STEP ONE

Friday the 23rd we met with Kathy Macintire, the realtor who is listing our house. We now have a sign in our front yard saying, in effect, that we are moving to Tulsa as soon after April 1st as we can. Between now and then we have to get signed up with Medicare on me, finish some minor repairs on the house and find an apartment in Tulsa that will be in a location we want at a price we can afford. It’s getting a little spooky but we are really excited about retiring, moving our membership to Park Plaza and being closer to the kids.

It’s really been cold today. I don’t think it got up to 35 degrees all day. Bobby Johnson, a brother at church, gave me a nice red sweater that is too large for him. I am sure I will have plenty of opportunity to wear it before spring

IN THE BEGINNING

I haven’t found my unfinished autobiography yet. Hopefully it will show up when we start getting ready to move. In whatever case, I guess I’ll start over in case it doesn’t show up.

My earliest memory is a sound. The sound of a tin toy shovel scraping against a rusty tin can buried in a sand box at our house on Marsalis Street on the southern side of Dallas, Texas. I was about 3 or 4 years old and playing with a neighbor boy in a pile of sand west of our house.

Our house was a small (though it seemed very large at the time) frame house with a single car, dirt floored garage. The only thing I remember about the interior is that there was an archway between the living room and the dining room and a door that swung both ways between the dining room and the kitchen.

I have images of sitting in the dining room at lunch listening to Mother’s soap operas and eating Campbell’s Cream of Tomato Soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. The radio soap operas, 15 minutes I think, included: Our Gal Sunday, Portia Faces Life, When A Girl Marries, Just Plain Bill and Stella Dallas. There was one called ----- Back Stage Wife but I don’t know if that was Stella Dallas or someone else.

Other early memories include my mother making me a Porky Pig Halloween mask out of a brown paper bag so that I could go to a Halloween party with my sister (she loved taking me --- Not!) Two little girls that lived down the street gave the party. I remember bobbing for apples and a Piñata I think.

We had a red bull calf that was staked out in the empty lot to the west of our house. I had to cross the lot to get to a friends house and the calf would try to run and butt me when I crossed the lot. I was terrified of the calf.

On the east side of our house lived Mr. Johnson, a Dallas Fireman, who had a big stallion in his back yard. The horse got in to a shed or garage where the oats were kept and foundered on the feed. I remember going with my dad one evening and keeping a vigil with men of the neighborhood as the horse slowly died.

I also remember the time the city paved the street with tar. The tar came in large rolls wrapped in heave paper. When needed, it would be chopped into manageable chunks and put into a cooker, which melted the tar so it could be spread on the street. Until it was used, the cylinders stood unguarded by the side of the street waiting for little boys to gouge are cut off chunks and chew it like gum. I don’t know whether this was a macho thing or whether we thought it tasted good. We did it either way.

My dad had a friend who lived nearby named “Cub” Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell had worked in Panama in Central America who came back with tales of seeing donkeys being swallowed by Boa Constrictors.
Next time: MOVING TO THE FARM