CH. 1 BANTAM & NORTHFIELD
I remember Tommy because he took exception, one day, to my sitting in his red pedal car. I was watching an airplane going overhead, so didn’t hear his command to get out! Next thing I knew, he’d clobbered me with a shovel. At toy shovel, but a metal one. Split my head open. Yep, first of the head injuries . . .
Laurie and I used to sneak downstairs from time to time and go play with the boys. I believe we let ourselves in . . . If not, then the boys were right ready to do so. We generally got sent back upstairs . . . didn’t know enough to be quiet while the parents slept.
It was here that I imitated my beloved “Faddie” (don’t rhyme it with daddy. Rather give it the fa sound from father for that’s what this word is–a cross between father and daddy) and shaved my little chin. Cut myself badly–I still have the scar. I can still remember that morning. 🙂 So proudly declaring, “Look, Faddie! I shavin’ too!” The look on his half shaven face was one of “OMG!” For I was dripping blood everywhere . . .
Two other memories from this time period are my first Coca Cola and Mom plopping Laurie and me in the pram style baby carriage and booking off to the store. People would stop her to admire us. Back then we looked enough alike to have been twins, and she often dressed us alike. Maybe different colors sometimes.
In any case, she’d wheel us through the store. Pretty sure the aisles weren’t too wide either. We’d lust after some of the toys, candy, and ice cream. I remember a large blue Teddy bear sitting in a basket on the tip top shelf . . . yeah, I really wanted that bear!
No, I don’t think I ever got it or anything like it. Although one Easter, Aunt Dot got me a cute bunny . . .
Our first bottle of Coke we got at old Gene’s cabin. He had cases of it sitting in his kitchen. Seem to recall parts of the room being a grass green. Laurie and I begged for our own bottle of soda. Mom and Dad, as most parents do, objected to the own bottle thing, saying we could share one. But Gene said, nope. They can have their own. And so we did! Best Coke ever! One of my favorite memories . . .
From Homestead we moved to Northfield. To the house in this header. I hope I can find some pictures of the place as it was back in the ’50s. This was taken a few years ago when the present owners were renovating it. Up until that time, the right side of the duplex was unchanged from when we lived there. After us, no one ever lived on that side of the house. The original wallpaper and paint clung to those walls for forty or fifty years after us.
The other side saw new people up until the late 70s, I think. That side of the house was the nicer side with a fireplace in two rooms. Some friends of mine rented the place in the 70s and I stood at the bottom of the stairs and told them how the upstairs was laid out and which bedroom had that fireplace. Then I told them how the other side was laid out and the colors of the rooms upstairs. They were amazed I could recall all that so accurately. They were the ones who told me nothing had changed in that apartment. Sad. I loved living there, and it could have been a great place, but Dad wasn’t into interior design. And since we didn’t own it, he didn’t bother.
Remember two families living there while we did. Can’t remember much about the first family. I think they were there when we first moved in. Soon after they moved, and the second family moved in. They had a bunch of boys. Used to remember all of their names but now I only remember the name of one of the older boys. Rodney. Rodney could be described as a bully–I would have back then. Yeah . . . I was about six I think, maybe younger, and this 14-year-old kid pushed me out of the apple tree we both had climbed. He decided he wasn’t about to share space in it with a squirt like me, and so he shoved me off the branch I was sitting on.
Landed in a nice soft pile of cow poo . . .
Wearing my brand new purple with white circles sun suit . . .
Mom was not a happy camper when I came in to report the incident. She marched on out there to rip Rodney a new one. Meanwhile, I climbed into the tub . . .
Another time, Rodney coerced our neighbor, Denise, into touching the electric fence. They were the same age, so we couldn’t figure out how he got her to do it. Always held a grudge against him for it though. Denise owned a horse named Chico, and Laurie and I were in awe of her for that. Even got our long hair cut short one summer like hers.
Dad says we never rode Chico. Well, no, we didn’t ride him all by ourselves. He sure wasn’t a kid’s horse. But he did stick us up there at least once and Denise led us around part of the pasture.
We played most with Denise’s little sister, Tia, who was two or three years older than I was. Recall her being seven at the time Dad showed us how to make bows out of some sort of bendable branches and arrows of golden rod. We practiced for hours with them. Come to find out after all this time, we were shooting them wrong . . . You don’t hold the bow string with your thumb and forefinger . . . Ah, me . . . it’s the only way I know . . .
Going to stop here for now. I could and will go on for hours. But I need to get some food and drinkage . . .