Chapter One
The
first five memories I have of my childhood would shape my life forever. They are still as clear and real to me nearly
eight decades later as they have ever been. I am grateful they were happy ones.
The
first memory was when I was two years old. I remember it as if it were a dream
and it plays like a scene from a movie in my mind.
I am
waking up and still warm and cozy under my covers. Light from the partially open door to the
kitchen is softly spilling into the room and is slowly creeping further into
the small bedroom where I am lying quietly in my bed. It must have been a crib
because I am looking out between long wooden spokes. I listen to the soft hum
of voices and smell the delicious aroma of sausage gravy floating on the air
from the warm kitchen. The coffee is ready. The fragrant smell of freshly
brewed coffee would remain one of my favorites for the rest of my life.
Granny
and Granddad are in the kitchen with Mother. Perhaps Daddy is, too, if he
hasn’t already left for work. Granny peeks around the corner to see if I’m
awake and then comes over to my crib and picks me up, making sure my blanket is
wrapped around me so I won’t get cold. She takes me to the kitchen, sets me in
my highchair, tucking the blanket in and puts a bib on me.
The
taste of that sausage gravy was wonderful. It was smooth and creamy and yet
there were little bits of tasty sausage in every bite. This earliest of my
memories encompassed all five senses and was the only good memory I have of Granny.
The
second memory is of my mother giving me a bath. She placed a small metal
washtub on the kitchen counter and, in my mind, I can still see her filling it
with water, testing it on her wrist to make sure it’s not too hot. Our home was
small - just a bedroom, kitchen, living room and a teeny tiny bathroom with an
even tinier shower. Sometimes Mother would place the washtub in the bottom of
the shower and bathe me there where I could splash and play for a few minutes.
I imagine it was much easier to give me a bath standing up to a counter rather
than stooping over in the shower.
In my
third memory I am sitting on the kitchen counter watching my mother make peanut
butter cookies. After she mixes the dough, she shows me how to press the
cookies flat with the bottom of a glass that has been dipped in sugar. Then I
use a fork to make crisscrosses on each one with Mother’s hands helping me press
down on the fork tines. I remember the warmth and fragrance of those freshly
baked cookies. Though it’s funny I don’t remember the taste of them like I do
of that sausage gravy.
My
fourth and final memory of when we lived in the little house is Daddy carrying
me out to the car. Mother had prepared a bed for me in the floorboard of the
back seat behind the driver. I recall it being dark, so we must have been going
on a trip and traveled at night. The car gently rocked and rumbled me back to
sleep.
I was
born in Kansas City, Missouri on September 24, 1948 and we moved back to Texas
and into that little house in Granny and Granddad’s back yard when I was about
a year old.
That
tiny little house was actually two old Army barracks Granddad bought at a
bargain price in 1948 after WWII was over and they were breaking down all the
camps. He and Granny lived in the big house at the front of the property.
We
didn’t get to live there long, though. One day the water heater exploded and
burned the house down to the ground. Thankfully, we were not at home.
Granddad
was a barber and worked around the corner from their house on Poinsettia Drive
in Fort Worth, at Smitty’s Barber Shop. It had the old fashioned red and white
and blue striped barber’s pole out in front that twirled around during business
hours. A barber was the perfect profession for him since he had such a thick
beautiful head of hair.
Originally
a small four room frame house, Granddad kept adding on to it until the house became
a maze of rooms that ultimately divided up nicely into two main sections much
like a duplex. At one time or another, every single one of Granny and
Granddad’s children lived there with their families. That’s one thing myself,
my siblings, and all our cousins share – memories of that old house!
Granny was a housewife and was as short, plain and homely as Granddad was tall, dark and handsome. Granddad had a wonderful name – Linton Anthony. Granny’s name was Myrtle May.Granddad was kind and sweet while Granny was irritable and fussy.
Their
only son, Truman, and his family had been living in one side of the house and
Granny and Granddad on the other while we were living in the little house in
the backyard. Uncle Truman had recently bought land in west Texas and moved his
family out there. Back before Granddad became a barber, he was a farmer, cotton
farmer, mostly. That’s what Uncle Truman was now. After the fire destroyed the little
house, Granny and Granddad decided to move close to their son in west, Texas and
help him for a time. Truman was the second born son, the first born died at
the age of two, thus Truman held a special place in their hearts for the rest
of their lives.
Now the big house was empty and
we were allowed to live there. This was a blessing since Mother and Daddy had
lost everything they had when the little house burned.
It
was 1950 and these were happy days with Mother and Daddy. They loved to play
canasta and entertained often. Mother’s best friend, Dorothy, was also her
cousin. She and her husband, Johnny, would come over most Saturday nights,
bringing their little boy with them. He and I would play on the floor close to
the card table. We could hear the clinking of the china coffee cups being set in
their matching saucers and the humming sound of our parents’ voices as they
talked.
Little
Johnny and I would fall asleep under the coffee table long before the adults
finished playing cards and I would wake up the next morning in my own crib. The
house was quiet as I climbed out of my bed and crept back into the living room
where I could see the remains of the party. There I would find the cups still
holding small amounts of coffee and the playing cards all fanned out just the
way the adults had laid them down at night’s end.
I
would pretend to play cards and sip coffee just as I had watched the grownups
do. Once I actually took a sip of that coffee and promptly spit it out. How
could something that smelled so wonderful taste so bad?
We
lived in the big house on Poinsettia Drive for several wonderful months until
Granny and Granddad left west Texas and moved back into the house and we
shifted our living arrangements around. We lived on the smaller side of the
house while our grandparents lived in the other side. Granddad went back to
work as a barber at Smitty’s Barber Shop right around the corner.
Money
was tight so Mother took in ironing to earn some extra money and asked Granny
to look after me while she stood for long hours at the ironing board. At first, I was happy to be with my Granny but
I soon realized she was not particularly fond of me and preferred that I be as
quiet and unnoticeable as possible.
I
loved my Granddad though. He was a handsome man being tall, dark and handsome
with a full head of thick brown hair. Granny, on the other hand, was not
attractive by any one’s measure. She was nearly as wide as she was tall, so
it’s a good thing she was short in stature. Her face was not a pretty one,
especially when she scowled and that was often. She wore her plain brown hair
pulled tightly back into a bun. Granny had moles all over her body, and for
some reason was fascinated by them. She had dozens of large, fat, dark brown
ones and then many more dozens of smaller, lighter brown moles. But no matter
what, Granddad loved Granny fiercely and waited on her hand and foot. I often
wondered what the attraction was that bound him so closely to her. She didn’t
have a pleasing personality to compensate for her appearance. Granny was a
nagger and a complainer and very little seemed to please her.
Granny
had two sisters, both younger than she, and one brother with whom she was
especially close. His name was Humey and every Sunday afternoon he would bring
his youngest daughter, Rose Mary, over to visit. I was too little to go outside
by myself so, while the adults stayed in the living room and talked, Rose Mary
would take me out in the backyard to play. It was a large backyard with a
chicken coop along one side of the fence and an old farm wagon and tractor near
a tin roofed shed with a tin roof and open on one side.
We played
on the tractor and had a lot of fun until Rose Mary fell off it one day and cut
her leg rather badly on a sharp piece of rusty metal. Daddy had been coming to
the back door from time to time to check on us and he just happened to be
standing there when she fell. He was out of the door so fast she had not even
had time to cry out. He carried her into the house and Granny and Uncle Humey
came running with bandages and rubbing alcohol. Back then you didn’t go to the
doctor unless you had a Bonafide emergency. They simply cleaned her up, put a
big bandage on her leg and sent her back outside to play.
While
Daddy’s meek and mild attitude was a comfort to children, it did not wear well
with Granny. She nagged at him relentlessly and hounded him at every turn. In
her eyes, he was a weak, insignificant little man and she made sure he knew just
exactly how she felt.
Daddy
was a shipping clerk at Monning’s Department Store downtown. He didn’t make
much money but faithfully brought his paycheck home every week and handed over every
dime of it to Mother.
In early
spring of 1951, Mother got a job at Hotel Texas working the switchboard and
that helped with the money situation. She made more money than she did ironing
plus she could work nights and didn’t have to depend on Granny to take care of
me. Mother enjoyed the work but had to stop before Christmas as she was going
to have another baby.
My
sister was born on December 21, 1951. They thought they were going to have a
baby boy and had chosen the name Lloyd Dean. When it turned out to be a girl,
they combined the names to Lloydine and since it was such an unusual and unique
name, they decided she didn’t need a middle one.
Life was good for our little family and we were happy.
22 comments:
Enjoyed reading the first chapter.
I’m like Pamela, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I am enjoying your writing style too.
Sue
You are so good with words. I’m enjoying reading this.
We are only on the second one and already I cannot stand the suspense!
I’m a fan!
I envy you and your memories, not that they were good ones, but the fact that you remember anything at that age at all. I do not have a lot of memories of my childhood or even my high school years!
You have memories of being so very young, pretty much a baby!! Oh my, your Grandma sure was not like most!! It's wonder your cousin did not get tetanus, especially since it was rusty!!
You're doing a great job, love reading it, Linda!! Brrrr it's cold here, how about there?
Linda, your writing takes the reader into the reality of your life....it's so good to experience your childhood memories...and I thank you for sharing...excellent writing~ warm hugs!
you have us all waiting, just like a soap opera, we get one a week... I have zero memories before I was 5, and only very few between 5 and 10, most memories are after 10. bob has early childhood but not me. agree with Estelle, excellent writing.
I have been reading your blog for ages and have been waiting for this book!
Your memories are so clear and it allows your readers to feel as if they are right there, watching these scenes unfold from a short distance. I am ready for the next chapter...waiting patiently.
You really do have a good memory and I hope bringing back old memories doesn't make you feel bad. You are so blessed and have such a good life now. Thanks for sharing your life with us. Hugs!
I am fascinated with your early memories! I made a second coffee when I saw you had put out the first chapter, and now I am wanting to read more! You are an excellent writer, thank you for sharing with all of us!
Well I came up as anonymous before but I am hanging on every word and looking forward to chapter #2.
Sue
Excellent first chapter. I look forward to reading more.
What an excellent writer you are, Linda! I’m drawn in to your story and can’t wait for more!
Deanna Rabe
Ring is a testament to craftsmanship, blending innovative techniques pearl ring for women with luxurious materials to create pieces that are as durable as they are beautiful.
I am so excited to be reading this as I know you have wanted to write this for awhile. I will anxiously await your next chapter.
Your book is going to be a real page turner.
Can't wait to read the next chapter.
My first memories are also when I was two--almost three. Funny how there are scattered memories over the years. Love your writing and can't wait to read the next chapter! :)
Among your many gifts and talents, writing and sharing with such clarity and details puts us right into your life. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Looking forward to the next chapter.
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