November 2

My reading level was such that many of the church youth took it up as a challenge to try to trip me up. Evidently some of them were convinced my dad had coached me into memorizing things so they would bring a current issue of a newspaper or magazine and thrust it in front of me. Phonetics prevailed, of course. Actually, I think memorization would have been equally impressive! But I’m not sure I actually comprehended at first, although that grew with time.

My parents were and still are very good people. They took the Biblical admonition of ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ seriously, but I was able to keep the actual spankings to a minimum. That is probably why I remember them so well. It wasn’t a daily or weekly occurrence, which I am sure that they would attribute to following Biblical principles. One morning my dad reminded me to be sure and cross the street at the intersection as I walked to first grade. I didn’t do this, although I don’t recall disobeying him on purpose (more likely just being scatterbrained). Unfortunately for me he was watching me from the back yard and yelled for me to return home. He gave me a thorough belt-spanking in the garage and sent me on my way. He wasn’t mean or angry about it, and I don’t recall being particularly traumatized, but I’m sure the lesson sunk in to my psyche. As I think back, I’ve generally been a law-abiding citizen and model street-crosser ever since…..well, at least until my trip to New York in 2002. More on that later.

When we first moved to Big Lake we lived in the house owned by the church, commonly referred to as a parsonage. Churches, especially smaller ones, have long used this as a way to help offset their smaller budgets. The church owns the property and it is generally considered an investment, the pastor doesn’t have to deal with a house payment. Unfortunately the idea of “we already gave him free rent” comes up a lot in budget meetings. This is one reason I grew up rather poor, although I never thought of myself that way. It was several years later before my place in the social status became painfully clear. In the meantime I was oblivious to my plight.
The home was much larger than the Seminary apartments we had previously lived in and my parents filled it up using the tried and true technique of the charge card. Our dining room and living room furniture were brand new, straight from J. C. Penney. Forty-two years later they are still struggling with their budget and debt, having maintained a rather steady debt level over the years. The back yard was fenced in with cinder block, the top block being rounded. This made for fairly easy climbing, after which you could walk down the top of the fence like a tightrope artist. It required a bit of a jump, but I think in reality it was about four feet high.
Of course, what back yard is complete without a dog? Our first canine came in a box on Christmas day. It was generally understood that the dog was for me, but Patches was generally everyone’s pet. He nipped my ear and drew blood as we were playing on the carpet but it was an easily forgivable infraction. Patches was the source of much enjoyment over the years. He had the run of the yard, and we fed him well, and we gave him a pretty good amount of attention. But two memories stand out. One was when I had his chain tied off in the front yard and somehow lost track of him. We found him later, dangling off of his leash, suspended off the ground. He had jumped over the fence and the chain wasn’t long enough for him to get back to the ground so he wore his paws bloody trying to get back up on top. Thankfully the leash didn’t choke him to death. He spent a couple of weeks lying in his bed recuperating. I felt so bad, imagining his pain. But soon he was back to normal.

The other memory, the main one I have of him, is when he was taken from me. I came home from school one day and he hopped over the fence to greet me in the front yard. I sent him back over the fence and went inside. By the time I fed and watered him out back he was there. A few minutes later the neighbor showed up at our door, red in the face, mad. She yelled at me about keeping our dog in our yard. I didn’t understand at the time, but evidently Patches had jumped over the fence and attacked the neighbor’s chihuahua, taking a strip of fur off its back. My parents talked to her and in the end it was understood that in order to avoid legal action or, possibly worse in my parents’ eyes, a loss of reputation, we had to get rid of the dog. My dad at least gave me time to say goodbye. I remember sitting on the back porch, crying my eyes out, apologizing over and over while Patches was rather oblivious and just wanted to play. It would be the last time that I owned a pet for almost thirty years.

Being a small town in the late sixties children were still allowed to roam rather freely without fear of abduction. I would often walk to the pool by myself on weekends and especially during summer break. Walking several blocks barefoot was not unusual, in spite of the one-hundred degree or more temperature. I would try to walk in between shady spots on the sidewalk until my feet could not take it any more and I had to hop, skip and jump to the next piece of shade. The cicadas would accompany me with their never-ending rising and falling buzzing noises.

One time in third grade the teacher passed a piece of mica around, explaining that although it was technically a rock, it was very soft and that we should be very careful with it. Being your typical curious kid (or perhaps not so typical) I tested just exactly how soft it was by bending it slightly. Of course a small piece of it broke off in my hand! I passed it on while surreptitiously hiding the broken piece in my pocket. But somehow when the mica made its way back to the front of the class the teacher, Mrs. Mills, knew that a part was missing. She announced this to the whole class and demanded to know who the guilty party was. I’m not sure if she knew it was me, but I was sure that she did so I confessed. I attempted to apologize but she made me get up in front of the whole class and apologize, to them! As if they cared! I was mortified and humiliated. Her insistence in this puzzled me for a long time, but in retrospect I’m sure it had something to do with my father’s profession. Perhaps she was making a point, or maybe she was just trying to help the poor pastor with the wayward son. It was just one of many times I would run into the expectation of perfection and innocence that I would never live up to.

Big Lake was where I came of age in many ways. My first kiss (that I remember) was with, I think, Sheri James while walking her home from school. We did so on a dare, but then dares were just good excuses to do what you already wanted to. She was my first ‘girlfriend’ for a very brief time. It was in either fourth or fifth grade that I caught my first glimpse of the female anatomy, a fellow classmates nipple that was revealed through the arm of sleeveless blouse. She was probably just about due for her first bra, but for some reason I still remember it. I’m guessing it was accompanied by the first hints of testosterone in my system. Later I smoked my first cigarette when offered by one of our upstanding church member’s daughters. Thanks, Candy!

While Big Lake had its share of farmers and ranchers one of the mainstays of employment was the oil fields. The first oil well in the entire region had been drilled just a few miles west of town, the Santa Rita. A boom town named Texxon grew up around it and its population actually dwarfed Big Lake for a time. By the time we lived there Texxon was a fading memory, mostly a ghost town that barely justified the post office, and most of the remaining oil company employees moved to Big Lake and drove all over the area from there.