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.