1936 Pop's Dilemma
or the Year of the Locust
This story took place the same year that mother planted a second garden on account of the servere drought. Check the story "Mama's Hands." 1936 or "The year of the Locust."
It had been an extremely hot day and now it was night and we had all gone to bed when the storm came up. Pow, bam it sounded much like fireworks. I got up and went out on the front porch and there was my father madly racing around. The little chicks had gotten out of the brooder house and it was pouring down rain. Being baby chicks with their yellow down, they didn't even have feathers yet, they probably would die out in the rain like that, Dad was frantically trying to get them all to go back into the brooder house. It was a very dark night , but because of the lightning he had no trouble seeing. It was just one lighning bolt after another. We had several lighning storms that year. the reason being that when the weather is extremely hot it has a tendancy to brew up a storm. I wanted so desparatly to get out there and help him but the lightning was so scary and the rain was like it was coming down in buckets.
This was after the "Cold Hard Winter of 1935-36." Early in the year of 36 we would have had to move to the Joe Closson place (name may not be exactly correct) because Raymond was born in May of that year. So many things that are dear to me happened in that small amount of time. I guess you could say this place was east of Blue River, or if you went south on that same road you would be at the creamery on 16th Street north of New Castle. Or you could say going south on that road you might be at our favorite parking place when we went to New Castle from Grandma's house on the hill. See "I Go On A Shopping Spree."
To me that year could well be half my life, I guess that's because times seems to go faster as we grow older. There was a stream on the south side of the yard, between the house and the barn. That's where mother got water for washing our clothes. That's where I spent happy hours playing on my Island (in the middle of the stream) It made me feel sad when visiting recently to realize that stream was gone, and the land was dry , modern drainage systems I guess did that. We had to go down the hill in front of our house and across the road then down a little path beside a fence to get drinking water and cooking water from a spring.
That was where we played under the porch with some miniature cars. building roads and bridges. That was where the paper boy sped by in his little car every week day and left us a copy of the "Muncie Evening Press" Then we would sit on a big stump on the hillside in the middle of the front yard with my brothers on each side of me while I read the "funnies" to them. That's how I got inspired to become "Boots" of "Boots and her buddies" my favorite of the comics. I would sail across the water in my yacht to my island. I was rich My family owned a yacht and we were on vacation just like rich people. This was the same stump that we would roll each other over in an old tire (June's creation of fun). With one of us curled up inside the tire another would roll us over the stump which if you kept your eyes closed felt much like a modern roller coaster ride.
This was the one house we lived in that had an upstairs. There was two rooms up there where we had a bed in the north room where I slept at the foot of the bed until summer came and then Pop and Mom made me my own bedroom down stairs next to the kitchen. Mother would say now you kids get to bed and we would say O.K. but then we would sit on the floor around the kerosene lamp and I would read for us what ever we had available which wasn't really all that much, sometimes we had a comic book or an old story book, and sometimes we played checkers, but Momma would open the door at the foot of the stairs and say "What are you kids doing still up, now I said get in the bed." The nice thing about the upstairs it was warmer because any heat from downstairs came right up through the register.
This was the summer that we had a family reunion at Uncle John Ford and Aunt Cyndy's house. Some one had come and got us and in their car and I would say that was my cousin Jim Crow. He was a very nice accomodating person and he was one of my cousins that was visiting us at the brick house one sunday when I got stranded in the barn , and Uncle Lacy came and got me. Check "Extra Ordinary Man" That day I began to realize that I had 54 first cousins. I was proud of that. We had a big dinner under the trees on makeshift tables in the back yard of John and Cyndy's house on a farm near Kennard. It was very exciting meeting all my cousins some of them for the first time. Later that day we all went to the "Fireworks" at Baker Park South of New Castle. There was a huge crowd and it was very dark. One thing that makes me remember that occasion was that after the fireworks there were so many people, and I got lost from my parents. I looked and looked being sure they were just right there some where but Where?? I began to cry and then I heard Pop saying "Rose where are you?" Then he said "You ought to know ,we would never go home without you." On the way home Dad told us how he had gotten burned by some debri from the fire works as it fell down his shirt collar.
Rosemary's Songs
Turn Your Radio Onwith Mark and Jeff Brown
Wait a Little Longer, Please Jesus with The Brown family
Throw out the Lifeline with Rose Brown
Start here: Grandma's House
Mama's handsYes, Maam! Remembering how my grandma kept her house
We decided to have church in the kitchen
Uncle Lacy (and my brother, June, too)
Gladys:
Safe in the arms of Jesus
The little errand girl, part 1