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MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD!

    Chapter One "The Strangers"

By person(s) unknown!

I don't remember being born or a past life like some people.
There are some things that do come to mind as I remember being a child.
     My mother and I lived in a two room house on Harrison Street (it was really small) in the city of Lebanon Missouri from as far back as I could remember, to the night a stranger came into our house. I was about three and I don't remember much about him, but my mother sure liked him. I was already in my crib ready to go to sleep, or maybe I had been awaken. He made himself right at home like he lived with us. Who was this person that had invaded my home at this hour? I'm sure I must have cried but I don't remember, but my mother was crying, so why shouldn't I? I knew my uncles and some of my kin, but he was none of them. He wasn't bad looking as intruders go and he seemed tame enough, but I didn't like how he was handling my mother. I'm sure I didn't sleep well that night with the stranger in the house. As days grew into weeks and weeks into months I learned to accept that stranger as a permenent Fixture in our house and it seemed like all of my aunts and uncles had always known him, he must be ok.
     At three years old I had never known a father, as my father had been at war with the Germans in Europe. So when he appeared out of the darkiness one night I didn't know him. After a short While actually I grew to accept him.
     We lived in that house on Harrison Street until after my brother Joe was born in July of 1947. I remember The man with the little black bag came to our house that day and I think Aunt Viola was there with Twyla (my cousin) but I'm not sure. I remember playing with somebody in the back yard because we were told, "go play in the back yard". That is where we were when my dad came out and said, you have a little brother. What is that? I said. It is a baby that belongs to us, and he is your brother Joe. Boy! We didn't have things like this happen before the stranger showed up. Does this mean I have to share my Mother with another stranger? For what seemed like an eternity after the day Joe came to live with us, it was very hard to get a good nights sleep. He was always keeping us up at night, but we always had to be quite while he was getting his beauty sleep in the daytime. Geez! If he would sleep at night, instead of keeping us awake, he wouldn't have to sleep in the daytime.
     By now the stranger I had been calling Dad for several years was becoming like part of the family and after awhile Joe became like a permenant fixture, although he was still a pain in the butt, and he continued to be well into manhood. If he had only come with a switch so we could turn him off or on.