I was four years old. Daddy’s job has him transfer to help survey in the East Texas oil field area. Initially we moved to a rental home on West Sixth in Tyler, before at around age 6 moving to Wiley Street. That latter move took my life in a very different trajectory which I’ll talk about later. But the Sixth St address left me with fond memories. My best friend there was Becky Biggs who lived across the street. Her dad was a barber during the day, and he worked on bikes in his spare time. The two of us were known to create mischief on occasion. Like the day we threw rocks at passing cars. Who knew one would circle around, and as I headed for my house, he followed close behind to speak with my parents. One scolding, an apology, and a butt whipping later, I got the message. I hoped they didn’t call Becky’s parents as well. I suspect they did though. She never said.
One day we were playing out beside Becky’s house. The weeds were tall, and our imaginations were full. Suddenly I looked down, and there was an alligator staring at me! We both ran screaming to her Dad. He came around, hoe in hand to investigate. We stood at a safe distance, still shaken a bit. Carefully he entered the weed grown space…
Then…
He started laughing! I’m talking a deep full laugh. Uncontrollable belly laughter that seemed to never end and we looked at each other and wondered how he could laugh in the face of a treacherous gator! Then he explained… Kids, this is no gator. It’s a lizard. It won’t hurt you at all. It seems the imagination can magnify one’s vision considerably. A story that would live forever.
So did I mention he was a barber. My barber. For years after that, I’d enter the barbershop and quietly cringe as he replayed the story for everyone there in the shop that day. Oy.
Two other things come to mind from our time on Sixth Street. Going over to Joey Lowe’s place and I strangled on a tough piece of asparagus. To this day I can’t put it in my mouth without an instinctive gag reflex. The other event was, well, HUGE.
Word was spreading through the neighborhood. In those days you knew all the neighbors and they knew you. We’d get together for regular social events as a neighborhood. We all came together when the doctor living across the street came home missing a leg from the war in Korea. Not like now when I know the tenants downstairs and the woman who runs the daycare across the street, but no one else on my block. Anyhow, we all rushing to a neighbor’s home three houses up from us. Inside everyone was gathered in rapt amazement staring at a small screen maybe 12 inches or so, watching people on the screen talking as we stared in amazement. This was the very first tv any of us had ever seen. So okay, we had radios. My dad even had a record making machine with which he had recorded me singing Tennessee Waltz when I was three. But this was something we couldn’t have even imagined. In retrospect, I can see both the good and the bad. I wonder if our attention spans began to shorten around that time. In my lifetime between television written for immediate gratification rather than a slower character development and information bombardment without sufficient context, it seems for humanity to have become an issue. I recall many years ago, a speaker at a Dickens festival, his grandson actually, said his grandfather could not be published today. Short and concise is ever the demand, sacrificing delicious pages getting to really know the characters. Still, our eyes were opened to a larger world in our small provincial town of Tyler. Things would never be the same.
One other thing happened, and I would be remiss in not telling that story. Momma got pregnant, and soon enough after, she had a little boy named Marlowe. Self-disclosure here. I wanted a sister. But when he came it was just as well. I had a brother, and despite being his pain in the derriere throughout our childhood, I love him dearly. The stage was set for our move to a new home in Tyler’s south side. To be continued in another post.
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