Landowners at last.

We arrived at the "new" house in grand style.  Our first act as new tenants was to check out the place.  It consisted of 4 rooms and a kitchen area across the back.  Enter the front door of 709 Strong Street in Nickerson, Kansas.  Nothing was to be brought in until the room was "repapered".  This was always the first thing that happened when you took possession back then.  Wall paper has always fascinated me.  You first measure the room and figure out how many square feet of paper you need.  This leads to another conundrum.
You figure how many square feet of paper it will take to cover all four walls of the room.  It matters whether or not it needs to "match" but only when you go to buy it. For the record it usually does need matched, so there you are.  Ceilings were about 10 or 12 feet up there in those days.  This is something I never understood.  No one ever grew to 6 feet in those days, so why the ceiling needed to be so high was more than I could fathom.  These rooms were about 12 x 12.  So 12 x 12 x 4= 576 square feet.  Wall paper is sold by the single roll, but is packaged in one big roll that is called a double roll.  So say a single roll contains 36 square feet then a double roll would contain 72 square feet.  So this job would need 16 single rolls, or 8 double rolls.  Now you have to add a roll or two extra for "in case ofs", and there are a lot of those. 
See this is what happens, you lay a bunch of newspaper, or old towels or sheets or something on the floor.  You then measure you very first strip of wall paper.  It will need to be cut a few inches longer than the wall height, in case you measure wrong.  Then you take the roll and the next strip will be "matched" to the first strip, and make it just a little longer in case you are off a little.  You will do this for the first wall.  So there they lay face up.  One person on each end and flip the whole pile so it is now backside up.  Now the fun begins!  And I really to love to hang wallpaper.  Well, I used to. Little old for that crap now.
The step ladder is brought in and placed in the first corner.  The paste is mixed and the paste brush laid out.  The decision is made that Father will climb the ladder because he is the only one that can be trusted that high up in the air.  The paste is applied to the back of the first strip being sure to "get the edges good."  This is a job for Mother.  The strip is then folded and readied for transport up the ladder.  The top of the strip is folded to the middle paste sides together and then folded back up so the very top edge is free.  The bottom is folded accordion style with the paste sides together leaving a strip that is now about 7 feet long.  Father slides his left arm under the middle of the strip and catches the top free edge and up the ladder he goes.  The first piece is hung in the corner, and then they realize that the room is not "plumb" so an adjustment is made while a string is hung from the ceiling.  The first strip is crucial because if it is not straight, the whole room is "off".
Father pats the first strip overlapping the top where it meets the ceiling.  This is folded down straight and cut so it butts nicely against the ceiling.  While he is doing that Mother is "matching" and us kids are patting and smoothing.  The brush is then brought into play and the strip is smoothed and all bubbles worked out and then Mother cuts the bottom straight with the mop board.  We admire our "new wallpaper" and then in a frenzy we attack the job of "finishing what we started."  With all of us working it is done in just a few hours.  Many hands make light work!
The moving and the papering took most of the day, so we did not completely unload the belongings that night.  We did bring in the beds.  Two for the front bedroom and one for the middle bedroom.  One bed in front for Father and Jake and one for Josephine, Donna, Mary and me.  Mother had the other bedroom with Dorothy.  Sometimes Mary slept in there also since she was "almost" a baby.  Sometimes Mary slept with Father.  And mostly Jake slept on the floor behind the stove.  Sleeping was just something that had to be done in a prone position.  Nothing special about that chore. 
Now I am sure sometimes Mother and Father were at least more than casual acquaintance's, but I was never privy to that!  (Just want to clear that up.)
So ended the first day at the Bartholomew residence on Strong Street.  We would live there many years and make many memories, but tonight we were tired and the front room was papered and we were in our own beds.    So as I lay in my bed I began to worry about what we would have for breakfast since there was no stove to cook on and no pans were inside the house.  While far away in another place kids were dreaming of sugar plums and stuff like that I was dreaming about survival.

Ring! Ring! Oh hell! Sorry about that.

Mother worked at that time cleaning houses for people in town.  Mrs. Hawk, the dentist's wife, Mrs. Massey, and I forget who else.  Our means of communication was a black telephone that was in a wooden box that hung on the wall.  To call some one you needed to pickup up the ear piece and then turn the crank on the side.  This would ring in the telephone office down town and the "operator" would put a plug, the other end of which was attached to her head piece, into the circuit which was lit up and say,  "Number please."  The person calling would then say the number which was usually two digits.  Later it changed to three.  The operator would then plug the wire that came from your number into the number you were calling.  And thus a call was connected and would ring and some one would answer.  I know all this because we took a tour of the phone company.  You could call it a tour if you want, but that place was so small that we could only get in two or three at a time.  The operator set on a little stool and could connect the whole town without having to move.
At that time there were "party lines."  A party line meant something way different then than it does now.  Take our phone.  We were on a party line with the Rumble' s and several other people.  Only rich people could afford private lines and we were far from rich.  The way the calls were handled was this, each person on the party line had their own distinct ring.  Ours was two longs and a short, Rumble's was one long and two shorts, and so forth.  We knew when someone got a call cause it rang in all the houses on that party line.  These means of communication were rather primitive, but they did work and they called for a certain etiquette.  If we wanted to place a call, we picked up the receiver and first listened.  If some one was talking, the line was in use, so we should hang up and try later.  If the line was free and we wanted to call some one on our party line, we simply turned the crank and rang their ring.  Like Rumble's.  We rang one long and two shorts and Mr. Rumble would answer.
Or if you are little kids home alone and bored you could pick up the phone and "listen in" which was not only rude, but illegal.  So one day we were rather at loose ends and the phone beckoned to us.  Now I say "us", but I am pretty sure it was Jake and me.  Donna may have been involved.  So we kept picking the phone up and some one was talking to some one else.  We may have tittered and they heard us.  This made it more exciting.  We were eavesdropping and they did not know who we were (or so we thought at the time.) or where we lived.  Then we discovered that if we turned the crank the phone made a very loud noise in their ear.  They were getting very upset and made threats about turning us in to the phone company.  We knew there was no way the phone company could track us down.  After a while they got tired of our shenanigans and just hung up.  So we moved on to more exciting things like wallowing in a mud hole.
And then mother came home.  So and so up the road had stopped her and told her about what her babies had been up to while she was at work and Josephine was laying around some where reading.  We, of course, pointed at the younger kids.  They did it, not us.  They were just playing and we were doing our chores and knew nothing about that.  Those kids were just trying to get us in trouble.  Mother had not forgotten when we hid behind the tree and threw rocks at every car that went by and we had tried to blame them innocent babies for that too.  I began at that time in my life to think that mother was clairvoyant and I resented those little kids because they were always trying, and succeeding, to get us into trouble.  Had we had the mindset, we might have murdered them and hid their bodies in Bull Creek, but we were just a couple ornery kids trying to find our way in the world with very little actual guidance.  Back then kids just kind of raised themselves and fathers were mainly "head of the family" by sheer virtue of having been born men.
And so I close the door on the Ailmore Place and lock it against intruders.  There are things I can see that when I went back years later were not there.  The long walk to town was maybe four blocks.  The big bridge over Bull Creek is actually a culvert.  The big beautiful home of Roy Keating, the pig farmer was just a little house with a couple of sheds out back and a couple pig stys.  The Rumble's house had collapsed and where had they gone?
I think not long after the big storm, Doc Ailmore died, so we were on the move again.  I remember that my dad had horses and a hay rack and a hay wagon.   These were pulled by a team of horses.  I was too young at the time to realize that the tractor was an up and coming thing and horses were on their way out.  All of our belongings were loaded on these two conveyances with the kids thrown on last and the horses pulled us through the edge of town to the other edge and to our new home. This one my father would buy.  We had not seen the house until we pulled in front of it and began to unload our precious belongings. 
I had way more important things to worry about because I was in school and I had to learn my ABC's and numbers and lots of other really important stuff.

Still on the Ailmore place.

Just read the last post I made before I wandered off to do my craft shows.  We were on the Ailmore place and had just had our cyclone.  I have a few more memories I need to share there and then I will move on. 
I mentioned Bull Creek being right by our house.  I am going to try to figure out my directions here.  Sorry, I got confused, but if you want to look just click here and you can figure it out.  Just know that the Arkansas river runs on one side of Nickerson, Cow Creek figures in there some where on the other side and Bull Creek is a little furrow you can step across most of the time and has no water in it at all.  But it is, or was at the time, a whole different story in the Spring.  I think it is still the same because I used to make several trips down there every year and some times I like to take 96 Highway just for a change of scenery.  Starting about in Rice County the sheriffs and volunteers would be out to make sure that when cars crossed the flooded parts of the road there were no casualties.  Just one of the hazards of the area.
I recall once leaving our house and walking to check on the Shultz family, which was about 3 blocks away, and wading water all the way.  As quickly as the floods came, they receded and we were left with puddles of water in all the low places.  So we built little boats and sailed them in the puddles.  As I recall, our house was set up off the ground so the water did not get inside.  Most of the houses there were that way.  I do not recall having a pet at the time, but I sure there was an old mangy dog around some where.
Back somewhere in the far recesses of my mind I can recall my father "pulling a prank" on friend of his or at least on his wife.  Her name was Salina.  I think she was married to John Britan, the guy my dad share cropped with for many years.  All I remember is waking up and hearing them laughing and John saying "Just look at the egg my chicken laid!  I am going to take it to the newspaper."  Then they laughed some more.  "Damn, Rueben, where did you get that turkey egg?"  I do not know if anyone ever told Salina Britan that her chicken did not lay that egg, but it was a source of amusement at gatherings for a very long time as it quickly circulated through the town, and I am remembering it over 60 years later.
There are a lot of things I remember on the Ailmore place.  Some one up the road had a car and took the children to school.  They would stop at the end of our drive and let us ride with them if we were out, but if not, then we walked to school.  There was a young man about Jake's age that sometimes hung out at the house, but he preferred to hang with us girls.  Mother, Dad and Josephine would run him off the place.  I did not understand then, but now I think I do.  I thought they were just being mean because he was my "friend", but looking back, that was pretty strange.
The man right across Bull Creek on the way to town raised pigs.  Right now his name escapes me    ( Roy Keating) but some times dad would go do chores when the man left for a few days.  We always went and gathered the eggs.  That was really nice because he had a special little shed built for the eggs to be taken into, cleaned and put in crates.  Our hen house had blown away and our chickens just laid where ever they felt like laying.  Oh, but there is nothing more terrifying than reaching under one of those hens to get the egg.  I lived in mortal terror that I would be pecked.  Still afraid to do it now, so I just don't have chickens.
Jake always wanted to be a mechanic.  I recall once he wanted me to blow in the gas tank while he looked under the hood.  Then he had the bright idea to syphon the gas out of the tank and coerced Donna into sucking on the hose to get it started.  She had no idea what she was doing so she got a big mouth full of gas.  Lordy, mother liked to beat that Jake to death!  And we had to make Donna throw up and maybe there was another trip to the medical place in Hutch.
Lots of gaps in my memory back then, but remember I was very young.  Life back in those days was straight out of a John Stienbeck novel; poverty in it's purest form.  But everyone was in the same boat, the war was just over, and better days lay ahead.  I know cause we heard the adults say so and adults knew every thing!  But we were about to move again.  I had been born on one place, moved to another and was on my way to a third.  I was 7 years old and the world lay before me like an open oyster, and sorry to say, smelled about the same...a little fishy!

From Vista to Windows 8 and so to the nut house!

Oh, I am way to old for the leap I made today.  I went Sunday, as you read, and came home with a new computer.  I finally decided to pull it out and hook it up when the other one completely refused to get online today.  So first I made a carrot cake and then to the business.  Have you seen Windows 8?  That is the one that opens with all the apps on little cards and you just take your finger and throw the one you want to the forefront and the rest disappear.  And when you are done with that one you throw it out and pick another one.  Not me.
I decided to go the mouse route as opposed to buying a new monitor for $300.  So I kept jacking with it and missing my AOL and I do hate that Bing.  I like Google and IE.  After many hours, a sugar free Pecan Pie and lots of coffee I am setting here writing you on my blog which I just found and added to my AOL toolbar which I also found and installed much to MSN's chagrin.  I feel like a genius!
So that is it for this little update.  I look forward to being back in my little rut after Thanksgiving since the craft fairs are over. 
Right now I have to go down and hook up the old computer and find the notepad and get all the addresses that I have in there so I can find all the places I used to go to.  Going to be a long night!

Customer Service could be the key to our salvation!

After much wringing of my hands and holding of my head and balancing of the sorry little checkbook, I decided that a new computer is a definite must.  Since I needed ink anyway and I was in Pueblo West instead of at church I decided to stop at Staples.  I always go there when I need anything since I get a 2% discount when I use the American Express card and they usually seem pretty friendly.  So I whipped the little gray Ford into a parking place and went inside. 
I saw the counter where they work on computers and fix them and thought I would stop there first.
The man was busy with a young lady so I went over and got my ink.  Since he was still busy, I went to take a look at what they had in the line of computers.  Not much on the one end and since the clerk was busy visiting with another clerk and a customer(?) I had to walk around another counter and come in from the back side.  No problem since I can still walk.  Not much on that end either and no one in sight to ask without interrupting, which I do not like to do.  So back to the repair counter where that clerk was still talking with the young woman.
Since I was meeting someone for lunch I thought I better just pay for the ink and go.  No one at the service desk.  No bell to ring that I could see.  I stood there for 2 or 3 minutes and finally decided that I must be invisible since I had been in the store at this time over 10 minutes and had neither made eye contact with any one, nor been acknowledged in any way.  Rather then just walk out with the ink I left it lay on the counter.  Bet they think they have ghosts there.
After lunch I called my step daughter who had recommended Best Buy.  Yes she would meet me there.  Since I was closer I got there much quicker.  Immediately a clerk was by my side.  In very short order I had gathered the things I wanted.  Well, not really what I wanted since I am still on Windows Vista and that is now obsolete and Windows 7 soon will be.  I got an HP tower with Windows 8 and a new monitor and a mouse.  Oh, and the tri-pack of ink that matches the one I left at Staples.  No step daughter yet, but I am a big girl.  I managed to buy almost $500 worth of stuff and put the points on her account.  Unfortuneately, I am now getting her email and I do not know why, but I suspect.
Business all done and he loaded all this on a low cart, thanked me and pointed to the door.  I am sorry, but at that moment I could have cried.  I really expected to be helped to the car.  Or at least asked if I would like help.  So I dropped my purse on the cart and started that way.  In a computer store there are lots of obstacles, but I made it to the door.  Getting across a rough place in the concrete and keeping my load from jumping off the cart took about all this 71 year old broad could do to accomplish.  In all fairness a couple clerks looked at me as I rearranged the load so as not to lose the monitor on the ashphalt.  As I reached my car, my step daughter pulled up.  She helped me put it in the car.  Very happy about that since my back has been crippling me for 3 months and is just now getting so I am not in constant pain.
I explained to her that this was not right.  An old woman should have been offered a little assistance and not just sent out the door with $500 worth of stuff and hope she could make it to the car without being mugged or dropping the whole thing.  She was in agreement with me on that.
I brought my stuff home and she called to tell me that she had discussed this with the manager and he had said. " It is Corporate policy that the clerk not go to the car with the customer unless they are ASKED by the customer to do so. "  She told them they might want to rethink that one.  I am not a person that ASKS for help.  Never did it; never will.  I go to the grocery and they ask me if I would like help out to my car.  When I went to Staples a trip or so back and bought a printer, they loaded it for me.  Every where I go I get offers for assistance, but not at Best Buy.
So the crux here is this...businesses are suffering because people are not buying.  What a surprise!  I go to the store and finding a clerk is usually an effort in futility.  I gather my whatever I want and go to the counter and maybe someone is there to ring me up.  A couple weeks ago I had made an appointment to see someone.  On the day of the said appointment I received a call that they could not keep the appointment.  What am I to do?  Well make an appointment for next week.  I am busy next week.  Well, you have to make one then.  No I don't.  Here let me just hang up and call someone who will see me this week.  And I did.
I rarely if ever shop at Safeway any more.  Know why?  I stand in the checkout line and wait.  I wait while the clerks visit with each other and whoever will listen to them talk about the grandkids or the Bronco's, or what ever.  The last time I went there and managed to drop over $80 and never made eye contact with the clerk, was the last time.  King Soopers has a new policy; you do not have to wait in line and they will open another register if you do.  In and out and they actually make eye contact and say a few kind words.  And that, my friend, is called Customer Service.
It amazes me that they call us old people crabby, bitchy and whatever else comes to mind, but you know what?  After 70 years of living on this big green ball, I have decided that I am going to be treated with a miniscule amount of respect or I will take my little pile of money some where else to someone who will treat me with kindness.  I can not help that I got old, what I can help is what businesses I will support.  At this point in my life if I have to ASK you to help me, you may just find yourself standing at your counter with a tri-pack of ink, or a basket full of groceries.  I have decided to set the computer up because I seriously entertained the idea of returning it and telling them why.  Instead I will not return to Best Buy for anything.
As a matter of fact, when I buy something online, I immediately get a receipt and a thank you letter.  It is a form letter, but there it is.  Then in just a few days, whatever I ordered is delivered to my house and the UPS man or mailman or whoever brought it smiles and asks me how it is going.  Then I get another letter that asks if everything was satisfactory.  More of that stuff called Customer Service.  Brick and mortar stores could learn from the faceless business men and women online.





 

If you wonder where I went...

First was the Church Bazaar at First Congregational United Church of Christ.  That tied in nicely with the Handwoven Holiday at the Vail Hotel, and now I am out in Pueblo West for 4 days at the Jingle Bell Boutique.  And while all that is going on, I am selling like crazy on eBay.  Christmas season is upon us you know.  Sunday will wind up the craft sales and I will be left with just the eBay stuff, but I am making good use of my time.  House taxes and insurance along with the car insurance will pretty well wipe out my meager savings.  That and the fact that my list that I buy for went out the window when it reached 45 recipients explains my poverty.
I decided many years back to just give the kids soap and lotion and maybe a little something personal.  So usually when Santa pulls out of town, my cupboards are bare.  Had a granddaughter call the other day and say she wanted to come for a visit.  Sorry, dear girl, but I am tied up and can not get loose.  I do hate to do that, but I can only be in one place at a time.  Next week is Thanksgiving and then the Weavers Guild meeting and in the meantime I need to get ready for World AIDS Day.  And all the time eBay marches onward.
I do enjoy doing the Jingle Bell Boutique.  I see people I missed at the Vail and others, I just never get the chance to see.  I did not realize that the Jingle Bell has been going on for 37 years right there in Pueblo West.  It has been held in various locations over the years, but it is unique in that each person has thier own specialty.  Like I do the Soap and Lotion.  Helen does the crochet and knit.  Sue does canned fruits, jellies and such.  Mary Jo does breads, toffee and peanut brittle.  Booths, Beech's and Mary Petersen are wood workers.  Marjorie used to do the baskets, but she retired.  Rikki does quilling.  And we have a couple new ones this year, but I forget thier names.  I get to sell my books cause they never had an author before.  Last night they all went to the Hen House for supper, but I could not go cause I have the geese waiting at home, you know.  And the dogs and the neurotic cat.
So just be patient and I will be back into my routine here very soonly.  And I  will have a full report on World AIDS Day happenings here pretty soon.  And, yes Amy, I will get you cookies sent before Christmas.

 

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Cyclone, Tornado and Bull Frog!

For some ungodly reason, I woke up at 3:33 this morning and after laying there I decided to get up and face the world.  What I had on my little pea brain at that time of morning was thinking about my childhood.  After we left the "Stroh" place we moved to a place called the "Ailmore" place, again on the edge of town.  I remember it a little better since I was a little older.  It was a wood frame house with 4 rooms; kitchen complete with a wood stove and a sink that drained into a bucket, a front/dining/family room, a bedroom with 4 beds like a bunk house, and a back porch.  We did have electricity, I think.  Our water source was about 15 feet out the back door.  Jake and I were in charge of keeping the stock tank pumped full of water for the horses and the milk cow and water brought into the house for drinking, cooking, cleaning  and what ever else  was needed.
Josephine was in charge of us, as usual.  Her job was to clean the house and make sure we did not get into trouble.  One day mother had left us money to go to the movie.  I think it cost 7 cents each.  Only Jake and I could go.  So off we went.  I had on my good dress.  In those days a wardrobe consisted of a dress and a good dress.  Good dress was for town and church.  We never wore shoes in the summer.  We were bought a pair of shoes before school started and we better hope those stayed the right size until the ground thawed out in the spring.  Of course we handed our clothes and shoes down to the next kid, but remember I was a girl and Jake was my "hander down".  I digress.
So off we went.  Between the house and town was a bridge that spanned Bull Creek.  Cow Creek was farther from town and much bigger, but Bull Creek fed into it.  Bull Creek carried just enough water to make seining for Crawdads a lucrative chore.  We would take the big wash boiler which was used to heat water for the laundry and a seine and catch a bunch of crawdads.  If we were real lucky we would catch big ones.  We pulled thier tails off and boiled them.  Then we would remove the shell and eat the meat.
  (It was shaped and tasted much like a teeny, tiny, little bitty lobster, I think.  But today was movie day!  I must add here that since those days I have tasted crawdad and it was not nearly as good as back in those days when daily fare usually consisted of potatoes, corn, beans and that sort of thing served up with a loaf of bread that cost less than a nickle at the store.) 
As luck would have it we were almost over the bridge when Jake spotted a big Bull Frog.  Nothing would do but to catch that bull frog.  Down the bank we scrambled and after that frog!  He was fast, but we were faster!  We had visions of froglegs soup for supper!  Mother would be so proud!  At last Jake stood in front of me with the biggest bullfrog in the world clutched in his two hands.  Now what?  He was covered with mud.  I had not fared much better myself.  A plan emerged.  He would go down the creek a ways where the water was not so muddy and I would carry the bullfrog in my skirt back to the house and have Josephine put it in something.  Then I could put on my old dress and come back and we would go on to town.  Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men some times go awry.  And such was the case with the bullfrog in the skirt.
As I approched the door, Josephine ripped it open with her eyes very, very wide and her mouth drawn up in a tiny, tiny, very tight scowl.  "What have you done?"  Ah, but my pride of what I carried could not be contained as I stepped in the door and opened my skirt.  "Look what we can have for supper! " And you already know what happened next, don't you!  Mr Bullfrog saw his opportunity for freedom and leapt from my confines. Josephine screamed and ran around in terror ordering me to catch that monster and get it to hell out of the house.  Ah, that I could, but he was very good at escaping.  Even better than on the creek bank.  Under the bed, and as soon as I got there, he was out and under the dresser.  By this time Josephine had found the broom and was urging me onward.  What followed has probably scarred me for life,  but to make a long story short, eventually the frog was caught and set free outside.  I think the cat finally killed him.  Jake got tired of waiting and returned to the house just as the frog was launched out the front door.  He spoke not a word.
Josephine confiscated our money and the movie trip was cancelled.  My dress was removed and I was scoured clean in the stock tank with the cow and horses looking on in bewilderment.  Life returned to normal.
Across the road lived two sisters.  Well, we thought they were old maids, but they probably were not that old.  We used to hide in thier forest and watch them set in their back yard and drink tea.  Wasn't that exciting?  On up the road lived Mr. and Mrs. Rumble.  Mr. Rumble always wanted me to sing Buttons and Bows and told me that when I learned all the verses he would give me a nice shiny dime.  Then he would hold it up for me to see.  I dreamed of that dime all the time we lived in that house.  I could not learn the words because I could only hear part of the song sometimes and isn't like now when I can type it in the browser and there are the words.  I remember him.
There was a family friend named Ed Chrisman.  He and dad share cropped for many years.  This one particular time I recall, dad had gone off drinking in Hutch.  Mom was home and Ed Chrisman came by to see him.  A storm was expected and he did not want to leave a woman with a bunch of kids there alone and no one knew when dad would return.  So we closed all the windows and waited.  Jake and I went to the pump house to fill the tank before the storm, so we were out there when it hit.  We felt the shed begin to shake so we turned and ran as fast as we could into the house where mother waited with the door open. 
I still remember that wind and how scared we were.  And when it was over and we went outside it was like a war zone.  The haystack that had been so neatly piled for the winter was every where.  The only building left standing was the house.  The barn was gone.  The hen house gone and the chickens wandering around like little lost souls in the yard.  The tool shed was in shambles and the old milk cow lay dead in the field.  The horses had escaped and were Lord only knows where.  Later dad would come home and go "round them up."  We learned later that it had been a cyclone.  I think a cyclone and a tornado are basically the same thing, but I am not sure.  There was a lot of controversy over the proper term at that time.  I just couldn't see what difference it made, the results were the same.  I guess it is just like when you are in total shock, you reason things out and put all the facts in their own little places and then you can make sense of the situation.
I started school on the Ailmore place.  First grade and Miss Donough.  She later married Mr. Breece.   The circus came to town and I had a free ticket.  When I went to the circus and presented my ticket, the man told me I had to pay 5 cents.  I was devastated.  Mr. Breece stepped up and gave the man a nickle.  I was so happy and every day after school I stopped by his house to see if I could do some chores to pay him back.  He always said no and finally I stopped asking, but I never forgot.  I often wonder if I have ever done anything as I wandered through this life to make some little kid remember me.
 Funny the things that stick in your mind as a kid.