Buckingham Palace, 1953 - The Finale

Buckingham Palace also offered a course in vicarious sex education. Many young men had magazines whose graphic photos came close to popping my fourteen year-old eyes out. Wow!

One guy had a framed photo of his German girlfriend prominently displayed on his dresser. She was standing by a country lane with both hands on the handlebars of her bicycle, and the bike was not sufficient to hide her immodesty. Another fellow had a desk full of post cards - French postcards.

Sometimes I’d go by a room and hear giggling or heavy breathing coming from behind the door. Once I walked into a room thinking it was empty only to back our with mumbled apologies. Curiosity got the better of me a couple times and I shamefully took to key-hole peeping, but those endeavors resulted in little reward because of the limited field of view. I took early retirement after that brief career of spying.

The Moose Lodge burned in the spring of 1960 and Don and I went off to college that fall. The Lodge built a modern structure on the south end of town so the Palace was no longer easily managed, and gradually went into decline. The city block emptied over the next fifteen years. The Courtland Hotel burned, a church next to it on Main went shortly thereafter, followed by the Detzen’s Bread building that faced Jackson Street.

Our old building was the lone survivor for a time. Mom and Dad sold it in the early seventies and the place was demolished a few years later. Google’s “satellite view” shows the city block is now one big parking lot.

Buckingham Palace, 1953 - More Renters

A heavy set women in her fifties rented room five for a short time. She was sick and produced a body odor that was powerfully offensive. Room five was in the back corner of the building next to a bathroom. Neither of us liked to go beyond room four as the noxious smell penetrated the whole area. No one else cared to go there either. I believe she went back to the hospital shortly thereafter, and I never heard anything more. We felt a guilty relief at her departure.

Many of the short timers were single men, itinerate drifters, who stayed a few weeks looking for work, catching their breath, or settling business. One was a young man of Mexican descent. He was in his early twenties, gregarious, always smiling, and outwardly friendly. He stayed for a month or two. I don’t know where he came from. He never mentioned family or friends, and seemed to have magically materialized into the flatlands of Indiana.

The guy was the first native Mexican we ever met. Mexican farm workers showed up in August every year. They came to pick tomatoes - one stop in their itinerate circuit through the states harvesting crops. We had seen them in other years working fields during the day, and sitting outside camps in evenings. They had always been nameless shadows until he came along. He was the first to have a human face

Don and I stopped to visit nearly every Saturday. We noticed he had a book on English grammar, another on math, and a notebook filled with his self-study. His effort seemed futile - maybe because he had such a distance to go, or maybe because he was alone, and had neither guidance nor support. His claim to fame was a broad smile that showcased a mouth-full of large white teeth. He bragged of being able to snap the caps off two beer bottles at the same time. - one at each side of his mouth. He demonstrated his prowess by opening a coke bottle one day, but I never saw his double play.
GO TO: Part 7, The Finale

Buckingham Palace, 1953 - Our Renters

There were several middle-age men, single, either recently divorced or widowed, who lived a suspended life for a few months before setting a new course.

Don came to me one Saturday and said he though the guy, Ike, in room number twelve, was dead. He had went in to change sheets that morning and quietly closed the door when he saw him lying in bed. He was still there in late afternoon in the same position, an arm hanging extended over the edge of the bed. Don went in to take a closer look and noticed an odor of decay. Ike had been dead for several days. No one missed the man, and it had been left to us to find him.

Most of the names have escaped me. There were two women, friends, that rented adjoining rooms on the third floor overlooking the street. Each carried a small suitcase, the apparent entirety of their possessions, and they stayed only a few weeks. Neither seemed to work. I would guess they were in their late forties. I only remember what one looked like because of a photo that set on her dresser. It was of her as a young woman, pretty, and sitting on the rail of a ship with a sailor standing beside. Maybe it was during World War II, maybe earlier.

That was then. Now she was broken, and had difficulty speaking, as if she had a mouth full of marbles. After they moved we found her dresser drawers full of empty booze bottles. I’ve always wondered what paths she followed to end up on our doorstep. I felt a great sympathy for this woman I hardly knew, and could barely understand. She was a human wreckage, a lost soul, that had landed on our shore for a brief time and then drifted back to sea.

Don was convinced the fellow in room number one was a cat-burglar. He took frequent trips out of town, and had a small bag of tools that he kept at the foot of his bed. They were the type a burglar would use - a least according to Don. The guy added suspicion one Saturday. He was drinking, a bit tipsy, happy, and wanted to talk. He kept starting to tell us something, a secret, but each time he would back off at the last minute, giggling to himself that he had better keep his mouth shut. I never heard whether he ever got caught, assuming that burglary was, indeed, his sideline.
GO TO: Part 6, More Renters

Buckingham Palace, 1953 - House Maid Service

We received fifty cents an hour over the summer, but were put on salary in the fall - ten dollars a week. On Saturday, our nine to five work day commenced with a stop at the laundry to pick up a tall stack of sheets before continuing on to “Buckingham Palace“. The informal name was bestowed by fellow Moose members shortly after we opened and it was thereafter referred to as “Buckingham Palace“. We had no sign advertisings the regal name, only a small note on the door directing potential renters to the Moose.

Every Saturday we changed sheets and towels, cleaned the bath rooms, vacuumed the carpets, and emptied the trash cans. The memory of those many Saturdays, the routine, has blurred to a singular image - any one would fit all. It is the memory of the people living there that sticks with me. Many tenants passed through in the seven years we were involved . Some stayed for many years, a few for several months, and many for only a few days.

Three or four were retirees, living the remainder of their lives on scant pensions in single rooms. Elmer Cox and his next door neighbor, Roy, come to mind.. They had the two smallest rooms, no more than ten foot square. Roy’s room never changed. The articles on his dresser: a comb and hair brush, a framed photo of his wife, and other sundry items, were always exactly positioned. It was spooky, like no one really lived there. Elmer and Roy were frugal, husbanded their money through the month, and then had a party with any leftovers - usually enough for a pint of whiskey each.
GO TO: Part 5, Our Renters

Buckingham Palace, 1953 - More Child Labor

Loose plaster sometimes hid behind the old wallpaper. Sagging sections often telegraphed their intent. This was especially characteristic of ceilings where large portions came down with the paper. The building was erected long before anyone thought of drywall, so the newly cleaned rooms possessed a “haunted house” aura with wood slats exposed.

Nearly every room needed some plastering, and since Don and I lacked experience in that particular craft the task defaulted to Dad. He was a jack-of-all-trades, and did the plumbing, electrical, and rewiring in the building. The only thing we didn’t do was to lay the carpets.

So Dad troweled plaster over the slats, and the putty-like material oozed into the spaces, anchoring the hardened end-product. He did a good job but the edges of the mended sections were still apparent. Painting helped. A professional might have crafted a perfect mend, but I expect plastering was becoming a lost art even then.

I cannot remember the paint colors, or if we used one throughout. A single hue would have been economical, but the truth of the matter escaped me sometime over the last fifty years. I do sort of remember a neutral pastel, maybe yellow. We learned to paint that summer, and Don and I paid a portion of our college expenses with paint brushes and rollers. But that’s another story.

The carpets were laid by a guy from Indianapolis and his college age son. Dad had previously measured each room, and the carpet man commended him on his accuracy. The Courtland Hotel was replacing some of its old furniture, so we acquired their discarded beds, dressers and writing desks. None of the rooms had built-in closets so we purchased sixteen new brown metal ones. By the end of summer we had the rooms set up and ready to rent. Don and I were transformed into chambermaids, and thus began the next stage of our education, an informal introduction to sociology, psychology, and the humanities.
GO TO: Part 4, House Maid Service

Buckingham Palace, 1953 - Child Labor

The basement, accessed from the rear of the Trustee’s, was lit by a single naked bulb that hung from above. The room, about twenty foot square, lay in the back corner. The ceiling rose to an height that was sufficient for Don and I, but compelled Dad, who stood six foot-three, to crouch in a perpetual stoop.

The place emitted an earthy redolence. The outer walls were part of the foundation, but inner walls rose to only four feet. A dirt crawl-space that ran throughout the building’s underbelly was accessable above the inner walls. Don and I, enticed by its dark reaches, tried to deflect light from our single source into that void only to have it swallowed by an eternal night.

We were there to work and never got a chance to crawl into that particular adventure. The two of us consoled ourselves with jokes of what might be found out there - rats, skeletons, buried treasure?

The boiler sat on a concrete platform raised above the floor in case of flooding. It was original equipment, old enough to be retired, but circumstance demanded that we coax a few more years out of it. Dad came down that first day to show us what to do. We removed the outer metal cover exposing the entrails of the rusty thing. There were eight or ten heavy cast-iron sections, each measuring about 3 feet by 2 by half a foot.

We took the sections apart, cleaned out the rust and reassemble them with new fittings. Dad dropped in a couple times each day to bring parts, check our progress, and show us the next stage. It seems that it took about a week, maybe a bit longer to finish the project Dad fired the boiler that fall, and there was much hissing and clanking as steam surged through the system to the radiators.

Wallpaper covered the upstairs rooms and halls, many layers, one pasted on top of another, decade after decade, till the rooms were smaller for it. Our next job was to remove the wallpaper from all sixteen rooms, three long halls, and four bathrooms.

Summer was coming into full heat, and Dad rented a piece of equipment, a wallpaper steamer, that made things even hotter and stickier. The commercial steamer delivered volumes of bellowing steam through a hose to a flat plate with a handle on one side and many holes on the other. We were to hold the plate against the wall, and until the steam penetrated the layers of paper.

In theory it worked fine, in practice, not so well. One of us would stand several minutes pressing the steamer against the wall, but when we shifted position hot gas bellowed from under the tool scalding our forearm. We donned long sleeve shirts when we would have preferred to work in bathing suits. And when it finished cooking we had one small patch of limp paper to peal off.

It wasn’t working, so we tried closing the room, firing the steamer, and doing something else for an hour or two. The room filled with hot vapors that soaked into the wallpaper. When the room cooled enough to get back in the paper peeled off in long wide strips.

Our goal was to see how long of a piece we could strip off before it broke. The ceiling was the best arena for this contest as gravity helped peel the strips, sometimes from wall to wall - that was equivalent to a “home run“. Some rooms had vinyl wallpaper within the layers. We figured those rooms might have functioned as kitchens at onetime. Those took more steaming.

We got so efficient that we could strip a room in a day, wash the paste off the plaster, and clean up the debris by the 5:00 PM quitting hour. We were usually cleaning up one room while steaming another.

GO TO: Part 3, More Child Labor

Buckingham Palace, 1953 - The Purchase

My parents purchased a building in downtown Kokomo, Indiana in 1953 - the biggest investment of their life. The place was on Taylor Street, sandwiched between the Moose Lodge and the Courtland Hotel. It’s unlikely they would have been interested had Dad not been the manager and secretary of the Moose. Mom worked as his assistant in the office. Both spent six days a week on the job, so it was an opportunity to have an investment that would be easy to manage.

They paid $16,000, which seems modest these days, and by late spring the family took possession of commercial property. Don and I learned that it was to be a family affair, signaling that we were to be involved. Thus began our passage into the world of child labor, informal instruction in various skilled-worker professions, and general education concerning the larger world of life.

I was thirteen years old in 1953 - Don, fifteen. When school let out that June we discovered our halcyon days of wandering leisurely through summers were forever curtailed. We found ourselves in the cramped, dungeon-like basement of our new property. The building was run-down and in significant need of repair. Don and I were to start at the bottom, and with Dad’s guidance, work our way up.

The property appeared to be two separate buildings when viewed from across the street. My impression yet is of two entities grown together like Siamese twins. They were probably constructed at the same time - somewhere around 1890. The one next to the Moose was two stories, while its taller sibling stood three.

They seemed large. I never heard any dimensions, but would guess the buildings’ footprint covered two to three thousand square feet of downtown, with all floors totaling around six thousand. Red brick facades, typical for the era, gave the two a nondescript acceptance. If I had not spent so much time in them, I wouldn’t remember they were ever there.

The bottom floor was occupied by the Howard County Trustee. Its drab interior had high ceilings, and offices looking out onto the street through big plate glass windows. Commodities for the poor were kept in its cavernous back reaches. I rarely went in, and have only vague memories of it.

The office was managed for years by a thin little man, who seemed shriveled and ancient. His name was Elmer Cox, and I remember him wearing black baggy suits, with matching vest, a broad tie, and a black fedora. He retired shortly thereafter and became our first tenet when we finished the upstairs into boarding rooms. He rented number three till he was moved to a nursing home or the mortuary - I don’t remember which.

The door leading to the upper floors was in front-center of the building. It opened to a long stairway that had a level section about half way up. A hall at the top lead straight to a restroom at the back of the building. If you turned right at the top of the stairs, you would pass under a broad archway into the “other” building. Another turn to the right led to the third floor stairway.

There were three bathrooms, each at the end of a long hall. Only one room had a private bath. It looked onto Taylor street, and rented for ten dollars a week. Four other rooms had street views. Most rooms were rather small, going for seven dollars. Three or four had sinks, so they cost eight. We had sixteen rooms, and they brought in about a hundred and twenty dollars each week when all were occupied.

The Courtland Hotel had once used the upstairs rooms, probably during WWII, but the place had remained vacant and neglected for years. The first inspection opened the families eyes to the amount of work necessary in repairing and redecorating the place. That is where Don and I came into the picture. We started in the basement rebuilding the old boiler, the heart of the heating system.
GO TO: Part 2 - Child Labor

Lamar (Mike) Hammer Our Boyhood Friend

Lamar got a job at the La Mode, in his senior year of high school. The La Mode was a downtown clothing store, owned and operated by father and son. Sammy Kopelov, the father, was little man, a first generation Russian immigrant with a pleasant round bespectacled face, grey hair and a charming accent. I thought he fit the classic model of the sweet elder Jew from the old country. His son, Jerry, a combat Veteran of WWII was tall, athletic, and animated.

Don and I frequently stopped to visit, and got to know Sammy, Jerry, and Mr. Raab, who owned the shoe department at the back of the store. Lamar started wearing suits, sport coats, dress shirts and ties - understandable considering where he worked, but he also seemed to like fashion, and the chance to “dress-up”.

Don and Lamar graduated high school in 1956, and Lamar joined the Air Force at the beginning of that summer. I remember walking with him after school the day he went to enlist. On the way back he remarked that he didn’t care to live past forty. I can’t recall how that came up, or the explanation he provided, something about life wouldn’t be any fun after that. I didn’t say anything, but planned to remind him of his statement twenty years hence, but never got around to it.

Don went to Purdue University that fall. Our trio broke up for good, and I was forced to find other social outlets. A few years later Don and I started attending Indiana University in Bloomington. That was in the fall of 1960, so several years passed in which we didn’t see a whole lot of Lamar - five or six. Friends in the Air Force renamed him “Mike” Hammer, and that stuck for the rest of his life. But he was always “Lamar” to us.

After discharge he worked in Peru and later at the Kokomo Chrysler plant. He had a television show in the mid-70’s called, ”Hook, Line, and Sinker“. I had a brief claim-to-fame when I appeared on it to tell about my adventures at caribou hunting in Alaska.

Don married in June of 1962. Lamar attended, and the two of us played basketball in our tuxedos at the in-laws house after the wedding. Six months later we had a riotous holiday celebration that lasted from Christmas Eve through New Years Eve - the last time the two of us spent an extended time together.

Lamar married a young woman, Bonnie Maish, in 1964 and adopted her young sons, Scott and Todd. I left for Alaska in 1967, and they moved to Minnesota in 1976. I guess he wanted to extend that fishing trip of so many years before. My wife, Mary and I, visited them in Minnesota in 1983. We met again in April of 2002, a week after brother Don died. Don and Lamar were nearly the same age; Don being 27 days older. Lamar returned to Minnesota and died eighteen days after Don. They were both about two months past their 64th birthday. Don died first, but lived nine days longer than Lamar.

Painting the House for A Fishing Trip, 1954 - Part 3, A Movie

We went swimming several times and tried our hand at movie making. The only artifact remaining of that trip is a fifteen second scene shot with Dad’s 8mm movie camera.

Don was the cameraman, director, and producer. Lamar and I were the actors. Lamar got the Star’s roll of Hero, and I was relegated to a supporting role as the Villian.

The segment started with Lamar standing on the bow with his hand on his left knee peering out to sea. The next sequences depicts me, in a T-shirt, slowly sneaking up on him and shoving him overboard. Then I am kneeling over the bow looking for him as he climbs out of the water onto the stern, edges up to me, and kicks me in the rear and catapults me overboard.

READY ON THE SET. LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

OSCAR NOMINATION - BEST MOVIE, 1954

MAN OVERBOARD

GO TO: Lamar "Mike" Hammer, Our Boyhood Friend

Painting the House for A Fishing Trip, 1954 - Part 2

Little North Star Lake was on state route 38, about 25 miles north of Grand Rapids. Marcel, a nearby village, lay another five miles on north. That’s where we bought our groceries. Kamp Kokomo was owned by a guy named Vern, a former resident of Kokomo. The camp had six or eight log cabins, and an icehouse. The office/lounge was right off the highway. It had a few tables, and sold sodas, beer, and maybe burgers and fries, though I‘m not certain as we always ate in the cabin.

We had a great time fishing and playing. There was a juke box in the lounge and we invested several nickels playing the popular tune of 1954, Sh-Boom, Sh-Boom by the Crew Cuts. There was a big bird dog at the camp. It had an enormous head, hung around the dock, and would dive in to retrieve anything - even large rocks that seemed too big and weighty for it’s giant sized mouth.

In Indiana we fished for bass, but were captivated by the northern pike of Minnesota. Their sleek submarine bodies, primeval mouth, full of razor sharp teeth, and their savage willingness to kill and eat anything smaller than themselves captured our undivided attention. We eschewed the lowly pan fish for the killer. Lamar brought his 5HP outboard and we took it to several lakes. Once we toted the heavy thing a mile into Lake Lundeen, a body of water that turned out to be ridiculously small.
Lamar hooked onto the biggest pike. We were trolling in a neighboring lake and turning around to avoid a weed bed when it struck his lure. The fish, about four feet long, came rolling and cart-wheeling our of the weeds, and was gone just as quickly. I forget who caught the biggest one - not me, but we cut its head off and sealed it in a used canned ham tin to bring home. We tried our talent at amateur taxidermy, mounting it on a wooden plaque by attaching it by its gill plates. They stuck out perpendicular to its head giving it the appearance of an alligator with ears, but we kept it anyway, hanging it on the wall of our “Club Room” in the back corner of the basement.
GO TO: Part 3

Painting the House for A Fishing Trip, 1954

Early in the summer of 1954 Dad made a deal with Don and I. If we painted the house he would take us on a fishing trip to Kamp Kokomo in Minnesota that August. Don and I had fond memories of a fishing trip there a couple years earlier so we eagerly agreed to the contract. Lamar Hammer, our constant companion during those years, was soon brought in on the deal.

We commenced to convert the house from traditional white to an exceedingly bright yellow. We called it “city yellow” as it resembled the utility shade used in town. There was no difficulty in distinguishing our house after that. We‘d tell people, ”Look for the bright yellow house, you can‘t miss it”.

The three of us approached the project in a nonchalant manner. We were not avid workers, and could easily be lured to wander leisurely through nearby Learner’s Woods (now the Delco Park) or along Wildcat Creek. The job was finished some two and a half months later - a couple days before we departed for Minnesota. I would hazard to guess that a good portion of the job was completed during the last week.

The family had first visited Kamp Kokomo in 1952, and really enjoyed it. Minnesota was known as the land of ten thousand lakes, and though we lacked the opportunity to canvas all of them, we got the notion the number was most probably accurate as there seemed to be a lake around every bend in the road.

We had often sat on Indiana shores getting more bites from mosquitoes than fish, and after the Minnesota experience had concluded that Indiana was "fished-out". The northern state was a fisherman’s paradise in the early 50’s.

We would go fishing in the morning and bring back fifty to a hundred pan fish by noon - mostly blue gills and cat fish. We ate fried fish every day - they were delicious in a way we had never imagined. Fish bought at the local store could not compare in taste with those fresh out of water. Some older guy who worked at the camp cleaned, wrapped and froze our daily catch for a nominal fee, so we brought a cooler of frozen fish home to enjoy later.

The camp was 730 miles north of Kokomo, and we drove all the way without stopping for anything other than gasoline, rest stops, and to eat. Driving straight through, without an overnight stop, was the family practice for as long as I could remember. Mom would sometimes spell Dad for a short break in the middle of the night, but if the destination was within a thousand miles he would go all the way. Don turned sixteen that year and had a license, so he probably helped Dad drive, but I have no particular memory of that part of the trip.
GO TO: Part 2

Lamar (Mike) Hammer - Mad Dogs & Bull Markets

One summer evening the three of us ventured nearly fours miles along the creek, and twilight was upon us as we started home. We usually followed the trail running along the creek banks, but, we were tired and the sun was going down. The path was getting difficult to follow, so we decided to cross the field and walk the road.

The pasture was no more than fifty yards across and we could make it in a few minutes. The trouble was that this particular field looked very much like the one that had a big bull in it, and the farmer also kept a mean dog that was usually chained.

Both animals had unsavory reputations in our minds, and we had, until then, made it a point to avoid confrontation. So, there we stood on the banks of the creek looking over the fence toward our objective, the road. The field was open and treeless, a no-man’s land that seemed harmless to the unwary eye, but we knew the enemy was out there waiting.

We spoke in whispers, “Do you hear anything?”

“No! Maybe we ought to go a little further before crossing!”

Finally it was decided, like Doughboys climbing out of the trenches we scaled the fence and started across. Instead of rifles, we each carried a fishing pole, and since I was of the lowest rank I got assigned the fishing box. By the time I cleared the fence Don and Lamar were already several paces ahead. We were moving swiftly across the field, but had gotten no more than a quarter of the way when the silhouette of the bull appeared off to our left. It was moving at a slow but deliberate pace toward us.

Panic! We made a dash for the road. I fell behind, my legs and arms pumping, the fishing pole whipping back and forth; the tackle box rattling and gyrating. It never occurred to me to drop the box. It was comforting to have something to hold on to, and I doubt that anyone could have pried it from my clutched fingers at that particular moment.

At the half-way point I realized that it was not the bull, but one of the milk cows that shared the field. I slowed my pace but only for a second. Somewhere behind, not far, came the baying of the mean dog. It was loose, out there, and gaining fast. A fourth of the remained to be crossed. The other two had climbed the fence to safety. My pace was near frantic. The tackle box swung violently back and forth. Its momentum forcing me in a zig-zag pattern - left to right, while my fishing pole hissed right to left.

The rattling provided a noise scent. The mean dog could have been half deaf and tracked the din I was leaving behind. I kept looking back. I had no wish to see the fangs and mighty jaws that would soon rip chunks from my backside, but I couldn’t help myself. Soon it was at my heels. The fence was just a head, but not close enough. Should I drop the box or turn and throw it at him? Maybe that would give me time to escape? I elected the diplomatic approach. I turned and said, “Nice doggie, nice doggie.” This was stated in a tone that was more pleading than friendly. It was then that I realized it was not the mean dog, but an old friendly one that had come out to greet us.
GO TO: Painting the house for a fishing trip.

Lamar (Mike) Hammer - Our Huck Finn

Central School stood one mile up Sycamore Street from our house. The two-story red brick building occupied a city block in the downtown area and sat two blocks east of the town square. Kokomo High School was across the street. The rest of the campus included a vocational building to the west, a gymnasium across the street to the east, and the football stadium behind the gym.

The Memorial Gym, the pride of Kokomo, was completed in 1949 with a capacity of 7000 fans. That’s fairly large when you consider the whole town numbered 30,000 at the time. I never saw an empty seat at a basketball game, another example of why basketball is known as “Hoosier Hysteria” in Indiana.

We met Lamar Hammer that first year at Central. He was in Don’s 6th grade class, and the three of us became inseparable over the next seven years. I remember the many times that we walked between his house and ours. We spent more time at our place. That was because ours was on the edge of town. Also, Lamar’s parents had divorced several years before we met, his three siblings were several years older, so he became more like a brother to us, and a member of the family. He often stayed over night and shared meals.

We had many adventures over those years, most centered on fishing and hunting. We were kids that a present-day Mark Twain might write about. Don was probably closest to being a Tom Sawyer and Lamar was undoubtedly Huck Finn. Me? Well, I did not fit any character in Twain’s stories. Tom and Huck did not have a younger sidekick following them around, so the parallel does not quite fit, but I could have been a good model for a third wheel in a story.

Don and Lamar gave me the privilege of carrying things for them, and often used me as their gofer. I was a full partner in our adventures on the river, though it was of a junior-grade.

Our river was not the mighty Mississippi, but the wee Wildcat - a creek small enough that the junior partner could throw a stone across it. The stream flowed parallel to Sycamore, a half mile south . We lived on the edge of town, ranged for miles along the creek, and knew most of the spots where a fish might be hiding. On many days we would not get home until evening. One time we had to run for our lives.

GO TO: Part 2, Mad Dogs & Bull Markets

Animal Farm - Part 2, Barnyard and other Hairy Creatures

A menagerie appeared after our move to Sycamore. We were in the country, possessed an acre of land, and our life style resembled, in a loosely defined way, that of farmers. Dad grew up on a small farm, and Mom spent her first years in a Kentucky village, mostly inhabited by farmers, so they felt at home. Don and I relished that we lived on the edge of town, and had access to the open countryside to the east.

We plowed a section near the back of the lot and grew large gardens for several years. The garden was huge that first year, nearly half our lot, and the yield was enormous, so its size was reduced in subsequent years, but continued to produce sizable yields of corn, tomatoes, green beans, onions, potatoes, radishes, beets, etc. - enough to give a lot of it away, free for the picking.

Dad brought home a used tractor shortly after we moved, the two-wheel, walk-behind type. Various gardening accessories could be fitted to these all purpose machines. The Stocks, our next door neighbors, owned one with a wagon. It became a major source of transport for Gary Stock after he left the Polio treatment hospital. Ours sported a three foot wide weed cutting sickle that attached to the front. It easily severed anything up to a half inch in diameter - tall grass and small saplings being its main staple. We also had a tiller that attached to the rear.

Don and I got the job of cutting the “back-forty”, and we kept that position through the rest of the decade. We received a benefit from the garden as it removed a large swath of yard from our mowing duties. Sometimes we’d let the grass grow a bit tall as cutting the “back-forty” was not our favorite chore. We were neither more nor less industrious than other kids of the time. There were simply more attractive endeavors to entice us, like the recently discovered countryside to the east: Learners Woods with two gravel pits, Wildcat Creek that flowed through it to open pastures, and beyond. Our interests were more in line with exploring new territory, not retracing previously cut paths.

The tractor enticed us for a short time, but it symbolized work more than play. We tended the chickens on a regular basis as their needs were a constant, but mowing grass was not as restrictive, and provided opportunity for manipulating our schedule. We could always find an excuse for putting it off, and we devised ingenious systems to avoid work.

On one occasion we enlisted the help of rabbits. I don’t remember the exact origin of our brood. A couple of old cages showed up with a big, mature rabbit of each sex per cage. Dad was probably, yet again, responsible for their appearance. The two rabbits got together one afternoon and a few weeks later there were fourteen more. We had fun playing with the cute little fur balls, but soon realized that they represented more mouths to feed, more responsibilities to shoulder, more limits to our freedom, more chores to take us away form the countryside to the east.

A plan formulated in our ever scheming minds. Why not kill two birds with one stone. There were rabbits to feed and grass to mow. Why not enlist the rabbits to mow the grass? Don and I busied ourselves in building a bottomless cage. It measured eight feet by three and stood a foot high. We’d gather the rabbits from their cage in the morning, toss them into the movable one, and return periodically to move the live mowers to new grazing.

There was just a couple things wrong with our innovation, chief among them - we had to be present. The cage got moved every half an hour. Leave it too long and the rabbits would cut the vegetation to bare ground. That didn’t leave time enough to explore the countryside to the east. Secondly, there would be one or two fewer rabbits in the cage each time we moved it. The uneven ground allowed them to wiggle free, and by evening the cage was empty or nearly so. At the end of the day we chased after errant rabbits for an hour, poking them out from under the chicken shed, and other hiding places. After a few tries we scrapped that “time saver” as a waste of time.

The next animal Dad brought to the “farm” tested everyone. It was a brown Jersey cow, and its recalcitrant behavior endeared it to no one. I never knew the train of events that left us owners of the beast, and I don’t think the poor cow stayed more than a couple months, but those months were memorable. Our first problem, no fault of the cow, was that we had neither a fenced pasture nor shelter for the poor thing. Dad tethered it to a cement block positioned in the middle of the yard, and that most certainly did nothing to encourage a positive attitude. The nameless cow became an escape artist, and for some reason it seemed to stage its breakouts on Sunday afternoons. Dad, Don and I spent hours chasing it through the neighborhood, and a couple of times it crossed the highway to the east, heading for open county. The critter, weighing nearly four hundred pounds, closely matching our combined weights, and was not so easy to “manhandle”. It once attempted to slam me up against a fence post when we had finally managed to corner it. After the four or fifth escape attempt the poor cow was turned over to the butcher.

The last addition to our menagerie were two skunks.They had been “deskunked”, but still possessed a hint of their odorant. I remember they showed up housed in a bushel basket with chicken fence across the top. A brick sat on top the wire to weigh it down - a temporary cage. It was not sufficient as they made their escape that night and we never saw them again.

So, at one time we had a hundred chickens, sixteen rabbits, two skunks, a cow, one dog, one cat, a parakeet, a canary, and a lone gold fish in a small bowl. Most were gone within a short time. The skunks escaped, stray dogs killed the rabbits about a week later, and then got the chickens a short time after that. We were down to a dog, cat, parakeet and canary, and gave up farm life.

Animal Farm - Part 1, Pets I’ve known

A steady procession of cats moved through our home while I was growing up. There was always one in residence, but few lasted more than a couple years. Mainly they were males that would go out tom-catting toward evenings, and wander back home the next morning, or the next.

Snowball, a pure white one, came back with a rat trap clamped to his paw on one occasion. He had been absent a week or more when he finally returned packing iron. He laid around recuperating for several weeks, and then went out again.

We had no idea what he got into when he came home with his face cut up and bloody - a scarface thereafter, not so pretty as before, not so precious to pet anymore. Snowball’s fate was similar to all our cats; a morning dawned but the cat didn’t.

Another cat always appeared shortly after the last went missing. Dad was the one that brought pets home. Most of the animals that appeared were pups or kittens, but a few were grown. Those were probably the ones given to Dad by Moose Lodge members who could no longer care for them. Dad was a softie.

I remember lots of cats, but few of their names. In contrast, we had only three dogs. Each lasted longer than the one before.

Rags was aptly named. It was a small, long-haired terrier with bangs covering its eyes. I don’t remember if it was a he or a she. I don’t remember its age, probably no more than a couple years. I have a vague memory of Dad building a dog house that sat in the back yard underneath the apricot tree. That was Rags’ home, and my only memory of Rags is seeing its furry little body lying in that dog house. Rags died of distemper. Not an uncommon end for dogs in those days. His/her end was my introduction to death. I was in the back yard with Mom shortly after Rags died. I asked her about that and she, in a matter-of-fact way, commented that we all die. That was a new concept to me - my first epiphany. I remember the shock I felt upon achieving the sudden insight of my future mortality.

Poochy was the family favorite. We all loved her. Its been more than fifty years since she died, and the only picture of her is one of Don or me sitting next to her in the front yard with a hand on the top of her head shoving forward and distorting how she really looked - not a good likeness. Poochy was not a big dog - 30 or 40 pounds. Her coat was nearly white, but I remember a large brown spot on top her back that ran down each side making it appear like she was wearing a saddle. Her tail was long and full, but not real bushy. Her ears stood up but were not especially long.
Poochy came to live with us shortly after we moved to Sycamore street - probably in 1951. She made a big impression on the whole family even though she lived only two years. She was smart and territorial in the respect that when the neighbor's free-range chickens wandered onto our yard she would chase them off, but would stop precisely at the boundary of our property. She never hurt one or pursued them beyond that imaginary border line.

On the whole, she was a homebody, and never wandered the neighborhood. I don’t recall her ever leaving the yard or crossing the street. One time she did accompany the three of us (Don, Lamar, and Me) along the creek out east of town. We hiked two or three miles along the shore before coming to a swinging foot bridge that crossed the creek. It had rope rails and wooden plank flooring. We climbed stairs to a raised platform. The bridge swung rhythmically back and forth as we crossed the span of water.

Poochy was left on the far bank. We called to and cajoled her to come across to us. She finally took courage and swam the creek. We cheered as she dog-paddled the seventy-five foot span of water. I think it was the first time she had ever gone swimming, and she seemed proud of her accomplishment. We walked back toward town on the opposite side and noticed that she plunged into the creek at every opportunity.

Poochy died in 1952 or 1953 of distemper. I think the whole family cried. I know I did. Mom was standing in the kitchen next to Grandma Frank washing dishes. I remember seeing her shoulders lurch fore and back as she tried to stifle her sobs.

Susie came to live with us as a mature dog. She was the last family dog we had while I was growing up. In ways, hers was the saddest story, because she had a tough act to follow. Susie was a fully grown black Cocker Spaniel given to Dad by somebody at the Moose lodge. I never knew the particulars, but he brought her home about a year after Poochy died.

She was a shy, insecure, little dog, and we thought she might have been mistreated. When she first came to live with us she behaved as if we were going to be hit when anyone approached. She never entirely got over it.

Susie lived with us several years when she developed a fear of our car. That had not always been the case, so we concluded she must have been accidentally bumped, though no one recalled any such occurrence. Whenever our car started her response was always immediate and the same. Her favorite outdoor bed was in the narrow strip of flower garden that lay between the drive and the neighbor’s property. She hurriedly got up, moved around the car, giving it as much space as possible, and trotted into the garage, and would not come out until it had left the drive.

We were never cruel, always fed and took care of Susie, but we never really did right by her. Part of it might have been that Don and I were moving into our teen years and our focus was changing. To us she was another fixture around the house. I don’t remember playing or doing much with her, as neither Don nor I were much attached. We just tolerated Susie's presence. She lived ten years with us, growing old as an outsider in her own home.

Susie did teach me one important thing. It had to do with an incident by which I came to view her in a new light. A large pile of lumber lay in our back yard - old trash waiting to be carried away. One day Susie and I were back there and I climbed onto the pile and it shifted a bit under my weight. Two big rats ran out from under the pile heading toward the field next door. I would have expected Susie to cower in fear, but instinct took over and she sprang into action. I never saw her move so fast. She was instantly on the closest rat, grabbing it across its back and flipping it over her head as she continued, without breaking pace, toward the other. The second rat didn’t get much farther before meeting an identical fate.

I was astonished. I had known her for several years and thought I knew all there was to know about her. She taught me to be willing to look into a dog’s life a bit deeper than what’s on the surface, and that goes for people too.

GO TO: Part 2

Sycamore Street - Part 5, The Store Across the Street

A neighborhood store belonging to Sam and Selma Schofield sat directly across the street. The parking lot in front of the store extended to their house on the east. Their front door opened to that side, directly onto the lot, so there was almost no side yard and only a small section of lawn in front.

A small, one room building, off-centered behind their house and store, was an oddity in that its intended function was a mystery. It had a big front window, and might have functioned as a small office at one time. I vaguely remember attending a Halloween Party early on, but have no memory of it being used for anything other than storage. An orchard or field lay behind the mystery building, and ran some distance, nearly to Wildcat Creek. I don’t remember going back there very often.

The store was one big room and offered the bare essentials: a couple rows of canned goods, bread, milk, sodas and a small case with fresh meat. Selma ran the store with some help from her two daughters, Phyllis and Helen.

Helen was a year younger than Don, her sister, Phyllis, two or three years older. Sam drove a Standard Oil gasoline truck. He was a taciturn man, a bit gruff, and with no imagination that I could perceive, but I never had any meaningful exchanges with him, and can’t fairly comment on his dreams or aspirations.

The west side of Schofield’s place was an open field facing Sycamore. There was the big older house with a large covered front porch to their east, the one demolished a year after we moved there. Two more small houses sat between that and the by-pass. A guy bought one of them and developed a garden area behind he called “Perry’s Patch”, but the Stock and Schofield families were our closest neighbors, the most established.

By the early fifties larger food stores appeared that more closely resemble supermarkets of today, and our family usually went Sunday afternoons for the week’s supply of food. We did not shop at the store across the street other than for an occasional loaf of bread or items we were suddenly in need of. I remember we did buy a lot of cold soda’s at the store: Royal Crown cola’s (RCs) were often preferred by us kids over Coca-Cola because they were twice as big - twelve ounces as opposed to the six in the smaller Coke bottles of the day. They also carried Nehi sodas (orange, grape, and root beer), another common selection. Soda pops in cans did not appear for several more years, and all bottles had a deposit on them, 2 cents, so none were thrown away.

Grandma Frank worked as a cook in several restaurants in Kokomo before her retirement in 1948. Her Social Security income amounted to about $60 a month. She returned to work for a while when one of her previous employers opened a new restaurant, mainly, I think, because she wanted something to do. In 1954 she and Selma Schofield decided to expand the little store to include a drive-in. They pooled their money, purchased a commercial stove, a deep-fryer, a dozen serving trays, the type that attached to the window of an automobile, and opened for business.

Grandma was a good cook, but had no clue about advertising, signage, or marketing in general. Neither did Mrs. Schofield. I recall seeing only one customer. I happened to be hanging out at the store that day and got the job of taking the tray out to the car. I think they stayed open no more than a couple months. Selma got the stove and grandma stored the deep-fryer and trays in the basement. They were still down there many years later.

Phyllis married a local man and moved shortly after graduating form high school. Helen became a nurse and moved to Texas. Selma died in 1986 @ 83 years, and Sam passed some years ealier.

Sycamore Street - Part 4, The Great Chicken Massacre

Dad bought a used chicken coop in 1952, and placed it on the west side of our lot next to the new fence. It was about a hundred feet behind the house and we built a fenced area directly behind. The chickens could access their yard by a small opening in the back side.

The coop, eight by twelve feet, seemed larger at the time. A panel of windows faced the house and could be opened for ventilation. A row of shelves at the back offered nesting places for the mature hens. A layer of fresh wood shavings covered the floor; a new galvanized steel feeder, and two watering trays with gallon bottles on top sat in the middle awaiting the new occupants.

Two big boxes sat on the kitchen floor one evening. Each was about thirty inches on a side, and six inches high. The lids opened to reveal a sea of yellow furry chicks, chirping loudly, cute and cuddly. Each box had fifty chicks. We took them out to the coop that evening and set up lights that hung just above the floor to keep them warm. All was new and clean. It even possessed a pleasant aroma that emanated from wood shavings, but that was soon to change.

Don and I were given the job of caring for the brood. It was not long until the cute little chicks grew into not so cute teenagers, and then into full sized adults. The birds scratched, pecked and crapped all over the place. By August the wood shavings had been supplemented with droppings till there was four inches of "dungwood" on the floor. It was no longer pleasant to enter the coop as a miasma of ammonia rose to assault ones nostrils. Don and I cleaned it in August, just before school started. August is always hot and humid, so the job was a sweaty one, like working in a combination sauna-outhouse.

Most of the chickens were caged and carted off to a local business that did the dirty work. The next time we saw them they were shrouded in white paper and entombed in our deep freeze. We kept a couple dozen females for eggs and one cranky rooster to service them. There might have been another generation of cute yellow chicks the following year - if so, it was the last.

The egg layers stayed on another year or two. There was one hen that came close to being a pet. She had crippled toes that curled to the side, so she walked in a wobbly manner. We could pet her as she was not able to escape us, and in time seemed to accept our friendly gestures. The deformity saved her life. She was selected when we picked keeper hens.

The rooster was not so grateful that he had been selected as a keeper. He was protective of his hens, maybe a bit jealous, so we soon learned to keep an eye on him when we were in the chicken yard. Normally he would jump one of us from behind, beating our legs with his wings as he attempted to dig his spurs in, but he wasn’t averse to frontal attacks. He never managed to do us any harm. It was mainly the surprise attacks that got our hormones flowing.

Dad, Don and I were standing at the fence one day when the rooster took offence at our presence. His neck feathers stood out as he repeatedly collided with the fence while trying to get at us. Dad feigned with his open palm a couple times, teasing him. The next time the rooster jumped Dad grabbed it around the neck - perfect timing. He shook the rooster back and forth several times - nothing hard, more in a playful manner, and then dropped it back into the yard. We thought it was one of the funniest sights we’d ever seen. The rooster, a bit ruffled and confused, momentarily lost his dignity, so the incident served only to hardened his negative attitude.

Late in the summer of 1953 we went to the coop one morning and found all the chickens dead, their bodies carpeting the floor, a sea of white feathers. There was no blood that I remember. They had not shown any signs of sickness, so it was a mystery as to what had happened. The two of us dug a trench that afternoon and buried them, including cripple-toes and the rooster.

That evening, or the next, we heard a ruckus coming from the direction of Stock’s place - chickens excitedly clucking, wings beating, etc., so we hopped the fence, and ran through the orchard to the chicken yard. When we got to the coop we saw two dogs inside. Don grabbed a big coffee can used to feed and water the chickens and thrust it in the small opening where they had gotten in. As soon as the dogs knew we were present they stopped their mayhem, and laid down. It was an eerie scene. The dogs, one about 30 pounds, the other closer to fifty seemed normal and friendly. They lay there amongst the chickens, many dead, some alive but moving about in stunned silence.

What were we to do next? Don and I were the only ones home. There were no adults to ask for guidance - no one to pass the buck to. For several minutes we crouched there periodically looking through the hole. The dogs continued in their Zen like serenity; the chickens had calmed down and begun moving with a guarded caution, seemingly oblivious to their dead compatriots. It was finally decided that I should go home and call the sheriff’s office.

I fumbled through the telephone book, eventually finding the number. I was thirteen, making my first call to authority, and can only image how it went. I remember only a few particulars. I described the situation.

Sheriff‘s Office. “Do you have a gun?”
Me, “Yes”.
Sheriff’s Office, “Shoot the dogs” .
Me (gulp), “I don’t have any bullets”.
Sheriff’s Office, “We’ll send out a Deputy”.
Me. “Okay”.

We waited at the coop for what seemed like an interminable time before a patrol car drove into the Stock’s drive. Two deputies got out and walked over to the coop. They looked in, conversed for a second, then one drew his pistol, opened the door, crotched in a shooting position and fired. The larger dog died where it lay; the smaller one became agitated. The second shot hit it in the foot, causing it to howl and run around for a while. When it settled down the Deputy dispatched it with one more shot. He holstered his revolver; they returned to their car and drove away. It was surreal.

Don and I were in shock. I don’t remember us saying anything afterward. We quietly went home, leaving the dead dogs and chickens in the coop for the neighbors to attend. I felt sorry for the dogs. They were probably family pets out on a night of fun, but were playing a deadly game that cost them their lives.
GO TO: Part 5, The Store Across the Street

Sycamore Street - Part 3, Terror Stocks the Chicken Yard

The Stock’s barn stood on the west side of their house. A long graveled driveway widened at the end into an oval, nearly filling the area between the house and barn. A basketball goal stood at the very end of the oval. A fenced section in front of the barn provided a place for a couple of cows, and another fenced chicken yard lay behind the house. A coop sat in the middle. Usually things were peaceful with the chickens pecking and scratching in the yard, but once in a while death stalked in the form of Mrs. Stock.

A tree log, more than two feet in diameter, functioned as the execution block. The axe was kept with its sharp edge buried in the top. A pair of long nails, driven two inches apart into the center, were bent over slightly and loose enough that they could be easily turned. Mrs. Stock directed her kids, usually Gilbert, to chase and capture chickens. Sometimes Don and I helped. We handed them across the fence to Mrs. Stock who stood next to the block, just outside the gate.

She must have had a lot of practice over the years because she operated with smooth efficiency. I remember her carrying two chickens in each hand. She quickly bound their legs and lay them next to the block. Three or four would be laying there calmly, waiting for their date with the axe. We kids would watch with morbid fascination as she held a chicken by the legs, place its head between the nails and turn them to close around its neck. Then the axe would fall cleaving it head in one smooth practiced stroke. She tossed the body across the fence into the chicken yard and reached for another victim.

The headless chickens would rise, like Lazarus, and start their last frantic, headless run around the yard. Mostly they ran in ever widening circles, sometimes colliding with the fence, sometimes the coop, and sometimes with fellow chickens who had managed to keep their heads for another day. I never thought to time those last runs of the condemned. I was too transfixed watching the moving fountains pumping blood to conduct any scientific experiments. Sometimes they would cover a long distance before loosing balance and fall on their sides, only to quickly rise and continue the race. Eventually they would stumble for the last time, but would continue to run in place, feet churning through air until neither blood nor life were left.

We had chickens ourselves, but never witnessed the carnage that occurred next door at the hands of Mrs. Stock. Nor did we have to suffer the odor that emanated from the bucket of hot water in which she plunged the headless chickens before plucking their feathers. We kids usually lost interest about the time the bucket came out, but we would play with the feet that she cut off after the defeathering. You could pull on the tendons that projected from the severed leg and the foot digits would curl up.
RETURN TO: Part 1
GO TO: Part 4, The Great Chicken Massacre

Sycamore Street - Part 2, The Stock Family

Harry and Edith Stock were a hard working couple, older than Mom and Dad by more than ten years. He was a slim, balding, high energy man who worked at the steel mill, talked in fast, staccato sentences, and seemed always to be in a hurry to get things done. I don’t recall ever seeing him laughing or having fun. He was of German descent and fit the role of the robotic efficient German that movies often depicted during that period.

That characterization is probably not accurate as I was only ten, and have absolutely no memory of any exchanges with him. To me he was just another adult of whom I paid no attention, and he reciprocated with equal disregard of my nonexistence.

Mrs. Stock, a giant of a woman, tall, big boned and broad of beam, wore dresses that hiked up in the back as the material was insufficient to cover her wide rump. Her hair, frequently disheveled as she busily tended to chores, was forever sliding back over her temples shortly after hurried attempts at managing it. She was always friendly and projected a positive, but not exuberant, attitude.

The first time we met Gary Stock he lay in a hospital bed sitting along the back wall of their living room. He survived polio, and had recently been released from a hospital in Indianapolis. He existed in an iron lung for over a year - a big cylinder in which only his head stuck out the front end and billows pumped at the other. The change in pressure within the cylinder forced his chest to expand and contract, pulling air into and out of his lungs, thus helping him to breath.

Polio, also known as Infantile Paralysis, had been a scourge since the 1930’s and reached epidemic proportions in the early 1950’s. There was near panic in the country and The March of Dimes became the first popular fund raising program to fight disease on a national level. Everyone could afford a dime; and millions of them were sent to President Roosevelt after the organization started in 1938.
Gary was sixteen, four years Don’s senior. I remember his chest was flattened on one side from having laid in the same position too long. Scar tissue at the base of his throat marked the location where tubes had been inserted. His body looked like that of a prisoner just released from a concentration camp. Gary’s legs, thin stalks, with atrophied muscles, condemned him to walk in leg braces and use crutches the rest of his life. We did not know him before he was afflicted, but were told he had been a good student and very athletic. We met him just as a semblance of normal life was returning.

Arlene Stock was Don’s age. She played some games with us, but mainly we hung out with Gary and his younger brother. Gilbert, a few months my junior, and Gary became our frequent companions over the next few years, and as Gary got stronger, our games became more active. We played marathon sessions of Monopoly, some in the house, most in their grassy front yard under a big maple tree. We changed rules as we pleased, usually to expedite the game. The “banker” often shuffled and dealt the deeds out at the beginning rather that us waiting to land on property before being eligible to purchase it.

Many a summer evening found us running to hide as the one who was “It” stood with foot on top of a tin can counting to fifty. “Here I come, ready or not” was the refrain after “It” finished the count. “Kick the Can” was one of our favor games. Gary teamed up with a partner, usually Don, and the two “ran to hide” with the rest of us. If and when “It” found the pair‘s hiding place, “It” had to outrun Don, which was nearly impossible. “It” had to run to the can, put his foot on it, and recite the following, “One, two, three, I spy Don and Gary at (name the hiding place). If Don was able to kick the can from under “Its” foot before “It” finished the declaration - then all previously “captured” participants were free to scurry off and hide again. Sometimes poor “It” was “It” all night.

I look back over the sixty years that separate us and realize Gary possessed a toughness of spirit that was not apparent back then. He participated in all our activities, and never asked or expected quarter no matter what the event. We played basketball and football, and sometimes wrestled. Gary asked no quarter, got none, and gave none. His arms and hands grew strong in compensation for crippled legs. If he got one of us in his grip, it was similar to having a snapping turtle grab hold of an arm or leg - not to let go. The poor victim flopped about like a snagged fish.

Epilog:
Mr. and Mrs. Stock lived to ripe old age in their home. Arlene took care of them during many of those years. I believe she began working at the Union Bank shortly after graduating from high school. She worked there for many years, until retirement. I was passing the bank one day and decided to stop in to say hello. That was maybe in the eighties, during a trip home to see Mom and Dad.

I hadn’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Stock for many years, and Arlene encouraged me to stop by the house to say hello, that they would be tickled to see me. I intended to do just that, after all, they lived only two houses from Mom and Dad. But my visit was a whirlwind, as usual, and I got sidetracked, and never made it. Edith Stock died in1992 @ 90, and Harry passed in 1993 @ 94 years. Arlene still lived in the house in 1996 when Mom moved. I expect she is still there.

Gilbert and I often played together during the first years, but attended different schools, and eventually drifted apart after entering high school. Gib had trouble in school at the time I was improving, and fell behind, graduating a year after me. The thing I most remember about him was that he was shorter than me by several inches, and thus contended at a disadvantage in our ball games.

I went off to college, Gib enlisted in the service. Close to ten years elapsed before we met again, I was in the front yard, and heard someone call my name. A tall fellow came lumbering across the yard that separated our two homes. A new house had been built where the old orchard once stood. The guy was real tall - six feet five. The neighbor runt had grown to be a giant. We spoke for a few minutes, caught up on each other’s life and then parted again. Gilbert moved out west somewhere, maybe Colorado. That was the last time I ever saw him.

Gary was our frequent companion for three or four years through the early part of 1950’s, but gradually went his own way. I think he might have been a member of the class of 1952, and would have graduated with them had polio not intervened. I don’t know whether he ever went back to Kokomo High School.

Gary bought a car equipped to operate the gas and brake pedals by hand. He completed training to become a draftsman, got a position and moved to Indianapolis. Don and I went to Indianapolis to play a game of wheelchair basketball while we were in high school. That may have been one of the last times I saw him. I heard he got married, but don’t know if he had any children. Gary died in 2006. He lived to be 72 years old.

RETURN TO: Part 1

GO TO: Part 3, Terror Stocks the Chicken Yard

The Sycamore Street Neighborhood - Part 1

I don’t remember when we moved to East Sycamore Street, but I think of the official date as being that which was written in wet cement by Don and me when the floor of the garage was poured. We etched the words into the top step of the stairwell, “Don & Joe, May 1950“. The stairs descended into the basement at the back of the garage, providing the only access to the house from the garage. The words were still there nearly fifty years later when Mom sold the house in 1996. Like words on a tombstone, they had faded with time, and were barely readable - you had to know where to look.

Don and I changed schools in the fall of 1949, from Riley to Central, but continued to live in the Lafountain Street house for most, if not all, of that school year. I would guess the move happened shortly after we etched our names in cement - probably at the start of summer.

Our new home, located on the east edge of town, sat about a hundred yards past the city limits. A sign there stated “Welcome to Kokomo, Population 38,672”. We were in the country, but just barely. An old orchard lay on our west side. It was sandwiched between our house and the neighbors. The Stock family owned the orchard, and had sold an acre of their shrinking farm to Mom and Dad. They retained four or five acres, most of it unfenced pasture.

The newly constructed U.S. 31 by-pass around Kokomo lay a couple hundred feet to the east. Our driveway ran along the east of the house, passing the side door and porch, before turning into the garage That door was our main entrance; we hardly used the front. To the east, a lone house sat on a small rise overlooking the bypass. Open fields lay between and behind us. We had a panoramic view of the countryside from our porch - at least for a few years.

The Schofield family lived directly across the road. A couple of houses sat between them and the by-pass. The one adjacent to theirs was torn down within a year. I have little memory of it other than it was large with a big front porch - a stately building in its better days. The structure had seemed adequate and so a puzzlement momentarily flitted through my mind as to why a perfectly good house would be sacrificed. I did not waste much time with that conundrum since none of the occupants were our age and thus of no interest to Don and me.Our lot measured eighty feet along Sycamore, and ran north for five hundred feet, nearly to Jefferson, the next street over. The houses on Jefferson sat on normal sized lots that backed up to ours with no indication of boundaries - not a fence in sight. The area stretched toward town for nearly a half-mile, from the by-pass to Calumet Street - one large open field. The land had been pasture with only a few houses dotted along Sycamore, but things started to change shortly after we moved. Dad and Mr. Stock began the sectioning in 1952 when they worked together building a wire farm-fence that ran from Sycamore to the back of our joint properties. The land was partitioned within a few years, new houses appeared on Sycamore, businesses started to spring up along the by-pass. The area changed quite a bit by 1960 and has been completely transformed by now. You wouldn’t recognize it.
GO TO: Part 2, The Stock family

Our Lafountain Street Neighborhood in the 1940’s - Part 6

The Giles’ home at 1214 N. Lafountain was between the McGovern house and Whitaker’s store. Its location is #7 on the satellite photo, but the house shown is a new one. I remember their house as having a lot of traffic. The covered side porch faced Whitaker’s backside and the area between seemed to serve as parking. There was a yard, but I don‘t recall much grass.

I didn't know the number of kids in the family back then. Their ages were spread out, and the family was the largest on the block. I guess there was about seven total. The older siblings, Bill and Fred were well into their teen years and thus didn’t count for much with us. There was a sister named KK - she was somewhere in the middle, and the only female I remember. There were a couple older sisters, Bev and Jean., but I have no memory of them. The two kids in the family that most interested Don and me were Bob and Gerald. Gerald, the youngest in the family, was about a year older than me. He was next to last in the pecking order in our gang - I occupied that lowly position. Bob, a year past Don, was the oldest of our little gang.

Mrs. Margaret Giles, their mother, was a short, heavy set woman. I had limited experience with her, but developed the impression that she was angry much of the time. I expect that unfavorable image was the result of just one incident. She once came down to our end of the block hunting for the boys, had a belt in her hand and grabbed Bob as he tried to skip past her. She pinned him between her thick legs, and swatted him a couple times before he manage to wiggle free to the backside and make his escape. Gerald must have taken the round-about alleyway home.

I have no memory of Mr. Vivian Cloves Giles other than he was slim and of medium height. I barely remember Bill, but Fred, a bit younger, sticks in my mind as the person whose comical exploits continually entertained the Giles family. Gerald and Bob were the dispensers of family legends in the making. Once they were laughing about how Fred had hit a home run in a local softball game, but was called out because he missed second base. The funny part was that he had made the same mistake the week before. Another story was told about Fred joining the Kokomo Police Department and making a career of wrecking police cars.

Bill died in 2005 at 74, Fred passed in 1982 and was about 50 years old. Mr. Giles worked at Delco as a metal polisher until his death in 1957 at 49 years. Mrs. Giles dies in 1963 while living with her daughter, Kay, in Brooklyn, NY. She was 52. Bob lives in Greentown. Gerald moved to Colorado in the 1970s.

Around the corner, on Broadway, lived the last member of our little group. Jim Douglas and his mother, Alice. They occupied an apartment on the top floor of a two story building (#9). They accessed it by way of an outside staircase in the back. The present structure is similar, so it could very well be the same building. Jim might have had a little sister, but I’m not sure of that. Alice seemed young and attractive, but my memory of her is dimmed by sixty years, and her image is no more than a vague reflection.

I was not old enough to be much concerned as to why Jim had no father in the house, nor do I remember any talk. Divorce did happen in those days, and the war had just ended, leaving a number of widows in its wake. Mom liked Alice, and spoke well of her, but I got the impression that she felt sorry for her. They moved about the same time as we did, and I don’t remember seeing them again. I heard that Jim was working as the YMCA Athletic Director in Indianapolis.

The Artis were the only negro family on the block (See: A kid's life in the 1940's - Prejudice). They lived next to Jim and Alice Douglas on Broadway. Their house was in the middle of the block next to the alley (#10). They lived on the opposite end of the block, and I was not allowed beyond Pennington’s barber pole in the early days of my existence, so I didn’t know them very well. I remember there being two or three girls in the family. I recall little about them other than they possessed a certain noble bearing, though I'm at a loss to know how I could identify that characteristic at such a tender age. My good opinion could probably be ascribed to positive talk I heard from others on the block.

A small cabin sat across the alley from the Artis place (#11). There is an old shed presently on the site, and it is about the same size as the one in the 1940s. The building was no more than eight feet wide and a dozen long, but an old lady lived there. I don’t know how long she had been there, we never saw her outside, and I always believed she died shortly after we discovered her presence.

I remember the cabin as having a small front porch and a window on the alley side. There was no apparent bath room, only a bed across the back and maybe a chair. She may have had relatives in a nearby house, but we knew of none. Bob and Gerald Giles told Don and I about her and took us to the window to look in. The room was neat and appeared clean. The old lady was lying on her back in bed. She wore a nightgown, with lacing around her neck. The bedspread or blanket covered most of her body. She did not move. I remember that her hair was neatly combed, and she seemed to be positioned in an orderly way - as on a death bed. We went back maybe one more time. She was in the same position. After that the cabin was empty. We never saw her again.