And I love a train. I remember hot summer nights in Corsicana lying in bed with the windows open and as we tried to catch a breeze just cool enough to doze off to sleep, hearing the distant sound of a passing train. If I close my eyes and listen, I can still hear it. It's a lovely memory.
Two stories come to mind when I think about this. Number one. After a long day at Six Flags with Gran and Grandma, Melanie, Carrie and myself, we were headed home late at night all crammed in the cab of his green truck. We were all exhausted with half closed eyes....the children, not the adults. Well, just as I was close to a great nap, Gran would yell at the top of his lungs, "WAKE UP!"I thought it was the meanest cruelest thing he could have ever done, disturbing my sleep like that. Of course years later, I realized he didn't want a granddaughter having a great nap at 11:00 at night and then getting home and being ready to partay. He was a very smart man. We'd spent the day riding rides while Gran and Grandma walked from ride to ride and sat on bench after bench after bench in the park waiting on the three of us. The day included a picnic lunch of Grandma's fried chicken and homemade brownies. YUM. Anyway, we'd almost made it home.....to the railroad crossing just a short way from their house to be exact. But much to our dismay we found a train stopped dead on the tracks in the pitch dark blackness of the night. I was ready to cry from being so tired. We sat there and waited for a bit but then finally had to turn around and take an alternate route to the house. It was a terrible twist of fate for the five weary travelers. But we made it home safe and sound where we snuggled down in our beds and then the three kids slept the next morning away.....while Gran got up at the crack of dawn and went to work. I never appreciated that when I was young.
The other story involves me, Grandma, Melanie and the three of us sleeping in a double bed in the front bedroom. It was a hot night and since they had no air conditioner, we were sleeping with the windows open, Which in my mind left us open and ripe for an attack from something. Well, Bessie quickly drifted off to sleep leaving Melanie, me as well as our active imaginations still very much awake. We began to hear a faint noise of which we couldn't determine it's origin. We whispered to each other about what could it be and FINALLY decided it was an ax murderer kicking a can down the dirt road with the very first known GPS tracking device....yes back in the day.....aiding him in his heading straight for us! And a sound sleeping Bessie wasn't the least bit concerned! My childhood stories ALWAYS had a murderer as a central character in the plot. Well, as we lay there fearfully pondering our fate, we ascertained that it wasn't getting any closer or farther away. Hmmm.....what a pickle. It kept making the same noise......pu......pu......pu...... What in the heck is that ax murderer doing? Well, after much hand wringing and me trying to decide how I was gonna throw Melanie to the mad man first in order to allow myself time to escape, it was eventually revealed that the pu pu pu noise was in fact, coming from Bessie. Just the slightest little puff of air coming out of her mouth as she slept her cares away. And with that relieving discovery, another ax murderer crisis had been averted.
And I just remembered one more. On another hot summer night's sleep in Corsicana we had the attic fan on and once again the five of us Gran, Grandma, Melanie, Carrie and I were in our respective beds on our way to slumber. Now if you've never slept under an attic fan you have missed it because it's pure heaven. It's a big fan...in the attic...duh....and when all the windows are open and the fan's on, it sucks the air into the house for some breezy sleeping. The only down side to the attic fan is once again having to have the windows open which makes small children much more vulnerable to ax murderers......I'm certain Dale told me this. Well, on this night I apparently had quite the stinky pete feet because after some attempting to go to sleep, Gran got out of his bed, came and got me out of mine, and marched me to the bathroom for a big heaping dose of Ammen's powder all over my feet. In Gran's mind, there were very few answers to the world's problems.....but Ammen's powder was one of the big ones. The man believed in the powder. And after he'd taken care of my bad feet, he sent me off to my bed and happily went back to his. Stinking problem solved.
Which reminds me of another story about stinky shoes. When we were very young and our family of eight would go to Florida for vacation, we usually left at night and drove through arriving at the beach early the next day. On this particular trip I'm thinking about, we were in a blue station wagon and the seats folded down and you could stretch out and lay down. I don't know how we arrived safely anywhere with 2 parents and 6 kids moving to and fro in the vehicle. Before we could leave town we had to go to the bank and make a night deposit, and this time it was Rebecca June with the stink problem. Once she'd taken her shoes off in the car trying to get comfy for the long night's ride, the aroma of her offending feet reached my father's nose and he was all like.......OH NO UH UH. He made the instant executive decision to take her shoes and gingerly put them in the bank night deposit box! He really did. I don't know if his stinky deposit resulted in negative feedback from the bank and I don't have any idea what Rebecca did for shoes on potty breaks on the trip down. But that's a true story as sure as I'm sitting here.
Which brings me to one final Florida story. On one particular trip we were leaving in the early evening and we had a set time we were to be gone. The parents were determined about it. My brother Frank was gonna go off with some friends for a little cruising around before he left on our family trip, and my parents were ADAMANT that he be back by the leaving time. He wasn't. We loaded up and headed out of town with his teenaged self unaccounted for. I don't know if they were sweating for him but I certainly was. I still remember the place where he caught up with us as his friends and he came racing up beside us and he jumped out of the car with them and into the car with us. I had a pretty rough time getting these siblings of mine raised. They caused me much stress and I now have the colored grey hair to prove it!
OK, now I'm finished.
3 comments:
i'll just say this, if i opened up our night deposit to find a pair of SMELLY shoes that have been marinating in that little tiny place all night, i would be calling some folks to pick up their shoes so i know who did it. I WOULD BE LIVID AND DISGUSTED.
haha that frank story is awesome.
hahahahaaha don't I remember the can being kicked down the road. whew we slipped by that one. of course our minds were thinking if ANYBODY is out there kicking a can at this hour he HAS to be a murderer!! gotta love an attic fan no doubt it is some good sleeping. oh sweet memories
So funny all of these stories!! And if you notice in all of them there is a MAN doing something ridiculous. And my child is related to all of them!!!! Lord help me!!!
Post a Comment