Life Sketch

While this was a group effort to write, I thought I would share so that everyone that couldn't attend can read it and those of us that were there can hold on to it.

Norris Lee Ashment was born on November 4, 1942 to Arlynn Merten Ashment and Vella Drucilla Porter Ashment. Norris was the eighth of nine children. Norris was preceded in death by his parents, his brothers Keith, Theo and James and sister Katherine. Norris was born and raised on a small farm in Afton, Wyoming. Growing up on a farm Norris developed a love for animals early on. One day Norris went out and climbed on his old gray mare. Part of the trail required him to cross the canal. Once across the canal Norris had to get off of his horse to close the gate. Well, his trusty steed decided that she’d had enough and headed home… without Norris. Poor Norris was left on the wrong side of the canal with no way back across.

Growing up Norris attended school first in Afton, which of course required the standard “uphill both ways in six feet of snow with no shoes” journey. Later he attended school in Idaho Falls. Norris’s early teen-age friend, VerNon enrolled in guitar lessons. When VerNon would finish the lesson for the day he would head home to share his knowledge with Norris. These early lessons started Norris’s love for music and stringed instruments.

On February 11, 1960, Norris set off on a new adventure, joining the U. S. Army. Norris attended basic training in Fort Ord, California, and was later stationed at Kitzingen, Germany. During his service in the military he was a member of a band called “The Wildflowers” which played at several bases around Germany. On February 8th, 1963, his service ended and he returned home. The members of the Wildflowers reunited in Denver, Colorado where they recorded a 45record which featured two songs:
“It’s Just My Pride” and “Quick as a Flash”.

In December of 1965 he married Sharon Dodge, and the following October they had their first daughter, Julie. Two years later, and two days shy of Norris’s birthday, they welcomed another daughter, Joan, into their family. The family lived in a small house on May Street. The house was most definitely a fixer-upper which both challenged and tested his skills. Many days were spent in the garage as he schemed thinking up yet another invention that would revolutionize the world.

Between the time spent working at Sears and fixing everything and anything at home as well as playing music, he always found time to teach Julie and Joan the basics in life; riding bikes, climbing trees, playing guitar, soldering wires, and especially learning how to drive their mother crazy. His sense of humor was also passed down early on as he chuckled and told them to go “play in the street”, which they did but it was ok because it was a dead end street.

One of Julie’s first memories was in 1969 as the first steps were being taken on the moon. She remembers Norris picking her up, taking her outside, and pointing to the moon. He then took her back inside to show her the TV while repeating the word “moon”, and finally she understood!

Every night when Norris came home from work, he would have a “Smartie” candy in his nerdy pencil pocket protector. Julie would run to meet her Daddy, he would scoop her up, and she would take the treat out of his pocket. He would tell her she was his “princess” and if she took her “Smartie” pills every single day…she would be the smartest girl in the whole world and could do anything if she tried hard enough.

You have all heard stories where men do things “wrong” so they are never asked to do them again? Well, shortly after Sharon and Norris completely repainted their new little house, Norris found out something was wrong with the furnace. As usual, he attempted to fix it. Unfortunately, he didn’t quite get it fixed correctly. When he turned on the furnace, a black cloud of soot and dust issued forth and completely covered the entire freshly painted house with dirt. So much for the clean paint!

Ten years later Norris and Sharon were surprised with the news that they were expecting their youngest daughter, Siobhan. At the same time they began the construction on the home on Beeche’s Corner. Norris’s roots as a farm boy reared its head once again. The home was located on two acres of land. Norris acquired a rusted POS tractor and decided to start a garden. Once, after tinkering with the tractor and getting it back in running order, Norris began plowing the quote un-quote garden. There was a large tiller that attached to the back of the tractor. The tiller was designed to have someone sitting on it to weigh it down to break up the earth. Norris couldn’t drive and sit on the tiller so he did the next logical thing, drag eleven year old Joan out to sit on the tiller. Part way through Norris tilling his new garden, Sharon glanced outside and saw Joan sitting on the tiller, a death grip on the seat, and ran outside bellowing “Stop and get my child off that tractor”. In the end, the garden was a bit more then a standard backyard garden and encompassed about half an acre.

Norris didn’t seem to mind having three girls and he didn’t let that stop him from teaching them how to change tires, bleed breaks, change oil filters and install carburetors. They all got lessons on how to read electronic schematics and how to fix just about anything…determination was key. It may not have been pretty, but anything could be fixed. The girls fondly remember holding the flashlight while Norris would fix TVs, VCRs, car motors or anything else. He would ask for the tool and they each knew exactly what he was asking for and give him the proper tool.

And oh the pranks! When Julie and Joan were in junior high, they used to play “camping” in their small 13 foot camp trailer, parked in the driveway. One day, Norris lit an entire roll of firecrackers and threw them under the trailer. When they started exploding, he shook the camper so hard they thought there was an earthquake or a bomb going off. When they bolted from the camper, there stood Norris, bellowing with laughter.

Norris and Sharon played in a band, the Good Timers, for many years, traveling all over the valley. Many friends were made and adventures were enjoyed. Many nights were spent in the basement of their home, practicing music, and jam sessions were the norm. And although Norris could not read sheet music, he always said, “It doesn’t interfer with my playing!”

Sharon and Norris later divorced in 1985. During this period, Norris frequently spent time with his brothers. One weekend Norris loaded Siobhan and his brother Blaine’s granddaughter Crystal into his faithful old beat-up red truck, which he had spent many hours fixing up, and they headed to Blaine’s house in Rigby. It was the middle of winter and it was snowing and blowing. Crystal became rather nervous with the storm blowing around them. Siobhan, having every faith in her father, patted Crystal reassuringly on the shoulder and said “don’t worry, ol’ red can make it.” Norris laughed and laughed about this for years to come.

Also during this time, Norris’s girls found a little kitten. They had to rescue it and their mother wouldn’t let them keep it at her house and Norris was always a softy for animals so they convinced him to keep the kitten. Now while he loved animals, he wasn’t overly creative with names. He named the kitten “Cat”. It just might be possible that he wanted a dog instead of a cat as he tried to teach the cat to do tricks. He did manage to teach Cat how to sit on command. Another trick that Cat learned was how to move his food bowl in front of the fridge when he needed to be fed. Norris later commented that he wondered if he had trained Cat or if Cat had trained him.

In 1987, love was in the air, as Norris met Gayle for the first time at the going away party for his soon to be son-in-law Boyd’s enlistment in the Army. Little did he know that first meeting would bloom into 23 years of laughter, tears, fishing trips, and many, many family vacations. It was soon after that party that Gayle’s TV quit working. And after listening to Cody whine for the last time, Gayle’s best friend Margaret, suggested she call Joan’s father to fix it. Norris was more than willing to go over to Gayle’s; he distinctly remembered meeting her at the party…she was the one with the “hot legs”. With Robert, Gayle’s oldest son, hanging over his shoulder, Norris dug in and fixed the TV in no time, much to Cody’s delight. True to his nature, Norris refused to accept any kind of payment, and likewise true to her nature, Gayle was adamant about reimbursing him, and so she insisted that she take him fishing.

On October 30, 1987 Norris and Gayle were married in Idaho Falls. Through his marriage to Gayle, Norris acquired four step-sons, Robert, John, Scott and Cody and step-daughter Vicki. Not long thereafter Norris began playing music with the band affectionately dubbed “HTA”. The band played in Swan Valley at the Covered Wagon and in Idaho Falls at Ford’s Bar. When asked to play for the yearly family reunion of their close friends the Holversons, the group quickly agreed. One year at the Holverson reunion Norris had his camp trailer parked near an old three railed wooden fence. Each of the three rails ran horizontally. Norris and BJ, the cockapoo that Boyd and Joan had given him, were sitting beside the campfire. Norris placed BJ’s chew toy on the bottom rail of the fence. BJ quickly discovered it and got it down. Norris decided to try again and put it on the second rail of the fence. It took a few tries but BJ finally figured out how to climb up on the bottom rail and retrieve the toy off the second rail. Norris was thrilled with the way that BJ figured out so quickly how to retrieve the toy. He figured there was no possibility that BJ could reach the top rail but was curious to see how smart BJ really was. He placed the toy on the top rail of the fence, and after a few failed attempts, BJ figured out that he could climb the fence just like a ladder and climbed up the fence, walked across the top rail, got the toy and jumped down. Norris erupted in laughter at his dog’s ingenuity.

On one Christmas morning, Norris and Cody enjoyed suprising everyone as they woke up or came to visit with a greeting from Jeeves…the shifty eyed but ever faithful, inflatable dinosaur butler.
Christmastime rolled around yet again and Norris and Cody were in charge of bringing home the perfect tree, so they hopped in the truck and went hunting at the local tree corral. Unfortunately, the poor tree they brought home fell a few feet short of perfect; instead, they brought home what was the epitome of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Wrapped in twine, the tree looked lush and full; however, once the twine was cut, and the tree sprang open what was left were three full branches at the very bottom and not much else. Gayle gave them both “the look” and back to the lot they went but that poor little tree would not be abandoned; instead, Norris, Cody and Julie drug the tree downstairs and loaded it with Oly beer cans, ding-dongs, and streamers of yarn. Although relegated to the basement, that tree was the house favorite.

Through his relationship with Gayle and through his own children, Norris has twelve grandchildren, Jasmine, Josh, Mikel, Anthony, Dustin, Tanner, Stephanie, A.J., Lexi, Trevor, Shaiann and Alyssa. Norris also has four great-grandchildren, Trinity, Tayson, Aspen and Oakley. Norris enjoyed teaching the grand kids how to play guitar, go fishing, annoying their parents, and a touch of colorful language.

In the 90’s Gayle bought a ceramic Christmas village. Norris made a comment that he could make little houses like that. Soon thereafter Gayle purchased Norris a couple of balsa wood kits for him to put together. Of course, these were quickly modified to suit his own liking. Not long after this, he found “The World’s Smallest Table Saw”, and knew he just had to have it. A few days after getting his new toy, Gayle came home from work to find a bloodied bar of soap in the bathroom. She immediately charged downstairs, where Norris was perched on his seat working away. Saying nothing, she grabbed one hand and than the other. Sure enough, his thumb was wrapped in a gob of bandages - the “Worlds Smallest Table Saw” had tried to eat his thumb. Thus began his love for miniatures and replicas which included the shed from the old homestead in Wyoming as well as the house on May Street.

Always up for a challenge, Norris decided to try his hand at making miniature trucks, and he had found the perfect partners in crime in Robert and Boyd. Robert was driving truck for Kilpack and Boyd had just started driving truck for England Trucking. Norris crawled all over their trucks, and any other trucks he could get away with, taking measurements so he could reconstruct precisely scaled models of a Peterbilt 397, Kenworth T800, and a Freightliner FL120. He also enjoyed building other vehicles such as trains, planes, and automobiles. After seeing his skill at model building, a co-worker of Gayle’s from the INL asked if Norris could make a replica of a 1936 Chevy Coupe that they had recently bought and were refurbishing. After the actual car was finished, it was shown in several car shows – always accompanied by Norris’s replica, which much to his surprise and delight also won awards.

Although Norris loved working with wood, his first love, the guitar, was never far from his mind. Using the models he built as practice, he experimented and perfected the art of airbrushing – he had a plan! He was determined to build a replica of a 1961 Fender Stratocaster with a sunburst pattern similar to the guitar used by his Army buddy and fellow “Wildflower” band member, Dave. He purchased a Fender neck and body, and after much painstaking time, he completed his greatest woodworking and airbrushing feat, the guitar of his dreams. Around this time he also aquired a pedal steel guitar, and many hours were spent composing, playing, and recording his own music. But the ultimate joy for Norris was to have his grandchildren come over and to sneak away with them to teach them how to play the guitar, or as Siobhan dubbed it…his “deedle-dee”. One can only hope that his répertoire had improved beyond “The Old Gray Mare”.

Besides being a phenomenal musician and craftsman, Norris was also quite the talented cook, and could often be found in his backyard whipping up a pot of potatoes, fried chicken, or peach cobbler in the Dutch oven pit. And true to his gender, he loved to supervise the barbecue grill, perfecting the art of grilling steaks.

In addition, Norris loved spending time outdoors 4 wheeling and hunting with Boyd and his ol’ buddy Butch, and would never turn down a chance to go fishing or camping. Many a story can be recalled about some of the more adventuresome escapades such as the hunting trip from hell, which went awry when first the hitch was lost, than his beloved zippo lighter came up missing and culminating in a busted truck window when the 4-wheeler tried to jump into the front seat. However, such thing were always taken in stride, and when the dust would settle, there would be Norris, head cocked to one side chuckling and saying “well sum bitch” ….but that’s another story.

Norris had an amazing life and his legacy of humor and caring will live on forever. He was an exceptional man who enriched the life of everyone he met. That mischievous twinkle in his eye will be remembered. He will be greatly missed.