...1949::the beginning...

They said that I was born in my grandaddy’s house. The same house, I suppose, where my daddy lived until he married my mother, and then a little more. That’s the house that blew away in a tornado a year or two later.

I don’t remember it.

>>>This is me, at age 6 months, in April 1950.>>>

After the tornado, all that was left was a chicken house and a pitcher pump and a few odd boards and planks that were used later to build a chicken brooder house or maybe as fencing.

They were farmers, my daddy and grandaddy. The land was owned by Miss Annie Sue MacDonald. She lived north of McCrory, toward Newport. I can’t recall the name of her little community. I’m sure it’ll come to me later!

Grandaddy rented the place, 80 acres I think, giving 25% of what the crops made as his payment. He grew cotton, soybeans and of course corn for the horse and mule feed.

They said also that I was born in late October of 1949. And that’s what my birth certificate says too, so I guess they were right. They said that I was born early and kind of puny. They had to take me to a hospital somewhere and put me in an incubator for a while. But I don’t remember any of that either.

My first recollections are very faint and brief. Daddy and Mother and me had moved from Arkansas to California. Gonna make our fortunes in the Golden State like so many Southerners before us. Two of my mother’s sisters and their families had already moved out there.

But we didn’t stay long - only about a year or so. Just long enough to find my little brother, Butch, out there. His real name is Harland Hiram. That second name is after Daddy. But I really don’t remember Butch in California.


<<<This is Butch, 2 weeks old.<<<

All that I can recall about California is playing in the sand outside someone’s house and getting bit by big ants. That, and Daddy drove a Jeep around where he worked. It had a small box extension on it and I got to ride in it, at least one time.

I learned years later that all this happened close to the city of Indio in Southern California.

© Sarah K. Asaftei, 2009 unless otherwise sourced. Use allowed by express written permission only.