I was born in Winchester, Kentucky on July 18th, 1938. I learned from my parents that at the time my dad was working for the Missouri Pacific Railroad building bridges. We were quite literally living in a box car. I don’t know the details, but I do know the box car had been converted to living quarters and we had at least a bedroom. I suspect that our toilet was a chamber pot and that if we had a sink it drained onto the tracks. But then, I was only a tiny baby at the time so I have no memory of it. That’s one of the things that mom or dad could have written down for posterity.
We didn’t stay in Kentucky for long. The box car and its inhabitants went where the work was. And wherever it was, there was always the ubiquitous pile driver, a steam powered hammer that drove the bridge pilings deep in the ground so they could safely support the weight of a train. Dad talked about it so much I figure it meant something special to him, but I don’t know what.
I have fleeting memories of my early childhood. I don’t remember what order the following events occurred in, and I don’t remember a lot of details. Take them for what they’re worth.
- Much of the time before I turned four we lived in Louisiana, probably with my grandmother Tannehill. I know this because I was four years old in Oklahoma, and I was already familiar with crawfish. We lived for a while in Stigler, where dad worked for a coal mine. He wasn’t a miner. He had something to do with the ventilation system.
- Here’s where the crawfish came in. When we first moved to Stigler, our house had a gas meter buried in front. Right after we moved in, I was exploring around the yard when I found the meter box. The lid wasn’t attached so I picked it up and looked inside. The bottom was covered with little, white “crawfish.” I reached in to pick one up. A hammer slammed down on my thumb — hard. I don’t think I’ve ever felt pain that intense, either before or after.
- If you haven’t already guessed, the “crawfish” were scorpions. I give scorpions a wide berth now.
- One of our neighbors had a motorbike that he regularly rode to church. One day I rode with him on that motorbike. I was sitting, barefoot, on the back, not paying much attention. Somehow I swung my foot into the rear wheel of the bike. With spokes more widely spaced than for a conventional bicycle and small four-year old feet, my heel actually went between the spokes and struck part of the frame, stopping the wheel and slicing up my heel.
- My parents both smoked. One day while mom was at the store, a friend and I (both four-year olds) got a couple of cigarette butts out of an ashtray, went under the back porch and lit them. Mom came home in time to catch us smoking. I haven’t smoked a cigarette since.
- For a while we lived just across the street from the railroad. I was always fascinated by trains and was standing in the front door looking at the tracks in a heavy downpour, when lightning struck something – I never found out what – right across the street. Lightning flashed and thunder blasted at the same time (That only happens when the lightning is close, really close). It scared the heck out of me at the time, but left me more curious than afraid.
- I remember other things about Oklahoma – a gas leak that came up through the ground near our house and burned steadily, sort of like a Bunsen burner made of clay; eating stale Cheerios at a friend’s house and not being able to eat Cheerios again until fifty odd years later because of that taste; Dad’s strep throat and using ultraviolet light to treat it.
- I don’t think either mom or dad really liked Oklahoma. We didn’t stay there very long. We were back in Forest Hill, LA before I started first grade, but that’s another story …