I have a few vague memories of the farm. I remember pigs circling the house on a rainy day and us all watching them out the kitchen window. I think that might have been a dream. I remember turkeys...
My first real memory, one that I am sure of and know actually happened was on the day we moved into our new house in town. That was also the day I met Charles Russell, the kid who was to be, for at least the next several years, my best friend.
Our new house was here:
1307 Sunnyside Lane. Let me talk a minute about this place. If you could draw the perfect neighborhood, it would be the neighborhood surrounding 1307 Sunnyside Lane. The highway wasn't there at the time, neither was the houses to the south of it. That whole area was just mesquite thickets populated with rattlesnakes, rabbits, owls and all sorts of other strange and wonderful creatures. The large open area to the north is Lamar Elementary school and the surrounding play ground. I walked to school every day from 1st thru 6th grade because that's what people did back in those days and because it was like 3 freaking blocks. There were kids everywhere, most my age, some older, some younger but kids everywhere. Not all of my childhood was wonderful as you will see but the times I spent roaming that neighborhood hold some very fond memories for me.
Back to our first day. I don't remember going out but I remember I was in the back yard. There was another kid in the next yard and he was doing something at the fence. I remember something about a frog in a hole. I was a few days shy of 6 years old. Charles was a few months older than me. We were best friends for most of my childhood. I'll talk about why our friendship ended later. The Russells were a good bunch, they had an older daughter and a younger son as well as Charles. Mr. Russell was a postman and Mrs. Russell worked at a downtown department store. Charles and I spent a lot of time together, we spent the night at each other's house most weekends. Charles wasn't a big kid, just a normal guy. He had kind of sandy blond hair and I can't really see his face any more. I kind of see Robert Redford when I think of Charles. Anyway, he was a brain, I wasn't. Neither of us were very good at sports, he taught me how to play chess and always beat me. I still never haven't gotten very good at that game. We spent a lot of time roaming the neighborhood, just being kids. We both got into Cub and Boy Scouts, I still remember the day he made Eagle Scout. I barely made First Class.
So, I started first grade soon after we moved even thought I wasn't supposed to. I think you had to be 6 by the 25 of August but I missed by a few days but my parents talked my way in somehow. My first grade teacher's name was Mrs Borden. She was one of those sweet old white haired ladies who probably should have retired before I was born. She didn't teach us shit, just kind of napped in her chair. Consequently, 2nd grade was rough for me. Ms Carr was a fairly young lady conparitively speaking and she expected you to perform. Back in those days, you made the grades or they flunked you and your parents expected it and supported it. Kids didn't act up in school because a teacher would take you out in the hall and smack your ass or even worse, send you to the principle and let him do it with a big wooden paddle. That sounds barbaric these days, I know, but kids knew their place and kept it. You didn't smart off to someone twice your size when you knew they could take you and beat the shit out of you. Somehow, I made it thru 2nd grade with my class. 3rd grade was not much problem except my teacher was a mean old bitch. Her name was Ms Phillips. She was one of those big square women with the tight white bun. I can still see her to this day. If you acting. up or were talking, she would sneak up on you, grab you by the shoulders and shake your teeth out.
4th grade things changed. 1st thru 3rd grade were all in the same room with the same teacher. When you got to 4th grade, you changed rooms for different subjects. You went as one class in a big long line but you had a bunch of different teachers. I don't remember most of the names but I can still se a few faces. Our music teacher was a young, pretty lady. I remember one day we had to get up and sing in front of the class solo. Everyone was freaking out and this red headed kid named Eddie took out his pocket knife and sliced his thumb open to keep from having to do it. He sat right by me, I watched him do it. He got to go home for the rest of the day. I do remember our art teacher, Mrs King. She reminded me of Endora on Bewitched and we all thought she was a real life witch. She loved little girls but hated little boys and she was a mean old bat. I was sick a lot that year to avoid her. There was one man teacher in the whole school, can't remember his name but he whupped my ass one day for carrying my books on my head "like a Zulu."
Two dramatic things happened that year. This was about 63/64 and some of you can guess what one of them was. I was coming back from lunch and as I walked into music class, someone said President Kennedy had been shot. They said he had been flying over Dallas and someone had shot him thru the bottom of the plane. The only real effect this had on me was his stupid funeral was the only thing on TV for THREE WHOLE DAYS.
TV, there's a whole subject by itself. Back in those days, TV was it as far as electronic entertainment was concerned. We had three channels, ABC, NBC, and CBS. They stopped broadcasting around midnight. The TV was ALWAYS on but most kids didn't spend much time in front of the TV if the weather was pretty. There was too much to do outside. We did spend every evening in front of the tube. I loved Saturday mornings, I would get up real early and watch the Bowery Boys, Rin Tin Tin, The Lone Ranger, Sky King, My Friend Flicka, all real life adventure type series, mostly westerns. Cartoons on Saturday didn't start till around 1965 or so but once they started, they went gang busters. All the old dramas just dried up and blew away. I'll have to come back and revisit the whole vintage TV thing some day, there is way too much for this particular thread.
I went to the moves a lot. Tarzan was a big deal back in those days. Johnny Weismuller, the real Trazan that is. It's really funny to think about now but you could go out in the back yard and do a Tarzan yell and kids all the way up and down the block would start picking it up. Monster movies were all the rage. King Kong, Godzilla, all the cool ones as well as The Mummy, The Creature, Dracula, etc. There was always a cartoon before the movie too. I'll never forget how pissed I was the first time a movie started with no cartoon.
Second thing that happened in 64 was a monster tornado that blew thru Wichita Falls. It tore the hell out of Sheppard Air Force Base. We could actually see it even though it was miles away.
Mom and Dad both worked. It wasn't unusual for both parents to work back in those days. Mom worked as a secretary at a place called Cox Drilling and Dad, bless his heart, owned a string of bars. Not fancy nightclubs, bars, dives, juke joints, places you could just as easily get your head busted as get a beer. His first place was called Bill's Elbow. It was right on the edge of the bad part of town. I never remember going there but he soon sold that place and moved a little closer to downtown. This place was called The Hideaway and I spent a lot of time there on the weekends. I got to know a lot of the regulars and saw some wild stuff. I followed my Dad and a guy out the door one day. Dad didn't see me till he grabbed this guy by front of his shirt, doubled up his fist, stuck it in the guys face and said, "Where's my money." The other guy was about to piss himself. Then Dad saw me and told me to go back inside. I went. My Dad learned how to fight in the Marines. He was a nice guy to his patrons but he didn't put up with no shit. I remember the day Dad ended up in the hospital with a broken jaw because some drank had smashed him in the face with a beer bottle. He told me stories about having a gun pulled on him three different times. That being said, the bar was a fun place. I could play pool or shuffleboard all I wanted, most of the drunks were pretty cool guys and they treated me really good. One place had a train track about 10 feet out the back door and I would go out and watch the trains go by. There were always bums in the open cars, I always wondered about what their story might be.
My Dad was a fisherman. That was what he liked to do for fun so pretty much every weekend we would go fishing. Most of the time, just off to a favorite small lake in Nocona or St Joe, sometimes out on the boat in Lake Wichita. He always had a boat and loved tinkering around with it. Various extended family members would come along as well. My grandmother was quite a fisherman and would quite often tag along. My grandfather didn't care much for fishing so seldom came but Granny was always there. She was a hefty gal and always wore those old farm dresses. Inevitably, you would be fishing and look up and there would be the south side of a north bound Granny bent over the minnow bucket or tackle box. Thank God she also always wore a slip and all those other undergarments ladies wore in those days or I might be more fucked up than I already am. Granny was a great old lady. My sister and I would quite often spend the night at her place. They had a small farm just outside of town with a small pond and a horse. They had feather beds and these big quilts, you climbed in and it felt like sleeping on a cloud. Granny made the most incredibly awesome pancakes in the world, they had a little crispy ring around the outside and you could use all the butter you wanted. Their garage was part sand and was full of
ant lions. I would spend hours playing with these things, they are really fascinating creature. Grandpa had been a rancher all his life but just got old. He didn't say much but when he did you better listen. He was a cool guy but I never got very close to him. Him and his brothers all chewed tobacco. Not that shredded pouch stuff but the stuff that came in what was called a plug. It was a hard compressed little brick that you cut a chunk off of with your pocket knife. He always drove a pickup and there was always a 1 gallon coffee can on the hump. It had a papertowel in the bottom and was usually about 1/4 full of tobacco spit. Heaven help your ass if you kicked over the spit can.
Man, I've only made it to the 4th grade. The more I type, the more I remember and the more I want to say but I've been at this one part for two hours. We'll pick up where we left off in Part III.
