AUSTIN (1969-ish to 1971)
1. Meeting Steve when he was peeing outside on the sidewalk at the age of 3
2. Steve knocking on the door and calling out “anyyyybodyyyyy hoooome???” to play on a daily basis
3. Playing with paper dolls kept in the top of the closet at Breckenridge when my Grandmother was visiting
4. Playing with Steve’s GI Joe
5. Playing with Steve’s cars
6. Playing with Steve’s soldier figures
7. Playing on the bottom bunk in Steve’s room where there was a magical map of Six Flags over Texas where we would plan our adventures through Spee-lunker Cave, aboard The LaSalle Riverboat, on the Runaway Mine Train around Roto-riculus and across Skull Island
8. Playing with Brown Bear; staying with Carolyn & Steve when mom went to work; Jim feeding me stew, “here comes an airplane, coming in for a landing”
9. Playing football outside at Breckenridge with Jim, Dad, Big Steve and various hippies
10. Going to the dump and Steve telling us all the things he was going to be when he grew up
11. Getting in trouble for bouncing on the bed and getting spanked by Jim and Steve throwing a tantrum
12. Getting in trouble for making it snow in mom’s bedroom (with puffs of baby powder)
13. Missing Steve the first time they went on a trip
14. Being sad and jealous as I watched through the window Steve playing with the boys on his return home from said trip
15. Dreaming about Steve, drawing pictures of Steve, talking about Steve when we moved to Fort Davis in 1971
MIDLAND (1972)
16. Seeing Steve again for the first time in Midland in 1972 when the Bentons came to visit when Nancy was born
17. Walking into the house where Steve had fallen asleep on the rocking chair, Carolyn telling me to go over and wake him up, going over to wake him up and having him stand up and give me a big hug
18. Going to Carlsbad Caverns with Steve and Jim and Carolyn and baby Lisa
19. Playing in the back of the car (I think it was a station wagon), and Steve falling asleep
20. Getting tired in the Caverns and Steve throwing a tantrum when Jim wouldn’t carry him
FT. WORTH, PLANO, ODESSA & WICHITA FALLS (1974-ish to 1981-ish)
21. Getting letters from Steve; telling friends about Steve
22. Carolyn calling mom and telling her on Steve’s 10 birthday he said he was happy he was 10 because that meant it was only 8 years until he married Jennifer
23. Trips to Ft. Worth every summer to play and (really) go to Six Flags with my best friend – going on adventure walks around the Ft. Worth neighborhood
24. Listening to the Beatles, playing castle, staying up late
25. Playing Risk, drawing, the lava lamp in the den, rough housing with Jim
26. Putting our little sisters through boot camp
27. Taking photos together; planning our adventure in Six Flags looking over the map
28. The human knot the morning of one Six Flags glorious day; going to Duncan Donuts on the way; El Sombrero first, always; holding hands; being brave; Steve crying on the Runaway Mine Train after the post-saloon drop; having to ride some rides with our sisters, even though we wanted to ride all rides together; eating pink things; the smell of the parking lot; riding the Roto-Disco over and over: Steve refusing to ride Big Bend – doing it with my Dad; the log ride; holding hands on the Judge Roy Scream
29. Showing up at the Plano house to surprise Steve – the house was new and out in the boondocks and I missed the feel of the Ft. Worth house
30. Putting together a puzzle made by our parents, which when completed explained that Steve would be coming with us on our road-trip back to Odessa
31. On the way to Odessa - going to Uncle Sparky’s and Aunt Joe Mae’s in the country – watching Steve pee for the second time in my life; eating something with ketchup and pretending it was blood; the dogs; the gnome creatures; the walk in the country and the list we made of everything we saw; drawing roller coasters of our own design
32. Going out to the pasture in the truck and the cow that tried to get in the cab with us; Uncle Sparky telling us he had a magical garage, and us saying “Open Mr. Garage” and “Close Mr. Garage” and the garage magically opening (and closing)
33. Driving to Odessa and getting the gigantic-worthy-of-Guiness-Book soft serve cones
34. In Odessa with Steve sleeping in living room – the crazy card trick; the love song Steve wrote me on the little play organ in my bedroom; walking to visit my Grandmother and Steve being so sweet with her; naming our future four children; casting the movie Batman
35. Steve and Lisa flying to Odessa to see me and Nancy in The Sound of Music and to help me celebrate my 11th Birthday - trying to convince a 10 year old Steve Ta and Victoria were “real;” Steve being a bit unhappy that trip; Bob Dog and the cat; the haunted house we made for Nancy and Lisa; Steve running and jumping over the wagon and falling
36. Mom and Dad surprising me by showing up in Wichita Falls on a drive back from Dallas; walking up to Jim’s church and not realizing we were there until Jim greeted us; Steve hanging out with all his friends
37. Spending the weekend at the Wichita Falls house (Dad had dropped me off and picked me up on a weekend warrior trip) – eating candy, cake, and fruit salad; sleeping in Brian’s bed; talking with Steve until early hours; waking up with a sick stomach; throwing up in the bathroom
38. Meeting the Bentons in Dallas and going to Olla Podrita two different times
39. First time to Olla Podrita (age 12ish): sitting on the balcony and playing the game where you make up a story then write optional endings to each chapter; walking around Olla Podrita hand in hand; laughing; buying the stamps with our initials
40. Second time (age 13 - the end of childhood): waking up at the hotel in the morning and “getting ready” for the first time; caring what I looked like; Steve being distant; overhearing Steve tell Jim “keep her away from me;” having no idea what was happening or why
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11 comments:
About No. 32. We had gone out to a pasture to see my Uncles cows. Grannie was in the cab with Steve and Jennifer. The driver, I think it was Sparky, had got out of the pickup and left the door open. For some reason a dam cow got all upset, I think it was over a dam dog, charged the pickup, chasing the dog and I think the dog jumped into the pickup. The cow then charged the open door and was actually trying to "hook" grannie. We interceeded and encouraged her to retreat. It was all a big blurr and the facts or sequence may not be exactly as I reconstruct. At any rate we all had a big laugh and a memory. Sparky's ranch was and is between Comanche and Rising Star, TX.
I don’t remember the first time Jennifer and I met and have no memory of ever again using my pee stream to meet girls. The sing-song call Jennifer remembers, though, was typical of my childhood, though (I remember using it most frequently for “I neeeeeeeeeeed somebody to cleeeeeeeeeean me.”)
I have heard stories of the baby powder snow and the ride to the dump enough now that I feel like I remember the original events. I do remember that Gene’s pick-up got scorching hot sitting on the parking lot on summer afternoons. Don’t remember paper dolls when a grandmother was visiting.
I ended up with at least three G. I. Joe’s, who slept in their green wooden foot lockers where they kept their extra boots and camo gear. I think I probably had one representing the Army, the Navy (he had one of those lame sailor suits), and the Air Force. I guess the navy guy had an orange wet suit. One of them—whose hair was slick, not fuzzy—was a hand-me-down from my cousin Mike. He must have been an Air Force guy.
One year one of them got a helicopter.
The Joe's didn’t last past the upper elementary years, when I began rocketing them into the sky.
The little plastic soldiers you speak of (and which also get some love on one of Dad’s lists) were the preferred toy of my youth. The box sets with landscape features were high end, but we when we visited Grandmother in Hillsboro we also got the standard sets from the drugstore, which included the Captain, the bayonet-charge guy (carrying his weapon above his head, he was the most difficult to balance), the flame thrower, the crouching machine-gun guy, the one-knee bazooka man, the straight marcher who kept his gun on his shoulder, and the kneeling mortar launcher.
I remember the trip that brought us to see you in West Texas, the walk through Carlsbad Caverns, and the greatly anticipated trips to Six Flags.
That map of Six Flags was, indeed, a treasure (again, it also gets some love on Dad’s list). It shared a wall with framed still prints from Mickey and Beanstalk (Mickey, Goofy, and Donald carrying the singing harp down the bean stalk) and Peter Pan (sword-fighting with Captain Hook).
Brown Bear is with me still—on the bookshelf in our new living room, as a matter of fact.
We lived in Plano from August 1973 to August 1975. One of the best things about the Plano house (2000 Williamsburg Avenue) was that it was just a block or two away from Willow Creek Park, which, in addition to having decent playground equipment, also had a real creek with a tree-branch canopy. It was stocked with crawdads and flanked by sinewy dirt trails.
I don’t remember you guys ever coming to Plano, but I remember well your visit to the Fort Worth house—2112 Sixth Avenue—where we lived from December 1975 to June 1978. It was during our time in Fort Worth that I got the Beatles’ red album (Greatest Hits 1961-1965?) on my ninth or tenth birthday. I played it over and over. I liked the early stuff best, but my favorite song was “Eleanor Rigby.” I also liked “Michelle” a lot.
I remember getting in trouble for playing boot camp, which, among other things, required Lisa and Nancy to do a lot of running up and down the sidewalk.
I also remember doing a sit-up demonstration for Gene. Back then I could do a lot of sit-ups in a minute.
I remember the human knot, always starting with the Sombrero because it was nearest the entrance and was the lowest order thrill (and, hence, would be a disappointment later in the day). The Log Ride (El Aserradero) was usually the highlight of the day. I also liked the Spelunker's Cave and the La Salle Riverboat Ride, which are no more.
I remember not daring to ride the Big Bend and watching Jennifer and Gene take it on.
I remember the cow who enlisted our help in his desperate break for freedom, but I don’t remember Uncle Sparky or a magical garage.
I remember that on the ride to Odessa (which seemed epic), Ruth talked us through a fill-in-the-blanks story that she later revealed was an allegory designed to tell us something about our view of life, of love, of how we deal with challenges, of death, and of heaven. I never forgot the story-line, but the only answers I remember giving suggested that I likened my love to a giant, iron beer stein with a heavy lid, and I thought of heaven as a rolling field covered with pillars topped by marble statues of Don Knotts.
The movie I remember casting was a Superfriends farce with a star-studded cast reminiscent of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (one of my favorite films of the time). The idea was to cast comedians in the roles of the superheroes. Don Knotts was Superman (of course) and Lucille Ball was Superwoman. Don Rickles. Flip Wilson and Bill Cosby also had roles.
I remember visiting your grandmother’s house (was that the one on Keystone that we later lived in when we moved to Odessa?).
I don’t remember a haunted house, but I remember conducting a séance. The dead were to contact us via an electric mini-organ, which, we had happily discovered, continued to work for a while even after it had been unplugged. After showing Lisa and Nancy that the organ was unplugged, we asked the dead to show us their presence by making it work. The plan worked a little too well and we got in trouble for scaring our sisters.
I remember that when you visited Wichita Falls (where we lived from the summer of 1978 to the spring of 1983) we saw Superman, starring Christopher Reeve. Superman was released in late 1978, so I guess that means that visit happened in 1979? During the spring of our sixth grade year?
I remember visiting Olla Podrida (where I had my first sesame sticks) and buying ink stamps—which I still keep on my bookshelf (mine spell “Steve”), and I have a vague memory of writing a story with optional chapter endings. I don't think we got very far with it.
I don’t remember playing football with hippies, or getting spanked or throwing public tantrums in Carlsbad or elsewhere. I don’t remember marriage plans, visits to Dunkin’ Donuts, or crying on the Runaway Mine Train.
I don’t remember sleeping in the living room in Odessa, a crazy card trick, writing love songs, or naming future children.
I don’t remember Ta or Victoria, being unhappy on my second trip to Odessa, or falling over a wagon (I did do a lot of Evil Kneivel-style jumping in the 4th and 5th grades, though, and got a dark bruise on my groin when I wiped out jumping lengthwise over a number of kiddie chairs in a Sunday school room at Central Christian Church in Fort Worth).
And I have no memory whatsoever of asking Dad to keep you away from me. I am sorry that you do.
The Judge Roy Scream opened in 1980, the summer after our seventh grade year. I don't remember riding it for the first time ...
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