The experiences of yesteryear seem dreamlike now after decades have sped past. The common ordinary everyday things that would seem other worldly today.
A slower paced world then though emergencies were at least as common. Oh that I had been a camera junkie then to have pictures of that world. I have them in my mind's eye though and try to use less than a thousand words per picture.
The odd neighbors from down the way painting their early 50's chevy in the church parking lot across the street from our home. They must have been patriotic for they painted the hood with four inch wide red, white and blue stripes. Funny I can't remember the color of the rest of the car. Only of the man and his wife each with a paint but and brush putting the finishing touches on that remarkably glaring car hood. Ahhh the days of the 50's!
One day as a young lad there at 1516 south Cleveland street, also known as Boyle park road, I heard a fearsome noise out front of the house. Running to the big window I saw a peculiar sight. Someone had stripped down an old car of some type right down to the frame. There was a frame, a gas tank, the front seat, engine and steering wheel and a Jay bird redneck nut behind the wheel. The great noise I discovered was from the wheels. They had no tires but were steel rims against the rough asphalt. The grating, grinding noise they made were indescribable. Where he was going I never knew as he ground his way northward in that stripped down rail of a junk heap.
Then there was Freddy Dulaney, my middle school chum that could run like a horrified rabbit. Freddy imprinted a picture on my mind that remains to this day. Glancing out the window to Cleveland street I spied Freddy going past on a small bicycle, a, 20 incher as we called them. The remarkable thing was the cigar he had clenched in his teeth. I've never seen a larger one. Now Freddy was a short fellow and slightly built and to see him coasting past on that little bike puffing away on that massive cigar was as good as going to the circus. On a cold winter's day we were roaming around with our BB guns. Freddy took a notion to shoot me and the BB hit my right ear lobe. A miracle he didn't hit me in the eye. It was so cold that the pain was intense. He left in a whirlwind of feet as I got off a few rounds. I chased him right down the center of Hayes street, now University Avenue in Little Rock, and every time I gained a little I'd stop and fire a few rounds in an attempt to hit something that hurt. That's all I remember, the two of us running and me trying to kill him. It passed though and we remained pals. His family was poorer than mine and living in a ramshackle shotgun frame house.
We attended Stonewall Jackson Elementary school that was situated where the old sears store is on university Avenue. Can you imaging the screams and gnashing of teeth if it were proposed to name a school after a southern Civil War hero today? It would be a nation wide scandal with liberals tearing their clothes and throwing dust in the air. The media could chew on that for weeks. In winter you could tell which kids homes were heated with wood and which with kerosene from the faint odor. Bygone days for sure occasionally wearing a very nice custom made shirt one of my grandmothers had sewn from flour sack material. 25 and 50 pound bags of flour came in different fabric patterns for just that purpose. Making shirts or dresses or aprons.
One of the nicest men I knew as a boy was Dink Edwards who ran Dink's body shop just a half block from our house. He patiently put up with us as teenagers needing to air up a tire or use a few wrenches. His son buddy was something else. Buddy was small in stature but with enough built in criminality for a giant. Ever in trouble, being kicked out of school, fighting, drinking at an early age, you name it buddy had a hand in it if it was bad news.
Buddy was railing on Dink one day in the shop in the sight of the body workers. Going on and on about something in Dink's face. The ever calm Dink just stood listening. Rumor had it that Dink had spent hard time for killing a man. There was always a quiet, underlying restrained fierceness in him that he kept in check. I never heard him raise his voice. Buddy's fierceness must have come from his mother who once took a baseball bat to school where a teacher had dared to spank Buddy for his latest outrage.
After Buddy raged for awhile Dink tired of it and quick as a flash reached out with a right hook and laid poor Buddy out on the floor. He went down in a flash and was out cold as the proverbial wedge. Dink calmly walked over to the now silent and prostrate Buddy and leaned down to make sure he was breathing. After seeing that he would live he left him lying there and walked to his office. Buddy was like a deranged wolverine. Friendly one minute and tearing into you the next.
It seemed as if there was always something going on in those days and we were never at a loss for entertainment in West of the Little Rock city limits territory of west 12th street. One day my friend Ronny and I were sitting in his front porch swing talking. A car had slowed suddenly and the one following slammed into the rear. The two upset men jumped out and began to yell and accuse each other. One had been drinking and it wasn't long before they were going at it with fists flailing the air. The ferocious drunk guy landed a good one and laid the other guy out on the asphalt. He then jumped in his car and sped off. We got the license number and called the cops. The loser of the fight got up and hung around till the fuzz showed up. Just another day on Cleveland Street.
Air conditioning was only for the rich in those days and most houses didn't have it, using fans instead. We had an attic fan and also a squirrel cage type swamp cooler with side and rear panels that held excelsior. A pump circulated water from the four inch deep bottom which was a reservoir. The water dribbling down over the Shredded wood excelsior and the air being pulled through really cooled the air being blown into the house.
It was a help in keeping cool but moisture was the downside. Drawers would swell up so you needed the jaws of life to get them open. Our hardwood floors were as, stick as syrup first thing in the mornings. My father discovered that the fan reservoir, about 30" wide x 36", and four inches deep, made an excellent live well. You could put several dozen minnows in there and the circulating water kept them frisky as trout. Whenever we took a notion to go fishing we'd just pull off a side panel and net out a few dozen. The air delivered by the fan was a tad fishy smelling but for a family of fishermen that was no problem. These type coolers are still popular in the dry regions like Arizona.
I desperately wanted a really good BB gun so shy as I was I sold greeting cards door to door to earn mine. I don't know how many doors I banged to unload those cards. Also how many my dear mother bought to help me.
There are many pleasant memories from those days of the 50's. We had a very large family on my father's side in our hometown of Bonham Texas. We'd visit as often as we could after moving to Little Rock, Arkansas about 1949. It was I believe right after my younger brother Jimmy and I got out of the hospital. I was 5 and Jimmy 2 and we'd both had typhoid fever at the same time. My poor mother must have been broken with both small sons having such a dread disease. They never discovered where we got it just pumped us full of the recent wonder drug penicillin which I'm allergic to to this day.
On my mother's side there were Winklers and Journeys. My GGGGF Captain Nathaniel T. Journey fought campaigns against the fierce
plains commanches and was a commander in the earliest Texas rangers.
My great grandmother Belle Journey was married to Bob and I have a faint memory of her sitting on the porch of a small house there in Bonham. Mama told me that Belle told her of a campmeeting she went to as a girl and walking home the Lord spoke to her and said "you're alright now Belle". She'd answered the altar call and given her life to Jesus those decades ago. The same ageless God that's saved us.
I have this notion that perhaps God will show us home movies of our families and history in our eternal heavenly campmeeting. I see some big angel running the projector while we oo and ah as we are shown the times God saved us, healed us and blessed us.
Life for us all is so fleeting and the bird is on the wing but we can hold onto the best of the past days and relive them over and over again.
A slower paced world then though emergencies were at least as common. Oh that I had been a camera junkie then to have pictures of that world. I have them in my mind's eye though and try to use less than a thousand words per picture.
The odd neighbors from down the way painting their early 50's chevy in the church parking lot across the street from our home. They must have been patriotic for they painted the hood with four inch wide red, white and blue stripes. Funny I can't remember the color of the rest of the car. Only of the man and his wife each with a paint but and brush putting the finishing touches on that remarkably glaring car hood. Ahhh the days of the 50's!
One day as a young lad there at 1516 south Cleveland street, also known as Boyle park road, I heard a fearsome noise out front of the house. Running to the big window I saw a peculiar sight. Someone had stripped down an old car of some type right down to the frame. There was a frame, a gas tank, the front seat, engine and steering wheel and a Jay bird redneck nut behind the wheel. The great noise I discovered was from the wheels. They had no tires but were steel rims against the rough asphalt. The grating, grinding noise they made were indescribable. Where he was going I never knew as he ground his way northward in that stripped down rail of a junk heap.
Then there was Freddy Dulaney, my middle school chum that could run like a horrified rabbit. Freddy imprinted a picture on my mind that remains to this day. Glancing out the window to Cleveland street I spied Freddy going past on a small bicycle, a, 20 incher as we called them. The remarkable thing was the cigar he had clenched in his teeth. I've never seen a larger one. Now Freddy was a short fellow and slightly built and to see him coasting past on that little bike puffing away on that massive cigar was as good as going to the circus. On a cold winter's day we were roaming around with our BB guns. Freddy took a notion to shoot me and the BB hit my right ear lobe. A miracle he didn't hit me in the eye. It was so cold that the pain was intense. He left in a whirlwind of feet as I got off a few rounds. I chased him right down the center of Hayes street, now University Avenue in Little Rock, and every time I gained a little I'd stop and fire a few rounds in an attempt to hit something that hurt. That's all I remember, the two of us running and me trying to kill him. It passed though and we remained pals. His family was poorer than mine and living in a ramshackle shotgun frame house.
We attended Stonewall Jackson Elementary school that was situated where the old sears store is on university Avenue. Can you imaging the screams and gnashing of teeth if it were proposed to name a school after a southern Civil War hero today? It would be a nation wide scandal with liberals tearing their clothes and throwing dust in the air. The media could chew on that for weeks. In winter you could tell which kids homes were heated with wood and which with kerosene from the faint odor. Bygone days for sure occasionally wearing a very nice custom made shirt one of my grandmothers had sewn from flour sack material. 25 and 50 pound bags of flour came in different fabric patterns for just that purpose. Making shirts or dresses or aprons.
One of the nicest men I knew as a boy was Dink Edwards who ran Dink's body shop just a half block from our house. He patiently put up with us as teenagers needing to air up a tire or use a few wrenches. His son buddy was something else. Buddy was small in stature but with enough built in criminality for a giant. Ever in trouble, being kicked out of school, fighting, drinking at an early age, you name it buddy had a hand in it if it was bad news.
Buddy was railing on Dink one day in the shop in the sight of the body workers. Going on and on about something in Dink's face. The ever calm Dink just stood listening. Rumor had it that Dink had spent hard time for killing a man. There was always a quiet, underlying restrained fierceness in him that he kept in check. I never heard him raise his voice. Buddy's fierceness must have come from his mother who once took a baseball bat to school where a teacher had dared to spank Buddy for his latest outrage.
After Buddy raged for awhile Dink tired of it and quick as a flash reached out with a right hook and laid poor Buddy out on the floor. He went down in a flash and was out cold as the proverbial wedge. Dink calmly walked over to the now silent and prostrate Buddy and leaned down to make sure he was breathing. After seeing that he would live he left him lying there and walked to his office. Buddy was like a deranged wolverine. Friendly one minute and tearing into you the next.
It seemed as if there was always something going on in those days and we were never at a loss for entertainment in West of the Little Rock city limits territory of west 12th street. One day my friend Ronny and I were sitting in his front porch swing talking. A car had slowed suddenly and the one following slammed into the rear. The two upset men jumped out and began to yell and accuse each other. One had been drinking and it wasn't long before they were going at it with fists flailing the air. The ferocious drunk guy landed a good one and laid the other guy out on the asphalt. He then jumped in his car and sped off. We got the license number and called the cops. The loser of the fight got up and hung around till the fuzz showed up. Just another day on Cleveland Street.
Air conditioning was only for the rich in those days and most houses didn't have it, using fans instead. We had an attic fan and also a squirrel cage type swamp cooler with side and rear panels that held excelsior. A pump circulated water from the four inch deep bottom which was a reservoir. The water dribbling down over the Shredded wood excelsior and the air being pulled through really cooled the air being blown into the house.
It was a help in keeping cool but moisture was the downside. Drawers would swell up so you needed the jaws of life to get them open. Our hardwood floors were as, stick as syrup first thing in the mornings. My father discovered that the fan reservoir, about 30" wide x 36", and four inches deep, made an excellent live well. You could put several dozen minnows in there and the circulating water kept them frisky as trout. Whenever we took a notion to go fishing we'd just pull off a side panel and net out a few dozen. The air delivered by the fan was a tad fishy smelling but for a family of fishermen that was no problem. These type coolers are still popular in the dry regions like Arizona.
I desperately wanted a really good BB gun so shy as I was I sold greeting cards door to door to earn mine. I don't know how many doors I banged to unload those cards. Also how many my dear mother bought to help me.
There are many pleasant memories from those days of the 50's. We had a very large family on my father's side in our hometown of Bonham Texas. We'd visit as often as we could after moving to Little Rock, Arkansas about 1949. It was I believe right after my younger brother Jimmy and I got out of the hospital. I was 5 and Jimmy 2 and we'd both had typhoid fever at the same time. My poor mother must have been broken with both small sons having such a dread disease. They never discovered where we got it just pumped us full of the recent wonder drug penicillin which I'm allergic to to this day.
On my mother's side there were Winklers and Journeys. My GGGGF Captain Nathaniel T. Journey fought campaigns against the fierce
plains commanches and was a commander in the earliest Texas rangers.
My great grandmother Belle Journey was married to Bob and I have a faint memory of her sitting on the porch of a small house there in Bonham. Mama told me that Belle told her of a campmeeting she went to as a girl and walking home the Lord spoke to her and said "you're alright now Belle". She'd answered the altar call and given her life to Jesus those decades ago. The same ageless God that's saved us.
I have this notion that perhaps God will show us home movies of our families and history in our eternal heavenly campmeeting. I see some big angel running the projector while we oo and ah as we are shown the times God saved us, healed us and blessed us.
Life for us all is so fleeting and the bird is on the wing but we can hold onto the best of the past days and relive them over and over again.
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