Early years - Part 2

Man, I can't believe I'm back so soon :O) Ok, so I've given you a little glimpse of my neighborhood at Grandma Lyda's white house. Yup, I remember it being white. Uncle Jerry and Aunt Patsy tell me that it was in Redondo Beach. So now we have a town and the time frame is 1959 to 1960 or so.

Chris did suggest that I fill in a little bit about the scary dog part I previously mentioned. There were two or three boys that lived at that house and like I said they had a wide board across the top of the dog pen. I wanted the boys to think I was brave so I crawled across the top with the rest of them to watch the dog growl and bark at us. The pen had tall wooden sides and the dog would run across the pen and up the sides trying to reach us. Unfortunately, the older brother grabbed me and threatened to push me off into the pen laughing and yelling the whole time. My guess is that the pen wasn't all that clean either if you get the drift. I wasn't as brave as I thought I was because I wouldn't even go next door after that.

Uncle Don & Aunt Irene lived several blocks away. Our families spent a lot of time together and had so much fun. I adored both of them but I was also very scared of my uncle. He always seemed so gruff to us little girls. I also hated it when Uncle Don would tickle us. It hurt so bad that I'd be close to tears with us begging him to stop. When he finally would, man did we make a fast exit.

One time Linda and I were watching Dad work on something at Uncle Don's. Linda was probably 3 or 4 and was crouched down watching. Dad looks up and the strangest expression comes across his face. He said, "Linda, why don't you have any panties on?" She said, "I don't like them." Simple as that. Needless to say, Mom was quickly called and the situation was remedied with a stern, we wear panties even if we don't like them!

One of my most vivid memories is the time I got up early in the morning and went into Mom & Dad's bedroom. Linda & I would crawl into bed with them if we got cold, scared or wanted their company. Well, this particular morning it was daylight. I walked over to the bed and started to crawl in and... OMG there was this huge ugly potato bug on Dad's chest. I started yelling my fool head off. Of course, this woke them both up and when I could finally stop blubbering long enough to tell them what I'd seen, the bug was long gone. I had nightmares for weeks about that dang bug running around the house while we were sleeping. I think that might have curbed my desire to sleep with my parents for at least a while.

To Be Continued...