davidbowerkingwood

Mystery and Danger

There was no air conditioning, no TV, essentially nothing electronic except a Philco radio in the living room. During the summer the inside of the house was not a comfortable place to be; children looked forward to going outside because it was cooler by far than inside. In those days, most houses were built with a crawl space beneath the house which just happened to be the coolest place around and offered the added touch of mystery and danger that would appeal to a boy. Needless to say, I spent many an hour playing with my toys in the cool crawl space under the house.

In the evenings when everyone was home we would usually gather around the piano and sing while my grandmother played the piano or listen to some of our favorite radio shows on the Philco radio. I still have a big box of popular sheet music from the early 1900’s to the Second World war. Although my grandmother could not read music she was very comfortable with the piano keyboard as she played the piano in church and had played in a silent movie theater as a young woman.

There were some good mystery shows on the radio in the evenings such as “Inner Sanctum” and “I Love a Mystery.” We would turn off all the lights and listen to the show by the glow from the dial of the Philco radio; after all, mysteries are much more mysterious in a dark room. I would usually be sprawled out on the floor and sometimes, at a climactic point, my grandfather would grab my leg and give me a good scare.

One of my favorite shows was the Tom Mix radio show and I looked forward each week to his solving of the latest mystery. In those days all shows were broadcast live and you heard the voice of the actor playing the part on live radio. Mr. Mix was in the middle of a mystery named, “The Black Cat Mystery” when one day the announcer came on and said the show was cancelled because Mr. Mix had been killed on October 12, 1940 in a car accident. I was truly stunned by that announcement and have never forgotten that moment.

As I grew older I added roller skates which strapped on to our shoes and stilts, which we would build ourselves, to our boyhood collection of toys. Racing down the sidewalks on either side of the street on our roller skates partially satisfied our desire for competitive activities; seeing who could build and walk on the tallest stilts satisfied another part of our competitive spirit. We got to the point where we could only get on our stilts from the vantage point of a front porch and would tower over our stilt-less friends.

The Anonymous Boy

Baby boy Bower

Before I forget to mention it, I didn’t have a legal name until I was 18 years old. There was much discussion about what my name should be but by the time I was taken home no decision had been made; all my birth record showed was “baby boy Bower.” When I was 18 I wanted to join the United States Naval Reserve and my mother had to get a copy of my birth certificate and only then discovered the error. She filled out all of the paperwork needed and at age 18 I finally had a legal name. I thought it was funny that she did not mention a word of this to me at the time and it was over two years later that I accidentally discovered the paperwork that gave me a legal name at age 18. It appears that the Houston Independent School District accepted me without determining if I had a legal name or I might have had one sooner.

The School

The Third Grade Class Photo

Schools were just like homes, no air conditioning and during the late spring and early fall, the schools were very hot inside. Some classrooms had fans which had been purchased by local parent groups and having a classroom with a fan, especially on the West side of the building was a great privilege. As I think back on my elementary school it has just dawned on me that the older children’s classes were on the West side of the school and the younger children’s classes were on the East side of the school.

The photo above was my third grade class; Miss Hudson stands out in my memory as a favorite teacher. The man was Mr. Elrod, the school principle. I’m the first one on the left in the front row.

Getting to and from school was solely the responsibility of the student and their parents; I walked to school down the busiest street in the whole area and thought nothing about it, that was what everyone did.

In the last few weeks before school was out for summer vacation, the boys, if they wished, could come to school barefooted. This was a big thing to the boys and I cannot recall even one who didn’t want to take advantage of that offer. We all looked forward to coming to school barefooted and saw it as a promise of future freedom from school offered by summer vacation. School was over by the end of May and didn’t start again until September; August was just too hot to open a school with no air conditioning.

The high point of the year was a May-fete which included a Maypole; it was thought an honor for a girl to be selected to participate in the wrapping of the Maypole. There would be singing and refreshments and a generally happy time for all who attended.

Next time church and World War II

The Companion

My earliest memories are of life with my mother and her parents at their house in the Houston, Heights area. I have read that the years between 1 and 7 are very significant years in the development of a child and those were the years my life was greatly impacted by my grandmother, grandfather, and my Aunt Bell, a maiden aunt who also lived with this family group.

Both my grandfather and mother had to work to provide the basic needs for our little family. She was a working, single mom at a difficult time in the history of this country which meant I didn’t see very much of her during the day.

My Aunt Bell was my constant companion with whom I spent many hours growing up. While we had fun together, it was my grandmother who was the authority figure in my life and she ruled with a firm hand. I have many happy memories of that time in my life.

The Giant

One of the blessings of living life before technological developments brought improvements is you had no idea what you were missing! Air conditioning was yet future as were refrigerators. Our phone service was part of a party line which means there were three or four families that shared the same line. Our particular phone had an assigned number of rings and the other parties on the line had their own number of rings. If the phone rang our number of rings it would be for us and we would answer; if it was a different number of rings one of the other families on the party line would answer.

We had an ice box that used real ice to keep things cool. This meant we also had ice houses and ice men who delivered ice to each house on the block. A large cardboard sign had the numbers 25, 50, 75, and 100 printed on each edge. If you needed ice delivered that day you would place the sign in the front window with the required amount of ice showing on top.

Although I cannot swear to this it seems that my very earliest memories of the ice man involved a horse and wagon; later it was definitely a truck but there is a horse and wagon mixed in with those early memories. The visits of the ice man were exciting to me; he looked like a giant coming into the house with a large leather apron which extended over his shoulder and carried a pair of ice tongs with which he could steady the ice on his shoulder and place it in the ice box. When he saw the sign in the window he would stop and take the required amount of ice out of his truck and carry it into the house and place it in the ice box. It took me and several others a number of years to stop calling a refrigerator an ice box.

There was also the all important drip pan under the ice box where melted ice water would drain and required occasional emptying. My grandmother had an ice pick and would chip off ice for ice tea for the evening meal when everyone was home from work.

The Chickens

Our backyard was occupied by chickens and was pretty much off limits to me as a child. My grandmother would go out and feed the chickens every day and gather the eggs they had produced.

On special occasions we would have fried chicken and those of you raised on a farm probably know what that involved. I was both fascinated and horrified by the preparation process that my grandmother always followed when it had been decided we would have fried chicken. For some reason she did not object to my watching the process and, almost in spite of myself, I could not resist watching the gruesome spectacle.

She would select one or two chickens from the flock and take them by their heads and swing them in a circle until their bodies flew off through the air but when they hit the ground they would run around without their heads for a few seconds until they collapsed on the ground. Then my grandmother would pick them up and take them into the house to clean them and pluck off their feathers. In spite of this rather graphic depiction of life and death I still looked forward to fried chicken that night.

Coconut Cake and Spaghetti

There were two other items that left an indelible impression on me, my grandmother’s spaghetti and her coconut cake. She made her own sauce and always added small pieces of green bell peppers to the mix which gave her spaghetti a very special, and to me, a marvelous flavor. The other never to be forgotten item from her kitchen was her coconut cake. She would buy a coconut, drain out the milk for the cake mixing, and break out the coconut meat to shred for the cake. I would always beg for and get a small piece of coconut to enjoy while I watched her make that incredibly delicious cake.

Next time, children having fun