Joel-I remember

I remember growing up down in south Vidor.  When we were little, we got sent outside quite often.  Mom's favorite phrase might have been, "its a beautiful day, go outside!"  Outside we would play all sorts of games.  We had a gooseberry tree in the front yard which we would munch on. 

 

We spent a lot time climbing trees.  There was an amazing tree in the front yard that was completely covered with vines.  Because of the vines it was very easy to climb.  We spent a lot of time up there making different clubs.  The tree actually had a lot of little "pokey" balls that it dropped and we would use as projectiles. 

 

Mom would also make us "bulls horns" out of newspaper and birds wings out of construction paper.  It was a lot of fun.

 

I had a lot of those Zoo book magazines which I loved and we also had several very special story books.  Weenie Witch, a book about a possum.  In any case, along the way I developed a great desire for a prehinsile tail.  So....I would tie strips of cloth to my belt loop and pretend I had a tail.  One day I climbed on top of the baby swing and tied my "tail" to the top.  Then I lowered myself upside down....then I landed on the floor.  I guess either my tail, belt loop or knot wasn't strong enough. 

 

I remember playing with some colored wooden blocks.  I think that those wooden blocks were one of my presents on my 1st birthday.  I guess mom and dad thought they were pretty special because they didn't get me any more presents until I started going to school.  I guess once I learned that other kids got birthday presents each birthday, the gig was up.

 

I remember playing risk with Meg quite a bit.....She flipped the board quite often.....probably because I was cheating.  One day she was winning so I got so frustrated I flipped the board.

 

I remember one day finding a metal pipe coming out from under the house.  So I had the great idea to grab the water hose and start putting water in it.  Turns out that completely unbeknownst to me, around the same time, the toilet started to overflow nonstop....coincidence I'm sure....

 

Every now and then we would have plumbers come over to try and fix the plumbing.  One day I wandered into the bathroom and saw that the toilet was gone and there was a shiny tube going down into the floor.  I think the plumber had left some of his tools near by and so...I seem to remember a few of those tools going down that tube.

 

One day I was wandering through the house and I passed through the kitchen.  Immediately I knew I was in the wrong place because when I looked around I saw butter everywhere.  Not just on the floor and lower cabinets, but on the upper cabinets as well.  There were little buttery handprints everywhere and at that moment I knew that I needed to be as far away from the kitchen as possible.....In fact I think I was 2 rooms away when I heard dad explode. 

 

I remember one day Meg walking out of the bathroom with blood all over her face and dads razor in her hand....I don't think she even looked scared.  We later took family pictures not long after that and attached is some of the pictures from that day. (pictures 1 and 4).

 

I remember playing with Abby.  I remember she was a happy baby and had a beautiful smile.  I remember playing with her, her laying on her back and me above her and she just smiled and smiled and smiled.  Picture #2 is how I remember her.

 

I remember playing out in the goatfield when the grass was over our heads.  It was so high we would bend it over and make little huts out of it.  I remember the day dad cut it.  It was almost like he was cutting a trail through the jungle.

 

I remember that in the middle of the goatfield there was a area that was higher.  Previously a lot of trees had been piled there and burned.  I remember we climbed all over those trees.  In that same area there were a few small tallow trees that had grown up and dad build us a tree house there.  I seem to remember that it had a wheel and was really cool. 

 

I remember the goats getting out a lot and having to put them back up.  I remember goats dieing and having to haul them back in the pasture and bury them....it seemed like it was soooooo hard.  Those goats were so heavy

 

Stories about Stiches

 

My first set of stitches happened one night when I was young... probably around 3.  I had a bunk bed which mom had pushed into a corner and then put a 2 by 8 on the side facing the room to keep me from falling off in the middle of the night.  The only way to climb into the bed was the foot.  There weren't any stairs to the top bunk but at the foot of the bed was a dresser.  To get in bed I'd pull out the drawers and use them like stairs to climb into bed.  Anyhow, one night I was sitting in bed and I mistakenly thought my back was to the wall when it was actually towards the foot of the bed.  I leaned back and promptly fell head first out of the bed, hitting it against the edge of the drawer that I had left open while climbing up.

 

Got a few stitches then.

 

My second set of stitches took place in the bathroom.  Back in the olden days mom would hang our towels on hooks above the bathtub.  Us kids each had our own hook as well as any of the young men or YSA that were living in the house at the time.  People like uncle Eugene or Glenn.  Anyway, the hooks were up high and so to grab my towel I would stand on the side of the tub.  One day I was reaching for my towel in all my naked glory when I slipped and cracked my chin on the side of the tub. 

 

Next time, I was at Jacob Browns house.  He was a friend I visited quite a bit as a kid.  His mom worked with cub scouts and so I went over there quite often.  He came to my house once but he didn't do so well being away from home and so we went back to me going to his house.  Anyway, one day we were throwing a wooden swing back and forth to each other.  One time I missed the swing, it went through my open arms and clocked me between the eyes.  It cut me pretty good so I got stitches.  The timing was also wonderful in that it was immediately before the 1st day of school. So I went to the 1st day of kindergarten(or maybe it was 1st grade) with a huge bandage on my nose.

 

My coolest stitch story was probably just a couple years later.  Dad had bought a load of bricks to make a sidewalk and "porch" area.  So we had several wooden crates left over from the process.  One day I found a lead pipe that was probably as tall as I was and felt extremely heavy to me.  However, I found that if I swung it over my head I could tear through those wooden slats like they were nothing.  I was really impressed with myself so I started to systematically make my way through all the slats. 

 

I was about to dispatch the last crate when Meg walked around the corner of the house.  So I shouted, "Hey Meg, look what I can do."  I swung the pipe with all my force.....right into the clothes line above my head.  My great strength was no match for the clothes line so the pipe rebounded off the clothes line, right back into my head.  I remember a shower of blood falling on the ground.  I got rushed to the hospital.  The doctor said that xrays were not necessary because he could see the skull.  I got stitches and one on one time with mom....Which was really special since I am mom's favorite.

 

 I remember mom used to always wear her hair back a lot with kerchiefs. 

 

Also....I know this comes as a surprise, but she was always coming up with new chore lists.  The first chore list we ever got were 2 aprons... a red one and a yellow one.  One of them had clothes on it and the other had dishes on it and Meg and I switched back and forth. 

 

Mom and Dad every now and then would get ambitious and plant a garden.  I remember that the novelty of working in the garden wore off pretty quickly and I for one think I was probably pretty whiney.  There were times that the garden south Vidor ended up drowned in weeds and then there were other times where it did extremely well. 

 

I remember mom walking around the goat field when she was huge and pregnant.  I'm not sure she ever convinced her babies to come at a decent time

 

I remember that the old house had a lot of cool trees.  Huge oaks, etc  One of them had a cave like hole in the side that we would get in.  This tree was not very easy to climb.  The trunk was probably 7ft in diameter and the closest branches to the ground were probably 15-20 feet up.  However, they were pretty large branches and the ends of them came to about 5-6 feet above the ground.  As little children, if we jumped up we could grab the leafy end of the branch and with some effort pull ourselves up.  Samuel Packard was the 1st to successfully attempt this.  He pulled himself up onto one branch, climbed all the way  to the trunk, shimmied along the trunk to the next branch and then climbed it all the way down to the ground.  I believe either Michael Packard or myself were the next ones to successfully perform the feat.  Thinking back now as a parent...I think I would have a heart attack if I saw Robert doing this.  Anyway, we thought we were pretty cool.  We called ourselves daredevils and I wonder if we didn't assert that we were cooler than Meg because we did it and she didn't.  In any case, Meg was the next one to attempt it.  She did a great job and she made it up to pretty much the highest part of the branch.  Whereupon I believe she stopped to rest for a moment.  She leaned up against one of the little branches coming off the main branch, looked down at us and said, "See, I'm a daredevil too!"  At which point, the small branch she had been leaning against snapped and she plummeted to the earth.  I remember sprinting to the house, climbing the fence to the front yard to tell mom that Meg had fallen.  They took her to the hospital and fortunately....miraculously found out that nothing was broken, that she was okay.  However, I remember having many many dreams of Meg falling out of trees after that.  Sometimes it was different trees in my dream and sometimes I was up in the tree trying ineffectually to save her.  At some point I remember feeling in my heart that she probably had fallen many times out of trees. 

There was also a large stand of cane along one of the fence lines.  We would crawl around through that and eventually there were trails going through it.  It is amazing how many fun places there are to hang out when you are small.  I specifically remember seeing a one of those green chameleon lizards with a bee or hornet in its mouth back there in the cane.

I also remember that the ditch in front/next to our house was pretty cool.  It was like a little swamp and I remember seeing lots snapping turtles in it.  To me at that age it looked almost like a pit of alligators.

I remember my first pet cat...his name was chief.  I remember I would take him up trees with me....now that I think of it...I probably stressed him out quite a bit.  I think we kept him until he killed his first chicken....then he was toast.  That was pretty much the story with most of our cats and dogs.  We kept them until they killed something and then they had to go. 

I remember we got baby geese and I had one that would follow me around.  I loved it...his name was Gus.  Anyhow, back then we fed all the animals dog food....the goats, geese, dogs...etc.  So we would just walk out back and dump the dog food on the ground.  Then I would crow like a rooster(I was really good at it back then).  The animals all knew what that meant.  There would be a small stampeed of the goats, geese, chickens, dogs, etc to the place of feeding.

When Gus became a teenager, one day I went out to dump the dog food on the ground.  Gus followed me out.  But as I was walking away, Gus ran up behind me and bit me on the bum....he never followed me again.  And he became the meanest goose of the bunch.