Date Night

In my high school years it was hard to keep a car running.  We had to share one car for the whole family.  Since the cars we owned were well used, they were constantly requiring repair.  This was repair to get the car in running condition.  To get the car in presentable dating condition was another step entirely.

The family car I had to work with at the time of this date was a 1953 Chevrolet.  If we ever had a lemon, this was it. At this time it seemed to be starting and running o.k., but the paint had a white haze over the blue color and the interior was filthy.  If this vehicle was going to be ready for a Saturday night date, I was going to have a long day of detailing.

At some point during the washing and polishing, I noticed a defect in the front left tire.  It was almost time to leave for town.  I really had to hurry now to change the tire and get cleaned up.

With breakneck speed I was able to get the tire changed and get a bath. Next was the moment of truth.  "Will it start?"  She turned over a couple of times and fired up as strong as a six cylinder Chevy could.

It was eight miles to town and I had about twenty minutes to make it, so I was hitting the high spots and cruising along.  There was about three miles of oil road before the asphalt road to town. Finally, the main road was in sight. I was feeling good about the day's work I had done, when suddenly the car swerved and took a nose dive to the left. With some effort I was able to get "old blue" over to the side of the road.

Just before completely stopping, I caught sight of a tire racing into the brush on the left side of the road.  On inspection "old blue" was missing a left front tire and wheel.  After retrieving the tire from the roadside, I noticed the hubcap was still on it.  As I rolled the tire back to the car, I could hear the rattling sound of lug nuts inside the hubcap. It seems that a wheel will stay on better if you actually take time to put the lug nuts on and tighten them.

The Scooter

My dad was a trader.  He and my uncle had a tire business and almost everyday someone would come by with something to trade or sell.  Sometimes the sale item would be an appliance or it might be produce or wheels.  Most of these items held little interest to me.  One day, however, dad brought home an item that caused my imagination to run wild.

I had never seen such an awesome scooter before.  It was a three wheeled Cushman with two wheels on the front.  The rear looked like a Cushman Husky.  It had a steering wheel like a car and a wooden platform on the front for carryng things.  The seat was on the engine cover and it had a kick start pedal at the front of the engine under the seat.  This was truly a piece of art.  It had a shifter on the side to select forward or reverse .  The brake and accelerator were on the floor in front of the seat. This vehicle was made for me.
It didn't take long to learn how to operate it and it got a daily work out as we drove it on the oil road in front of the house.  The most difficult part was starting it.  My brothers and I were about five to seven years old and none of us weighed more than fifty pounds.  It took all the effort we could muster to crank the scooter.  After we cranked it, we drove it until it ran out of gas.  Most of the time we would take turns driving.  Sometimes one of us would sit on the platform in front.It was on one of these trips with my little brother sitting on the platform, that the "accident" happened.

I was driving our usual route on the oil road.  We would go about a half mile to a cut through road and do a rolling turn around.  Things happened so fast that it was hard to keep the chain of events straight.  One moment my little brother was sitting on the scooter and next moment he was on the road with the right front tire on his head.  I stopped but I knew I had to move off of him, so I pulled forward.  All kinds of thoughts were running through my head.  "Was he dead? Was he seriously injured? How hard was my whipping going to be?"

After I pulled forward, my brother lay still for what seemed a long time.  Next, he began to struggle to stand up.  As he stood,  I couldn't take my eyes off his face.  He had a perfect copy of the scooter tire treads on his cheek.  His first words were " I'm going to kill you!". I knew he was o.k. when I heard that, so I accelerated as fast as I could to get away and think of a way to explain this to mother so I  could keep the scooter and ride another day.

Cowboys and Indians

Playing cowboys and Indians was a popular past time when I was about ten years old.  It didn't require a lot of props.  Sometimes my brothers and I would chase each other and wrestle like we saw in the movies.  Usually the cowboys had superior weapons.  The Indian would have a weed fashioned into a spear by stripping some leaves.  Most of the time the cowboy would have a play gun or pretend to have a gun and make sounds like "pow" or something similar.

On one particular occasion, the game took a more realistic turn. We decided to combine cowboys and Indians with riding our horses.  This seemed to be an authentic addition to the usual running through the woods and chasing each other on foot.  To add to the authenticity my youngest brother would be carrying his BB gun.  This was a little extra generous to allow the Indian to carry a rifle, but we were feeling generous that day.

It was decided that the Indian would be given a head start and shortly the cowboys would give chase.  As so often happens things didn't go exactly as expected.  After the Indian had begun his run for freedom,  the Indian pony he was riding, did a lightening turn around and broke into a gallop back towards us and the house. 

As the Indian raced by, all we heard was "Whoa!"  and the sound of BBs in the rifle which reminded us of maracas.  We thought the horse had either heard a rattlesnake or had a kind of snake avoidance instinct.  We had never seen that horse run so fast before.

We turned and gave chase but didn't gain a lot on the Indian pony.  It turned the corner headed for the house at a frightening speed.  My brother was holding the reins in one hand and his trusty rifle in the other.  He was exhibiting some fair skill in staying on the pony.  We always rode bareback, so there wasn't much to hold on to. 

The next turn was even more spectacular.  the horse was still running as fast as it could and made a left ninety degree turn thru the open barbed wire gate into the driveway. My brother somehow managed to stay on again but with a great deal of effort.  He still had that rifle in one hand.
It was about a hundred yards to the pasture gate by the barn; however, it was not straight ahead.  The gate was around another ninety degree turn to the right.  To make things more interesting, there was barbed wire fence bordering the drive all the way to the pasture gate. 

The next thing that happened was so quick that it was almost too fast to see.  The horse made the right turn towards the pasture gate still running full out.  Thankfully the gate was open.  When the horse made that right turn, my brother went airborne.  It seemed as though he was in flight for a long time.

His flight was the best part.  Next he made a series of touch downs on a lumber pile that was stacked there.  We will never totally agree on what happened, but I think he still had his BB gun when he came to a complete stop.

Although he didn't suffer any lasting injuries, I never saw my brother ride a horse with a BB gun after that. There was no official count, but there were a number of splinters missing from that lumber pile and you can guess where they were.

The Pond

On a typical summer day in East Texas it is very hot with a humidity factor near 100 per cent.  This kind of heat makes you seek relief in any way possible.

We had a livestock pond in the woods behind our house.  It was small but spring fed and cool in the summer. It was also surrounded by trees which provided extra cooling.  My two brothers and I would swim and cool off there quite often on a long hot summer day.

It was on one of these occasions that the "snake incident" occurred.  We were no strangers to snakes in East Texas.  They were fairly common.  They came in both poisonous and non-poisonous varieties.  Being near a pond the most likely type of snake to see was a water moccasin.

We had a tube from a rear tractor tire to use as a float.  Because of the large size of the tube, it required two to three of us to balance it so it wouldn't flip. As we were riding it one day, I was facing the south end of the pond where all the undergrowth and bushes were located.  A movement caught my eye which I quickly recognized as the classic figure "s" pattern of a snake swimming toward us.

My adrenalin was flowing as I yelled, "Snake!" Immediately, I was alone on the giant tube as it began to flip towards me.  The next moment I was thrown underwater and the tube was directly above me.  As I came up, I was inside the inner circle of the tube with no view of the pond in any direction.  If it were possible for a person to run on water, I am sure that I would have.

When I was finally able to get clear of the tube, I could see the snake still headed in my direction.  Running faster than I ever had, I got my .22 and some cartridges from the house and ran back to the pond.  By then the snake had decided to exit the water.  He was climbing through the brush as I fired at him, but as the bushes continued to move I realized I had missed.  He lived to see another day.

My life had flashed before my eyes as I fell into the pond backwards and fought to get out of the water.  We went back to swim at the pond many times after that day, but I never rode the tube that I couldn't control and we always looked towards the brushy end of the pond before swimming.

Big Red

Growing up in the 50's, entertainment was a little different from today.  Sometimes the fun came from simple things.  Playing games like cowboys and Indians, riding horses, and just swimming in the pond were some of the likely choices.

Sometimes the fun was a little more unusual.  This brings me to the memory of "Big Red." In those days it wasn't unusual for our family to have chickens running loose in the yard.  Today they would be called free range chickens.  They didn't get much attention except to avoid stepping in their droppings.  When these droppings were tracked into the house, they created quite a stir.  Everyone would immediately look at each other and then at their shoes.  Eventually the source would be found and the guilty party would be sent to do the outdoor shoe shuffle until the droppings were back in their normal place.

This was the main inconvenience of having free range chickens until Big Red appeared.  He was a large fierce looking rooster.  His appearance was even more pronounced by the way the sun would reflect off his feathers making them look shiny and giving him a look of majesty.  Over time Big Red began to exhibit aggressive behavior.  At first, he would simply act a little annoyed by people who happened to walk past him.  After a while, he would chase anyone who invaded his territory. The problem was that his territory kept expanding.

My brothers and I began to carefully survey the yard before walking anywhere.  Frequently, we would begin to cross the yard and before we knew it we would hear the unmistakable sound of Big Red running behind us. This sound would make us go from a normal walking speed to an all out racing gait in a moment's time.  Most of the time we would escape with little damage except to our dignity.

Over time we faced our fear by joking about how Big Red would chase us. Finally we made a game of racing with the big rooster.  If he could catch you, he would fly through the air and try to bury his two inch long spurs somewhere on your body.

It's true to say that Big Red was the king of the yard for a long time;however, most tyrants eventually meet their demise.  For Big Red his mistake was attacking my sister and drawing blood with his intimidating spurs.  Before you could say Big Red, he was the entree of the day.