Momma and Daddy had a pretty neat schedule for a house with 4 kids. They would have their breakfast in the morning before we were up, and then, when they were finished eating, Daddy would go get ready for work and Momma would get our breakfast ready.
Usually, in the middle of our breakfast, Daddy would come in to tell us goodbye. He would walk through the kitchen with his hat on, coat, tie, wing tip shoes, socks with 30's style garters and NO PANTS. He would say "Bye kids, Daddy has to go to work" and we would scream: "DADDY, WAIT. YOU DON"T HAVE ANY PANTS ON". We fell for that a million times.
They both were heavily involved in St. Joseph's Catholic Church and were charter members. Mom eventually became the girls coach there as there were no athletic activities for girls. She coached girls soft ball and volley ball. Her girls were very competitive and showed their strength during the annual "Field Day" when all the kids had potato sack races and such as that.
Daddy was not to be out done and showed up one Field Day with his Ford 8A tractor pulling his utility trailer that was typically used to haul lumber or foundation framing to house sites that were too muddy to hold up the delivery trucks of those things.
Daddy had the trailer cleaned off and had it filled with bales of hay to provide the kids with a hay ride. He drove it there from the subdivision he was building, a distance of 8 or 10 blocks. We loved it and so did all the kids at school including the priests and nuns.
One day Daddy showed up and loaded up a ton of kids to take them on the hay ride. They were jumping for joy when Daddy had them sit down and be careful as he drove off with them for the several block long ride. When he returned, Father Gremillion was there to greet him. He told Daddy how much he appreciated what he and momma had done for the school. He also told him that he would appreciate it if Daddy would WAIT until Field Day to come by and pick up the kids and not do it on a regualar school day. We got a million miles out of that one, too.
One day, Daddy came home for lunch around 11 o'clock or so. He began to have chest pains. He took his tie off, wrapped it around "Jock's" collar and told him to go to St. Joseph's and get momma. Jock, the coolest Standard Poodle ever, ran to the school with Daddy's tie around his collar and Momma knew something was bad wrong as it was Daddy's favorite tie.
She immediately went home only to find him dead on the floor of the master bedroom, gone from a heart attack. That was December 4th, 1958, only one month to the day after my 10th birthday.
It was a nightmare for us and it only got worse for me.
When I went back to St. Joseph's after the funeral, one of the nuns made a comment that was the wrong thing to say to me at the wrong time. I don't remember specifically what the comment was but I took it to mean that having a crazy kid like me around probably had something to do with his death. That was a life changer and I immediately went into the attack mode.
I picked up a chalk dust filled eraser, ran after her as she was leaving the classroom and threw it at her as hard as a ten year old kid can possibly throw. I can close my eyes and see the atomic bomb looking mushroom cloud that came when the dust filled eraser hit her square in the head. Try to imagine the after effect of that by picturing the "Black" habit and white brim cap that was a part of the nun's daily wear. Her entire world turned chalk grey as I escaped down the stairs to run home and hide.
Shortly after that I remember business people coming by to do whatever had to be done to handle Daddy's estate. Momma was upset and Leland sensed it. I don't recall if Leland got the bb gun or I did but I remember the situation where both of Daddy's boys became very protective of our mother.
In June of 59, six months after Daddy died, I left for a summer camp at a Catholic boarding school in Arkansas that was named "Subiaco". I was home sick but I liked being in the mountains of Arkansas. Shortly after that, in one of the smartest things my Momma ever did, I left to attend my first year at Morris School in Searcy, Arkansas, just above Little Rock.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, my Uncle Charles and his brother, Uncle Joe, had gone there as kids during their elementary years. I started there in the 7th grade until graduation from the 9th grade 3 years later. As a great comfort to me was the fact that my first cousin Greg, Uncle Charles' boy, attended there the last two years I was there. He's like the little brother I never had and remains so to this day. We were pretty much like partners during the whole thing.
There were kids there from Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, Costa Rico and all over the U.S. I'll never forget the first day I was there when I walked into the boys bathroom to find a 16 year old 9th grader named "Falici" shaving in one of the lavatories. I can remember thinking that these were really old guys and this guy was actually SHAVING.
Great escapades from there which I will tie up tomorrow. Sorry I missed a couple of days but I needed the rest. Stand by for more of the transition from little kid pilot to little kid fighter.
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