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.