My oldest brother, Bill had gotten a new wagon for Christmas and when spring came around, he was allowed to play in the front of the house with it. Well, my mom was cleaning and things around the house when she realized Bill and his wagon were no where to be seen. She was running up and down the street calling him, calling our neighbors. She was really freaking out. The phone rung and she answered it and after a brief conversation said oh my God, thank you and hung up. She took George and me and we headed down the street to the Rexall (drugstore). We walked in and back then all the Rexall's had a soda fountain bar. There was Bill bellied up to the bar with a big grin on his face and a vanilla ice cream cone in his hand. When he saw my mom's face, he wasn't grinning too long. She handed the cone back to the fountain clerk and we all headed home. Isn't it funny how kids are drawn to ice cream like bee's are to honey? Bill had just decided an ice cream sounded good and he had the wheels to go get it. I don't know what happened to the wagon after that. Probably put under lock and chain.
When I was two (1955) we moved to a town called Channelview. I remember the first time I saw it , it was nighttime. I stood on the big front porch and looked through the pane glass windows that were on both sides of the front door. I could see the stairway that looked like it went forever. Remember I was only a foot tall. This place was huge.
It was a two story house out in the middle of nowhere. We had two and a half acres of grass and woods which we initially loved, but would later learn to hate for reasons Ill explain later. The house had three bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. Two bathrooms, one on each floor. A huge kitchen and living room with a fireplace. Well after moving in, it was decided by the powers that be, that George and I would get the downstairs bedroom. First of all I didn't want to room with George. He was a blanket hog and sloppy. It wasn't easy to share a bed with him because he would turn every direction possible on that bed when he was asleep. The first few nights I found more reasons not to want to sleep downstairs. It had wooden floors and between those and the rest of the creaks and groans that house made, it was spooky. I never could get to sleep. And if the monsters I was imagining had showed up, well my parents were all the way up stairs. I would have never made it alive. As for air conditioning we had a giant attic fan above the stairway which drew air in from the outside through the windows and was drawn into the attic for the heat to escape through a large grill in the side of the house. So naturally we had to keep the windows open at night so air could come in. The downside of this was CRICKETS and an occasional frog would sound off now and then. There was the sound of the armadillo's, the opossums, raccoons rustling around out in the leaves. George always added to the mix by saying there were probably alligators from the river too. But there must have been tens of thousands of crickets in out yard. And almost like a symphony warming up around dusk, the crickets would start in. Thats all they did. They just warmed up....all evening it seemed. This drove me insane at a very young age. Im willing to bet, some of the issues I have today happened because of those crickets. George would just snooze away all night. I don't know how he did it. I would get up in the morning looking like the living dead. I kept complaining, but they would not let me move upstairs where they weren't as loud. I even got to the point of sneaking upstairs and laying across the foot of my parents bed. But I always woke up the next morning back in my bed. I never could figure out how they moved me and I wouldn't ever wake up while they were moving me. Now if all that wasn't bad enough, one of our neighbors raised peacocks. They would start making their squawking noise at around six in the morning. Let me tell you, ten or fifteen of these going in our yard,there was no way you were going to sleep. I learned fast too that you cant make a peacock do what you want it to do. If you throw something at it or try to shoo it away, it will turn and start coming after you. Our neighbors had a fence that for the most part keep them corralled, but if they wanted out, they could fly if they wanted to. They are a beautiful bird. But a real pain in the ass. More about our country estate(HA) later.
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