It was about this time in my life that I would frequently have this recurring dream. I would dream that someone put me in this padded room all by myself. I was told that I had to stay in there until I could crawl, (in the dream I wasn’t old enough to walk yet), up the wall, across the ceiling, down the opposite wall and back to my starting point.
I’d try and try and try to get this accomplished. Many times I’d almost make it, but I never did. I’d get half way across the ceiling, crawling upside down and almost make it to the other wall and then I’d lose my grip and just fall. And every time I fell, I would have to start all over again.
On an ever more strange note; I remember a very strange thing that use to happen to me. I’d have, from time to time, this thing that would come over me that I would call “A Spell”. Let me try to explain if I can. Sounds were very exaggerated, loud, and scary. I swear I could hear a clock ticking in the house, while I was still outside. My fingers appeared to be as round as a silver dollar, (not really swelled up, just big).
This occurred about half a dozen times over the years. Anyway, thought I might mention this now, ‘cause this is when it first happened to me. I will discuss this in detail later in this book.
Also: A short mention, I don’t know if I was having a dream, a vision or just something that stayed in my head. I’d have a lot of thoughts about John the Baptist. I guess that maybe I just did a lot of thinking about him. Who he was, what he did, and what he stood for- this would occupy my mind often. I even thought of myself as maybe a part of him. I know this was strange, but thought that maybe I should make a comment about it at this point.
The summer before the 5th grade my Uncle Herbert, and Aunt Betty asked if I like to stay with them during for the summer. Mom didn’t think it was a good idea, because of the stress that I was still going through from being in the hospital for so long, not that many years ago. I guess I never considered how hard it was on my mom with me being in the hospital with polio. And, it wasn’t like going around the corner cause they lived all the way in South Carolina.
But I begged and I begged, and maybe even shed a stray tear or two until my mom finally caved in. So the next day they loaded me up and off we went. Their two boys Eddie and Danny were both close to my age and we had a ball.
We got into everything you could think of. Picking blackberries, playing on the railroad tracks, sneaking off at night and going to town, and listening to my uncle Billy (he was a policeman), he would tell us all kinds of wild stories. A couple of nights he’d even load us up in the police cruiser and take us down to lover’s lane.
Lover’s lane was a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. We would drive up with no lights turned on and coast in real slow. We’d sneak up on these parked cars, getting right behind them, and we’d turn on the lights and watch ‘em scramble. Those people would then either take off running or hit the gas pedal. Now that was fun!
What we did mostly was, we would collect baseball cards.
The only reason we would even work was to buy more baseball cards. I must have had 35 or 40 Rodger Maris cards, not even counting all the Sandy Koufax, Yogi Bear, and all those great players back then. Eventually though, we use them all on the spokes of our bikes to make it sound like a motorcycle. Imagine how rich we’d all be today if we had actually “collected” and saved all that stuff way back then..........
Even though we had a ball, well, I started getting home sick. It began fairly mild, but didn’t take but a few days to escalate to a full blown home sickness. I’m talking crying and not being able to sleep ‘cause I sure missed my mom. I must have made my aunt and uncle miserable. They never said anything but I’m sure of it.
It took ‘em about another two weeks, and then I think they must have called my parents. Probably must have begged them, to come and get me. It took my Dad another week, but they finally came up to South Carolina to get me. I’d missed ‘em and I’d missed ‘em bad. But I was heading home, back where I belonged, back to Oak Ridge.
After barely starting the 5th grade my parents bought a house in a small community not far away called Claxton. We moved into a three bedroom house on Oak Drive. It was smack in the middle of a sub-division, again populated with families that had kids who were all about our age. Wow, how much gooder can it get?
First business we had to take care of was gettin’ me started in the 5th grade, (a month late).
Mrs. Stevens was my new teacher. She was kinda the best friend to my Aunt Becky, who taught the 3rd grade in the same school. Oh no, not a built in tattle- tale. Great! Now I was gonna have to cover my mouth when I sneezed or coughed, and couldn’t pick my nose in class. This didn’t seem like it was going to be whole lot of fun, starting this new adventure. Besides that, Aunt Becky lived just on the other side of the hill.
After a couple hours on the first day of class we marched in single file to the lunch room. There must have been 4 or 5 little, short, fat ladies behind a food counter, which was filed with food that looked like it came from my Mom’s kitchen. Hey, this might be a pretty good ride. When I took those first few bites, I was hooked! Boy-o-boy this is good stuff! Homemade, stick to your ribs, finger-licking good. I made such a big deal to those ladies that they asked me if I wanted seconds. Heck yeah!
Um, and could I have a little extra of that apple cobbler please? This is going to be a pretty good deal. I’m thinking I’m going to like this new place called Claxton.
One of the things that was so much different about this school though and that was the way they settled their problems.
They had what you call a chain of command, a pecking order, and I was way down the food chain. I’m talking fights; you know the kind that you get hit in the head?
I might not have been that good to look upon, but I was partial to my face. Well, it looked like I was going to have to my reach down inside, to those internal reserves and figure out a way around this one. I had to find a way to avoid having my face bashed in. I know! “I’D RUN!!!” Well it wasn’t the most honorable thing to do, but until I could position myself farther up the ladder from the omega, and closer to the alpha, I had to do something to preserve my beauty. For some strange reason, it sure seemed like there for a while I was doing a lot of running.
This whole situation wasn’t what I was used to, cause, I’d never been in a fight, and really hadn’t ever seen that many, but I was experienced enough to know they were to be avoided at all cost, if possible. I had to figure out how to keep my honor in tack, and save my pretty face at the same time. I guess it was around this time in my life that I learned how to talk myself into or out of a lot of situations. That would last for many years.
Speaking of fighting, did you ever play a game of organized baseball, and not have an impartial umpire? Well that’s the way we played. Each team used their own hind catcher as the ump. Imagine a sorta close play at first base or even worst, home plate. Unless the runner was safe by 10 feet, there was always an argument. Remember how these guys solved their problems? Yep, that’s right, we went to fighting. Sometimes just 2 of us, sometimes all of us. If the biggest guy wanted him out, guess what, he was out, at least if it was up to me.
Well, look at it from my point of view. He was either out or I was running toward the woods. That fighting stuff was for country boys, but I was from Houston, we did things different there. Back in Texas, we were more civilized, and who cares, we didn’t know how to play the game anyway.
Remember when the catcher (then called the hind catcher) caught a foul tip on the third strike, the batter got another swing. I guess back then we just made up the rules as we went. So playing baseball back then was just another day at the battle field, I mean school.