The Wreck

The summer of 1969 was the summer before I entered 5th grade.  That was the summer that Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, while Michael Collins orbited the moon abord Apollo 11, the Charles Manson family was on a murderous rampage in the Hollywood hills and the three day event known as Woodstock Music & Arts Festival took place in Bethel, NY.  All events would go down in history books, but it will always be the summer of my wreck.  Bicycle wreck to be exact. 

That summer I turned 10 years old and my parents got me a new bicycle and Bible.  The Bible was a white King James Version with a zipper all the way around it and a cross dangling from the zipper pull.  I still have that Bible, although the zipper and cross are long gone.  But the bicycle was a new yellow Schwinn Stingray girls bike with a banana seat that had big bright flowers all over the seat, a sissy bar and ape hanger handlebars.  It was sure faster than that old extra large bike that I had before and racing just seemed to be the thing to do, since that was one of our main forms of entertainment then.  I rode my bike up and down the street tauting my sisters and my friends because I was the first one in the neighborhood with such a dream machine.  And of course I had to taunt Mike Baker - my childhood nemesis.  Mike and I played together very well on a daily basis but there was always this competition between the two of us.  It's probably a good thing we later moved out of the neighborhood, or he and I would have surely gotten into trouble or wound up getting each other seriously hurt.  He would come up and suggest that we race.  And my answer was always a restounding NO.  My mother already knew my penchant for competition and racing etc. and had already laid the law down to me (and looking back now it was for good reason) that under no circumstances was I to race anyone on my new bike, especially Mike Baker.  So the tauting went on. Finally one day (exactly one week to the day of the beginning of 5th grade), we were all down at the gulley playing and Mike just wouldn't let it go about racing.  And he finally said the words that he knew would set me off, "Probably a good thing your mommy won't let you race, cause no girl could ever beat me, even on a new bike"  Oh, it was on then.  We sent the crowd down to my house (the finish line) and Kevin Kopecke stayed behind to make sure the race started fair. 

Mike and I lined up, our tires were exactly on the same line, both of right feet on the starting pedal, our hands on the handgrips and our heads down.  My heart was pounding.  I knew I had to win that race for two reasons.  One was, after that smart remark made by Mike I had to show him up and the other was once my mother found out I had raced she was going to whip my butt, so I had better make this race count.  On your mark, Get Set, GO!!!!  And we were off.  We rounded the bend at the end of the street and I clearly had the lead, but was no where near the finish line.  I remember I was standing up on the pedals with my head down between the ape hanger handlebars and was pedaling as fast as my little legs would go.  As we approached the finish line, I looked back and Mike was coming up beside me, so I locked and loaded, pedaling even harder.  We were almost there.  Then all of sudden BLACKNESS.  I remember nothing.  When I woke up, I was covered in gauze, laying in a hospital bed looking up at my mom, dad, Dr. Mayhew and every bone in my body ached.  My mom was crying and I said "I'm thirsty".  Dr. Mayhew responded "well, finally you decide to wake up".  Wake up?  Huh?  When did I go to sleep?  Why am I in the hospital?  Vaguely I remember my bicycle, Mike Baker, a shell driveway, a culvert and a ditch. 

For the next five days, I laid in the hospital recuperating from a wreck that I don't remember.  What I was told, was as the race was nearing the end, Mike got up next to me and kicked the side of my bike which sent me flying over the handlebars, across the neighbors shell driveway, hit a culvert, slid across our gravel driveway, hit our culvert and landed in our ditch, with blood all over my face, arms and legs.  My little sister Cyndi went running into the house screaming "Mike just killed Deedie".  My mom and dad rushed me to the hospital and they tell me I came too later that day, but I had no recollection of who anyone was and fell back unconcious for another day.  Upon waking the next day, most of my memory had returned, except for the part about the wreck.  I suffered a concussion, numerous cuts (which some required stitches) scrapes and bruises most of which were on my face, hands, elbows and knees. 

By the time I came home from the hospital, school had already started and I would look in the mirror  and beg mom to let me stay home until I had healed, which by the looks of it would be several more weeks.  Mom would not let me stay home until then.  When I went back to school, I stood in the hallway outside my class, crying because I just knew that everyone would make fun of me.  Finally my teacher, Ms McCollough came out and got me.  There were a few snickers and a few gasps, but all in all, it really wasn't so bad.  The boys were impressed that I had raced such a valent race and the girls thought I was tough as nails.  As for Mike Baker, he brought me flowers to my hospital room and a heartfelt apology.  He and I never raced after that.  He helped me to fix my bike and life on Penelope street went on as usual.  I still wonder though, who won the race?

New Sisters

Don't remember when we moved to Penelope. I was little bitty. And so what I'm going to tell you now is just hear-say from my mom. Daddy was retired Military (Air Force to be exact) and was 27 years older than my mom. Prior to his retiring from the military, he was stationed in San Antonio, married with 3 kids (Bill, Jack & Karen). My mom was married as well to a gentleman that was also in the Air Force and stationed in San Antonio (Kelly AFB, I believe). Long story short (and sparing all the gory details) mom and dad eloped to Seguin, TX on October 30, 1954. Shortly after that, dad got transferred to Ellington AFB in Houston. By the way Mom was from Louisiana and Dad was from Oklahoma.

Fast forward to 1959, since that is really all I know about how and when they met. Not sure where we were living when I was born, but the first house I remember is 10807 Penelope. I have very vague memories of being very little. I can remember the dog we had. Her name was Schatzi and she was a long haired saddled German Shepherd. I remember when Cyndi was born. I guess I must have been so happy to have someone to play with that I drug my infant sister off the bed and into the living room. My mom had 4 girls in 4 years and 2 months, so I couldn't have been more than a year and a half old when I did that. Then all of a sudden there was Mari. And almost immediately after that, I remember Daddy getting all of us up and rushing us next door to Mrs. Bourgeious' house to stay while he drove Momma to the hospital to have Tammi. So in a very short time, I went from being an only child to having to share everything and "be mommy's little helper".

Let me tell you, it wasn't easy being the oldest of four. Our house always seemed busy. We had hardwood floors and every so often Mom and Dad would strip the floors and put new wax down. I'm not sure if there was such a thing as buffers at that time, but either way, we didn't have one. So Mom and Dad would use "buffing time" as "play time". They would get blankets and put 2 of us on one blanket and the other 2 on the other blanket and would swing us around the living room floor. We had a blast, but that seems like a lot of work if you were Mom and Dad. We had a lady that would come in a couple of times a week and help Mom clean. She would do stuff like the ironing, baseboards, dusting & mopping. We had a man named One-Arm-Sam that mowed our yard. I loved One-Arm-Sam. I would sit on the porch on Saturday mornings and wait for Sam. And he really did only have one arm. But that one arm was strong. He would jump up in the back of his old beat up 1952 or 53 red Ford truck and pick up his mower with one arm and sit it on the ground, hand me a piece of candy, rough up my hair and get to mowing.

As close as my sisters and I were, we were all different as night and day on everything from the way we looked to the things we liked. I was brown eyed with reddish hair, athletic and very tomboyish. I was the one who was outside with the horses, dogs, etc. Hated to be inside unless it was to watch football with my Daddy. Cyndi was dark brown eyed with coal black hair, a little on the heavier side than the rest of us and the homebody. She loved to follow mom around in the kitchen and watch her sew. Mari was green eyed with blond hair and the intellect. You could find Mari buried in a book somewhere. And Tammi was blue eyed with brown hair and a girly girl. Didn't like to get dirty, wanted her hair done, loved to dress up and put on make up.

My niece tells stories about how she hates the line on her socks and when she was little, she would throw a fit if she had to wear those socks. Well, she comes by her stubbornness honestly. Once when I was five and in Kindergarten, I got it in my head that I didn't like dresses and petticoats - back then all the little girls wore petticoats under their dresses to make them stand out. A petticoat was a slip type undergarment that had all these layers of stiff, scratchy material gathered tightly to make the skirt portion of the little girls dress stand out, much like a square-dancer's skirt does. Well, I wasn't going to have any part of the petticoat, dress, socks with lace around the ankle or patent leather shoes. I sat on the end of that bed with my little arms crossed and defiantly refused to move from my room until I was allowed to put my overalls back on. My poor mother begged, pleaded, cried, threatened and yelled at me to get up and go to school. I'm not real sure how it turned out, but I'm sure knowing my mother, she won. I'm sure she was just glad that the other 3 were not as stubborn as I was.

Whenever we went anywhere, I'm sure my mother looked like a mother duck with her ducklings. It was always a line at the Commissary. Mom would be pushing her buggy, I would be holding onto her the tail of her dress with one hand and holding Cyndi's hand with the other, then Cyndi would be holding Mari's hand and last but not least Mari would be holding Tammi's hand. That's the way it always was with us. We didn't shop at grocery stores when we were little. Since my Daddy was retired military, we went to Ellington AFB for our shopping - all of it. Our grocery's (what we didn't grow) came from the Commissary. Our clothes and household items came from the PX. Once while at the AFB, we had been all over the base. We had ate lunch at the O.C and I had wandered back to the PX to look at records (way before tapes and CD's). I don't have a clue how long I had been there, but Mom, Dad and my sisters were no where around, so I walked back over to the O.C. Nope they weren't there either, but the man that was working got me a coke and a hamburger and I sat there and ate alone. I went to my locker and got my swimsuit and decided I would go swimming. Sometime later I looked up and my frantic mother and daddy were running toward the pool. For the life of me I could not figure out what was the problem. Daddy jerked me out of the pool and Momma hugged and squeezed me while crying hysterically. Mom took me into the dressing room and got me changed into my clothes and while she was making sure her face was presentable enough to go back outside, Cyndi whispered in my ear, "we left you". I looked at my sister and said "what" and she replied "we left and went home and got all the way there, then Mom and Dad realized you weren't in the car". "Oh". All the way home, I got to sit in the front seat between my Mom and Dad instead of the backseat crammed in between my 3 sisters. Life was good that day.

We went to a small elementary school - J.W. Oates Elementary. So during the school year, it was pretty routine. We would all get on the same school bus. Daddy drove into downtown Houston to work at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Mom kept house and volunteered at the school and served on the P.T.O.

But summertime was different. We had forts to build out in the woods. Where we lived there was woods all around and we would get lost (not literally) out there all day. We would build little shacks, trails, treehouses, etc. When not in the woods, we would sell lemonade at the street or race the neighborhood kids on our bicycles. No matter what business I had to take care of during the day with my friends, I would always have to bring at least one of my sisters with me. Do you have any idea how hard it is to sell lemonade or have a decent bicycle race with your little sister in tow? Well, I found a solution for that. Rope! That's right, rope. My mother did not understand just how busy a summer day was for me. So, I decided that since I was put in charge of my sisters, I would take care of them AND take care of my lemonade stand or my treehouse or my race at the same time. I went out back to the barn, rummaged through the tack room and found me some rope. I then convinced Cyndi or Mari or whomever it was that day that I was "watching" to stand next to a tree and I would tie them to it. Brilliant idea. They couldn't wander off, they couldn't get into something they weren't suppose to and I could still do what I wanted. I in turn would do their chores to keep them from telling on me. It was a perfect solution. That was until one day, myself, Mike Baker, Karen Knight and a couple of others were having a race. I convinced Cyndi to stand next to a telephone pole and I tied her up. Well unbeknownst to me, Mom had to run an errand and when she came back, we were at the end of the road and Cyndi was standing, tied up to the telephone pole, crying when Mom drove by. She stopped, untied my sister and Cyndi spilled all the beans of my "babysitting" skills to her. We came racing around the corner at the end of the road and low and behold there was my mother standing in the middle of the road with her hands on her hips and that look in her eyes with Cyndi next to her. I hit the brakes on my bike, skidded to a stop and said "I can explain". She whipped me all the way home. The rest of that summer was spent "babysitting" my sisters, in our yard without a bicycle. But anyone who knows me, really knows that I didn't learn my lesson with that punishment. This was just the beginning of me coming up with brilliant ideas and my sisters letting Momma know.

But I did teach my sisters such things as catching lightning bugs in a jar, climbing trees, skipping rocks, sliding in your sock feet across the floor, how to whistle loud and which berries were safe to eat when in the woods.

10807

Sitting here staring out the window all I can think of is 10807 Penelope. A much simpler time, when flowers bloomed year round it seemed, when the smells of my mothers cooking filled the air, when treehouses and forts in the woods were as much a part of my existence as my bedroom was. A time when I had 3 sisters to play with, horses to ride, dogs to run with, someone to kiss away the boo-boos and an endless imagination. This was a time when one armed Sam mowed our yard, everyone ate together at the dinner table and mother's still wore dresses. At times it don't seem that long ago, then at other times it seems a lifetime ago. 10807 Penelope was a small 3 bedroom frame house that sit in Wynnwood Acres off of Oates Rd with a long gravel driveway that went along side the house to the back to the one car garage. In that garage I can still see my Daddy working on the lawnmowers or tinkering with something. He always had his screwdrivers stuck in his back pocket. I drove through there a few months ago and the entire neighborhood seemed so small. But when I was a kid, it was boundless. There were only 4 streets in the neighborhood - Penelope, Pandora, Evangeline & Gloria.

All the streets met at the end and there was a huge gully that became our version of a bike ramp. We (all the kids in the neighborhood) would meet at the end of the neighborhood with our bicycles (the big 1960's Western Flyer model bought from the local Western Auto Store) all lined up and would take turns backing up to the street, then jumping on our bike and pedaling as fast as we could and down into to gully we would go one by one and hope that we had enough speed built up to make it to the top on the other side. There was me, my sisters, Mike Baker and his little sister, then there was Karen Knight, Darcy Hambrick, Wyatt Oates, Jeanette, Kevin and the Woods kids and probably few others that time has erased their memory from my mind. In those days, no one locked their doors or took their keys out of the ignition. When a new family moved in the neighborhood, all the ladies would bake pies, cakes and cookies and take them over and welcome them to the neighborhood. The roads in the neighborhood had a thick black tar painted over them and in the summer would form bubbles. All the neighborhood kids would sit in the road with sticks and pop the bubbles. And at night when we came in (I'm sure the other's had to go through it too), mom would sit us down and use lighter fluid to get the tar off the bottoms of our feet before our baths.

We didn't have computers, stereos, playstations or even a color TV. Our TV's were black and white and only had 3 channels. But as a kid, we only watched TV with the family and then it was shows like Lassie, Flipper, Bonanza or Gunsmoke. I remember once as a kid watching a variety show called the Ed Sullivan show and they had these 4 men on TV singing songs with shaggy hair. At the time I really didn't understand the big deal or the enormity of what I was witnessing. As it turned out these 4 men were known as The Beatles. Of course thinking of it now, that TV that was only turned on occasionally was the source of a lot of history - i.e. the assassination of JFK & Bobby Kennedy, the first man on the moon, the Watergate break-in and many many other moments that are now just a page in a history book somewhere.

The days back then were always full of adventure. We had each other and endless imaginations to occupy our days. In the summer we would all meet sometime after breakfast and after chores and would stay gone all day long. We wouldn't dare go back to the house, that would only mean having to stay inside all day. If we got thirsty, we got water from the water hose or the horses' water trough. If we got hungry, there were enough fruit trees and/or gardens in which we could rob a tomato, an ear of corn or a pear. That would hold us over until dinner.

Holidays then were really special. On Halloween, there was an elderly woman that lived at the end of Evangeline Street that made homemade popcorn balls and on Halloween evening we would stand at the front window all dressed in our costumes (which consisted of something put together because keep in mind this was a time before WalMarts and everything made ready) with our noses pushed up against the window waiting for the first shadows to fall. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, momma would finally say "it's dark enough, ya'll can go" and out the door we would race. And race we would all the way to Mrs. Boudreaux's house to be first in line to get a Popcorn ball. Then house to house we would go until there was absolutely no room left in our Halloween bags, but we would make one more stop at Mrs. Boudreaux's house to see if there were anymore Popcorn balls left. After getting home with our bounty, we would spread it over the living room floor and admire the pieces of bubble gum, tootsie rolls, wax bottles and atomic balls but in the end would know that all of it would go into a big bowl that would sit in the middle of the "big" dining table and would be doled out to us as momma saw fit. But then would come Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's funny now that I enjoy Thanksgiving more than Christmas and then it was the other way around. Thanksgiving was one of those meals in which the "big" dining table got cleaned off and we sat at the big table with family and friends over. Christmas just always seemed so magical as a kid. We always had one present to open on Christmas Eve and it was always a nightgown with matching slippers. We would get dressed into our new nightgowns and crawl into bed and try to hard to go to sleep. But no matter as hard as you tried to sleep, it never felt like we slept and we were always awake at the crack of dawn. But we knew better than to go into the living room, so into mom and dad's room we would go and stand at the foot of their bed whispering to my sisters (knowing that would surely wake them up). I can still remember how excited we would be waiting for momma and daddy to wake up and let us open presents.

One year, probably around 1968 I got a Kenner Swingster Portable 45 rpm record player. It was Aqua Green and I thought that was the best present ever given to anyone. I was old enough at the time to know that Santa didn't exist, but didn't dare spoil the fun for my little sisters. But I had my own record player. Me, Karen Knight and Darcy Hambrick listened to Georgie Girl by the Seekers and Hush by Deep Purple over and over again. Sometimes I still wonder what happened to that record player. And there's not a time that when I hear Hush that I'm not transported back 42 years ago, sitting on a hardwood floor in front of the Christmas tree that's decorated with a popcorn string and shiny red balls, wearing my new flannel nightgown that comes all the way to the floor with matching slippers and my hair braided in to two braids holding my new portable record player thinking I was the luckiest girl alive.