A Typical American Childhood

A Typical American Childhood

By FlatDaddy

When I was a kid, we lived in Waco, Texas. My big brothers, James and Larry, were born a year apart when Momma was married to her first husband. I was born five years later after she married her second. We had a grand time in Waco, a beautiful small city with big oak and pecan trees and loads of kids running around night and day! We played Hide and Seek, Red Rover, all kinds of kid’s games! We could walk to the big swimming pool in Cameron Park, the 2nd largest city park in the world, just down the way from us! We had a nice house with a covered veranda and honeysuckle growing on the fence by our small garage; everything was so beautiful! My father, a Waco native, was one of eleven children; family of all kind visited often. I must have had a hundred cousins my age, and we always had a good time!

Momma divorced my father when I was in 2nd grade; the house, the neighborhood and the fun disappeared. By 3rd grade, she was married to her 3rd husband, George, who was an uneducated non-reader, a professional mover, a drunk and a chewing tobacco aficionado from Illinois.

My brothers moved in with our grandparents, Momma Mae and Papa Jim as soon as Mom divorced my father. She was a round, smiley, flour covered lady who made wonderful pies. Papa Jim was a big rawboned man, a former Texas Ranger and an Army sergeant during World War II. His little toes laid over the next toes on his feet from wearing cowboy boots his entire life, and he always smelled of cherry tobacco from his pipe. He was a kind and gentle man and entertained us with silly stories whenever we were there. James and Larry stayed with them, with their big back yard, filled with peach and plum trees, a garden, and a Cocker-Spaniel; Mom and I went with George to Killeen, an ugly small town south of Waco where I knew no one, especially not my new father. Momma Mae and Papa Jim said they would miss me. As we drove away, I saw James and Larry run down the street to play with friends. I wouldn’t see them again for three years.

Mom, George, and I soon moved from Killeen to Temple, which was close, then to some other small town, and next, with no warning, we moved to Illinois where all George’s relatives lived. We stayed for a while with his mother in a huge, very old house in Flora, right in the middle of Illinois. Then we moved to Indiana  —  to Whiting, to Hammond, to East Chicago, and finally, to Highland.

James and Larry were still in Waco with Momma Mae and Poppa Jim and friends they had known their entire lives. I had a friend for the few months we lived in East Chicago, but I don’t remember his name. I do recall we almost got caught shoplifting crappy things we didn’t need at the five and dime, but we ran fast, tossing our booty into the air behind us and got away smooth. Somebody recognized me though, and told the cops; one of them came to our apartment and talked to my Mom. Of course, she said I wouldn’t do anything like that. But the officer had a good description of me, right down to the plaid jacket I had been wearing. Mom said I didn’t have a jacket like that. He didn’t believe her and asked if he could look in my closet. She said, “Sure, go ahead!” He did, but didn’t find it. I coolly laid on the bed playing with my army men and watched him. He wanted to talk to me, but Momma said no. He looked around some more, including under the bed, then said, “Must be a mistake. Sorry, m’am,” and left. I was about ten then, but crafty. For some reason, before we had entered that store, I told my crony to switch jackets with me, as a makeshift disguise. It worked just well enough. But I never stole anything after that. That was fifth grade.

During that summer, we went back to Flora so George could see his mother and other relatives. While I was playing with one of his nephews, we ran full blast head on into each other by accident and I split my head wide open just above my eye and got twenty six stiches, twelve in the muscle. The doctor thought I’d been in a car accident. Mom said when she looked at it she could see my skull. The other kid got about seven, I think, and squalled like a baby. I didn’t cry at all. I was always getting sewn up for little “accidents.” For many months thereafter, other kids called me “Frankenstein.”

George must have landed a good paying factory job, ‘cause suddenly we moved into a brand new house in Highland, Indiana, a Chicago suburb factory town; it was a three bedroom house,  —  and James and Larry came up to live with us! I was never so happy in my life! I had my brothers back!

My brothers weren’t very happy about the reunion; James was a Junior in high school by then and Larry was one year behind him. They had left everyone they had ever known, Momma Mae, Papa Jim, and all the friends they ever had; James had a sweetheart back there, too. They didn’t know George at all, and they didn’t like him. But they put up with him because it had been Momma’s dream to have us all together again, and they wanted Momma to be happy.

I had my brothers back, but they weren’t with me. Too much time had passed and they weren’t kids any more. However, they didn’t have to worry long; the next summer, James and Larry took the train back to Waco, to Momma Mae, Papa Jim and all their friends. I wasn’t completely alone, though; I had my dog, a big boxer, Champ, who was the greatest dog in the world! He liked to wrestle with me on the living room floor, and he never ever bit me. Whenever it snowed and the streets were iced over, I strapped Champ to my red wooden sled and we tore up and down the streets screaming and barking like we were crazy! He was the best friend ever!

Mom and George and I  —  and Champ!  —  were alone in Highland for about two weeks after my brothers left. I think George had done something that caused him to lose his job and the house, and I’m pretty sure the cops were looking for him, because suddenly we were throwing things in our car, a very big, dirty, old Hudson  —  a car they don’t make any more and shouldn’t have made in the first place. I hated it. I had to sit behind George, with the other side taken up by household items and clothes we had loaded into the car. That would have been okay, but cars didn’t have air conditioning then, and George chewed tobacco; sometimes, he used a spit can, but mostly, he liked to spit the juice out his side window. Naturally, it came flying back in behind him and spattered me in the face and on my clothes. George thought it was funny. Momma usually had too much beer to care. It’s a long trip from Highland, Indiana to Waco, Texas, and I was pretty well covered in tobacco spit by the time we arrived. I don’t remember much of the trip at all  —  except that. I remember that very well.

I remember another part of that trip very well, too: My dog, Champ wasn’t with me. George told me there wouldn’t be room for him in the car but he found a farmer that was happy to give him a home. I had lost my best friend, my only friend. I didn’t argue about it, or make a scene or say anything. It came to haunt me over the years. I knew George pretty well. He was barely cordial to me, and I don’t think he would have taken the time to show much mercy to a dog when he was basically running for his life. He had a shotgun, too, and liked to go hunting with friends once in a while, and he had never gotten along with Champ. I didn’t cry about it. I never cried any more. I didn’t even complain about the tobacco spit that covered my face and my clothes when we pulled into Waco. I would be starting Junior High School in September. I was not the same child that had left Waco and moved north.

Now, all of what I’ve said here makes it sound like I had a very grim, soul crushing, loveless childhood. There were some good times, too. For instance, I had done well in school in Highland; My teachers had almost universally loved me. I almost drowned in the river when I fell through the ice while skating  —  that was exciting. And one day when a boy named Tommy or Toby, or something like that  —  well he and I were walking the train tracks into town, and I shot another kid in the arm with a BB from my slingshot. That was fun. Oh  —  and this is the big one  —  one day, a kid named Carl Wayne and I had made clothespin guns that fired big kitchen matches (Larry showed me how to make them). The matches caught fire when shot and flew eight or ten feet like little fiery missiles! No kid could resist doing that! We were shooting them at stuff and each other in a downtown Highland alley when we found a big jumble of cardboard boxes behind the town’s only movie theater. We couldn’t walk away from a target like that, and suddenly the boxes erupted into a huge tower of fire! We knew we couldn’t just run away, so we ran around to the front of the theater and told the ticket taker that the theater was on fire! Soon, people were streaming out, hootin’ and hollerin,’ and a big red fire truck came screaming down the street, and people were yelling and running around like crazy! There were big flames and lots of black smoke, and water was gushing from the fire truck hose, and it was just glorious!

Carl Wayne and I had stayed around to watch the fire, of course. We didn’t even think about running away after almost burning down a theater full of people. The cops asked us if we knew how the fire had started, and of course we said, “No.” Then the theater manager came over and gave us both lifetime passes to the theater for being so brave. I didn’t see Carl Wayne again after that, and I only used my free pass once, then threw it away. I don’t remember what movie was playing that day, and I left well before it was over. My mother never asked me why I never wanted to go to the Highland movies any more. I think she knew why but she just couldn’t ask me. She had seen Larry and me playing with matchstick guns lots of times.

I was really glad when we finally got back to Waco. I didn’t like Highland very much any more, I didn’t have a dog any more, I didn’t have a home any more, and although I was finally back in Waco, I didn’t have any friends there any more  —  but there was nothing new about that.

END