Two boys in a tub. A no. 3 wash tub that is.
In the early 50's, about 51 maybe, we lived in a rent house about a block south of Asher Avenue and two blocks east of Geyer Springs road in Little Rock. In those early years of our new land Arkansas I counted about 6 or 7 places we lived from the time of our emigration from home in Fannin County, Texas in 1949 or 50 until 1953. Poor folks sometimes move a lot.
Let me see.
1. A motel on Asher avenue across from the Asher Drive in movies. This was our first stop in the small town of Little Rock. Pavement on Markham Avenue that runs by the stadium stopped right there. University was Hayes Street then and as gravel. I remember being mesmerized by the neon marquee of that old drive in at twilight time as a big eyed 6 year old.
2. A rent house near the university med center.
3. A rent house just off Asher. That's where Jimmy got snake bit.
4. Another rent house near Asher. The one with a sage grass field next door.
5. A rent house on West 12th street with an out house and a single faucet in the yard for water. The house was a very small frame house covered with that fake brown brick roll asphalt siding. The kind I drive by now a say a little prayer for the occupants.
6. A rent house at the jct of Geyer Springs road and Baseline road.
7. A rented duplex at Highland Court. An old version of the "projects". Daddy didn't like for us to tell anyone where we lived. He had bought a double lot property on Boyle Park road and srarted a house there which he built pretty much by himself. We moved there before it was done but we're all relieved to get out of the Highland courts. We never had to rent another ratty place with just a faucet in the yard for our Water.
There may have been another but if so if escapes me for now. By the way none of these dwellings were luxury accommodations. You might have guessed that already though.
Mama never complained about the places we lived even after she came down with Lupus in 1952 at the age of 25. We didn't have Jesus in our family then even though my father had been saved at some home earlier in is life. He was only 25 and mama 23 when we came to Little Rock as real Arkansas travelers.
Daddy was a young man then but was a worker. He landed a position as vocational arts teacher at the Arkansas School for the Deaf and started an upholstery shop on the side. He was a master craftsman and once redid all of the old furniture at the Territorial restoration area in Little Rock. The old wine colored velvet diamond tufted queen Anne chairs, loveseats and other furniture.
Now back to our place just off Asher. It was 1951 for certain. My brother Jimmy and I were out in the yard and our father, "AC" as everyone called him, came out to talk to us. Our youngest brother had just been born so the time and place I'm now certain of.
"what do you boys want to name your brother."? Not often does a father ask a six year old and a four year old what name to adopt for their new associate brother but we were up for it. My favorite cowboy was Gene Autry and Jimmy's was Roy Rogers. So it was that January 20, 1951 the new Jennings boy was officially dubbed Roy Gene.
My favorite Aunt was Inez, my father's only sister. God had given her nine brothers and helping her mother cook and wash for them was real work on their hard scrabble north Texas farm. Her only child, my cousin Mickey, was Eddie Haskell, huckleberry Finn and little Lord Fauntleroy all rolled up in one. He could talk the pope into joining the Pentecostal church. This was the basis of many of my woes when we joined forces. Being an only child he was head of the house. Fortunately he lived 350 miles away in Bonham so our mischief was limited to brief visits.
Every so often several members of our large family came to visit for a few days. It was always good to see them and closeness was predominant in our clan. Mickey came too and we found adequate openings for experimentation.
Next to our house there was a large sage grass covered field with a small pond not far into it. The sage wax golden brown, waist high and dry as tinder.
Shooting fireworks turned out to be pretty dull on land what with no chickens and all so we decided to take our adventure out to sea via a number 3 wash tub that hung on the back porch.
Once while visiting back in Bonham Mickey and I tossed a couple of old time mini-bombs into a chicken house with satisfactory results. Way back then less regulation meant larger explosions. We'd bought some large fireworks that looked like tennis balls with fuses. After two of them flew into that small tin chicken house, chickens, feathers, dust and smoke boiled out of the door and the walls sort of puffed out. I actually saw them heave outwards. No chickens were killed in this noisy prank but they did suffer a degree of permanent hearing loss! With those magnum fireworks my uncle Doug's friend "doc" managed to blow off a thumb and forefinger when they souped up the already oversized dynamite. Can't imagine where he got the nickname though...
We managed to drag that wash tub over to the little pond and launch it. We had our fireworks and a board for a paddle and so we embarked on the ss no. 3 for a firecracker fest. We paddled around the bank tossing explosives at targets of chance and before long though the barrage had caught in the dry sage and a goodly fire was going. Our former adventure had turned into a something of nuisance. It was a large field and houses in the area would be at risk if that fire really took off.
Fortunately it was quickly, spotted by someone, maybe my dad, and so several neighbors, my father and some of his brothers were soon putting it out. We had a front row seat from our vessel watching the grownups running around stomping and beating the flames. We got off easy as we'd intended no harm and were still small enough to appear somewhat innocent. We really were victims of our own lack of judgement and experience. No whalings this time but we weren't always able to appear so innocent.
Hope I haven't bored you too much with this brief remembrance. I was thinking to make it shorter, just about the fire, but started putting times and places together and so got this. Most amazing is that this all happened the better part of seventy years ago. How time flies when you're having fun.
All my uncles except one, Harry Ray a WWII veteran and staunch Christian, are gone now. Inez, that lovely loving aunt is gone and so now a few of my cousins, including Mickey, are all that I have remaining of that once giant pioneer Texas clan. Inez became a Christian before her death as did her mother Ionie Jennings.
It was to be a long time before Jesus invaded our immediate family with salvation. At 33 He came for me and I was glad. My mother was saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit. My sister Judy was saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit as were my brothers Jimmy and Roy Gene and Gene's wife. Daddy knew the Lord but died in a VA hospital which was his home for twenty years due to a stroke when in his early forties.
It's a harsh hard existence without Him. Thank God the real story of our life begins with Jesus. Jesus is the beginning for us not the end.
Thanks for listening.
In the early 50's, about 51 maybe, we lived in a rent house about a block south of Asher Avenue and two blocks east of Geyer Springs road in Little Rock. In those early years of our new land Arkansas I counted about 6 or 7 places we lived from the time of our emigration from home in Fannin County, Texas in 1949 or 50 until 1953. Poor folks sometimes move a lot.
Let me see.
1. A motel on Asher avenue across from the Asher Drive in movies. This was our first stop in the small town of Little Rock. Pavement on Markham Avenue that runs by the stadium stopped right there. University was Hayes Street then and as gravel. I remember being mesmerized by the neon marquee of that old drive in at twilight time as a big eyed 6 year old.
2. A rent house near the university med center.
3. A rent house just off Asher. That's where Jimmy got snake bit.
4. Another rent house near Asher. The one with a sage grass field next door.
5. A rent house on West 12th street with an out house and a single faucet in the yard for water. The house was a very small frame house covered with that fake brown brick roll asphalt siding. The kind I drive by now a say a little prayer for the occupants.
6. A rent house at the jct of Geyer Springs road and Baseline road.
7. A rented duplex at Highland Court. An old version of the "projects". Daddy didn't like for us to tell anyone where we lived. He had bought a double lot property on Boyle Park road and srarted a house there which he built pretty much by himself. We moved there before it was done but we're all relieved to get out of the Highland courts. We never had to rent another ratty place with just a faucet in the yard for our Water.
There may have been another but if so if escapes me for now. By the way none of these dwellings were luxury accommodations. You might have guessed that already though.
Mama never complained about the places we lived even after she came down with Lupus in 1952 at the age of 25. We didn't have Jesus in our family then even though my father had been saved at some home earlier in is life. He was only 25 and mama 23 when we came to Little Rock as real Arkansas travelers.
Daddy was a young man then but was a worker. He landed a position as vocational arts teacher at the Arkansas School for the Deaf and started an upholstery shop on the side. He was a master craftsman and once redid all of the old furniture at the Territorial restoration area in Little Rock. The old wine colored velvet diamond tufted queen Anne chairs, loveseats and other furniture.
Now back to our place just off Asher. It was 1951 for certain. My brother Jimmy and I were out in the yard and our father, "AC" as everyone called him, came out to talk to us. Our youngest brother had just been born so the time and place I'm now certain of.
"what do you boys want to name your brother."? Not often does a father ask a six year old and a four year old what name to adopt for their new associate brother but we were up for it. My favorite cowboy was Gene Autry and Jimmy's was Roy Rogers. So it was that January 20, 1951 the new Jennings boy was officially dubbed Roy Gene.
My favorite Aunt was Inez, my father's only sister. God had given her nine brothers and helping her mother cook and wash for them was real work on their hard scrabble north Texas farm. Her only child, my cousin Mickey, was Eddie Haskell, huckleberry Finn and little Lord Fauntleroy all rolled up in one. He could talk the pope into joining the Pentecostal church. This was the basis of many of my woes when we joined forces. Being an only child he was head of the house. Fortunately he lived 350 miles away in Bonham so our mischief was limited to brief visits.
Every so often several members of our large family came to visit for a few days. It was always good to see them and closeness was predominant in our clan. Mickey came too and we found adequate openings for experimentation.
Next to our house there was a large sage grass covered field with a small pond not far into it. The sage wax golden brown, waist high and dry as tinder.
Shooting fireworks turned out to be pretty dull on land what with no chickens and all so we decided to take our adventure out to sea via a number 3 wash tub that hung on the back porch.
Once while visiting back in Bonham Mickey and I tossed a couple of old time mini-bombs into a chicken house with satisfactory results. Way back then less regulation meant larger explosions. We'd bought some large fireworks that looked like tennis balls with fuses. After two of them flew into that small tin chicken house, chickens, feathers, dust and smoke boiled out of the door and the walls sort of puffed out. I actually saw them heave outwards. No chickens were killed in this noisy prank but they did suffer a degree of permanent hearing loss! With those magnum fireworks my uncle Doug's friend "doc" managed to blow off a thumb and forefinger when they souped up the already oversized dynamite. Can't imagine where he got the nickname though...
We managed to drag that wash tub over to the little pond and launch it. We had our fireworks and a board for a paddle and so we embarked on the ss no. 3 for a firecracker fest. We paddled around the bank tossing explosives at targets of chance and before long though the barrage had caught in the dry sage and a goodly fire was going. Our former adventure had turned into a something of nuisance. It was a large field and houses in the area would be at risk if that fire really took off.
Fortunately it was quickly, spotted by someone, maybe my dad, and so several neighbors, my father and some of his brothers were soon putting it out. We had a front row seat from our vessel watching the grownups running around stomping and beating the flames. We got off easy as we'd intended no harm and were still small enough to appear somewhat innocent. We really were victims of our own lack of judgement and experience. No whalings this time but we weren't always able to appear so innocent.
Hope I haven't bored you too much with this brief remembrance. I was thinking to make it shorter, just about the fire, but started putting times and places together and so got this. Most amazing is that this all happened the better part of seventy years ago. How time flies when you're having fun.
All my uncles except one, Harry Ray a WWII veteran and staunch Christian, are gone now. Inez, that lovely loving aunt is gone and so now a few of my cousins, including Mickey, are all that I have remaining of that once giant pioneer Texas clan. Inez became a Christian before her death as did her mother Ionie Jennings.
It was to be a long time before Jesus invaded our immediate family with salvation. At 33 He came for me and I was glad. My mother was saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit. My sister Judy was saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit as were my brothers Jimmy and Roy Gene and Gene's wife. Daddy knew the Lord but died in a VA hospital which was his home for twenty years due to a stroke when in his early forties.
It's a harsh hard existence without Him. Thank God the real story of our life begins with Jesus. Jesus is the beginning for us not the end.
Thanks for listening.
