybe I got my butt beat to help me remember not to play in Roy’s pickup!

We lived at Juanita Beach for a couple of years, and Laurie was born there in 1960. A larger family created a need for more space and the purchase of a larger trailer followed. It was mostly yellow and it was longer, wider, and had three bedrooms. Laurie and Linda shared one bedroom and I had a room all to myself! Dad wanted to get even further from the city and he found a small place near what is now the Microsoft campus in Redmond. Dad and Roy moved both of their trailers onto the Dyer place, and we lived there for two or three years while they worked as carpenters, framing spec houses for a contractor and building concrete forms for the Highway 520 floating bridge project. Dad also worked on the Century 21 exhibit for the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle.

Our landlady was ‘Mama’ Dyer. She had a few acres and a few farm animals, but probably made more money renting space to us and Uncle Roy. Mama Dyer had a son named Harley who lived with her, and two grandkids named Clell and Leota who visited sometimes. Both Harley and Mama Dyer were separated or divorced and I don’ think we ever met the spouses. Clell was my age and Leota was the same age as Linda. We were occasional playmates until our move back to Montana in 1963.

Dad moved the yellow trailer to Montana himself, towing it with a one-ton Chevy truck that he bought just for that purpose. It became a farm truck and we used it for many years (yes, it was that same truck that took Laurie’s front teeth). One of our family jokes was that Clell didn’t want us to leave, and that he snuck into the trailer and hid in the broom closet before we left. The trailer was locked up tight, the truck was noisy and there wasn’t any food or water, so poor Clell didn’t survive the trip. Linda and I began teasing Laurie (and Marcia?) that the ghost of Clell was still hanging around, trapped in that tragic broom closet!

I would make a noise when Laurie was looking at Linda and she’d pretend to be scared, and then Linda would make a noise when Laurie looked at me and I’d pretend to be scared.

“Oh, that’s Clell’s ghost, rattling the brooms,” we’d say.

It worked for a while, but eventually Laurie got wise and refused to believe in Clell’s ghost, so we had to up the ante.

The next act was a stroke of genius. Linda got Virgil Rinke to play the part of Clell. We distracted the little kids and Virgil snuck into the broom closet. This time, Linda and I were in plain sight when the noise started.

“There’s no one in there,” Laurie said doubtfully.

But this time there was more than just a rattle. There was a plaintive wail to go along with the brooms knocking around.

“It’s the ghost of Clell!”

On that cue, the door flew open, Virgil howled like a banshee, and the little kids shrieked and ran away. Linda and I both laughed like fiends, but no one enjoyed it more than Virgil.