Childhood memories

These are some of my childhood, through my twenties, memories.
One of my daughters can tell you the color of the doctors shirt and pants when she was delivered. Alas my memory is not that good. But I want to record here some of the best and some of the not so great memories, for me to look back on if nothing else.
My earliest memory is around 4 or 5 years old, I was playing on the little stoop off our front porch. The sun was real warm as I waited for my brother to come home from school. I lay down on the wood and it felt nice and cozy and I promptly went to sleep. My brother came in from school, stepped over me and let me sleep for the next two hours. This was around 1951 or so.
Around 1956 I was in school at George C. Wymer Elem. I don’t remember what I did, but the teacher would not let me go to lunch with the other kids when we were supposed to go. When she finally did let me go, the cooks had already cleaned up all the food and I didn’t get any lunch that day. When I got home I told mom what had happened. She went to school with me the next day and was going to whip the teachers butt, but cooler heads prevailed and the teacher apologized to me, but we never did get along the rest of the school year.
I went to six different grade schools and three junior high schools while growing up. Needless to say long lasting friendships were never to be had by me.
At one elementary when we had recess there was one little girl that no one wanted to play with, just because she was real small even though she was the same age as the rest of us. Being the new kid in school (as often was my plight) I went over to her and asked if she would like to go down the slide, I remember how her eyes lit up and her big smile. She was so small that she could barley get up the steps, but I stayed right behind her so she wouldn’t fall. I also had to lift her up so she could swing. We became buddies on the playground. I’m sorry now that I can’t remember her name, but I will never forget that big smile she had.
I was around 7 and my brother Bill and I were going to the chicken coop to gather eggs. We had to go up a steep path and I was behind him. Both of us slipped on the mud at the same time. I put my hand down to catch myself and he stepped back to catch himself. The heel of his shoe came down right on my little finger. I stood up and my finger was pointing straight up from my hand (only dislocated we thought). When they had it x-rayed all the bones were crushed flat. The doctor told mom that I would never be able to bend it again. At that time in my life Liberace was one of my heroes. I wanted to play the piano just like him. I just knew that with a stiff little finger I would never be able to play anything. I remember how popular I was at Spring Hill Elem, while I had the cast on my arm, clear up to my elbow!
To shorten this memory, with determination and a lot of pain I can bend my finger just like anyone else can today. Thank you Liberace. Never did learn to play the piano though, bummer.
I went to a school on Smith Creek that had two rooms. In one room they taught 1st through 6th grade. In the other it was 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. Sometimes I would get to carry the coal in from the coal house, and at the same time dust all the erasers on the tree outside, that was a lot of fun.
I wore my shoes then till they were completely worn out. The soles would be flapping up and down with every step. A lot of the kids in that school wore shoes just like mine. One day mom and Dad came to school and I had to go outside to see what they wanted. Lo and behold they had a new pair of boots that they had ordered from Sears. When I went back into class you should have seen all the attention my new boots got, everyone said I was just soooo lucky to have new boots!
Around this same time period my Dad brought home two old beat up bicycles that a man had given him at work. They may have been old but to my brother and me they were wonderful! We had to put patches on the inner tubes. We didn’t have a pump so we had to push them real slow, stopping every so often to pull the valve stem back through the rim. We got to Clarence Adkins house which was over a mile from our house and he wasn’t home! In those days you carried your pump in your car with you. Not being ones to waste a good day we started to play with the Yellow Jackets that were all over the apples that had fallen and started to rot. A Yellow Jacket with a full belly is a lot of fun to play with when you live in the country. Well in about an hour Clarence showed up and after about 15 min we were both in heaven riding our bikes everywhere. These were what were called 10” bikes. I’ll never forget the first time I rode a 14” bike. It belonged to Clifford Hartwell. I felt like a king on that bike. This memory is just as fresh as if it was yesterday.
Speaking of Clifford, He was a neighbor. His dad drank real bad and his Mother had leukemia or lung cancer. We were out playing one day when Clifford’s Dad came to the door and yelled for Clifford like I had never heard anyone yell before. Clifford ran into the house and we didn’t see him for a couple of days. Turns out that his mother had died that day. This is the first time I can remember knowing someone that died. Oh I new people died, but I never knew them.
As I stated before about the number of schools I attended this means we moved a lot! I remember the washing machine falling off the truck during one move. Another time on April 12, don’t know what year, it snowed so hard that you could barley see the road. If that wasn’t bad enough my brother and I were riding in the back of the truck!
During my early teens Mom & Dad started to drink more, especially on Thursday and Friday nights. My brother and I started going to the movies. We didn’t care what kind of movie was playing we just wanted to get out of the house while they were drinking. Dad would take us to the theater and come back to pick us up. Most of the time he showed up on time.
Once we went up to the West Theater on Charleston’s west side. Now this part of town has never been a place to hang around on the streets at night. Anyway Dad didn’t show up till almost two hours after the movie was over. Believe me my brother and I were scared half to death! Then there was the time in late November that he left me waiting four an hour and a half. It was cold enough that I was spitting on the sidewalk and I wrote my name with spit and it froze! He said he had dozed off. Unlike today’s kids who would be screaming at there parent for being late, I just said I figured it was that or the car wouldn’t start.
Speaking of being cold. My friend Neal and I were out in our yard one day when his Dad came by and asked if we would like to go fishing. The next day was the opening day of trout season, and they were going to a lake in the northern part of the state. Neal and I were wearing jeans and t-shirts because it was about 70 or so around here. We left at 3:30 AM the next morning and got to the lake at 5:30 AM. We had to drive up a hill to the lake and there was about 4” of snow on the road. Neal and I decided then that this might not have been such a good idea. It snowed over 6” before it stopped. Neal and I didn’t even bring jackets to wear. We were cold but it wasn’t that bad. Then the wind started to blow. I don’t think I got warm for the next two weeks. Last time I ever went trout fishing also.
The first fish I ever caught was a sucker 11” long. The creek that went by our house was usually about three inches deep. But the river got high and backed up the creek to about 10 feet of water was flowing in it. My uncle Douglas said this was a good time to fish with the water standing still that way. I got my pole and some worms and in about 15 minutes I had caught my first fish. I cleaned it and put it in the freezer, but I never did eat it, I guess Mom got tired of it being in her freezer and threw it away.
One time my brother David and I were up at Little Creek Park. We were probably in our early twenties. We were over at the soap box derby track and found an old Hot Wheels trike. We started taking turns riding that thing down the track and we had a ball. Oh, I forgot to say that the front wheel had a big flat spot on it and the faster you went it about shook your head off! What fun!
It is a wonder that I am still around after some of the things that I did as a country boy growing up in rural West Virginia. I may get into some of the details later in another blog or two.
I just wonder what memories today’s kids will have. Like how many levels I got on my Nintendo. Or how long I survived on my x-box game.
I grew up in a time that was a lot simpler. But the one thing that we didn’t do back then was, we didn’t forget how to use our imaginations and our limited resources to have the most fun ever!
If you have children please make sure to stimulate their imaginations now and then. Every now and then play a game of imagine with them, believe me they will remember someday.