~ Bikes, Turtles, Ghosts 'N' Lizards ~

(Part ONE)

"THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER"

Daddy and Mother got married in Nov. 1954. I had just started first grade in September (I celebrated my 6th birthday in August) and I was happy as a clam, as the old saying goes! Since the divorce of my Mother and Father earlier that year, we had lived with my grandparents. My Grandmother had watched me while Mother worked. I guess she was about as tolerant as any loving Grandmother could be when she bathed me, and dressed me in clean clothes...then sent me outside to play, and I always ended up down by the railroad yard (which was right in back of our own yard: we lived near the RR tracks). That is every little boy and girl's dream! Going to watch the trains and then sitting down in the coal dust and playing in it especially on a hot summer's day when you are hot and sweaty!  Of course when she would call me for supper, and take one look at me, she would usually get a small willow switch, and boy she could make it "play on my legs" and I would "dance a little jig"...this soon became a weekly thing it seemed. Though she tried other things too...I was just as stubborn as she was and boy that was going some! I loved Mamaw and Papaw so very much! They were like second parents to me really. They were absolutely the sweetest people, GOD put on this earth! 

My brothers were with my one sister, her husband and our dad down in Florida for a few years. So When Mother & Daddy got married, he adopted me first thing! I loved it! Finally being "someone's little girl" and having a Daddy to love me and whistle songs just for me and tell me stories and hold me on his knee! He had never had any children, but Mother had enough for them both! Seven altogether! Anyway, I got all kinds of things for presents when it was my birthday, and on all of the holidays! I got a big three-foot tall, Bride doll one X-mas and all kinds of small dolls, some of the dolls were "cutouts" with all kinds of paper clothes...remember those kind? I got some horses and even some cowboys 'n' indians! I was also a "tomboy" too! I had plenty of clothes and anything I could eat! So needless-to-say, I was just about the happiest little girl on earth! The one thing I never had was a bicycle of my own!

It was when my brothers came to stay with us a few years later, that we were sent to the movies on Christmas eve and when we walked back home, there was a big shiny, black Schwinn in the livingroom! It was for my older brother, Charles! But not for me and my other brother, June! They said they couldn't afford to buy three new ones, only one! Boy! Were we upset! I ran to my room and threw my shoes over in the corner of my darkened bedroom, crying: "That's no fair!" At the same time June ran down in the basement (fixed up into a bedroom for them) and about the same time I heard a loud, dull "Clang" where my shoes had landed in something (in the basket of my bike!)...that is when I heard June let out a happy "Wheeee"! (sounded like a little pig squealing) from down in the basement! We both found our new Schwinn bicycles! Mine was blue and his was red...we were the happiest kids in the world! I ran into the livingroom and June came bursting up from the basement and we were both laughing and crying like idiots! Still makes me "choke up" with tears, when I think of that...and I can see all of us there in the livingroom, hugging and laughing and crying with each other! Mother, & Daddy...Charlie & Junior, and Joan & me (Katie). Ahhhhh, so many precious memories we have in our hearts!

Not long after my brothers moved in with us, Mother & Daddy took us to the pet shop downtown and I picked out a little green-shelled snapping turtle (with yellow stripes) as a pet, and June got a little black-shelled one, with white stripes! I named mine "Snappy" and he called his turtle, "Pedro". They were so cute! We just loved them! We had them from June and through the summer months and it got so we could go to their little pan of water (we had some rocks in there too, so they could "sun-bathe" and all that)...they would actually come to us and then we would put them down on the sidewalk and have races with them...that was "cool"! "Snappy" would always win, because he would run in a straight line and "Pedro" would veer off to the left or right sides! That was funny to see, too! We had so much fun with those little guys! It was into the month of Oct., I remember, that one morning I went out on the back porch to check on "Snappy", (because "Pedro" had died a month before and of course June and I gave him a fitting "burial" in the yard)...Mother said it had "frosted" overnight and turned cold (it had been nice weather til then)...so as I went out the door, I noticed "Snappy" had his little head raised up out of the water, he was kind of half in and half out and not on his rock...and as I petted his little head, it just bobbed like a stiff little stick and it was then that I realized he was dead...poor little thing had frozen to death! I cried and cried! I would have taken him inside before that, but it had been such nice weather up til then! I was very sad  and so June and I had another tearful funeral for our little friend "Snappy". I never got another turtle during my lifetime after my little "Snappy" was gone. 

"SOMETHING STRANGE THIS WAY COMES"

A few years later, we moved to 3132 Winchester Avenue. A beautiful old two-story house that had been built in the 1800's I think. It had a lovely staircase in it and the diningroom was quite large. There was a swinging door between the diningroom and the kitchen and a serving bar on the right side, where you could pass things through and serve through it. It had a roll-top door to cover it when not used! There were two giant book-shelves (from the floor to the ceiling) in the livingroom, one on the left side and one on the right side...and the wood in the whole house was dark cherry! It was just beautiful! The story goes that a judge had lived there in 1913 and before that it was someone who had owned slaves. The judge had caught his wife having an affair with another man and had shot her in the bathroom upstairs! So needless-to-say it was a so-called "haunted house"! I kid you not!

<LITTLE KIDDIES>

There were three "little coloured kiddies" all coming behind me down the stairs one time, (Daddy saw them) and I heard Daddy say: "My, my, the traffic is sure getting busy on this stairway!" Of course Mother (in front), Jane Ann (my cousin, next), and I (last in line) just thought he was talking about all of us coming down as he was heading up them! Mother just laughed and said "Yea, sure is!" Then one day Mother was alone in the house (we were all at school and Daddy was at work) and she heard some kids laughing in the back bedrooms and thought it was Charlie, June and me! Can you imagine?! All of us "playing hooky" from school just to stay home and hide in the house to play at home! What a joke! Anyway she hunted all through the house (nine rooms and a full-sized basement)! Never found a thing...and never said a thing to us either! Daddy never said a word about what he saw to anyone of us as well. So all of us kids were "in the dark", so to speak! My sister and her family came to visit one time and as she was going upstairs, something came down (unseen) and nearly knocked her off the stairs! For it had never came to us as of yet.

<UNSEEN VISITORS>

It did my older brother the same way...and they didn't tell any of us about it...I guess they were afraid that we would think that they were nuts! This went on for awhile in that "crazy house"! I heard things upstairs too but thought it was Mother in her room, then I would find her in the kitchen and think that she "must have flown" down the stairs! 

<ROLLING EYES>

On another occasion, my Uncle, Aunt & cousin were visiting us. The "grown-ups" were having coffee and conversation at the kitchen table while Jane Ann and I were up in my bedroom playing with dolls and things. We heard all the noise on the stairway and in Mother & Daddy's bedroom, but we thought it was them and never paid any attention to them! The adults heard all the noise on the stairway (running up and down, like a dozen kids playing) and Mother said she called out to us once and told us to "quiet down"! But we never heard anything, believe me! We were sitting upon my bed with my door closed! It just kept it up and Mother said that Daddy's face was getting to look like a "cloud of anger" and finally he got up from the table and walked to the bottom of the stairs...he yelled up at the top of the stairs and said: "Hey you, come down here!" And "IT" did! You see the way the stairway was built, we had 13 steps and a landing with a mirror on it, and then a turn to the left and 13 more steps up to the top. So as Daddy stood there on the third step (for he had started up to get us) he saw something dark coming down the top of the stairs (and as it got to the landing, it turned the little right turn and came down the other steps. He said he stood there looking at this "thing"...it had NO body, just a black-grey shoulder top with a face like form, with big eyes! It came and stopped right in front of his face and looked at him and he said it's eyes seemed to flip, round and round, like a slot-machine. It came so close to his face that it seemed to get beneath his glasses and he said that it formed a face and the right side of it was dark red and bloody with what looked like tonsils and veins hanging all out down it's neck! Then it formed again into a black cloud-like thing and backed away from him and moved to the right of him and took off down the stairs and out the front door! He said as he watched it leave out the door, he saw two little black feet waving in the air (like you would be swimming in water)! He went back to the table and Mother said he just sat down at the table didn't say a word, just let out a big breath and a long sigh. She never understood til later when he told her what happened...he was "scared speechless"!

<THE LADY IN BLUE CHIFFON>

One day when I was doing my Arithmetic in my bedroom, I heard so much noise in Mother's room that I got up and went to see what she was doing. Well by the time I got in there (which must have been a whole minute!) I didn't see a thing! Nothing there, just noise from downstairs...must have been her and June talking and having a blast! Yea, right! Anyway, I went back to my room and shut my door to finish my homework (good little girl that I was). Little did I know what was happening downstairs or should I say ON the stairway and up and down the stairs and wherever else IT decided to go! From My Mother and brother (later they told me) this story: "We were sitting at the table when you came running down the stairs like a flash you ran through the livingroom and outside slamming the front door! Then in a minute's time you ran back inside, slamming the front door behind you and you took off running back up the stairs like a maniac! (me?..yeah, sure!) This was repeated twice and then when it ran up the stairs the third time, Mother came to the top of the stairs and yelled: "Kay?" I heard her (boy did she sound upset!)...I went to the top of the stairs and said: "What, Mother?" She said "Don't what, Mother, me!" Come down here, I'm gonna whip you!" By then I was getting pretty scared (I mean hey, what did I do to get a whipping?) I walked slowly down the stairs, all the time about to cry as I said "What did I do. Mother? I was doing my homework on my bed...I was in my bedroom all the time...what did I do?" By the time I got into full view of them, my brother's eyes looked like saucers as he said: "Oh GOD...Mom look at her clothes!" I had on a dark-red chalky sweater and a red and black plaid skirt and no shoes (I was sitting in the middle of my bed doing my homework, remember?)...about then Mother's eyes took on a frightened look and she said: "Kay come here." The kind of urgency in the voice that a Mother uses when she wants her child with her because of danger...you all know what I mean?! So needless to say, I all but "flew down those stairs" at that time! We talked and when we found out what each other had seen and heard, we knew that "something was rotten in Denmark" and wasn't "kosher" with our house! The girl that they thought was me had a light blue, chiffon dress on as she ran by the kitchen and out the door! But had it been me, I would have had to run like a streak down the stairs, non-stop through the livingroom and leaped clear over an over-sized "stuffed chair" and straight through the front door (I wouldn't have had time to open it) and back through the door, jump over the chair, and back through the room and up the stairs! Thus doing this same "stunt" three times in a row...now tell me "how good at track, high-jump, and vaulting" would I have to be!? Really, though, they just weren't thinking straight! These were only a few of the things we saw!

My Chameleon

When we had moved from May Court to Winchester Avenue, I was just going into the 6th grade! That is a rough thing to do on a kid..moving from where I had been with the same kids for over five years, and then put me in a much bigger school and one where I didn't know anyone! But I soon learned to cope with it all. Mother had taken me downtown one day to pick out a pet at the pet store...we had some goldfish, angelfish, fighting-fish, and some others, but I really didn't care to much for them...know what I mean? It just wasn't my "cuppa tea" if you catch the drift! So anyway I came back home with a little "exotic chameleon"! He was so cute! Only about as long as my little finger and he turned every colour in the book! I was so happy and he became my pal. I took him for walks..by this I mean I put a little twine around his neck and used a safety pin to hook him to my dress at my shoulder and he loved it! He turned the colours of my clothes and blended right in..I even took him to school and the teacher didn't even notice! I fed him flies, bugs, and flower leaves. He had a little cage and I would put him out in the grass and let him "sun" himself..but one day and I never figured out how, he got out of his cage and of course changing to match the colour of the grass and though I looked all over the yard, down on my hands and knees, I never found him again! Again I cried for a lost pet of mine! I never got another lizard again either..like I didn't replace "Snappy", my pet turtle, neither could I replace "Camille", my chameleon. 

NEXT

Updated on April 29, 2006

Iowa--U. S. A.