My Life Part 3

 I am not sure of the exact time frame but my father brought home a dog that he got from my aunt. I remember the dog just laying on the floor in the trailer, obviously scared. We named him "Smokey". He was a mix of German Shepherd and....something else. We have speculated on what else he was for years. The prevailing theories are a cross with a coyote or fox. I have read that this isn't normal or even possible, but it had to be one of them. He had a bushy tail, i face like a fox and a tuft of hair that would stand up on his back when angry. He was also smaller than a German Shepherd.

I spent many an hour following that dog around exploring the woods and the area we lived. The dog led me to what I considered a creek back then, which was nothing more than what we call a "run". I spent much time horsing around in the water there. There were no actual neighbors at that time living in that wooded area, we were the first.

Eventually some other families moved out there. A family bought the lot on the east end of the woods, another bought the lot next to my brothers lots that our mobile home sat on and one more family bought the lot next to our lot on the east side. I can't recall which family moved in first, I think it was the family on the east end, but I am not sure.

I remember the family on the east side of our lot had two little girls, the family farther down on the east side had one boy close to my age and two girls on either side of him. The family to the west had one boy about my age and 3 girls.

The family on the west side was a bit different. It was the mother of the children, who worked as a stripper in Lafayette, the four kids and the step father. The kids were left home alone a lot of the time. I can remember hearing the step father spanking the boy on occasion, at my young age it sounded bad, but I really had no frame of reference. 

My Life Part 2

 When I was about four years old my parents bought an acre and a half of property between Dayton and Mulberry Indiana. I can remember going out to look at the property and my father cutting a wire fence so we could get into it.

I remember going to the place where they signed the purchase agreement, the man that sold them the land was named Otis Rubright or Rupright I believe.

The property was a thick wooded area with some pasture behind it. I can recall seeing it for the first time. My father had a friend that had a bulldozer and they used that to push a lot of trees and brush to the back pasture area. I can still see the huge brush pile that resulted. 

One thing that stands out for me was using my little plastic shovel to help my father dig out the hole for the well house. He would loosen the dirt so I could scoop it up. I really felt like I was helping.

My parents had our small mobile home pulled out of the trailer park and taken to the new property. If I remember right as we followed the truck towing the trailer it was weaving all over the road and my parents commented that the driver was probably drunk. I'm guessing they knew the man. Our poor cat was still in the trailer because we couldn't find her before we left, I have no doubt the ride was a bit traumatic for the cat.

My older brother also purchased two lots right next to ours which gave us more area. My parents had the trailer set up on my brothers property so my father could build the house on ours. 

I took to the new surroundings quickly and I still to this day enjoy the woods, there is something calming about nature. This would be where I spent the next fourteen years of my life.

When we moved out there, we were about the only ones around. There was a farm down the road and a few homes scattered up and down the gravel roads, but nothing like it is now.

Some of the recollections that follow may be out of order a bit, but there are many memories of the years I spent growing up there. 

One early memory I have is shortly after we moved there, my family was sitting around the dinner table and it was dark outside. I know my two sisters, my mother and father and I were there and I am pretty sure my brother was too, although i could be wrong on that. I was sitting facing across the table from a kitchen window. I saw something look in the window at me. I remember to this day how it scared me. Of course when I shouted and pointed it was no longer there so it was dismissed as a childs imagination...it wasn't.

It could have been a deer I suppose looking in. I remember it looked like a bear to me, although I am fairly sure it wasn't. It was creepy to say the least.

My Life Part 1

 I have been thinking a lot about the past lately. Remembering as far back as when I was very small, maybe three or four. I remember we lived in a trailer park in West Lafayette Indiana. The park if I recall was 52 Inn Estates. 

I remember we lived in a sixty foot by ten foot mobile home. My parents and the four of us kids. My brother however, went into the Airforce so he was gone a lot but we still had five of us in that small trailer. I remember it didn't seem small at the time.

I remember the trailer park in the summer months was such a vibrant green. I seem to remember a wooded area behind the park and a big dirt pile that we used to play on. When I say we, I am referring to myself and the boy about the same age that lived across the street. He would be I believe, my first friend. His name was Todd. I remember riding our Big Wheels around the trailer park. Those things were what we all wanted but they didn't really work all that well.

It seems odd to think about it now but I remember running around outside there at that young age with someone "keeping an eye on me", which I am sure they were, but in todays environment that probably wouldn't happen.

It's strange the memories that we retain opposed to those we do not. I remember one trailer that had a big lamp in the window that to us little boys looked like a lady standing there. I remember finding a half eaten chocolate Easter bunny in a garbage can and eating it. I remember my cousins living a few doors down. I can remember a trailer engulfed in flames down the street, it seems to me that it may have been my cousins trailer, its possible my memory is faulty on that detail.

I can't remember as I write this for sure where my parents worked at that time. I think my mother worked at Purdue and my father may have worked there as well or maybe he was at the lumber yard at that time. I am sure my siblings know, but this is about what I can recall. I know they both worked because i went to a babysitter. I remember Mrs. King and Mrs. Summers who each would look after me. One of them, I think it was Mrs. King who fed me rice a lot. She kept a big bag under her sink. Maybe that's why I love rice to this day?

My memory of those first four years or so is spotty at best. I vaguely remember being in a bad car accident. My parents were both in the car I think. I know I was in the back seat, no seat belts or car seats in those days. Somebody rammed us in the side, which may have killed us all if it had been one of the cars we have today, but that Oldsmobile was a tank. I can just barely remember crying in the hospital as they plucked glass from my scalp.