This is where I grew up. Before my dad built on and built on and built on. We moved in when I was four years old. Four kids, two bedrooms, one bath and five acres to run around on like rugrats. What are rugrats? I guess I really don't know, but I remember being called one fairly often.
Sitting on the front porch is the box where the glass jugs of milk were delivered. Two gallons a week. I remember that shortly after we finally had wall to wall carpet installed in the living room, my brother Mark carried in the glass jugs and accidentally banged them together, busting both wide open soaking the carpet.
Surrounding the front porch, there were cactus plants which taught me early on never to smear your little baby hands all over, I never forgot that lesson and have never planted a cactus. We called the big window in front a picture window in which each pane was a separate piece of glass. I'm assuming the term picture window went by the wayside about the same time as the term milkman.
I once took a flying leap onto the side of the porch and landed squarely on the shin of one leg. That sucker was swollen and bruised for weeks, you didn't rush kids off to the doc back then unless they were bleeding, PROFUSELY.
The bush along the sidewalk was a forsythia. It was ugly except for when a few days in the spring when it bloomed. All along the front was a hedge which had to be trimmed quite often. I remember Mom hacking away at it with the old style, manual hedger. Years later both the hedge and the forsythia were yanked out.
The leaves on the tree on the left side of the picture was Mike's tree. There were two big trees in front and two in the back and for some strange rugrat reason, we kids decided that we each had a tree. Helen and Mike's were in front and Mark and mine were in the back. Mark had the best climbing tree. I could climb it even when I was little. I once climbed so high I could see a big castle on the other side of State Road 37. When I got older, the "castle" had somehow morphed into a farmer's silo. Why would someone turn a perfectly wonderful castle into an ordinary silo? That is not progress, I wonder if they also took away the moat, the princess and the white knight, not that I ever saw them.
On the foundation of the house that is on the right side of the picture, the little white door was where the coal was delivered and dumped into the coal bin in the basement. I still remember my brothers getting up on cold winter mornings and shoveling more coal into the furnace.
God, I'm old.
This is the house where we all held dad's hands while he passed away in 1992. It was the only house he ever owned.
It sits empty now. Do you think the memories are still playing on the side of a wall inside like an old projector when no one is looking?
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The spirits of Dad and his dog Rebel still roam the five acres. Dad's spirit starts up his old tractor to take a spin to once again pretend he's a farmer. And Rebel takes off to kill a groundhog to show Dad he's worth his weight in dog food.
You mentioned the boys shoveling coal. Big Sis did too. Dad never differentiated between girls and boys when it came to chores. I can still remember all four of us helping him mask off car windows and chrome. We all learned how to paint the walls of the house...even "Baby Ann".
And we moved there in the fall of 1962. I went to fourth grade at OLG and then fifth grade at CG. That would make you three years old, but you always did want to be older than what you actually were.
...well...maybe not anymore.
I only remember you being treated like a princess, doubt that you had to shovel coal.
No, neither mom or dad made much of a difference between between what girls and boys could do.
I still remember some cold October nights walking behind Dad in the truck and all the rest of us picking the field corn. I was little, so I probably wasn't that great at the job, but I remember mom right there next to us, all of us picking the cold in the dusk.
And do you remember the three wheel tractor? It was suppose to have two small wheels in the front, but one was missing, but that didn't stop Dad from still using it. I suppose he only turned it in one direction to keep it from tipping.
And the dirt paths in the back from our bicycles, mini-bikes and Mike's motor skooter.
We may not have had a lot, but we sure had fun.
I was pumping gas at "Hatfield's Service Station" about the time you guys moved to the Valley then. I had given my "Indy News" paper route up to John and Frank Armes about a year before, so I was no longer biking past your house on a daily basis.
My Dad and your next door neighbor Carl were good friends. You may remember Carl had an old "International Harvester" school bus he was trying to convert to an RV. Dad was his primary helper in that task.
Carl also had a red Farmall Cub...
What kind of tractor did your Dad have?
Dad had a couple of different old tractors, but the best was the "three-wheeled" one--that was the Farmall. I was sitting on that tractor's seat when I got my first kiss from a very special boy (no, not Leroy).
One of our favorite things to do was to spy on Carl. We would sneak into our back yard at dark when he (and probably your dad) were working in Carl's garage. It wasn't that Carl was doing anything worth watching, but it was just fun sneaking around in the dark to see if we'd get caught.
Weird kids...
You made out on Dad's tractor? Gross.
Carl had a CB radio setup and he must of had a hell of a kicker on it. sometimes when he transmitted, he would bleed over to our tv, telephone and one radio in mom and dads room even when it was turned off. When we got walkie talkies, he would get mad sometimes, we were so close we could key our talkies and he had trouble receiving. He didn't like that very much.
I had completely forgotten about being able to hear Carl on the CB bleed.
I remember Esther (that was her name, wasn't it) when her father came to stay for awhile. His hobby was making design rugs when that was in fashion. I remember sitting on their front porch with him and him showing me how to make the design. I think that was after Carl had left. Hook rugs, isn't that what they called them?
I don't remember much about Jane Ann. I don't know if she was already gone bu the time we moved or whether she was in high school so she seemed out of reach.
correction about how the milk jugs got broke, since the statute of limitations has long since ran out. I can finally admit. That day when I was bringing in the milk, I thought I wonder what it would sound like if I tapped these 2 jugs together. Well it didn't sound anything like a church bell or the liberty bell, is sounded more like a sound ass kicking. I know, I know, so I was not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I've has my moments. Another thought that you stirred about the milk delivery days. I remembered one hot summer day, we had returned from some trip to probably southern Indiana and we had forgotten to cancle that weeks delivery, I don't know how many days those jugs sat in the cooler, but I remember the smell and when we opened the cooler, the tops had popped off and the milk looked like cottage cheeze, Single and double milk coolers, I wonder how many are still out there sitting in basements and sheds, probably not worth much because there were so many around, but it would be cool to have one around. Glass milk jugs! hard to conceive today huh?
I meant to ask...
Is the house now "sitting empty" because of the flood?
GB:
I don't think so, the flood was mainly "in the valley" and I'm pretty sure our street south of the the bridge didn't get flooded.
Some guy bought it from mom a couple years after dad died and I don't think he ever moved in, he was a bit of a flake. I think he sold it after that or maybe he just let it go. I think Mike knows.
When mom moved I vowed never to drive down that road again and last year Mike and I drove together to a funeral in southern Indiana and he drove past. It was really hard to go past and see all the old places looking so different now.
They replaced the old bridge probably twenty years ago when mom and dad were still there. I hated the new bridge, probably because we spent so much time on the old one and in the crick (as we called it).
As they say, you can't go back. I wish I had appreciated it back then.
Carl's house may be the only one that is occupied in that area now. I know one of the girls that lived across the street bought it years ago, moved out and then bought it back a couple years ago.
Jane and I dated off and on for a few years. I introduced her to a guy I met in flight school and then was best man at their wedding. You may remember, Jane was fairly tall at 5'9" or so...
"Guy", her husband, was 6'8" and started at Center for the Univ. of Maine basketball team. (He was so tall he had problems fitting into the helicopter we trained in, and had to be set back to start learning to fly in a different type helicopter that would accommodate his height. Guy's problem led the ARMY to start assigning future flight applicants according to their height.)
They're still married with two grown kids. I exchanged emails with Guy just last week... they're mostly retired and living in Clarksville, TN.
I've been in the Valley since they replaced the bridge, and you're right... it just ain't the same.
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