School Days...

I think I have put this in a blog at some time before but, anmyhow, here it is again with a bit more added to it.

Mother took me to register for the first grade in the autumn of 1940. The school officials said I had to be five years old to start. So Mother took me back in January of 1941 and enrolled me in the first grade. I finished the first grade that year and advanced to the second grade when I was still five years old. I went to Galen Clark School.
The following year just before school started Mother took me to the school cafeteria to get my shots. I don’t remember what the shot was for but I know it must have been terrible because every kid there was whimpering or crying out loud in anticipation of the shot. Mom and I got in line and I didn’t have enough sense to be scared so I just went along with line until I reached the nurse who was giving the shots. She smiled at me and told me to roll up my sleeve and I did. She gave me the shot and it stung a little but I didn’t flinch or cry. She looked up at my mother and said,” My, what a brave little Man!” Mom said,” Yes he is.”
Floyd Bue, who would later be my stepbrother, also went to Galen Clark. Floyd had a high squeaky voice and, although he was a tall boy for his age and as physical as he should be for his height, he was timid and afraid of just about anyone who wanted to terrorize him. There were a lot of Mexicans enrolled in school and three of them liked to wait for Floyd and pick at him as he was walking home from school. The last time they made him cry, he told them that his brother was going to school soon and they had better watch out. I started awhile later and sure enough, on the way home that first day, the Mexican kids were waiting for him. Floyd was taller than I was but I was fatter than he was and that made me seem bigger. Floyd told me ahead of time about the boys and we were ready for them. When they approached us, one of them said,” Is that your brother?” and Floyd said it was and he is tough. The boy walked over to me and asked how tough I was and I punched him in the mouth. He started running away from us and the other two followed him. They never bothered us again. Floyd and I spent a lot of time together and we never bothered anyone and, after that incident, no one bothered us again.
I vaguely remember a water tower we climbed. I don’t remember what we did on it; I think just looked around. I thought up most of the things Floyd and I did together and he usually just went along with them.
The following is something that happened which, for whatever reason, has stuck in my mind as one of the most disappointing things I can ever remember happening to me as a child.
The carnival was in town and it is the first carnival I can ever remember. I was very excited about going and thought about it all day the day I was supposed to go. I went to school that day and mother told me to wait at the gate on a certain side of the schoolyard after school was out. I waited at the wrong gate and when everyone didn’t find me at the right gate, they went on to the carnival without me. I waited until almost dark then went home. There was nobody there and I didn’t know where the carnival was so I didn’t get to go. It left town the next day. All anyone could say to me was, ” You should have been at the right gate.” Sure. Thanks! I hated everyone for a long time after that for not looking for me. Sometimes I feel like I still do.
Not long after that Mother was canning some fruit on a kerosene heater in the kitchen (I think this is what happened- maybe the heater was just on for heat) and the heater caught on fire and blew up and the house was burned down. We lost almost everything. Uncle Nick lost everything.
I don’t remember much about what happened immediately after that. I know we started for Modesto. Dad was there with us. We had a two-wheeled trailer that was pulled behind our car. The trailer had a frame for the top that could support a canvas top to make it like a covered wagon. Mom and Dad slept in the trailer and us kids slept on pallets on the ground. When we were traveling, Dad would dig a hole in the ground where he wanted to build a fire. He carried a piece of tin with him to make an oven to cook biscuits. He would mix the biscuit dough and grease a pan and put the biscuits in the pan. Then he would put the piece of tin over the hole and build a fire on top of the tin. The hole under the tin would get hot and Dad would put the pan of biscuits in the hole and use the hole as an oven to bake the biscuits. It worked very well and Dad’s biscuits were always perfectly browned and extremely tasty.
We never had a whole lot to eat but we always managed. Sometimes Mother would boil water and put in sugar to make ‘sugar syrup’ for breakfast. We almost always managed to have chicken (chicken was very cheap in those days) at least once a week. Sometimes we would have bacon and once in a while we’d have spare ribs. But mostly it was biscuits and potatoes and gravy for dinner and biscuits and cream (or water) gravy or biscuits and sugar syrup for breakfast. Mother and Dad used a lot of canned cream instead of milk for gravy or other milk dishes. Canned cream went a lot farther than milk because it could be diluted to whatever strength was needed and, when there was milk left over in the can, they could put a tiny piece of bread in the hole to effectively plug the can and preserve the remaining milk. It’s amazing how long canned milk kept without spoiling.
I remember spreading my pallet under an apricot tree to go to sleep one night. I was, of course, sleeping with someone else, probably Joan. During the night it started to rain. Joan went to the trailer and told mom it was raining and mom said to pull the quilt up, so we did. It was very warm under that quilt that night. I couldn’t get cool and the next morning I found I was covered with chicken pox bumps. Mom looked them over and said I had chicken pox and needed to keep warm and dry for a few days. No one else caught them from me. There were no ill effects from the disease.

That'll do it for this time. I won't wait so long next time.

Later...

Bear Creek Camp...

*I'll start another episode here as I recall it. Some of my story may be duplicated; maybe I remembered the same thing over and re-inserted it into my journal. The next episode will start, "School Days." This one is, "Bear Creek Camp."*

My family lived in a couple of farm-workers cabins at a place called, ”Bear Creek Camp.” We had a Jersey milk cow and a 1931 Buick car that ran pretty well. We must have been there for a while because I remember a lot of things that happened there.

At one point the cow got loose and ran away toward the creek and we all had to chase her until she got tired to catch her. She had a huge bag and gave a lot of milk. No one ever got sick from drinking the raw milk.

Dad worked for a turkey farmer. When payday came, Dad, Mom and I went to the farmhouse to collect Dad’s pay. When Dad got out of the car and started to open the gate to go into the yard, a huge German Police dog ran at him barking and snarling with bared teeth. He wanted to eat my Dad. Dad wouldn’t go into the yard, even after Mom told him the dog wouldn’t bite him. Finally she said to get out of the way, she’d get the check, and she walked into the yard and told the dog to shut up and to go and lay down, so he did. She was fearless. She got the check.

The Bues were Vernon- the Dad, (who would later become my stepfather) Delia- the Mother, three boys; James, Bobby and Floyd, and two girls, Betty Jo and Joyce. Later we would call James Bue,’Big James,’ and me, ‘Little James,’ because he was older than I was.

Christmas came when we lived there. Christmas was never much about gift giving in those days. Money was too hard to come by to spend much on anything more than necessities. Floyd Bue and I were about a year apart in age, with him the oldest.
We got a cap pistol and a box of caps each for a present. I recall we played together for hours with them-until the caps ran out! We would climb on top of the cabins and jump from one to another trying to catch or get away from each other. I remember we played mostly detective games, cops and robbers because the guns were of an automatic type and not revolvers used by cowboys.

One time the big boys made a pair of stilts out of two 2 by 4s and some blocks of wood and straps. Everyone wanted to walk on them but Big James made them so he got to walk on them first. When he got up on the blocks with the ends of the 2 by 4s under his arms, one of the straps broke and he fell with his armpit onto the end of one of the boards and tore the underside of his arm up. Mother put some Merthiolate on it with a bandage. It was still sore when they left.
This didn't faze the other boys because they repaired the stilts and took turns using them.

While we were there, my folks traded our Buick for a Star car and a sow and nine pigs. We ate very well for a while.

When the Bues left, we all gathered around their car that had a trailer hooked on the back with their belongings in it. We were saying goodbye when the car pulled out. Buddy was standing near the right back seat of the car and, when it pulled away, his foot went forward and went under the trailer and the trailer tire ran over his foot. It didn’t break any bones but it surely flattened his foot!
We moved away shortly after that.

Just before we moved I seem to recall being in the car with Dad and Buddy. We stopped at a grocery store/bar for something and I was told to stay in the car until they got back.
While they were gone I played at driving. While playing, I pulled the emergency brake on and forgot about it. When they got back, we left and, after a while, smoke began to come up from under the car. Dad pulled over and Buddy got out and looked under the car and found the emergency brake band (which went around the drive shaft) was on fire. He threw sand on it until the fire was put out. They got mad at me and gave me hell for almost burning up the car. It’s strange I can still recall that so vividly. (I seem to always recall bad experiences vividly)

At one point, I remember we lived in a tent near a canal. I think it was at Triangle Ranch near Modesto. The tent had a wooden floor and was a lot easier to keep clean than a regular tent without a floor. One of the girls or Mother would roll up the sides of the tent every day or so and we would mix warm soapy water and pour on the floor and scoot around on the floor or skate around with rags on our feet or use a broom to scrub the floor. Then we would rinse it with buckets full of clear water. It kept the floor pretty clean. Mother and the loder girls didn't seem to mind that Joan and I used the floor like a skating rink; maybe because it got the floor cleaner and the others had less to do while cleaning it.

The next thing I remember was living in Merced. We lived in a house owned by a man named, Mr. Nick Buono, whom we called,” Uncle Nick.” I think Mother cared for him in return for lodging for her family. I don’t know where Dad was. We were there for a while; long enough to be visited by relatives from Texas.

One incident I remember is the time Lit Christmas, my half sister and her husband, Roy, were there with some of their kids.
Roy was mother’s cousin and Lit was Dad’s oldest daughter by his first wife.
They had seven kids; four boys-Roy Jr., (Cowboy) James, Billy and Johnny, and three girls, Leona, Eva Lee and Rosa Mae.

(Uncle Nick made his own wine and stored it in the cellar.)
One day Cowboy and Buddy sneaked into the cellar to steal some wine. Bud took a few drinks and Cowboy decided he would rather stretch it out a little. He lay down under the spigot and turned the spigot until the wine just barely dripped into his mouth. He did very well for a while but the wine finally caught up to him. He got so drunk that he couldn’t get on his feet without help.
Mom raised Cain with him and he staggered outside and threw up from the kneeling position until he passed out on the ground. He was carried inside and put to bed. He was still sick when he awoke and swore he would never again get drunk on wine. He stayed sick the rest of the day and all the next day.

*Next is an incident I recall happening in Merced while mother was visiting a lady friend.
I was playing with a little boy at his house and he was riding a tricycle. Behind it he had a push type rotor lawn mower tied to the trike and was pulling it like a trailer. Trying to play with him, I pushed the mower and a blade came around and sliced my right hand to the bone. It almost cut off the outside fleshy part of my palm. I ran into the house, scared to death, to show mother. She took me into the bathroom and washed it and put Merthiolate on and wrapped it in a bandage the lady gave her. Then she took me to the hospital where a doctor looked at it and put iodine on it, re-wrapped it and said it would be all right; and it was.

I'll end this here so this chapter won't be too long. I'll add, "School Days," later, before too long.

Later...

...And So, Moving On To California...

We lived in Glendale, Arizona and Phoenix just before we moved to California. Mother and Daddy talked about going to California and who would go first and who would stay. Daddy had tuberculosis (or something else like consumption) and so mother decided she would go. She took my brother and me and caught a freight train. Later, down the line somewhere, we hitchhiked. We made it to Planada, California where Vernon Bue and his family lived.

Later Daddy and the girls caught a ride to Bakersfield. On the way they got a ride in a large, fine car. My sister, Mickey, had to ride in the back seat and got carsick so she was given crackers to settle her stomach a little and was put in the front floorboard of the car and stood up between the seat and the dashboard the rest of the way.

Daddy was sick with TB (or something) and broke when they got to Bakersfield. The Bakersfield police saw him and the girls and their situation and put Daddy in a sanitarium and the girls in an orphanage. As it turned out, our cousin, L B Johnson, lived in Bakersfield and when he found out what had happened, he had the police let Daddy and the girls go to his house. Later the whole family got together again.

There are several accounts of Mother and some of us kids hitchhiking to California and other places. There are also different accounts of us all moving to California. Evidently, after Mother, Buddy and I hitchhiked to California and Dad and the girls came, we all returned to Arizona for a spell. My brother, Buddy, says we all moved to California together in our 1931 Buick.

He said that when we loved in the desert near the dump (it was about ¾ of a mile away and down wind) he raised a hundred chickens. He would pull his wagon to the dump every day and get food for the chickens to eat. When the chickens were large enough to eat, he took them to Phoenix and sold them. The money was used to help buy the Buick, (Betsy Buick) and that car was what we drove to California.

The first place we moved to in California was Hemet, in Southern California. We weren’t there for long then went on to a Eucalyptus Tree grove north of Merced. This grove would later be cleared and Castle Air Base built there. From there we moved to Winton where we worked in the fruit harvest.

I can remember the girls working at a dry shed, a place where peaches and apricots are cut, dried in sulfur ovens and packed. I remember the girls buying blocks of Longhorn Cheese and enjoying it as if it were candy. They had learned to enjoy this particular kind of cheese when we were in Arizona. My Dad had an account at the grocery store and the girls would charge the cheese to that account. Dad put a stop to that after a while.

THE JOHNSON RANCH

We lived at a place called the Johnson Ranch for a while. I think that is the place I nearly died from gasoline inhalation. We had a 1931 Buick we called,’ Betsy Buick,’ and it had a luggage rack on the back just below the spare tire rack. On the left of the car, just in front on the luggage rack, was the gas tank filler pipe. I took the cap off of the tank and, for whatever reason, I lay across the rack with my face at the open gas tank filler pipe and was getting giddy and quickly going into a sleep from which I would never awaken when one of my sisters saw me and rescued me. I sure felt good for a while as I was being walked around and revived.

My brother, Buddy, says I used to ride to town and back perched on the luggage rack that was attached to the rear of the Buick. He didn’t say how often I did this. I think I was about four years old there. I remember carrying around a Prince Albert tobacco can with me because those were the first words I remember knowing how to spell.

California Lands

We had a chicken pen there and a bunch of chickens. We had a big, tall yellow rooster (a Shanghai Rooster) that was really mean. One time he hid behind the coop and, when my sister, Joan, came into the coop, he attacked her with his spurs. I think he pecked her, too, and drew blood. Then, either my mother or brother beat him with a broom until he was almost crazy. He finally escaped to the outside and stayed gone for a couple of days. When he came back, he was much more subdued and understood that people are allowed in the coop.

A number of eggs hatched and there were baby chicks in the coop. My brother took a piece of screen and placed it in the coop on the ground and hooked wires attached to a magneto to the screen and sprinkled seeds on the screen. When the chicks walked on the screen to get the seeds, Buddy turned the magneto and sent an electrical shock through the screen. The chicks would peep and hop at the same time then go back to eating. He did this a bunch of times and we thought it was extremely funny. Everyone laughed. The hens finally stopped going onto the screen but the chicks never learned to stay off the screen.

Once a snake came into the chicken coop and started to swallow a chick. My mother saw it and got the snake and picked it up by the tail and whipped it like a whip. The snake’s head wouldn’t come off and the chick didn’t come out so my mom put her foot on the snake’s head and pulled it in to. She got the chick out of the snake’s mouth and it lived.

I recall my dad was in and out of our lives. I never saw a lot of him and don’t have any tender memories of him being with me when I was a child. My mother was always dominant; with everyone.

Once some relatives came to visit us from New Mexico and Texas. It seems like there was always some relatives visiting us. One of them was a cousin named Homer Johnson. He was the grandson of my Grandpa’s twin brother. Also there was our friends, the Bues.

Anyhow, one day Buddy, Big James, Bobby and Homer were walking down by the river and Homer said to Buddy,” I’ll bet you can’t hang by one hand from that limb and take your pants off with the other hand!”
Buddy, always good for a dare, said he could and he jumped up about a foot and a half and hung by one hand and loosened his pants and dropped them to the ground. Suddenly Homer grabbed Bud’s pants and ran as fast as he could back toward the camp. As soon as Bud realized what had happened, he gave chase and almost caught Homer at the front door.
When everyone saw Buddy without his pants, they began to laugh with Homer laughing the loudest. Homer laughed so hard that he couldn’t run anymore and Buddy caught him and retrieved his pants. He wouldn’t put them back on until he left the room. He stayed mad for about five minutes then he, too, laughed. It was very funny.

That'll be all for now. More later...

My First Memory...

My first memory is about an incident that happened in Arizona, probably about 1939 when I was three or so. My family lived in a tent on the desert and picked cotton, I think, for a living. I remember the tent was built so the sides would roll up and tie. I remember my mother sweeping out the tent each day.
The thing I remember most about the tent was a time, during the day, when my dad was lying on the bed, taking a nap. I was playing nearby and thought my dad was looking at me and wanted to play. I climbed onto the bedstead (an iron one, I recall) and jumped on his stomach, knocking the breath out of him. He got very mad and, after he regained his breath, grabbed me and started to whip me. (I never heard a whipping referred to as a 'spanking.' It was always a whipping.) My mother stopped him from whipping me and told him that I was just trying to play with him and didn't mean to hurt him. She was right, of course, but that didn't help my dad any. On orders from my mother, he didn't whip me, but he sure scared me. I don't remember ever trying to play with him again. I can't recall my dad being much for playing.

There was a hole in the ground near the tent where the men were digging a well. The top of the hole was about twice as wide as the bottom and a 55-gallon drum with the bottom cut out was in the bottom of the hole, about three feet from the top of the well. I imagine the drum would be lowered and another put on top of it each time the hole was dug deeper. This would allow the hole to be dug deeper by stopping the sides from caving in. Evidently the diggers knew about how deep they would have to go to reach water.

I was playing around the well and got too close and fell into the top part of the hole. I was down too far to reach anything (even if there had been anything there) to pull myself out. The sand was slippery and I thought I would fall into the deep part of the well. I was terrified and screamed at the top of my lungs. My sisters heard me and came to see what the problem was. When they saw me, they too became scared and one of them ran to get my brother, Thomas, (we called him,' Buddy,') to help. When he got there, he hopped down and picked me up and saved my life. It looked easy, the way he did it.

I remember we had two dogs there, Laddie and Lady. Lady had fits sometimes. I remember one time when Lady had a fit and two of the girls were there with me. (One was Joan and I don't remember which the other was, Mickey or Eva) There was a tree there with a forked trunk and we climbed up to the fork to get away from Lady. Joan pulled Laddie up with us and no one got bitten. I don't think Lady would have bitten us anyhow but we weren't sure so we took no chances.(I recall now that, in those days, many dogs had fits,-It wasn't rabies; it just seemed to be something that dogs did from time to time)

One time, I think at this same place or it could have been earlier at another canal, I fell into the canal and would have drowned if Mickey hadn’t pulled me out. The water was very swift, I recall. That is the last time I can remember being afraid of water.
(Buddy came running very fast and dove into the canal and hit his head on the bottom and became unconscious and the kids pulled him out. This was a very bad canal!)

I started talking at a very early age and, also, learned to sing early in my life. When I was about two or three years old, Dad or one of the kids would take me to a park and I would sing,” I Don’t Want Your Greenback Dollar,” and people would say what a good singer I was and give me pocket change. This went for food for the family. (One of my sisters said that was in Phoenix; she didn't say which year it was)

Another thing I remember is, one time the girls didn't show up at school. They climbed some giant Mulberry trees and ate mulberries all day and just played. They could see the bus stop from where they were and when the bus came from school, they went home as if they had gone to school. Mother gave Mickey and Eva a Whipping but not Joan because she was the littlest. They wanted to know how she knew they hadn’t gone to school and she told them, "A little bird told me.” The same little bird told on me many times after I got older. (I'll bet the blue stains on their clothes and hands from the Mulberries gave Mother a hint)

We used to have to walk a long ways across the desert to get water in gallon jugs for cooking and drinking because we had no water at our tent. On the way we passed a large house that had a swimming pool. Sometimes on the way back the folks at the house would let us swim in their pool. First we had to go on and ask Mother if we could then walk back across the hot desert sand to get back. Except for our burning feet, it was great.
I'll write more later.

Later...

The Early Days...

THE EARLY DAYS

Some of the early days are times I cannot remember about which my brother and sisters have told me.
I was born in Hondo, Texas. A friend there, Mrs. Cameron, was good to my mother and for her friendship, I was given her name, Cameron, as a middle name.
We lived in the house of my Grandpa and Grandma Johnson while mother was carrying me. Just before I was born, my grandparents found a house for us on the other side of the river and up a road a ways from them. There was a job for my dad when he got back from wherever he had been. As it turned out, he got back just in time to deliver me. Aunt Lola said dad was a heavy drinker then.

Right after I was born, Mother was very weak and Aunt Lola May Johnson, Mother’s sister, came to our house each day to see that the other kids got across the river all right to go to school. Then she would take care of me until the kids got back

. Where we moved from there, I don’t know. Eventually we reached Lamesa, Texas. In Lamesa we acquired a 1926 Ford Model T. After an amount of time we decided to move to Phoenix, Arizona. My Dad was acquainted with a man named Manual Stagg who owned a 1926 Dodge touring car. Our model T didn’t have a top so, when we all moved, we loaded the model T with all our belongings and towed it behind the Dodge like a trailer.

My dad worked on a Park restoration project in Phoenix and hired Vernon Bue to help him. As you will see later on, hiring Vernon Bue turned out to be a bad thing for Dad, the family and everyone else.
We first moved to Glendale then to Phoenix near a canal then to the desert near the city dump.

Chapter One… In the Beginning…

My memories are very vague of my early years. I have a few that are at my age of about two or three years. I haven't researched this with my brother or sisters; the memories are my own, as I recall, although, I will add a few things about what happened to me that were told to me by my siblings.

One of those things told to me was; once when my Dad was in California (or somewhere else) looking for work, my mother hitchhiked with me in tow to where my Dad was. Many times Dad would take Joan and Eva with him when he went places. Sometimes he would take Buddy and Eva and leave Joan, Mickey and me with Mother. She had hitchhiked before to be with Dad when he was gone to look for work.

Once she hitchhiked with all of the kids. Dad had gone to south Texas to the home of Grandpa Johnson, Mother’s Dad, to look for work. After he had been gone for a while, mother decided she should be with him so she took all of us kids and hitched a ride there. A man picked us up and fed us and told mother that any man who would leave his family like that should be whipped. Mother told me that after she was old so it might be a bit biased. I may recall more which was told to me later in this saga.

*As I said earlier, some things in this journal were told to me by someone else in the family. It is now October 10, 2003 and I just got an e-mail from my sister, Shike, with this story. It needs to be in my journal. I’ll copy it in as it was written by her.*

...Just got to looking at the picture on the wall and you were about 18 months old. The first xmas after that you had turned 2 the month after Christmas. I never will forget that one.
Mother never was a hand at making cakes but that year she made a white cake and it smelled so good like vanilla and she made a boiled frosting to go on it. Poured it on it. Made it all soft and juicy. We had it for supper with a pumpkin pie.

We couldn't open our presents till we ate breakfast so we all gobbled down our oatmeal fast as we could. You were still quite small.

We all got a huge orange and a big apple. Except you. We all had to give you two slices out of our orange. Mother fed them to you and saved some of yours.

We each got a little bag with Christmas candy in it. Some of those little ribbons and hard candy with soft centers.
Daddy got a big long present and when we all had a mouth full of candy we wanted to see what he got so we kept begging him to please open his present. When he opened it it was a huge peppermint stick. Wow did our eyes pop open!!
Of course we all stood around him until he finally said, well I guess I'd better give all of you some of my candy. That made all of us happy. I remember when he broke it up and gave all of us some of it. Daddy always loved peppermint forever after that.

I got a2 pink ribbons, Joan got 2 yellow ribbons. I think Mickey got a little necklace cause she never did have her hair in pigtails. also a little waist apron Mother had made her. I think Joan and I got a pair of anklets. Buddy got a new top and a new pair of overalls. I don't remember if mom or Daddy got anything but we all shared our candy with Mom.

We didn't have a turkey but had a big stewing hen. Mother made dressing with it.
We had a good time oh yes, you got a ball with4 colors on it. You could throw it clear across the room and chase it down. We would sit on the floor and roll it back and forth to you.

Well I just thought I would share these memories with you before I went to bed. Take care of my sister. Love to both of you. Shike.***

Later...

PS I did straighten the story out a bit with paragraphs. 'yay'

Shike...Where Did You Get That Name?...

*Here is the story of how my sister, Eva, got her nickname, Shike or Shikey, as told in the words of my oldest sister, Mickey. After that is another piece from Mickey about Shike.

“there were three girls in our family. Joan was the younger one then Eva, the middle one .we all called her shypoke. she messed around when we went somewhere(shypoke) and picked flowers and daydreamed .we went to the woods one time ,with our folks realy looking around and finding things that seemed pretty to us, you know how 4 and 5 year olds are ,a toad , a little rock, a flower,etc. all at once we noticed how quiet it was. every one was gone but us. wow! I was so scared, I started yelling and pulling on her and yelling, come on shy come on shikey more scared, i started dragging her and crying, come on shike! come on shike! well it happened i was dragging her the wrong way. soon mom and dad found us and heard me still crying and pulling eva along by her dress. well from then on the new name stuck. from then on the family used the names of shikey and shike. another little story for our family history
oh!i was the oldest on doing the dragging mickey”

WELL SIS, DAD USED TO CALL YOU HIS LITTLE RADIO TO, BECAUSE YOU NEVER STOPPED TALKING I REMEMBER THAT AND A LOT MORE. IT'S FUNNY---THE OLDER YOU GET THE MORE YOU RECALL. GUESS WHEN YOU'RE YOUNG, YOU DON'T HAVE TIME.*

Later...

Family Stories...

Occasionally I will post stories told to me by members of my family. I think you will enjoy them. For the most part, I'll leave them as they were written, with little and sometimes no structure; paragraphs and such.

I hope you enjoy this true story. If you do, please comment on it occasionally.

Later...