Some Childhood Memories

             Some Childhood Memories                                                                  

The house where we lived was on the edge of a barrio. It was technically on a corner lot. The street in front was gravel. Every so often Mama and another mother down the street whose child had asthma would collect money from everyone on the street and have the road oiled. The side street was a dirt street and every time it rained Daddy had to use the Model A to pull people out of the mud. They insisted on going through the mud.

I was named after my Aunt Oakie, Daddy's sister whose official name was Hazel Oak Wood. Bobby Joe was named after Daddy's uncle, Joe Young. Daddy always called Bobby Joe "Joe" and me "Pat" because my feet went "pitty-pat" across the floor when I was little, and so everyone in the neighborhood called me "Patty." One family across the street changed it and called me "Betty."

In addition to collecting ladybugs, I collected horned toads. Daddy called them horny lizards, and he said as a small child I called them horny gizzards.

When we had fried chicken for dinner, I ate the gizzard and the legs. Grandma got the chicken wings, especially after her brother got married a second time late in life. He brought his wife to visit, and she and Grandma argued over the chicken wings. Grandma got them, so I thought grandmas always got the wings.