I’ve changed homes – and often hometowns – just enough to have developed that as a crutch for helping remember when certain events occurred.
For instance, Leah might ask when it was that we first met Scott and LuAnn. “Well,” I’d say, stroking my chin in a pensive manner, “it wasn’t too long after we moved to Port Aransas in summer 2000. So, I’d say sometime between then and 2001.”
Growing up, my memories are split between three Texas homes – Forest Park Drive in the Greggton area of Longview, Viewcrest Drive in the same area, and a country home on FM 1845 about a mile and a half south of East Mountain.
My first home was where I was born in New Mexico, followed by at least one other place in Longview that I do not remember. So, my earliest memories are from the one-block-long, dead-end street called Forest Park Drive, a name that lends itself to much grander images than what was reality in those days. We moved from here the June after I finished first grade.
The two-bedroom, one-bath house wasn’t the nicest on the block. The neighborhood lacked appeal so severely that one time my mother found at the entry to the street a bag full of laundry soap samples that someone was paid to distribute house-to-house but decided to just drop the bag and move along.
It was also a petri dish highly conducive to forming childhood memories.
Our house was less than a hundred yards from the wooded dead end and only another hundred yards from the small Harris Creek. Today, Child Protective Services would probably be called in due to the amount of freedom my brother and I were allowed in those woods and the creek.
My favorite memory there is floating small blocks of lumber down the creek. My dad had a tiny workbench where we were allowed to pound nails into scrap two-by-fours. Ultimately, we’d nail a small block to a larger one to represent a boat. Nails left sticking out were gun barrels for a massive battleship. We eventually took our masterpiece to the creek and watched it turn upside down from being too top-heavy.
Any time we were running around outside – and we spent very little time inside when the weather was nice – we wore nothing but underwear and a pair of white short pants. No shoes, no shirts, no cares.
One day, Ward and I were playing soldiers. Down the street a way, in an open area near the fence surrounding some storage yard, was a large pile of dirt, probably left from some project. We crawled up the mound and peered over the top at some imaginary combatants, firing off round after round of unlimited ammo. Whether we utilized toy gun or sticks, I do not recall.
The weather was nice enough, but we spotted a dark cloud to the west. Out of the bottom slowly dropped a funnel. We ran to the house and called our mother outside.
“Look, a tornado!”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “Get inside.”
Our dad happened to be out on a rare day fishing. Mother promptly gathered us up and went down the street to a friend’s house. That located us only nearer the tornado, which roughly moved down Highway 80, causing little damage other than to television antennae. The place where we sought refuge suffered a broken tree limb in the back yard.
There was the time a neighbor’s German shepherd jumped the fence to do battle with the lovable mutt of a dog we called Pete. Our affable four-legged partner tore into the intruder to protect us boys. Mother came running out the back door wielding a broom and chased the bad dog back across the fence. I don’t recall him living there very long.
Once, a small grass fire started in the field behind us. I swear, I had nothing to do with this one. Our dad was one of two full-time firefighters at the Greggton station. This was before Longview incorporated the community and started providing services.
Driving the truck dedicated to fighting grass fires, Daddy pulled up in front of our house en route to the fire and asked Ward and me if we wanted to ride along. (Yet another example of how things have changed.) Ward hopped on. As for me, this might be my earliest memory of allowing my hesitance to create disappointment. I stayed home and watched the action from the back yard.
Let’s see. There’s also the big Christmas snow. The time I almost shot out my eye by trying to start the pushbutton washing machine with a BB rifle. Having an older neighbor boy squeal to my mother I was changing seats on the school bus while it was moving, something he did with regularity. The time my brother’s pajama bottoms caught fire while he was standing next to the gas heater. (To be honest, this is one of several memories through the years that I cannot clearly recall as happening to Ward or to me.)
There was the time we got caught throwing rocks on the roof of the abandoned and falling apart house next door. Oh, yeah, it seemed that our aim was terrible, and we “accidently” broke a couple of windows that were already broken. This cost us the penalty of being grounded for a period of time and losing our 25-cents-a-week allowance.
Other memories remain … thank goodness … but this has gone on longer than I intended already.
I pray my recollections help guide you to memories of your own. And we’d all love it if you shared one or more in the comment section below.
Steve Martaindale 