More memories...

After sleeping on it for a few nights, I remember …
• the outdoor toilet at my granny’s and grandpa’s. It was, oh, I’d say 25 or 30-yards from the house. I always stayed with them in the summers when I was around 5, 6 or 7 years old. Since it was always is the summer, there was no snow on the ground like Glen remembers.
• the old smoke house at granny’s. It was off the back porch and I had to take a bath there in an old wash tub.
• riding old Ball, a horse granny and grandpa had. My cousin and I took turns riding him all over the pasture and even hooked up a sled behind him and let him drag us both all over the pasture.
• gathering eggs in the old barn at granny’s. We went out every day to bring them in.
• the old corn field behind granny’s and grandpa’s house. At the time I thought it was the hugest corn field I’d ever seen. In retrospect, it probably was only an acre or two.
• going through Sallisaw on the way to see granny and grandpa in Stilwell. We always stopped at Leslie’s (cafe) to eat breakfast. Leslie was a brother to Pretty Boy Floyd, a well-known gangster in the 1920s and ‘30s. I thought it was curious that my dad’s name was Floyd, too. You have to remember that I was only 4 or 5. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time at granny’s and grandpa’s when I was a kid.
• seeing my great grandmother in Marble City for the first time. She was bed-ridden as I remember, but the bed was in the living room. I thought that was so strange. I was probably only 3 or 4.
• the first Valentine’s Day card I ever got from a girl. Trouble is, I can’t remember the girl. It was either Linda or Sharon Brown. Sisters. I was probably in the 4th or 5th grade.
• my next-door neighbor, John Harvey Edmunds, coming over one day saying I needed to come over and see his baby hippopotamus! Turns out it was a baby possum. Not near as exciting as what I expected. I was, I suppose I was 12 or 13, John Harvey was 8 years younger than me, but we had the same birthday.
• my first telephone call. I had to go down to Mrs. Eaton’s house to make it and I called Lynne Roop (now Pitchford) to ask her out for a date. Don’t know if she remembers it or not.
• mowing Mrs. Eaton’s yard. I had 8 or 9 yards I mowed as a kid to have extra spending money. Dad didn’t pay me anything for mowing ours, though.
• playing “king of the hill” behind Mrs. Smith’s house. At least, I think that was her name, I can’t remember for sure. She lived on the corner in the 300 block of West 2nd Street and behind her house was a just a small hill (mound, really) where we used to play as kids. We were like 5 or 6, maybe.
• riding my bicycle with playing cars in the spokes, to make the sounds of a motorcycle. I never did own a motorcycle. They went too fast for me and were too dangerous, plus I’m not sure they made helmets in those days.
• when Marvin Swain died. He was the first person I knew to die. I remember him because he drew soldiers in battle when we were in grade school and he likely would have grown up to be a successful artist, because the drawings were really good. I must have been in the third grade. His dad was the preacher at the church right at the end of town, at the intersection of the highway and Independence road.
• when Myrna Kelley passed away. She was Colin’s little sister and we (classmates) were much older by then. It was the ninth grade and I remember a bunch of us sitting on the steps in front of the gym when Karen Anderson walked up and shared the gruesome news.