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Today's Ypulse Guest Post comes from our friends at I Heart Daily Melissa Walker and Anne Ichikawa. Since the pair recently teamed up again for fun side project turned viral hit Before You Were Hot, a submission-based collection of awkward... Read the rest of this post

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I taught for nine years at the New Hampton School, an independent boarding school in central New Hampshire (from which I also graduated as a student). During my first three years, I lived as a dorm parent in the oldest building on campus and one of the oldest in town, Randall Hall. Randall was a legendary building, having been hauled across town at the beginning of the 20th century brick by brick and rebuilt. By the time I lived in it with 30-35 junior and senior boys (mostly hockey players), it was in desperate need of repair.

During my third year in Randall, I had become, by default, the dorm head, in charge of everything having to do with the dorm. There are few things in the world I hate more than being an administrator, and so I did what I have always done with such positions: used it to get the heck out! I lived the next six years in an apartment in a house owned by the school.

Despite its historical value, Randall could not ultimately be saved. Structural engineers reported that any work was likely to collapse the building. Estimates of what it would take to refurbish it to make it safer and more efficient ran to the tens of millions of dollars, and the only promise was that the ultimate effect would be a building that remained less than ideal. So New Hampton made a very difficult decision: to tear Randall down and build a new structure in its place. And that's what they did, and beautifully so. The new Pililas Math-Science Center fits remarkably well with the three antique buildings around it, and is a massive improvement over the previous facilities. I toured it back in June, and was amazed that the building I had known so intimately had metamorphosed into this.

It was strange to stand where my apartment had been -- the space is now an airy stairwell. It was where my cats, Vanya and Masha, had sat on big windowsills and looked across at the building that housed my classroom. (One year, I was assigned to a room that looked right back at my apartment, and so I would sometimes require my students to wave to the cats.) I wrote a really bad novel in Randall one year, going downstairs to a tiny office and working on an ancient computer so I could get away from the noise of the third and fourth floors, where the students lived. Often, as a warm-up, I would write reviews on Amazon.com, which ended up being good training for this blog. (It's amusing to me now that the novel, which I thought was the important project at the time, turned out to be awful, but without having done the reviews, I might never have created this blog, which has been an important part of my life for the past six years. Oh, and we seemed to have turned 6 two days ago. Happy birthday, blog!)

I learned most of what I know about teaching at a boarding school while living in Randall, because, as anybody who's done it can tell you, there's nothing like the insanity and exhilaration of the first three years. There were many moments where I was within inches of a nervous breakdown, but they were also in many ways the best -- or, perhaps, most intense and vivid and passionate -- years of my life.

So here's to you, Randall Hall. The first thing that got demolished was the apartment I'd lived in during my second and third years. (The last person to live in that apartment was one of my fellow members of the class of '94, and one of my best friends.) Here's a video I discovered this morning of the demolition--

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I was told by witnesses present (including Momma) that I was born during a storm and heavy rain during the late evening of May 25, 1936 in rural Central Texas on the rich soil of the Blackland Prairie. Daddy had taken the old Model A Ford to Eddy, a small town about eight miles away, to fetch the only medical doctor closer than Troy. The roads were mud excepting for a short bit of gravel, and they had a terrible time getting there in time to greet me. They were a bit late, but never mind, “Ma” (Grandma Johnson) and several other ladies knew exactly what to do. After the doctor arrived, he checked us out and said all was well. He then had Daddy make the grinding trip again to take him home (he forgot to do a birth certificate, however).

　

The tiny shotgun house in which I was born was still around when I became older and I can tell you that no one mentioned preserving it as a possible historical site. It was beyond restoration when we resided there. I have some distinct memories of events in that house (although I would have to have been very young at the time). One was when (I learned later in life) a “cyclone” struck just south of us near the community of Cego. One person was killed and I recall people telling of seeing chickens completely plucked of all feathers by the terrible winds (they were called cyclones around home until the “news” began reporting tornadoes after the 1953 tragedy in nearby Waco, Texas). It was later, during my formal education, that I learned that cyclones and tornadoes are not the same. I vividly remember seeing fear in my Daddy’s eyes as he held me while looking up at the storm clouds and when the thick paper on the rafters (to keep out cold winds) collapsed and dumped a large amount of water at his feet. The other memory is a clear sight of my older brother walking across bedded ground in a field as he came home from school. I do recall sitting just inside a torn screen door, but nothing significant happened that I recall. I was told that I was crawling on the porch and fell off into the “slop bucket” (for feeding hogs) and almost drowned before being rescued. I do not remember it, but I have often wondered whether that affected my personality. I usually do not tell people, especially in polite society, “I fell into the slop bucket when I was a baby.” About the same time in my charmed life, I crawled, undetected, under a car driven by Uncle “Snooks” and when he backed out of the yard, a tire caught just a bit of the top of my head between it and the ground and pinched a piece of skin from the top of my scalp. I still have the scar, along with many others (most of which are not results of such a close call).

The only other clear memory of life in that house was when a “peddler” drove up to the house and Momma went out to look at the goods he carried. The back of an old Model A truck had canvass sides rolled up and I was lifted to see the wonders there to behold: cook ware, cloth and clothing, thread, vanilla extract and many forms of medicinal concoctions……and candy. I doubt that Momma bought anything. Money, if we had any, was not available for such. Daddy would take a list along with eggs, what money he had, and sometimes some chickens when he went to the store. The list was prioritized and that meant only necessities would be bought. The kids got candy, in most cases, when the men returned from the cotton gin after selling the first bale of cotton and at Christmas time. Peddlers usually sold little out on the farms at that time. Exceptions were the “Rawleigh Man” and the “Watkins Man” who sold salves, balms and spices (including their renowned vanilla extracts).

The house in which I was born was located on the Jim Wilkerson farm. Mr. Wilkerson lived in Waco and I believe that he was the founder of the Wilkerson and Hatch Funeral Home in Waco. The farm was very big for the time and there were several families who lived on the farm (including Ma and Pa Johnson and several other families from which life mates were found by Johnsons). One could stand in the yard and see several houses either on the Wilkerson farm or adjoining farms. Currently, that entire farm is a small part of someone’s vast farm or ranch. The old, collapsed barn that stood behind the house where Pa and Ma lived was the only indication that there had been occupants of that land when I most recently drove past it. It is hard to believe that the land was teaming with people and animals in the fields working, houses with orchards and vegetable gardens and one room schools and churches about every four miles apart. Now it is all pasture and fields. Life, in the form of livestock, can be found in the vast rolling pastures. Sadly, few remain who can remember the way it was back then. In many ways, the quality of life was better back then. Everyone cared for and looked out for each other. Hard times were shared by all just as, when someone made homemade ice cream, that, too, was shared by all. I loved it when our German neighbors brought fresh baked bread and pastries, especially. Momma would usually give them home preserved jellies or some other home made item. The ladies all had a quilting form in one room of the house which could be raised and lowered as needed. They took turns sitting around someone’s quilting form and made quilts from cotton brought from the gin that fall and from scraps of cloth. Those quilts were not for sale. They were for covering during the winter in houses with a wood burning stove in one room and plenty of places which permitted the cold winds to enter the house.

We moved southeast and across a little creek, but still on the Wilkerson farm when I was about three or four years of age. This house was a little better preserved and it had a big barn for Daddy’s mules, milk cow and “pet” goat. Daddy always found attachment to birds and animals, especially the unusual and exotic. Now when that goat caught Daddy leaning over into the corn crib shucking corn for the mules after a long hard day in the fields (behind a walking plow), he just couldn’t resist. The old goat shook his head and charged. He hit Daddy in the rear and knocked him into the corn crib on his head. Momma saw what happened and hid the gun before Daddy got to the house, hoping he would cool off soon. Daddy was in no mood to play, though. He got the ax from the wood pile and hid behind a corner of the barn. When the goat came around, Daddy put his entire weight behind a swing of the ax, aimed at the goat’s head. The goat jumped, the ax hit the ground so hard it broke the handle and jerked a “kink” in Daddy’s back. Poor Daddy had to buy a new ax handle, nursed a bad back for several days and still had the old goat, standing there shaking his head and “baaing” at him. Daddy gave the goat to a neighbor who, I believe, later shot the goat. I guess he was incorrigible.

The goat story was handed down to me as was another story involving more goats while we resided in that house. There was a shed out back which was not being used by Daddy and so a neighbor, who had a “rag top” car kept it in our shed during heavy rains (since the top invariably leaked). Daddy had traded something for a bunch of little young goats which he enjoyed very much. He liked to watch them play and jump on top of hen coops, barrels, etc. But he was not amused early one morning when he looked out back and saw the goats, running and playing. They were running in single file in a circle. They ran into the shed, jumped upon the back of the neighbors car, then upon the top, then to the hood and on the ground again for another round. One can only imagine what those little hooves did to that car (especially the top). Daddy had to work up the courage to go tell the neighbor. The neighbor took it well. After all, he was using Daddy’s shed. There were no more goats on that farm while we were there.

I recall clearly riding my tricycle in the yard and when I lost a tiny pocket knife that someone had given me. I decided later that my parents knew the whereabouts of the knife, but they felt that I should not have it, and rightly so. The tricycle was stolen by a person Daddy hired to help us move to our next house. That loss I still remember too. Daddy couldn’t afford to get another and the man who helped us move had left the area, so I just did without a tricycle and I adjusted well without psychological rehabilitation. Children, in those days, could play with just about anything by using initiative and imagination .

We drove up the field road past the Habel house, turned left and passed the big two-storied Jones house. Then we turned right on the road that took us to the “main” road (later a highway) and turned right and drove through Mooresville (quite exciting to me) and on to the beautiful farm of Mr. L.M. Newman. The farm started with pasture extending from the “main” road atop the crest of the line of hills south of the Cow Bayou and the bottom lands. A little white house was on the left sitting on a little plateau which extended to another steep drop, through more pasture land where a road trailed to the rich bottom lands for crops. A big red barn and several smaller buildings were on the opposite edge of the plateau from the house. The house was painted white (wow, paint!) and it had a white picket fence around it with a big long chicken house behind it (with a real burglar alarm on the door to guard against chicken thieves should we ever get that many chickens). The was dwelling was very small, but it had inside walls and electricity (no indoor plumbing, though). Mr. Newman had a cream separator (cranked by hand) and Momma would pour milk into the top, turn the crank, and milk would come out one spout and cream the other. It was a miracle. Mr. Newman also had a beautiful horse, something new to us. He also had a beautiful daughter in college who came to ride the horse periodically. I fell madly in love with her (she was later one of my school teachers, and I still loved her). I walked the top rail of the wooden barnyard fence for her entertainment one day, barefoot. She smiled and complimented me for my bravery.

I vividly recall playing in the front yard one day when I saw dozens of airplanes, flying in formation, going in different directions and when one group passed, another came. I ran inside the house to get Momma, We seldom saw airplanes back then and this was really a show. I can still see Momma leaning close to the radio listening intently and waving me off. I did not understand the significance of that day for some time. That was the beginning of World War II for America. The attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States, which followed. It was many years later, as I read his headstone in the cemetery, that I learned that the man who married Mr. Newman’s beautiful daughter and later moved to our little community, was at Pearl Harbor that day. His headstone reads “Pearl Harbor Survivor.” I had never heard him, in all the years I knew him, even mention that he was in the war.

I have many wonderful memories of that place…and some a bit shaky. My brother is six years older than I. So I was five and he was eleven. We reached a “get even” cycle in which each of us attempted to retaliate when we felt we were mistreated by the other. I was too small to fight him, so I usually “told on” him when he did something wrong. He would get into trouble when I told on him and he would “get even” with me when we left the house, which, well, resulted in his getting into trouble again. And so it continued for several years. I still have scars from some of those encounters.

　

One time my brother Billy, was riding Mr. Newman’s horse in the barnyard. I went to see what he was doing and, being a practical joker, he decided to scare me….and he did. He said he was going to run over me with the horse. I took off running to the fence as he charged at me on the horse. He reined in just before running over me, but the horse unexpectedly stepped on one of my heels and peeled a good deal of skin off. I was, as usual, barefoot. Billy got off the horse and genuinely apologized (or made it seem that way). He persuaded me to tell Daddy that a cow stepped on me. It was a long time after that before he bothered me again. We did some heavy dealing before I lied to Daddy about my injury and how I got it.

I guess the most memorable payback came when Billy took one of Daddy’s smoking pipes and took it to the barn (that big red barn with the big hayloft and fenced lot knew a lot of secrets) and smoked it. He decided to hide it in the hay would be safer than trying to return it and he would have it next time he got his hands on some smoking tobacco. I, being the intelligent one, told on him in his presence, but I whispered it to Momma. I didn’t know how he knew I told on him… Daddy had looked all over the house for the pipe (which happened to be his favorite one at the time) and finally settled for another older pipe. Billy really got into trouble for taking it and lying about it. Again, being the intelligent one, I ran to the barn with Billy the next day to “play.” Inside the barn, Billy had some tape which I thought was odd. He quickly stripped me of all my clothing and taped my hands behind my back. He then ran to the main road and hung all my clothing on a barbed wire fence which was a good fifty yards past the house. But I did not go for the clothes. I went straight to the house screaming and bawling like a stranded calf in a hailstorm. Momma ran out and grabbed me and took me into the house. Billy didn’t show up until supper time, but he had to “face the music” when he did.

We had an old 1930 something Chevrolet that had been wrecked in in back. The top was cut off by torch just behind the front seats. It had no doors. The seat and fenders were off the back and it made a good vehicle for hauling hay from the barn down to the cows in the “bottom” (the flood plain of the Cow Bayou). One day (and one day only), Daddy let Billy drive and I rode along to “help.” Daddy warned that Billy should drive very slowly and to come right back. He followed Daddy’s instructions until the hay had been distributed (and we were out of sight) behind trees and the hill. At that point, Billy decided to do some acrobatics. He spun out and opened the throttle. He then yelled “Hold on!” and made a sharp left turn. I reached for something, but there was nothing to hold onto. I sailed out and hit the ground and scooted a few yards. I was crying and skinned, but I thought, over all, it was a pretty exciting event. I helped rake dirt over the tracks which made obvious the foolishness of our actions. I don’t recall exactly how I explained my skinned head and hip, but it was not exactly (or even closely) the way it really happened. Daddy didn’t look at tracks or anything else. He simply said we were never to deliver the hay again. He knew, for gosh sakes.

I must confess that my brother was, even though he was hard on me, a good brother. He took up for me and he was just doing what came naturally.

That beautiful red barn with the giant loft and granaries along with one room where the harnesses and all the hook up equipment for the mules (to pull wagons, plow, etc.) and the wooden lot fence was the scene of many battles. We had “corn cob fights” there at least once a week. All the boys in the area would come and we would choose sides. One side got the barn (defensive position) and the other got the outside and tried to take the fort. There were plenty of corncobs lying all over the area (we broke them in half to make them more user friendly) and we would build an arsenal ( like a five gallon bucket filled with corn cob halves) and the war would begin. My brother thought of a good plan to get better range from the cobs. We had noticed that the old cobs which were soaked with barnyard mud and etc. (that etc. smelled pretty bad) were heavy and would really go far and leave a mark when they hit someone (they were more accurate, too). A livestock watering trough was placed in the lot fence so that it was half inside and half outside (for all animals to reach). Knowing that the next fight we would be on the attack, we put a large number of cobs in the water in the trough and let them soak. We got them out just before the war began. After those waterlogged cobs started bouncing off rafters, posts and people the insiders called a truce. They accused us of cheating (war crimes) to which we confessed. After a great deal of laughter and complaining, we went back to conventional weapons and had a really good time. It was not unusual at all for some boys to go to school on Monday with an imprint of corncobs on their foreheads or cheeks. It was all in fun. After a good rain, we usually had mud ball fights (but not in the barn).

Today, a very nice house sits where the big red barn stood and there is no visible evidence of the little white house where we lived.

Mr. Newman sold the farm the M.A. “Speedy” Walker of Waco and we stayed on with him for awhile. The most memorable event for me with Mr. Walker was that he gave us a little black and white wire haired terrier pup named Henry. Henry was with us until I was eighteen years of age and he became a legend in the area. The only memory of Henry on the Walker place was when I (a five year old) took Henry for a walk on a leash down to the woods. Henry was just a pup and he was constantly playing. We began to play and he tackled me. Every time I tried to get up he would jump on me and start licking my face. The problem was that I was rolling around in a grass bur patch and they were sticking all over me. I was finally rescued by Momma and she removed the grass burs and soothed Henry’s feelings that he did something wrong. Henry and I grew up together. He was, without question, a remarkable dog. I will discuss him more as I grow older.

Mr. Walker, I believe, turned the farm into a ranching operation and Daddy was not a cowboy, so we moved up the hill about a hundred yards to the old Bowman house (which had once truly been a mansion).

“Slim” and Ruby Oswald moved into the little white house. Slim was slim and he was truly a cowboy who later managed some very large ranches in South Texas. Ruby could drive and she took Momma and me to Lott most every Saturday where we enjoyed a soda at the fountain of Ruble Drug store, went to the “picture show” at Mr. Haley’s theatre and shopped. That was a great treat for me and Momma. Momma learned to drive when I did. We would take the car out on country roads (I was then 15) and we practiced. When we were ready, I drove to Marlin (without a license) and we both passed the test. Few women my mothers age drove back in the 1940’s (until the war started, at least, and some had no man at home to drive them).

Since those wonderful days, much has changed. Daddy built our own house on a little farm he purchased in 1946. I completed my education and worked in professional positions during my career. My wife and I have five children and thirteen grandchildren (plus four wonderful adopted dogs). We were fortunate to have traveled and seen places and things that neither of us ever expected in our youth. We witnessed television images of men on the moon, the advent of electricity in rural America, running water and enormous ( even unimaginable) changes in technology , medicine, transportation and communication during our growing our years, but I shall never forget those days long ago, unknown or forgotten by most folk today. In spite of all the hardships, my growing up years were truly the best and my experiences then molded my character, personality and philosophy of life. I return to those days, often, while sitting outside under the stars and enjoying the heavens that remind me of God’s goodness and his love for humankind. My wealth lies in family, friends, memories and God’s wonderful creations (including children and puppies, especially). These memories and experiences and my values system (which places wealth near the bottom) provides a refuge from the greed, hatred, prejudices and religious intolerance which lead to conflict and wars.

can tell you that no one mentioned preserving it as a possible historical site. It was beyond restoration when we resided there. I have some distinct memories of events in that house (although I would have to have been very young at the time). One was when (I learned later in life) a “cyclone” struck just south of us near the community of Cego. One person was killed and I recall people telling of seeing chickens completely plucked of all feathers by the terrible winds (they were called cyclones around home until the “news” began reporting tornadoes after the 1953 tragedy in Waco). It was later, during my formal education, that I learned that cyclones and tornadoes are not the same. I vividly remember seeing fear in my Daddy’s eyes as he held me while looking up at the storm clouds and when the thick paper on the rafters (to keep out cold winds) collapsed and dumped a large amount of water at his feet. The other memory is a clear sight of my older brother walking across bedded ground in a field as he came home from school. I do recall sitting just inside a torn screen door, but nothing significant happened that I recall. I was told that I was crawling on the porch and fell off into the “slop bucket” (for feeding hogs) and almost drowned before being rescued. I do not remember it, but I have often wondered whether that affected my personality. I usually do not tell people, especially in polite society, “I fell into the slop bucket when I was a baby.” About the same time in my charmed life, I crawled, undetected, under a car driven by Uncle “Snooks” and when he backed out of the yard, a tire caught just a bit of the top of my head between it and the ground and pinched a piece of skin from the top of my scalp. I still have the scar, along with many others (most of which are not results of such a close call).

The only other clear memory of life in that house was when a “peddler” drove up to the house and Momma went out to look at the goods he carried. The back of an old Model A truck had canvass sides rolled up and I was lifted to see the wonders there to behold: cook ware, cloth and clothing, thread, vanilla extract and many forms of medicinal concoctions……and candy. I doubt that Momma bought anything. Money, if we had any, was not available for such. Daddy would take a list along with eggs, what money he had, and sometimes some chickens when he went to the store. The list was prioritized and that meant only necessities would be bought. The kids got candy, in most cases, when the men returned from the cotton gin after selling the first bale of cotton and at Christmas time. Peddlers usually sold little out on the farms at that time. Exceptions were the “Rawleigh Man” and the “Watkins Man” who sold salves, balms and spices (including their renowned vanilla extracts).

The house in which I was born was located on the Jim Wilkerson farm. Mr. Wilkerson lived in Waco and I believe that he was the founder of the Wilkerson and Hatch Funeral Home in Waco. The farm was very big for the time and there were several families who lived on the farm (including Ma and Pa Johnson and several other families from which life mates were found by Johnsons). One could stand in the yard and see several houses either on the Wilkerson farm or adjoining farms. Currently, that entire farm is a small part of someone’s vast farm or ranch. The old, collapsed barn that stood behind the house where Pa and Ma lived was the only indication that there had been occupants of that land when I most recently drove past it. It is hard to believe that the land was teaming with people and animals in the fields working, houses with orchards and vegetable gardens and one room schools and churches about every four miles apart. Now it is all pasture and fields. Life, in the form of livestock, can be found in the vast rolling pastures. Sadly, few remain who can remember the way it was back then. In many ways, the quality of life was better back then. Everyone cared for and looked out for each other. Hard times were shared by all just as, when someone made homemade ice cream, that, too, was shared by all. I loved it when our German neighbors brought fresh baked bread and pastries, especially. Momma would usually give them home preserved jellies or some other home made item. The ladies all had a quilting form in one room of the house which could be raised and lowered as needed. They took turns sitting around someone’s quilting form and made quilts from cotton brought from the gin that fall and from scraps of cloth. Those quilts were not for sale. They were for covering during the winter in houses with a wood burning stove in one room and plenty of places which permitted the cold winds to enter the house.

We moved southeast and across a little creek, but still on the Wilkerson farm when I was about three or four years of age. This house was a little better preserved and it had a big barn for Daddy’s mules, milk cow and “pet” goat. Daddy always found attachment to birds and animals, especially the unusual and exotic. Now when that goat caught Daddy leaning over into the corn crib shucking corn for the mules after a long hard day in the fields (behind a walking plow), he just couldn’t resist. The old goat shook his head and charged. He hit Daddy in the rear and knocked him into the corn crib on his head. Momma saw what happened and hid the gun before Daddy got to the house, hoping he would cool off soon. Daddy was in no mood to play, though. He got the ax from the wood pile and hid behind a corner of the barn. When the goat came around, Daddy put his entire weight behind a swing of the ax, aimed at the goat’s head. The goat jumped, the ax hit the ground so hard it broke the handle and jerked a “kink” in Daddy’s back. Poor Daddy had to buy a new ax handle, nursed a bad back for several days and still had the old goat, standing there shaking his head and “baaing” at him. Daddy gave the goat to a neighbor who, I believe, later shot the goat. I guess he was incorrigible.

The goat story was handed down to me as was another story involving more goats while we resided in that house. There was a shed out back which was not being used by Daddy and so a neighbor, who had a “rag top” car kept it in our shed during heavy rains (since the top invariably leaked). Daddy had traded something for a bunch of little young goats which he enjoyed very much. He liked to watch them play and jump on top of hen coops, barrels, etc. But he was not amused early one morning when he looked out back and saw the goats, running and playing. They were running in single file in a circle. They ran into the shed, jumped upon the back of the neighbors car, then upon the top, then to the hood and on the ground again for another round. One can only imagine what those little hooves did to that car (especially the top). Daddy had to work up the courage to go tell the neighbor. The neighbor took it well. After all, he was using Daddy’s shed. There were no more goats on that farm while we were there.

I recall clearly riding my tricycle in the yard and when I lost a tiny pocket knife that someone had given me. I decided later that my parents knew the whereabouts of the knife, but they felt that I should not have it, and rightly so. The tricycle was stolen by a person Daddy hired to help us move to our next house. That loss I still remember too. Daddy couldn’t afford to get another and the man who helped us move had left the area, so I just did without a tricycle and I adjusted well without psychological rehabilitation. Children, in those days, could play with just about anything by using initiative and imagination .

We drove up the field road past the Habel house, turned left and passed the big two-storied Jones house. Then we turned right on the road that took us to the “main” road (later a highway) and turned right and drove through Mooresville (quite exciting to me) and on to the beautiful farm of Mr. L.M. Newman. The farm started with pasture extending from the “main” road atop the crest of the line of hills south of the Cow Bayou and the bottom lands. A little white house was on the left sitting on a little plateau which extended to another steep drop, through more pasture land where a road trailed to the rich bottom lands for crops. A big red barn and several smaller buildings were on the opposite edge of the plateau from the house. The house was painted white (wow, paint!) and it had a white picket fence around it with a big long chicken house behind it (with a real burglar alarm on the door to guard against chicken thieves should we ever get that many chickens). The was dwelling was very small, but it had inside walls and electricity (no indoor plumbing, though). Mr. Newman had a cream separator (cranked by hand) and Momma would pour milk into the top, turn the crank, and milk would come out one spout and cream the other. It was a miracle. Mr. Newman also had a beautiful horse, something new to us. He also had a beautiful daughter in college who came to ride the horse periodically. I fell madly in love with her (she was later one of my school teachers, and I still loved her). I walked the top rail of the wooden barnyard fence for her entertainment one day, barefoot. She smiled and complimented me for my bravery.

I vividly recall playing in the front yard one day when I saw dozens of airplanes, flying in formation, going in different directions and when one group passed, another came. I ran inside the house to get Momma, We seldom saw airplanes back then and this was really a show. I can still see Momma leaning close to the radio listening intently and waving me off. I did not understand the significance of that day for some time. That was the beginning of World War II for America. The attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States, which followed. It was many years later, as I read his headstone in the cemetery, that I learned that the man who married Mr. Newman’s beautiful daughter and later moved to our little community, was at Pearl Harbor that day. His headstone reads “Pearl Harbor Survivor.” I had never heard him, in all the years I knew him, even mention that he was in the war.

I have many wonderful memories of that place…and some a bit shaky. My brother is six years older than I. So I was five and he was eleven. We reached a “get even” cycle in which each of us attempted to retaliate when we felt we were mistreated by the other. I was too small to fight him, so I usually “told on” him when he did something wrong. He would get into trouble when I told on him and he would “get even” with me when we left the house, which, well, resulted in his getting into trouble again. And so it continued for several years. I still have scars from some of those encounters.

　

One time my brother Billy, was riding Mr. Newman’s horse in the barnyard. I went to see what he was doing and, being a practical joker, he decided to scare me….and he did. He said he was going to run over me with the horse. I took off running to the fence as he charged at me on the horse. He reined in just before running over me, but the horse unexpectedly stepped on one of my heels and peeled a good deal of skin off. I was, as usual, barefoot. Billy got off the horse and genuinely apologized (or made it seem that way). He persuaded me to tell Daddy that a cow stepped on me. It was a long time after that before he bothered me again. We did some heavy dealing before I lied to Daddy about my injury and how I got it.

I guess the most memorable payback came when Billy took one of Daddy’s smoking pipes and took it to the barn (that big red barn with the big hayloft and fenced lot knew a lot of secrets) and smoked it. He decided to hide it in the hay would be safer than trying to return it and he would have it next time he got his hands on some smoking tobacco. I, being the intelligent one, told on him in his presence, but I whispered it to Momma. I didn’t know how he knew I told on him… Daddy had looked all over the house for the pipe (which happened to be his favorite one at the time) and finally settled for another older pipe. Billy really got into trouble for taking it and lying about it. Again, being the intelligent one, I ran to the barn with Billy the next day to “play.” Inside the barn, Billy had some tape which I thought was odd. He quickly stripped me of all my clothing and taped my hands behind my back. He then ran to the main road and hung all my clothing on a barbed wire fence which was a good fifty yards past the house. But I did not go for the clothes. I went straight to the house screaming and bawling like a stranded calf in a hailstorm. Momma ran out and grabbed me and took me into the house. Billy didn’t show up until supper time, but he had to “face the music” when he did.

We had an old 1930 something Chevrolet that had been wrecked in in back. The top was cut off by torch just behind the front seats. It had no doors. The seat and fenders were off the back and it made a good vehicle for hauling hay from the barn down to the cows in the “bottom” (the flood plain of the Cow Bayou). One day (and one day only), Daddy let Billy drive and I rode along to “help.” Daddy warned that Billy should drive very slowly and to come right back. He followed Daddy’s instructions until the hay had been distributed (and we were out of sight) behind trees and the hill. At that point, Billy decided to do some acrobatics. He spun out and opened the throttle. He then yelled “Hold on!” and made a sharp left turn. I reached for something, but there was nothing to hold onto. I sailed out and hit the ground and scooted a few yards. I was crying and skinned, but I thought, over all, it was a pretty exciting event. I helped rake dirt over the tracks which made obvious the foolishness of our actions. I don’t recall exactly how I explained my skinned head and hip, but it was not exactly (or even closely) the way it really happened. Daddy didn’t look at tracks or anything else. He simply said we were never to deliver the hay again. He knew, for gosh sakes.

I must confess that my brother was, even though he was hard on me, a good brother. He took up for me and he was just doing what came naturally.

That beautiful red barn with the giant loft and granaries along with one room where the harnesses and all the hook up equipment for the mules (to pull wagons, plow, etc.) and the wooden lot fence was the scene of many battles. We had “corn cob fights” there at least once a week. All the boys in the area would come and we would choose sides. One side got the barn (defensive position) and the other got the outside and tried to take the fort. There were plenty of corncobs lying all over the area (we broke them in half to make them more user friendly) and we would build an arsenal ( like a five gallon bucket filled with corn cob halves) and the war would begin. My brother thought of a good plan to get better range from the cobs. We had noticed that the old cobs which were soaked with barnyard mud and etc. (that etc. smelled pretty bad) were heavy and would really go far and leave a mark when they hit someone (they were more accurate, too). A livestock watering trough was placed in the lot fence so that it was half inside and half outside (for all animals to reach). Knowing that the next fight we would be on the attack, we put a large number of cobs in the water in the trough and let them soak. We got them out just before the war began. After those waterlogged cobs started bouncing off rafters, posts and people the insiders called a truce. They accused us of cheating (war crimes) to which we confessed. After a great deal of laughter and complaining, we went back to conventional weapons and had a really good time. It was not unusual at all for some boys to go to school on Monday with an imprint of corncobs on their foreheads or cheeks. It was all in fun. After a good rain, we usually had mud ball fights (but not in the barn).

Today, a very nice house sits where the big red barn stood and there is no visible evidence of the little white house where we lived.

Mr. Newman sold the farm the M.A. “Speedy” Walker of Waco and we stayed on with him for awhile. The most memorable event for me with Mr. Walker was that he gave us a little black and white wire haired terrier pup named Henry. Henry was with us until I was eighteen years of age and he became a legend in the area. The only memory of Henry on the Walker place was when I (a five year old) took Henry for a walk on a leash down to the woods. Henry was just a pup and he was constantly playing. We began to play and he tackled me. Every time I tried to get up he would jump on me and start licking my face. The problem was that I was rolling around in a grass bur patch and they were sticking all over me. I was finally rescued by Momma and she removed the grass burs and soothed Henry’s feelings that he did something wrong. Henry and I grew up together. He was, without question, a remarkable dog. I will discuss him more as I grow older.

Mr. Walker, I believe, turned the farm into a ranching operation and Daddy was not a cowboy, so we moved up the hill about a hundred yards to the old Bowman house (which had once truly been a mansion).

“Slim” and Ruby Oswald moved into the little white house. Slim was slim and he was truly a cowboy who later managed some very large ranches in South Texas. Ruby could drive and she took Momma and me to Lott most every Saturday where we enjoyed a soda at the fountain of Ruble Drug store, went to the “picture show” at Mr. Haley’s theatre and shopped. That was a great treat for me and Momma. Momma learned to drive when I did. We would take the car out on country roads (I was then 15) and we practiced. When we were ready, I drove to Marlin (without a license) and we both passed the test. Few women my mothers age drove back in the 1940’s (until the war started, at least, and some had no man at home to drive them).

Since those wonderful days, much has changed. Daddy built our own house on a little farm he purchased in 1946. I completed my education and worked in professional positions during my career. My wife and I have five children and thirteen grandchildren (plus four wonderful adopted dogs). We were fortunate to have traveled and seen places and things that neither of us ever expected in our youth. We witnessed television images of men on the moon, the advent of electricity in rural America, running water and enormous ( even unimaginable) changes in technology , medicine, transportation and communication during our growing our years, but I shall never forget those days long ago, unknown or forgotten by most folk today. In spite of all the hardships, my growing up years were truly the best and my experiences then molded my character, personality and philosophy of life. I return to those days, often, while sitting outside under the stars and enjoying the heavens that remind me of God’s goodness and his love for humankind. My wealth lies in family, friends, memories and God’s wonderful creations (including children and puppies, especially). These memories and experiences and my values system (which places wealth near the bottom) provides a refuge from the greed, hatred, prejudices and religious intolerance prevalent in politics and society which often lead to conflict and wars.

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I was told by witnesses present (including Momma) that I was born during a storm and heavy rain during the late evening of May 25, 1936 in rural Central Texas on the rich soil of the Blackland Prairie. Daddy had taken the old Model A Ford to Eddy, a small town about eight miles away, to fetch the only medical doctor closer than Troy. The roads were mud excepting for a short bit of gravel, and they had a terrible time getting there in time to greet me. They were a bit late, but never mind, “Ma” (Grandma Johnson) and several other ladies knew exactly what to do. After the doctor arrived, he checked us out and said all was well. He then had Daddy make the grinding trip again to take him home (he forgot to do a birth certificate, however).

　

The tiny shotgun house in which I was born was still around when I became older and I can tell you that no one mentioned preserving it as a possible historical site. It was beyond restoration when we resided there. I have some distinct memories of events in that house (although I would have to have been very young at the time). One was when (I learned later in life) a “cyclone” struck just south of us near the community of Cego. One person was killed and I recall people telling of seeing chickens completely plucked of all feathers by the terrible winds (they were called cyclones around home until the “news” began reporting tornadoes after the 1953 tragedy in nearby Waco, Texas). It was later, during my formal education, that I learned that cyclones and tornadoes are not the same. I vividly remember seeing fear in my Daddy’s eyes as he held me while looking up at the storm clouds and when the thick paper on the rafters (to keep out cold winds) collapsed and dumped a large amount of water at his feet. The other memory is a clear sight of my older brother walking across bedded ground in a field as he came home from school. I do recall sitting just inside a torn screen door, but nothing significant happened that I recall. I was told that I was crawling on the porch and fell off into the “slop bucket” (for feeding hogs) and almost drowned before being rescued. I do not remember it, but I have often wondered whether that affected my personality. I usually do not tell people, especially in polite society, “I fell into the slop bucket when I was a baby.” About the same time in my charmed life, I crawled, undetected, under a car driven by Uncle “Snooks” and when he backed out of the yard, a tire caught just a bit of the top of my head between it and the ground and pinched a piece of skin from the top of my scalp. I still have the scar, along with many others (most of which are not results of such a close call).

The only other clear memory of life in that house was when a “peddler” drove up to the house and Momma went out to look at the goods he carried. The back of an old Model A truck had canvass sides rolled up and I was lifted to see the wonders there to behold: cook ware, cloth and clothing, thread, vanilla extract and many forms of medicinal concoctions……and candy. I doubt that Momma bought anything. Money, if we had any, was not available for such. Daddy would take a list along with eggs, what money he had, and sometimes some chickens when he went to the store. The list was prioritized and that meant only necessities would be bought. The kids got candy, in most cases, when the men returned from the cotton gin after selling the first bale of cotton and at Christmas time. Peddlers usually sold little out on the farms at that time. Exceptions were the “Rawleigh Man” and the “Watkins Man” who sold salves, balms and spices (including their renowned vanilla extracts).

The house in which I was born was located on the Jim Wilkerson farm. Mr. Wilkerson lived in Waco and I believe that he was the founder of the Wilkerson and Hatch Funeral Home in Waco. The farm was very big for the time and there were several families who lived on the farm (including Ma and Pa Johnson and several other families from which life mates were found by Johnsons). One could stand in the yard and see several houses either on the Wilkerson farm or adjoining farms. Currently, that entire farm is a small part of someone’s vast farm or ranch. The old, collapsed barn that stood behind the house where Pa and Ma lived was the only indication that there had been occupants of that land when I most recently drove past it. It is hard to believe that the land was teaming with people and animals in the fields working, houses with orchards and vegetable gardens and one room schools and churches about every four miles apart. Now it is all pasture and fields. Life, in the form of livestock, can be found in the vast rolling pastures. Sadly, few remain who can remember the way it was back then. In many ways, the quality of life was better back then. Everyone cared for and looked out for each other. Hard times were shared by all just as, when someone made homemade ice cream, that, too, was shared by all. I loved it when our German neighbors brought fresh baked bread and pastries, especially. Momma would usually give them home preserved jellies or some other home made item. The ladies all had a quilting form in one room of the house which could be raised and lowered as needed. They took turns sitting around someone’s quilting form and made quilts from cotton brought from the gin that fall and from scraps of cloth. Those quilts were not for sale. They were for covering during the winter in houses with a wood burning stove in one room and plenty of places which permitted the cold winds to enter the house.

We moved southeast and across a little creek, but still on the Wilkerson farm when I was about three or four years of age. This house was a little better preserved and it had a big barn for Daddy’s mules, milk cow and “pet” goat. Daddy always found attachment to birds and animals, especially the unusual and exotic. Now when that goat caught Daddy leaning over into the corn crib shucking corn for the mules after a long hard day in the fields (behind a walking plow), he just couldn’t resist. The old goat shook his head and charged. He hit Daddy in the rear and knocked him into the corn crib on his head. Momma saw what happened and hid the gun before Daddy got to the house, hoping he would cool off soon. Daddy was in no mood to play, though. He got the ax from the wood pile and hid behind a corner of the barn. When the goat came around, Daddy put his entire weight behind a swing of the ax, aimed at the goat’s head. The goat jumped, the ax hit the ground so hard it broke the handle and jerked a “kink” in Daddy’s back. Poor Daddy had to buy a new ax handle, nursed a bad back for several days and still had the old goat, standing there shaking his head and “baaing” at him. Daddy gave the goat to a neighbor who, I believe, later shot the goat. I guess he was incorrigible.

The goat story was handed down to me as was another story involving more goats while we resided in that house. There was a shed out back which was not being used by Daddy and so a neighbor, who had a “rag top” car kept it in our shed during heavy rains (since the top invariably leaked). Daddy had traded something for a bunch of little young goats which he enjoyed very much. He liked to watch them play and jump on top of hen coops, barrels, etc. But he was not amused early one morning when he looked out back and saw the goats, running and playing. They were running in single file in a circle. They ran into the shed, jumped upon the back of the neighbors car, then upon the top, then to the hood and on the ground again for another round. One can only imagine what those little hooves did to that car (especially the top). Daddy had to work up the courage to go tell the neighbor. The neighbor took it well. After all, he was using Daddy’s shed. There were no more goats on that farm while we were there.

I recall clearly riding my tricycle in the yard and when I lost a tiny pocket knife that someone had given me. I decided later that my parents knew the whereabouts of the knife, but they felt that I should not have it, and rightly so. The tricycle was stolen by a person Daddy hired to help us move to our next house. That loss I still remember too. Daddy couldn’t afford to get another and the man who helped us move had left the area, so I just did without a tricycle and I adjusted well without psychological rehabilitation. Children, in those days, could play with just about anything by using initiative and imagination .

We drove up the field road past the Habel house, turned left and passed the big two-storied Jones house. Then we turned right on the road that took us to the “main” road (later a highway) and turned right and drove through Mooresville (quite exciting to me) and on to the beautiful farm of Mr. L.M. Newman. The farm started with pasture extending from the “main” road atop the crest of the line of hills south of the Cow Bayou and the bottom lands. A little white house was on the left sitting on a little plateau which extended to another steep drop, through more pasture land where a road trailed to the rich bottom lands for crops. A big red barn and several smaller buildings were on the opposite edge of the plateau from the house. The house was painted white (wow, paint!) and it had a white picket fence around it with a big long chicken house behind it (with a real burglar alarm on the door to guard against chicken thieves should we ever get that many chickens). The was dwelling was very small, but it had inside walls and electricity (no indoor plumbing, though). Mr. Newman had a cream separator (cranked by hand) and Momma would pour milk into the top, turn the crank, and milk would come out one spout and cream the other. It was a miracle. Mr. Newman also had a beautiful horse, something new to us. He also had a beautiful daughter in college who came to ride the horse periodically. I fell madly in love with her (she was later one of my school teachers, and I still loved her). I walked the top rail of the wooden barnyard fence for her entertainment one day, barefoot. She smiled and complimented me for my bravery.

I vividly recall playing in the front yard one day when I saw dozens of airplanes, flying in formation, going in different directions and when one group passed, another came. I ran inside the house to get Momma, We seldom saw airplanes back then and this was really a show. I can still see Momma leaning close to the radio listening intently and waving me off. I did not understand the significance of that day for some time. That was the beginning of World War II for America. The attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States, which followed. It was many years later, as I read his headstone in the cemetery, that I learned that the man who married Mr. Newman’s beautiful daughter and later moved to our little community, was at Pearl Harbor that day. His headstone reads “Pearl Harbor Survivor.” I had never heard him, in all the years I knew him, even mention that he was in the war.

I have many wonderful memories of that place…and some a bit shaky. My brother is six years older than I. So I was five and he was eleven. We reached a “get even” cycle in which each of us attempted to retaliate when we felt we were mistreated by the other. I was too small to fight him, so I usually “told on” him when he did something wrong. He would get into trouble when I told on him and he would “get even” with me when we left the house, which, well, resulted in his getting into trouble again. And so it continued for several years. I still have scars from some of those encounters.

　

One time my brother Billy, was riding Mr. Newman’s horse in the barnyard. I went to see what he was doing and, being a practical joker, he decided to scare me….and he did. He said he was going to run over me with the horse. I took off running to the fence as he charged at me on the horse. He reined in just before running over me, but the horse unexpectedly stepped on one of my heels and peeled a good deal of skin off. I was, as usual, barefoot. Billy got off the horse and genuinely apologized (or made it seem that way). He persuaded me to tell Daddy that a cow stepped on me. It was a long time after that before he bothered me again. We did some heavy dealing before I lied to Daddy about my injury and how I got it.

I guess the most memorable payback came when Billy took one of Daddy’s smoking pipes and took it to the barn (that big red barn with the big hayloft and fenced lot knew a lot of secrets) and smoked it. He decided to hide it in the hay would be safer than trying to return it and he would have it next time he got his hands on some smoking tobacco. I, being the intelligent one, told on him in his presence, but I whispered it to Momma. I didn’t know how he knew I told on him… Daddy had looked all over the house for the pipe (which happened to be his favorite one at the time) and finally settled for another older pipe. Billy really got into trouble for taking it and lying about it. Again, being the intelligent one, I ran to the barn with Billy the next day to “play.” Inside the barn, Billy had some tape which I thought was odd. He quickly stripped me of all my clothing and taped my hands behind my back. He then ran to the main road and hung all my clothing on a barbed wire fence which was a good fifty yards past the house. But I did not go for the clothes. I went straight to the house screaming and bawling like a stranded calf in a hailstorm. Momma ran out and grabbed me and took me into the house. Billy didn’t show up until supper time, but he had to “face the music” when he did.

We had an old 1930 something Chevrolet that had been wrecked in in back. The top was cut off by torch just behind the front seats. It had no doors. The seat and fenders were off the back and it made a good vehicle for hauling hay from the barn down to the cows in the “bottom” (the flood plain of the Cow Bayou). One day (and one day only), Daddy let Billy drive and I rode along to “help.” Daddy warned that Billy should drive very slowly and to come right back. He followed Daddy’s instructions until the hay had been distributed (and we were out of sight) behind trees and the hill. At that point, Billy decided to do some acrobatics. He spun out and opened the throttle. He then yelled “Hold on!” and made a sharp left turn. I reached for something, but there was nothing to hold onto. I sailed out and hit the ground and scooted a few yards. I was crying and skinned, but I thought, over all, it was a pretty exciting event. I helped rake dirt over the tracks which made obvious the foolishness of our actions. I don’t recall exactly how I explained my skinned head and hip, but it was not exactly (or even closely) the way it really happened. Daddy didn’t look at tracks or anything else. He simply said we were never to deliver the hay again. He knew, for gosh sakes.

I must confess that my brother was, even though he was hard on me, a good brother. He took up for me and he was just doing what came naturally.

That beautiful red barn with the giant loft and granaries along with one room where the harnesses and all the hook up equipment for the mules (to pull wagons, plow, etc.) and the wooden lot fence was the scene of many battles. We had “corn cob fights” there at least once a week. All the boys in the area would come and we would choose sides. One side got the barn (defensive position) and the other got the outside and tried to take the fort. There were plenty of corncobs lying all over the area (we broke them in half to make them more user friendly) and we would build an arsenal ( like a five gallon bucket filled with corn cob halves) and the war would begin. My brother thought of a good plan to get better range from the cobs. We had noticed that the old cobs which were soaked with barnyard mud and etc. (that etc. smelled pretty bad) were heavy and would really go far and leave a mark when they hit someone (they were more accurate, too). A livestock watering trough was placed in the lot fence so that it was half inside and half outside (for all animals to reach). Knowing that the next fight we would be on the attack, we put a large number of cobs in the water in the trough and let them soak. We got them out just before the war began. After those waterlogged cobs started bouncing off rafters, posts and people the insiders called a truce. They accused us of cheating (war crimes) to which we confessed. After a great deal of laughter and complaining, we went back to conventional weapons and had a really good time. It was not unusual at all for some boys to go to school on Monday with an imprint of corncobs on their foreheads or cheeks. It was all in fun. After a good rain, we usually had mud ball fights (but not in the barn).

Today, a very nice house sits where the big red barn stood and there is no visible evidence of the little white house where we lived.

Mr. Newman sold the farm the M.A. “Speedy” Walker of Waco and we stayed on with him for awhile. The most memorable event for me with Mr. Walker was that he gave us a little black and white wire haired terrier pup named Henry. Henry was with us until I was eighteen years of age and he became a legend in the area. The only memory of Henry on the Walker place was when I (a five year old) took Henry for a walk on a leash down to the woods. Henry was just a pup and he was constantly playing. We began to play and he tackled me. Every time I tried to get up he would jump on me and start licking my face. The problem was that I was rolling around in a grass bur patch and they were sticking all over me. I was finally rescued by Momma and she removed the grass burs and soothed Henry’s feelings that he did something wrong. Henry and I grew up together. He was, without question, a remarkable dog. I will discuss him more as I grow older.

Mr. Walker, I believe, turned the farm into a ranching operation and Daddy was not a cowboy, so we moved up the hill about a hundred yards to the old Bowman house (which had once truly been a mansion).

“Slim” and Ruby Oswald moved into the little white house. Slim was slim and he was truly a cowboy who later managed some very large ranches in South Texas. Ruby could drive and she took Momma and me to Lott most every Saturday where we enjoyed a soda at the fountain of Ruble Drug store, went to the “picture show” at Mr. Haley’s theatre and shopped. That was a great treat for me and Momma. Momma learned to drive when I did. We would take the car out on country roads (I was then 15) and we practiced. When we were ready, I drove to Marlin (without a license) and we both passed the test. Few women my mothers age drove back in the 1940’s (until the war started, at least, and some had no man at home to drive them).

Since those wonderful days, much has changed. Daddy built our own house on a little farm he purchased in 1946. I completed my education and worked in professional positions during my career. My wife and I have five children and thirteen grandchildren (plus four wonderful adopted dogs). We were fortunate to have traveled and seen places and things that neither of us ever expected in our youth. We witnessed television images of men on the moon, the advent of electricity in rural America, running water and enormous ( even unimaginable) changes in technology , medicine, transportation and communication during our growing our years, but I shall never forget those days long ago, unknown or forgotten by most folk today. In spite of all the hardships, my growing up years were truly the best and my experiences then molded my character, personality and philosophy of life. I return to those days, often, while sitting outside under the stars and enjoying the heavens that remind me of God’s goodness and his love for humankind. My wealth lies in family, friends, memories and God’s wonderful creations (including children and puppies, especially). These memories and experiences and my values system (which places wealth near the bottom) provides a refuge from the greed, hatred, prejudices and religious intolerance which lead to conflict and wars.

can tell you that no one mentioned preserving it as a possible historical site. It was beyond restoration when we resided there. I have some distinct memories of events in that house (although I would have to have been very young at the time). One was when (I learned later in life) a “cyclone” struck just south of us near the community of Cego. One person was killed and I recall people telling of seeing chickens completely plucked of all feathers by the terrible winds (they were called cyclones around home until the “news” began reporting tornadoes after the 1953 tragedy in Waco). It was later, during my formal education, that I learned that cyclones and tornadoes are not the same. I vividly remember seeing fear in my Daddy’s eyes as he held me while looking up at the storm clouds and when the thick paper on the rafters (to keep out cold winds) collapsed and dumped a large amount of water at his feet. The other memory is a clear sight of my older brother walking across bedded ground in a field as he came home from school. I do recall sitting just inside a torn screen door, but nothing significant happened that I recall. I was told that I was crawling on the porch and fell off into the “slop bucket” (for feeding hogs) and almost drowned before being rescued. I do not remember it, but I have often wondered whether that affected my personality. I usually do not tell people, especially in polite society, “I fell into the slop bucket when I was a baby.” About the same time in my charmed life, I crawled, undetected, under a car driven by Uncle “Snooks” and when he backed out of the yard, a tire caught just a bit of the top of my head between it and the ground and pinched a piece of skin from the top of my scalp. I still have the scar, along with many others (most of which are not results of such a close call).

The only other clear memory of life in that house was when a “peddler” drove up to the house and Momma went out to look at the goods he carried. The back of an old Model A truck had canvass sides rolled up and I was lifted to see the wonders there to behold: cook ware, cloth and clothing, thread, vanilla extract and many forms of medicinal concoctions……and candy. I doubt that Momma bought anything. Money, if we had any, was not available for such. Daddy would take a list along with eggs, what money he had, and sometimes some chickens when he went to the store. The list was prioritized and that meant only necessities would be bought. The kids got candy, in most cases, when the men returned from the cotton gin after selling the first bale of cotton and at Christmas time. Peddlers usually sold little out on the farms at that time. Exceptions were the “Rawleigh Man” and the “Watkins Man” who sold salves, balms and spices (including their renowned vanilla extracts).

The house in which I was born was located on the Jim Wilkerson farm. Mr. Wilkerson lived in Waco and I believe that he was the founder of the Wilkerson and Hatch Funeral Home in Waco. The farm was very big for the time and there were several families who lived on the farm (including Ma and Pa Johnson and several other families from which life mates were found by Johnsons). One could stand in the yard and see several houses either on the Wilkerson farm or adjoining farms. Currently, that entire farm is a small part of someone’s vast farm or ranch. The old, collapsed barn that stood behind the house where Pa and Ma lived was the only indication that there had been occupants of that land when I most recently drove past it. It is hard to believe that the land was teaming with people and animals in the fields working, houses with orchards and vegetable gardens and one room schools and churches about every four miles apart. Now it is all pasture and fields. Life, in the form of livestock, can be found in the vast rolling pastures. Sadly, few remain who can remember the way it was back then. In many ways, the quality of life was better back then. Everyone cared for and looked out for each other. Hard times were shared by all just as, when someone made homemade ice cream, that, too, was shared by all. I loved it when our German neighbors brought fresh baked bread and pastries, especially. Momma would usually give them home preserved jellies or some other home made item. The ladies all had a quilting form in one room of the house which could be raised and lowered as needed. They took turns sitting around someone’s quilting form and made quilts from cotton brought from the gin that fall and from scraps of cloth. Those quilts were not for sale. They were for covering during the winter in houses with a wood burning stove in one room and plenty of places which permitted the cold winds to enter the house.

We moved southeast and across a little creek, but still on the Wilkerson farm when I was about three or four years of age. This house was a little better preserved and it had a big barn for Daddy’s mules, milk cow and “pet” goat. Daddy always found attachment to birds and animals, especially the unusual and exotic. Now when that goat caught Daddy leaning over into the corn crib shucking corn for the mules after a long hard day in the fields (behind a walking plow), he just couldn’t resist. The old goat shook his head and charged. He hit Daddy in the rear and knocked him into the corn crib on his head. Momma saw what happened and hid the gun before Daddy got to the house, hoping he would cool off soon. Daddy was in no mood to play, though. He got the ax from the wood pile and hid behind a corner of the barn. When the goat came around, Daddy put his entire weight behind a swing of the ax, aimed at the goat’s head. The goat jumped, the ax hit the ground so hard it broke the handle and jerked a “kink” in Daddy’s back. Poor Daddy had to buy a new ax handle, nursed a bad back for several days and still had the old goat, standing there shaking his head and “baaing” at him. Daddy gave the goat to a neighbor who, I believe, later shot the goat. I guess he was incorrigible.

The goat story was handed down to me as was another story involving more goats while we resided in that house. There was a shed out back which was not being used by Daddy and so a neighbor, who had a “rag top” car kept it in our shed during heavy rains (since the top invariably leaked). Daddy had traded something for a bunch of little young goats which he enjoyed very much. He liked to watch them play and jump on top of hen coops, barrels, etc. But he was not amused early one morning when he looked out back and saw the goats, running and playing. They were running in single file in a circle. They ran into the shed, jumped upon the back of the neighbors car, then upon the top, then to the hood and on the ground again for another round. One can only imagine what those little hooves did to that car (especially the top). Daddy had to work up the courage to go tell the neighbor. The neighbor took it well. After all, he was using Daddy’s shed. There were no more goats on that farm while we were there.

I recall clearly riding my tricycle in the yard and when I lost a tiny pocket knife that someone had given me. I decided later that my parents knew the whereabouts of the knife, but they felt that I should not have it, and rightly so. The tricycle was stolen by a person Daddy hired to help us move to our next house. That loss I still remember too. Daddy couldn’t afford to get another and the man who helped us move had left the area, so I just did without a tricycle and I adjusted well without psychological rehabilitation. Children, in those days, could play with just about anything by using initiative and imagination .

We drove up the field road past the Habel house, turned left and passed the big two-storied Jones house. Then we turned right on the road that took us to the “main” road (later a highway) and turned right and drove through Mooresville (quite exciting to me) and on to the beautiful farm of Mr. L.M. Newman. The farm started with pasture extending from the “main” road atop the crest of the line of hills south of the Cow Bayou and the bottom lands. A little white house was on the left sitting on a little plateau which extended to another steep drop, through more pasture land where a road trailed to the rich bottom lands for crops. A big red barn and several smaller buildings were on the opposite edge of the plateau from the house. The house was painted white (wow, paint!) and it had a white picket fence around it with a big long chicken house behind it (with a real burglar alarm on the door to guard against chicken thieves should we ever get that many chickens). The was dwelling was very small, but it had inside walls and electricity (no indoor plumbing, though). Mr. Newman had a cream separator (cranked by hand) and Momma would pour milk into the top, turn the crank, and milk would come out one spout and cream the other. It was a miracle. Mr. Newman also had a beautiful horse, something new to us. He also had a beautiful daughter in college who came to ride the horse periodically. I fell madly in love with her (she was later one of my school teachers, and I still loved her). I walked the top rail of the wooden barnyard fence for her entertainment one day, barefoot. She smiled and complimented me for my bravery.

I vividly recall playing in the front yard one day when I saw dozens of airplanes, flying in formation, going in different directions and when one group passed, another came. I ran inside the house to get Momma, We seldom saw airplanes back then and this was really a show. I can still see Momma leaning close to the radio listening intently and waving me off. I did not understand the significance of that day for some time. That was the beginning of World War II for America. The attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States, which followed. It was many years later, as I read his headstone in the cemetery, that I learned that the man who married Mr. Newman’s beautiful daughter and later moved to our little community, was at Pearl Harbor that day. His headstone reads “Pearl Harbor Survivor.” I had never heard him, in all the years I knew him, even mention that he was in the war.

I have many wonderful memories of that place…and some a bit shaky. My brother is six years older than I. So I was five and he was eleven. We reached a “get even” cycle in which each of us attempted to retaliate when we felt we were mistreated by the other. I was too small to fight him, so I usually “told on” him when he did something wrong. He would get into trouble when I told on him and he would “get even” with me when we left the house, which, well, resulted in his getting into trouble again. And so it continued for several years. I still have scars from some of those encounters.

　

One time my brother Billy, was riding Mr. Newman’s horse in the barnyard. I went to see what he was doing and, being a practical joker, he decided to scare me….and he did. He said he was going to run over me with the horse. I took off running to the fence as he charged at me on the horse. He reined in just before running over me, but the horse unexpectedly stepped on one of my heels and peeled a good deal of skin off. I was, as usual, barefoot. Billy got off the horse and genuinely apologized (or made it seem that way). He persuaded me to tell Daddy that a cow stepped on me. It was a long time after that before he bothered me again. We did some heavy dealing before I lied to Daddy about my injury and how I got it.

I guess the most memorable payback came when Billy took one of Daddy’s smoking pipes and took it to the barn (that big red barn with the big hayloft and fenced lot knew a lot of secrets) and smoked it. He decided to hide it in the hay would be safer than trying to return it and he would have it next time he got his hands on some smoking tobacco. I, being the intelligent one, told on him in his presence, but I whispered it to Momma. I didn’t know how he knew I told on him… Daddy had looked all over the house for the pipe (which happened to be his favorite one at the time) and finally settled for another older pipe. Billy really got into trouble for taking it and lying about it. Again, being the intelligent one, I ran to the barn with Billy the next day to “play.” Inside the barn, Billy had some tape which I thought was odd. He quickly stripped me of all my clothing and taped my hands behind my back. He then ran to the main road and hung all my clothing on a barbed wire fence which was a good fifty yards past the house. But I did not go for the clothes. I went straight to the house screaming and bawling like a stranded calf in a hailstorm. Momma ran out and grabbed me and took me into the house. Billy didn’t show up until supper time, but he had to “face the music” when he did.

We had an old 1930 something Chevrolet that had been wrecked in in back. The top was cut off by torch just behind the front seats. It had no doors. The seat and fenders were off the back and it made a good vehicle for hauling hay from the barn down to the cows in the “bottom” (the flood plain of the Cow Bayou). One day (and one day only), Daddy let Billy drive and I rode along to “help.” Daddy warned that Billy should drive very slowly and to come right back. He followed Daddy’s instructions until the hay had been distributed (and we were out of sight) behind trees and the hill. At that point, Billy decided to do some acrobatics. He spun out and opened the throttle. He then yelled “Hold on!” and made a sharp left turn. I reached for something, but there was nothing to hold onto. I sailed out and hit the ground and scooted a few yards. I was crying and skinned, but I thought, over all, it was a pretty exciting event. I helped rake dirt over the tracks which made obvious the foolishness of our actions. I don’t recall exactly how I explained my skinned head and hip, but it was not exactly (or even closely) the way it really happened. Daddy didn’t look at tracks or anything else. He simply said we were never to deliver the hay again. He knew, for gosh sakes.

I must confess that my brother was, even though he was hard on me, a good brother. He took up for me and he was just doing what came naturally.

That beautiful red barn with the giant loft and granaries along with one room where the harnesses and all the hook up equipment for the mules (to pull wagons, plow, etc.) and the wooden lot fence was the scene of many battles. We had “corn cob fights” there at least once a week. All the boys in the area would come and we would choose sides. One side got the barn (defensive position) and the other got the outside and tried to take the fort. There were plenty of corncobs lying all over the area (we broke them in half to make them more user friendly) and we would build an arsenal ( like a five gallon bucket filled with corn cob halves) and the war would begin. My brother thought of a good plan to get better range from the cobs. We had noticed that the old cobs which were soaked with barnyard mud and etc. (that etc. smelled pretty bad) were heavy and would really go far and leave a mark when they hit someone (they were more accurate, too). A livestock watering trough was placed in the lot fence so that it was half inside and half outside (for all animals to reach). Knowing that the next fight we would be on the attack, we put a large number of cobs in the water in the trough and let them soak. We got them out just before the war began. After those waterlogged cobs started bouncing off rafters, posts and people the insiders called a truce. They accused us of cheating (war crimes) to which we confessed. After a great deal of laughter and complaining, we went back to conventional weapons and had a really good time. It was not unusual at all for some boys to go to school on Monday with an imprint of corncobs on their foreheads or cheeks. It was all in fun. After a good rain, we usually had mud ball fights (but not in the barn).

Today, a very nice house sits where the big red barn stood and there is no visible evidence of the little white house where we lived.

Mr. Newman sold the farm the M.A. “Speedy” Walker of Waco and we stayed on with him for awhile. The most memorable event for me with Mr. Walker was that he gave us a little black and white wire haired terrier pup named Henry. Henry was with us until I was eighteen years of age and he became a legend in the area. The only memory of Henry on the Walker place was when I (a five year old) took Henry for a walk on a leash down to the woods. Henry was just a pup and he was constantly playing. We began to play and he tackled me. Every time I tried to get up he would jump on me and start licking my face. The problem was that I was rolling around in a grass bur patch and they were sticking all over me. I was finally rescued by Momma and she removed the grass burs and soothed Henry’s feelings that he did something wrong. Henry and I grew up together. He was, without question, a remarkable dog. I will discuss him more as I grow older.

Mr. Walker, I believe, turned the farm into a ranching operation and Daddy was not a cowboy, so we moved up the hill about a hundred yards to the old Bowman house (which had once truly been a mansion).

“Slim” and Ruby Oswald moved into the little white house. Slim was slim and he was truly a cowboy who later managed some very large ranches in South Texas. Ruby could drive and she took Momma and me to Lott most every Saturday where we enjoyed a soda at the fountain of Ruble Drug store, went to the “picture show” at Mr. Haley’s theatre and shopped. That was a great treat for me and Momma. Momma learned to drive when I did. We would take the car out on country roads (I was then 15) and we practiced. When we were ready, I drove to Marlin (without a license) and we both passed the test. Few women my mothers age drove back in the 1940’s (until the war started, at least, and some had no man at home to drive them).

Since those wonderful days, much has changed. Daddy built our own house on a little farm he purchased in 1946. I completed my education and worked in professional positions during my career. My wife and I have five children and thirteen grandchildren (plus four wonderful adopted dogs). We were fortunate to have traveled and seen places and things that neither of us ever expected in our youth. We witnessed television images of men on the moon, the advent of electricity in rural America, running water and enormous ( even unimaginable) changes in technology , medicine, transportation and communication during our growing our years, but I shall never forget those days long ago, unknown or forgotten by most folk today. In spite of all the hardships, my growing up years were truly the best and my experiences then molded my character, personality and philosophy of life. I return to those days, often, while sitting outside under the stars and enjoying the heavens that remind me of God’s goodness and his love for humankind. My wealth lies in family, friends, memories and God’s wonderful creations (including children and puppies, especially). These memories and experiences and my values system (which places wealth near the bottom) provides a refuge from the greed, hatred, prejudices and religious intolerance prevalent in politics and society which often lead to conflict and wars.

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Of course, most of my reading time is spent in my wood-panelled library, smoking my Meerschaum pipe and contemplating the imbrication of hegemonic discourses. Over the past two days, however, I decided to set aside some light reading I was doing (Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which I tend to think of as the Goodnight Moon of philosophical texts) and instead plunge into two books someone at Del Rey had sent to me: G.I. Joe: Above & Beyond and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, both written by one Max Allan Collins.

The two novels are media tie-ins -- the second is a novelization of the screenplay for the upcoming film of the same title, and the first is a prequel to that. I haven't read too many media tie-ins (the only other that comes to mind is the novelization of Batman, which I read when I was about 13), but I am open to new experiences, and the fact that these two are about G.I. Joe sealed the deal.

Before I inhabited a wood-panelled library and smoked a Meerschaum and contemplated the imbrication of hegemonic discourses, I grew up in a gun shop (literally; it was attached to the house). I was seven years old when the G.I. Joe action figures hit the market -- and I got them all. I was not allowed to read comic books (they rot your brain), but an exception was made for the G.I. Joe comics. I watched the animated TV show every Saturday morning. I was hardcore.

I was also a bit of a young literalist -- early on, I decided it was problematic if my action figures killed each other, because I didn't think they could become zombies. My friends lacked this qualm; they routinely killed and resurrected their toys. This made no sense to me, and so I tried hard to avoid playing with my friends. I didn't want their zombie Joes infecting mine. Instead, I spent hours and hours creating complex détente situations.

As you can see, then, reading the new novels was something I simply could not avoid. I was particularly interested to see how the various creators (screenwriters, Collins) handled the problem of killing people. (The animated show had a simple solution: explosions and gunshots are not deadly. This was a dangerous message to the youth of America, but a useful trick for keeping the many important characters alive for the next episode.)

The novels (and, presumably, movie) handle death mostly by killing people who are not regular characters. There are, for instance, in The Pit, many random, unnamed Joes who serve as cannon fodder while the the action figures still get to make it through okay (with various cuts, bruises, etc.). There is one exception to this, but I shan't reveal it.

Both books are origin stories, with Above and Beyond being the tale of Duke and Ripcord's first encounter with the G.I. Joe team and The Rise of Cobra being the tale of how they join G.I. Joe and what creates Cobra (though Cobra as we know it does not appear until the final pages). Above and Beyond is a better novel -- more focused, with an effective and affecting downer for an ending -- while The Rise of Cobra is very much a screenplay that has been fleshed out in prose. I was very curious to know the movie's take on the characters and story, so I was fascinated by the novel, but without having yet seen the film I can't say if it offers anything the movie doesn't.

The changes made to the characters and background of the 1980s G.I. Joes are not terrible -- the group has been globalized instead of being part of the U.S. government: they are now a super-secret force approved by various countries to use any means necessary to destroy particularly cunning evil-doers, and the crew has been internationalized. Backstories are different, too, given that originally many of the main characters had been in Vietnam. Some of the biggest changes are to the stories of The Baronness and Cobra Commander, but to say any more about that would be to give away some of the biggest surprises of the two books...

The 1980s version of G.I. Joe feels to me like a mashup of Doc Savage, Rambo, and The A-Team. The new version still has a whiff of the Doc Savage novels, but with a big dollop of the James Bond movies during the Pierce Brosnan era added. The Rise of Cobra has an especially Bondesqe villain trying to take over control of the world and destroy it at the same time. Above and Beyond is more restrained, with a villain who merely wants to take over all of South America. As with Bond, the ideal audience seems to be adolescent heterosexual boys and maybe some lesbians -- the women are inevitably described as "attractive", while the men are muscular or smart or evil or something else, but never "attractive" (entirely contrary to my own experience, since even at a young age I thought those boys were hot!), and the books are full of soldiers who have lots of fun weapons and who never use a word stronger than "ass" or "bastard". Talk about fantasy!

A political analysis of the books is beyond my abilities, though it could be amusing -- the 1980s G.I. Joe helped post-Vietnam War kids feel good about the military and its endeavors and fear an imaginary all-powerful terrorist force that only a special branch of the U.S. military was skilled enough to combat. In Above and Beyond, the U.S. military and the Joes intervene in a fictional South American country when the saintly free-market-loving president is assassinated and the socialist rebels (who want to nationalize all the country's oil, presumably to make it more like Alaska) are blamed, though it is obvious from the beginning that a power-hungry, apolitical old general is really to blame, allowing a reconciliation between the free-marketeers and the socialists at the end that is brokered in a church -- God and guns being, apparently, the things socialists and capitalists can agree on. The Rise of Cobra is more of a War on Terror allegory, a super-heroes vs. super-villains story, but instead of vigilante super-heroes, the Joes are actually sanctioned by the leading countries of the world in their extra-legal activities (well, except for a brief moment when they have to go rogue, but it all works out for the best, so everybody loves them again in the end). Thus, the world's most powerful and organized and wealthy terrorists must be defeated by the world's best soldiers, with everybody scrambling to see who has the best gear and the best one-liners.

It's enough to make the eight-year-old in my heart swoon!

But now that I have digested the child within, I am returning to my wood-panelled library and my pipe...

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People keep emailing me articles about the “good ole days,” meaning roughly that time period from 1950 to 1964, somewhere between “I like Ike” and the Civil Rights Act. These articles always extol the virtues of a so-called simple life, a time when everything cost less, women were supposed to be virgins when they married, and white Christian men ruled the western world. But do these people really remember what it was like back then? I do. Thank God that time is over!

I was born in 1951, which means I grew up in the 1950’s and came of age in the late 1960’s. I remember lots of trivial things from that era, like manual typewriters, rotary-dial phones, ugly poodle skirts and even uglier hairdos (beehives and cast-iron curls); uncomfortable girdles and stockings; really cool cars and some terrific movies; a few great black-and-white TV shows like “The Dick Van Dyke Show” as well as some dumb-as-dirt TV fodder (remember the Beav?). If you only watched old reruns, and never read a book or talked to people who lived through that era, you’d think America in those days was a bucolic Eden mostly filled with docile Christian white people. It wasn’t like that at all.

When I look at old TV commercials and magazine ads, and when I hear people talking about 29-cent hamburgers, I am reminded of the woefully bad food in America during the “good ole days.” Coming from New Orleans, where great food has always been the norm, I never knew there was bad food in the world until we left town. We moved around some in my childhood, and we traveled a great deal, so I had a chance to see what was out there in the American hinterlands, and way too much of it was not only inedible but downright unhealthy. Remember diets loaded with saturated fat and corn syrup? Remember when the apex of good “cuisine” was a t-bone steak smothered in thick brown sauce or a lobster drenched in butter? The only “foreign” cooking you ever heard about was French, and the only Italian cuisine most Americans had ever sampled was pizza and spaghetti. If you look at a popular cookbook from the 1950’s, you’ll find it loaded with stuff like green bean casserole, tuna noodle casserole, fruit cocktail cake and green jello with marshmallows, all of which were considered fit for human consumption in those days.

Before he married my mother, my American Indian dad had lived all over the world and had developed an international appetite. My mother was well traveled and a good cook, and she would have gladly tried her hand at ethnic cuisine, but she just couldn’t get the ingredients required. If we had stayed in New Orleans like my mother wanted, most of the ethnic essentials would have been available, but my dad’s job moved us several times, and in the late 1950’s we wound up in Pittsburgh (where people had never heard of red beans and rice or fried chicken) for three years and, a couple of moves later, we finally landed in an awful little jerkwater town in Alabama where people fried almost everything that hit the dinner table. In those pre-internet days, living in such a place meant living among people who had never even heard of tacos much less humus or mushu pork. We had to drive a hundred miles either north or south to a real city (not the one attached to the nearby military base) to buy culinary ingredients (and almost everything else), and even in those cities, there wasn’t much to choose from. We’re talking about the south in the 1960’s, where everything was either drowned in mayonnaise or deep-fat fried in lard or corn oil. I remember when I saw my first tub of yogurt in a grocery store. Eureka! In those pre-Starbucks days, my mother was considered weird for lacing her coffee with vanilla or rum flavoring and drinking it iced. At nineteen, I married my first husband, who was from Washington, D.C. He whisked me off to points north and introduced me to a world of culinary delights that I never knew existed except in my dad’s travel tales: lox and bagels, vichissoise, souvlaki, and every other imaginable ethnic cuisine in that truly international city. I had hit the mother lode! I was in absolute heaven. I was also introduced to a city where women and minorities could actually get good paying jobs and were not treated like second-class citizens. For the first time in my young life, I made friends with gay people, African Americans, and people from Japan, India, Egypt, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, Korea, Vietnam, Venezuela. And I found Native Americans other than my dad’s family, a first. I became a hippie and ate granola. I joined the National Organization for Women and burned my bra at a rally. I loudly protested the war in Vietnam. I was reborn! It was the 1970’s and anything was possible. I gladly waved goodbye to the “good ole days.”

There was a reason why things cost less in the good ole days—people made less money than they do now. Duhhhhh! And women were paid a lot less than men as a rule. In those days, women were expected to get married, be housewives and mothers, and generally become servants of their husbands. The poor women who had to work were treated like children by their bosses and they certainly made a lot less money than their male counterparts. It was hard for a woman to become a professional like a doctor or lawyer or engineer in those male-dominated fields. Many women attended college, but they were supposed to become teachers and nurses and secretaries, and until the 1960’s, they were expected to quit working when they got married. Women in those days did not generally make large purchases such as cars and homes, and their husbands usually handled the family finances. And God forbid, if a single woman got pregnant, she had few choices: (1) an illegal back-alley abortion; (2) a shotgun wedding; (3) a home for unwed mothers. If anyone found out the truth, the poor woman was branded for life. Ah yes, the good ole days!

Whenever I receive those “good ole days” emails, I always wonder if the people sending them to me have undergone lobotomies. Don’t they remember the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam? How about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Vernon Johns, Selma, Birmingham, Little Rock, the entire state of Mississippi? Do these people even remember the assassinations of President John Kennedy, his brother Robert, and Dr. King? Do they remember “restricted” clubs, schools, restaurants? No Jews, blacks, Asians or American Indians allowed. I remember all of that and more.

Having grown up in the south, my memories of the “good ole days” include whites-only signs everywhere, segregated schools, the “n” word, the Ku Klux Klan, rampant racism and classism, Confederate flags, and fear—fear that the southern white Christian way of life would shortly come to end. And it did. That termite-ridden society inevitably came to a screeching halt not long after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and right about the time Johnson ramped up the bombing in Vietnam.

Short-sighted, nostalgic twits have blamed the sea change in American society on everything from Elvis to the Beatles to the mini-skirt, but entertainers and fashion trends are never the cause of societal change, they are merely reflections of it. Even though they had gone through two world wars, Americans before the late 1960’s were still rather isolationist. Except for a very small minority, they really believed in the garbage their government and their TVs were spewing into their living rooms every night. But there is a big world out there beyond our borders, and it was spilling over onto American soil and airwaves exponentially. Did eleven states suffering from social dry rot really think they could keep American apartheid alive indefinitely while the riots raged in south central Los Angeles and our nation’s capital? Did they really think they could get away with killing three freedom riders from the north and four little black girls in Birmingham and Martin Luther King in Memphis? Did men really think they could keep women enslaved in the interior when women in New York and Chicago and San Francisco were burning their bras and demanding equal rights? Yes, most of them really thought they could, until it all came crashing down on their obtuse little pointy heads and the “good ole days” were gone forever.

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People keep emailing me articles about the “good ole days,” meaning roughly that time period from 1950 to 1964, somewhere between “I like Ike” and the Civil Rights Act. These articles always extol the virtues of a so-called simple life, a time when everything cost less, women were supposed to be virgins when they married, and white Christian men ruled the western world. But do these people really remember what it was like back then? I do. Thank God that time is over!

I was born in 1951, which means I grew up in the 1950’s and came of age in the late 1960’s. I remember lots of trivial things from that era, like manual typewriters, rotary-dial phones, ugly poodle skirts and even uglier hairdos (beehives and cast-iron curls); uncomfortable girdles and stockings; really cool cars and some terrific movies; a few great black-and-white TV shows like “The Dick Van Dyke Show” as well as some dumb-as-dirt TV fodder (remember the Beav?). If you only watched old reruns, and never read a book or talked to people who lived through that era, you’d think America in those days was a bucolic Eden mostly filled with docile Christian white people. It wasn’t like that at all.

When I look at old TV commercials and magazine ads, and when I hear people talking about 29-cent hamburgers, I am reminded of the woefully bad food in America during the “good ole days.” Coming from New Orleans, where great food has always been the norm, I never knew there was bad food in the world until we left town. We moved around some in my childhood, and we traveled a great deal, so I had a chance to see what was out there in the American hinterlands, and way too much of it was not only inedible but downright unhealthy. Remember diets loaded with saturated fat and corn syrup? Remember when the apex of good “cuisine” was a t-bone steak smothered in thick brown sauce or a lobster drenched in butter? The only “foreign” cooking you ever heard about was French, and the only Italian cuisine most Americans had ever sampled was pizza and spaghetti. If you look at a popular cookbook from the 1950’s, you’ll find it loaded with stuff like green bean casserole, tuna noodle casserole, fruit cocktail cake and green jello with marshmallows, all of which were considered fit for human consumption in those days.

Before he married my mother, my American Indian dad had lived all over the world and had developed an international appetite. My mother was well traveled and a good cook, and she would have gladly tried her hand at ethnic cuisine, but she just couldn’t get the ingredients required. If we had stayed in New Orleans like my mother wanted, most of the ethnic essentials would have been available, but my dad’s job moved us several times, and in the late 1950’s we wound up in Pittsburgh (where people had never heard of red beans and rice or fried chicken) for three years and, a couple of moves later, we finally landed in an awful little jerkwater town in Alabama where people fried almost everything that hit the dinner table. In those pre-internet days, living in such a place meant living among people who had never even heard of tacos much less humus or mushu pork. We had to drive a hundred miles either north or south to a real city (not the one attached to the nearby military base) to buy culinary ingredients (and almost everything else), and even in those cities, there wasn’t much to choose from. We’re talking about the south in the 1960’s, where everything was either drowned in mayonnaise or deep-fat fried in lard or corn oil. I remember when I saw my first tub of yogurt in a grocery store. Eureka! In those pre-Starbucks days, my mother was considered weird for lacing her coffee with vanilla or rum flavoring and drinking it iced. At nineteen, I married my first husband, who was from Washington, D.C. He whisked me off to points north and introduced me to a world of culinary delights that I never knew existed except in my dad’s travel tales: lox and bagels, vichissoise, souvlaki, and every other imaginable ethnic cuisine in that truly international city. I had hit the mother lode! I was in absolute heaven. I was also introduced to a city where women and minorities could actually get good paying jobs and were not treated like second-class citizens. For the first time in my young life, I made friends with gay people, African Americans, and people from Japan, India, Egypt, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, Korea, Vietnam, Venezuela. And I found Native Americans other than my dad’s family, a first. I became a hippie and ate granola. I joined the National Organization for Women and burned my bra at a rally. I loudly protested the war in Vietnam. I was reborn! It was the 1970’s and anything was possible. I gladly waved goodbye to the “good ole days.”

There was a reason why things cost less in the good ole days—people made less money than they do now. Duhhhhh! And women were paid a lot less than men as a rule. In those days, women were expected to get married, be housewives and mothers, and generally become servants of their husbands. The poor women who had to work were treated like children by their bosses and they certainly made a lot less money than their male counterparts. It was hard for a woman to become a professional like a doctor or lawyer or engineer in those male-dominated fields. Many women attended college, but they were supposed to become teachers and nurses and secretaries, and until the 1960’s, they were expected to quit working when they got married. Women in those days did not generally make large purchases such as cars and homes, and their husbands usually handled the family finances. And God forbid, if a single woman got pregnant, she had few choices: (1) an illegal back-alley abortion; (2) a shotgun wedding; (3) a home for unwed mothers. If anyone found out the truth, the poor woman was branded for life. Ah yes, the good ole days!

Whenever I receive those “good ole days” emails, I always wonder if the people sending them to me have undergone lobotomies. Don’t they remember the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam? How about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Vernon Johns, Selma, Birmingham, Little Rock, the entire state of Mississippi? Do these people even remember the assassinations of President John Kennedy, his brother Robert, and Dr. King? Do they remember “restricted” clubs, schools, restaurants? No Jews, blacks, Asians or American Indians allowed. I remember all of that and more.

Having grown up in the south, my memories of the “good ole days” include whites-only signs everywhere, segregated schools, the “n” word, the Ku Klux Klan, rampant racism and classism, Confederate flags, and fear—fear that the southern white Christian way of life would shortly come to end. And it did. That termite-ridden society inevitably came to a screeching halt not long after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and right about the time Johnson ramped up the bombing in Vietnam.

Short-sighted, nostalgic twits have blamed the sea change in American society on everything from Elvis to the Beatles to the mini-skirt, but entertainers and fashion trends are never the cause of societal change, they are merely reflections of it. Even though they had gone through two world wars, Americans before the late 1960’s were still rather isolationist. Except for a very small minority, they really believed in the garbage their government and their TVs were spewing into their living rooms every night. But there is a big world out there beyond our borders, and it was spilling over onto American soil and airwaves exponentially. Did eleven states suffering from social dry rot really think they could keep American apartheid alive indefinitely while the riots raged in south central Los Angeles and our nation’s capital? Did they really think they could get away with killing three freedom riders from the north and four little black girls in Birmingham and Martin Luther King in Memphis? Did men really think they could keep women enslaved in the interior when women in New York and Chicago and San Francisco were burning their bras and demanding equal rights? Yes, most of them really thought they could, until it all came crashing down on their obtuse little pointy heads and the “good ole days” were gone forever.

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What a fun week we're having, sharing high school photos and remembering back. You'll have to forgive my grainy pictures as I had to scan the yearbooks for pics from back then. Most of my memoribilia is in storage at my parents' house.

Let's take a look at Sophomore year...circa 1983. I was a varsity cheerleader and recovering from a summer spent in the hospital overcoming bone cancer. Thanks to some pretty radical chemo and radiation, I lost all of my hair. The funny thing was, the football team shaved their heads that year to look "tough." Rival schools just thought one of the cheerleaders had that much school spirit, too. LOL!!

Here I am at a pep rally, handing over the microphone to one of the senior captains of the football team. Yes, I know...it's a short skirt. Live with it.



Here's the group shot of our group. Talk about big hair! I had a LOT of hair before I lost it. Too bad the pics of me pre-chemo can't be found. I had Farah Fawcett wings and all. Very chic for back then.



And, my individual shot. I stood in front of the tree to make it look like I had more hair. LOL!! Always thinking...



Moving on to Junior year, here I am with my cheerleading partner, Laura, sitting in the hall. Yes, I have on a skinny tie. It was a fashion statement. And I'm wearing a Reagan/Bush '84 button. I know...I know...but it was 1984. I didn't know what I know now. I was young and naive. = )



Here I am on Punk Rock Day. I loved that dress. It was awesome. A purple polka-dot mini dress. Soooooo Cyndi Lauper.



Every year, the Juniors hosted a haunted house at the school's Halloween Carnival. Check out the skeeeeeeery vampire. Hmmm...maybe a preview of my future in the paranormal?



I was in tons of clubs in high school including the Pep Club, P Club (letterman), Who's Who Among American High School Students, Society of Distinguished American High School Students, Anchor Club, Patriot Post (newsletter), Drama Club, Concert Band (first trumpet), and most notably, I was head photographer of the yearbook. Check out that Izod sweater! Too bad you can't see the colors...pink and blue!



Ahhh...1985...senior year...the rock and roll hair cut (not a girl mullet, thankyouverymuch) was very much my look, with crazy earrings to match. Check out these in this pic...my best friend always called them my "roaches." Gag! This is me keeping the books for the basketball team.



(And no...those aren't blemishes...it's schmuckus on the scanned picture.)

I was also a class officer. Man, I loved that outfit. Casual Corners. And the boots rocked. I bought a pair similar to them just yesterday.



Another Halloween Carnival and another vampire costume...I remember it took like three washings to get that red crap out of my hair.



Senior portrait time...not a bad pic, but thank God I learned how to pluck my eyebrows! LOLOL!!



Senior Who's Who pictures...oy, what a day! For Most School Spirit, they made us climb up onto the football goal posts. Easy for my friend, Mark Goodson, who was tall and athletic. Me, I had to stand on Charlie Senn's Monte Carlo T-tops while he hoisted me and Mark pulled me up. Of course, being the Grace that I am, I didn't get down gracefully, but fell into Charlie's car. At least it's a great pic!



And it shouldn't surprise anyone who knows me that I got Most Talkative, as well...



Finally...graduation day. There was a tradition at my school that in every yearbook, there was a picture of one senior blowing bubble gum. Since I had been the yearbook photographer for years and usually snapped off those shots, people thought it was only fair that I should have the bubble gum picture...



There you have it!

Oh...and as an add on, it wouldn't be a complete 80s-ish blog post if I didn't mention my experience last Friday night. In 1981, I met and fell in love with Rick Springfield. Okay...I didn't technically meet him, but there he was on the TV screen. He had me at "Jessie is a friend..."



I have had a long love affair with the man, with my hubby's permission. LOL! Last Friday, we went to see him in concert here in the Boston area. We were on the fourth row and I took my digital camera. I got sooooooooo many amazing shots! Check him out...59 years old and still looks phenomenal and rocks the house!















At one point, he dons a wireless mike and ventures out into the audience. He came right to our section. At this point, I hand my husband and tell him that these are about to be THE MOST important pictures he's ever taken in his life. Seriously. I would have left him if he'd screwed this up. LOL!!

Here's Rick moving towards me...



And here he is right in front of me...



Swoooooooooooon...he came right up to me and stood on my chair. He held on to my shoulder and stroked my cheek. I, in turn, cupped his...ummm...errr...cheek. No, not that one...THAT one. WHAT? He was right there! It was a chance of a lifetime and I took it. Yes, I touched Rick Springfield's butt!!!

Hope you've enjoyed this trip down memory lane! Can't wait to see the rest of the Buzz Girls' pics!

Hugs,
Marley = )

GHOST HUNTRESS: THE AWAKENING (Coming May 2009, Houghton Mifflin)
GHOST HUNTRESS: THE GUIDANCE (Coming October 2009, Houghton Mifflin)
SORORITY 101: Zeta or Omega? (Available from Puffin Books)
SORORITY 101: The New Sisters (Available from Puffin Books)

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The BBC puts forward a compelling case. Read and listen here. You be the judge!

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Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy are joining the ranks of Holly Hobby and My Little Pony--iconic toys that have been "updated" for modern audiences. School Library Journal reports that Simon and Schuster and Starz Media have joined forces to return the dolls to the pop culture spotlight. The new Raggedy Ann looks awfully cute. She has a sort of manga style about her. But I loved her in her original incarnation. This must be how Pooh fans felt when Disney got their hands on the franchise and irrevocabley defined how Winnie the Pooh looked for generations of children.

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Sometimes I'm still amazed that anyone but me thinks about my books!

All the books chosen for the Texas Tayshas’s 2007-2008 state reading list list have been given four Web pages: one about the book, one about the author, one where you can rate the book, and one where you can find suggestions for similar books to read.

Here is the entry for Shock Point.





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I can't tell if my rendition of this 1920 something home or the home itself evokes the memory. I never lived there but have been fascinated for as long as i can remember by this stucco home setting as it does today on a hillside. It represents to me a simpler time I would have loved to visit. So my contribution to this week's theme REMEMBER.
Enjoy.

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