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Ron's
bio
(click on the black links below for city information)
[Hey, a baby photo? I
wanted my bio to be a bit different from the standard one
found on writers' websites. If all you're interested in is
my work as a writer, you need to go to the main bio page
and click on "Writing Life"]
I
was born in St. Luke's General Hospital
in Bellingham,
Washington, the closest city with a hospital to
Ferndale,
about 11 miles away, where my parents, Harold and Darlene,
were living at the time. The Terpening family farm, owned
by my grandparents, was located just outside Ferndale.
City Hall, Bellingham
Tennant Lake, Ferndale
Ferndale, Main Street
St.
Luke's General Hospital is now the South Campus of PeaceHealth,
a regional medical center. Bellingham (click
here to see four photos) is a pulp and paper town and a port city where
tourists can drive aboard ferries headed to Alaska. The
city, with a current population of just over 67,000, is
located 78 miles north of Seattle and
approximately 25 miles from the small town of Blaine,
which is close to Peace Arch State Park and the border
with Canada.
Blaine harbor
Peace Arch State Park
I've always
felt an affinity with Canada, despite never having lived there.
That's probably because when I mispronounced "schedule" at
the age of five, using a soft "ch" instead of
a "k," my German grandmother Olga Terpening
said, "That's okay; that's the way they say it in
Canada."
That
seems like a good excuse when you make an error. Just say, "That's
okay. I'm Canadian."
• • •
My first four years in school
were tough because my family moved five times. After living
in Pateros and Moses
Lake, I attended grade schools in Warden,
Ferndale, Wenatchee,
Seattle, and Portland (Gilbert
grade school). In  the second grade, at Lewis & Clark
grade school in Wenatchee, my teacher, Miss Betty Payne, marked
me down in three areas.
Lake Wenatchee (this
and all following photos by Ron)
For "Avoids
quarreling"and "Behaves
well in group" she selected "Part of the time" rather
than "Practically
always," and for "Writing: Forms
letters carefully and correctly" she checked "Improvement
needed." At least that was a problem of the hand, not
the imagination!
Like everyone, I have many
childhood memories,
but one of the things I remember with no measure of fondness
are endless hours spent trudging through neighborhoods in different
towns, slipping rolled brochures under doorsills or through
the handles of screen doors. As a traveling evangelist, my  father
had a circus tent in which revival meetings were held, thus
the brochures. I
prefer to remember the girl in Pateros who would squat and
pee her pants for a quarter. That was more entertaining.
Photo above: Pateros, Washington
The family finally gained some
stability when we moved to Gresham,
then a small town of 5,000 inhabitants about 14 miles to the
east of Portland, where I started the fifth grade. My father
was minister of the Free Methodist Church at the corner of
Fourth and Roberts. Today the parsonage is owned by the Salvation
Army.
Gresham, Parsonage Gresham
Free Methodist Church
My fondest memories, however,
are of the public library, which was located two houses away,
a beautiful building that today is an historical site.
Former Gresham Public Library
continued (please click next
page)
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