The 1970's -Some Memories

When we moved back to Florida from New Mexico, we first lived on Patrick Air Force Base, near Cocoa, Florida. Our house was very near highway A1A across from the beach. That was fun living near the beach. We did a lot of fun things on the beach, and also used the base pool. Eddie was 2 years old, Sheila was 3 and Debi was 5. Debi went to kindergarden on Patrick AFB and first grade was at Creel Elementary in Eau Gallie FL. One time, Eddie fell down on the drive way in the gravel and busted his two front teeth. Aunt Vida was visiting and we all went to the emergency room at Patrick. I couldn't stand to watch them sew his gum up, so Aunt Vida went in with him while I waiting outside. 

One day after church, we were all sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch and Sheila got choked on a chicken bone. Eddie nor I could get it out of her throat, Eddie jerked her up and we all raced to the emergency room to get the bone out. She was turning blue. They managed to get it out. What a scare. 

One time Eddie was out mowing in the front and Eddie Jr decided to go check out A1A. He was standing in the middle of the road watching the cars come. A neighbor yelled and Eddie ran out and got Eddie Jr out of the street. 

One time, Eddie was starting up the mower out front and the blade came off and came through the side of the mower and cut his ankle real bad. 

We had a tv anntenna on the roof. The salt spray was so bad that we had to wash it off every night to be able to watch TV. Cable wasn't around then. 

During that time, Grandma Presley and Grandmother Estes came to see us often. We had a good time living on Patrick. After awhile, we decided to build a house in Eau Gallie. We picked out what we wanted over on Ford Circle and waited for it to be built. That was so much fun. It was the first house we lived in that no one had lived in before us. It had a good size back yard because we were on a corner circle lot. The girls got white canopy beds. I didn't work. Eddie was on flying status. I did a lot of volunteer work with the girl scouts, I was a gray lady at school, helped a lot at church, played the piano, helped teach 7th grade girls at church, drove a bus some to pick up kids for church. 

Debbie, Sheila and Eddie went to Roy Allen Elementary school. One of the best schools around. Mr White was the principal. Debbie was able to get into a computer lab in the 6th grade. Debbie was promoted and skipped a grade. Then when she got in the 6th grade, they decided she should just do advanced 6th grade and wait a year to go to Jr High. They thought it would be better to stay with her age group. 

The kids loved to play with the next door neighbors with Barbies and outback with the swing set. I dug and planted a big garden out back. We did a lot with the girl scouts and Eddie was in the Cub scouts. We attended Harbor City Baptist church, and before that, we attended St Paul's Methodist. The kids took swimming lessons at Fee Ave during the summer. That was fun. I think we did it two years in a row. We swam at the base pool, at Fee ave and in the ocean. 

One time, when we had a boat, named Be Bop Baby, we decided to take a ride in the big river. That was a little scary. We had always been in a lake. There were big boats on the river. So we all went out. It was very exciting. We were going along down the middle of the river and one tank ran out of gas, so it was time to switch to a new gas tank. There was a fiber glass opening in the back of the boat. You had to open the place and attached the other tank. Well, the door on the boat wouldn't open. We were dead in the water and there in the distance was coming a really big boat. Eddie got back there to try to open it and couldn't. He had to stomp in the fiber glass door and attach the hose to the ofter tank. He did it just in time for us to get out of the way of this on coming big boat. We were so scared. I don't think we took the boat out too much in the river after time. 

Eddie Sr, started getting involved in his hobby of painting Corvettes. He was really good at it. He did it in our garage and used a big fan out the side door. I had a cat who loved to walk on the newly painted cars. Boy, Eddie was getting close to saying, "We need to get rid of the cat if you can't keep him off the cars." It all worked itself out. Eddie and Gil worked on the Corvettes. Gil was mainly the one to work on the engines and Eddie did the painting. I guess during that time, he probably painted 20 cars of people around Melbourne. 

Eddie flew down range with ARIA a lot. They flew all over the world and stayed at the best of the hotels and stuff. They would shop and bring back good stuff for the families. We were so proud of him. 

We visited family in Bartow pretty often. Usually went to see Rosemary and Jimmy, my sister and brother in law. Their kids were Nicole and Jessica. Went to see Linda and John some too. Grandmother was usually the one to have everyone over. We all came together for big family dinners pretty often. In the beginning, my mother and daddy and us lived in Alturas. At first in the grove and then we had a house built on Star Lake. That is where we came for the get togethers and cook outs. We water skied and swam in Star Lake. The kids played on the trees in the yard. We did that for many years until the house developed a sink hole under it. The house cracked so bad all over that it wasn't livable. The insurance company paid them full price for the house and mother and daddy bought a house in Bartow and moved to town. We all gathers there regularly. 

When they moved to Bartow, Daddy had retired from the citrus growing business and sold the groves. The insurance company kept the house. Daddy was not as happy in Bartow. He was away from his friends and the life he loved. Mother and Daddy started going to the church, Bartow Methodist church and made new friends. 

During the time, we lived on Ford Circle, we were close with Eddie's family too. They came to visit us and we went to see them in Winter Haven. Usually we visited at Mom Presley's house. She had married Leon Hafley. They lived on the lake in Winter Haven. We were very family minded. On the Estes side, we all came together at Mothers and on the Presley side we came together at Mom Presley's. She could make the best biscuits. Really anything she made tasted good. She liked to feed to birds with the leftovers. Sometimes Gregory and Fred would come and play their guitars on the porch. The kids usually played outside or played with their color books and caryons. Grandpa Lee was good with the kids. He was such a kind man. 

Eddie's father died when he was around 14. Eddie and Mom Presley lived together in Bartow for his high school years. Everyone else had married and moved away. Fred and Gregory were preachers. Eddie had a small bass boat that was blue and white. Eddie would take his mother and me on boat rides around the lakes in Winter Haven. The chain of lakes had many lakes and they all connected. That was fun. 

There were so many good times during the 70s. It was the growing up time in Elementary school for Debi, Sheila and Eddie. I can't remember all of it. The children will have to help. I know we had family over alot. We went to the beach. We went to the movies and church. There was a old zoo on hwy 192. Finally it closed and they built the new zoo which is wonderful. I sewed a lot for the kids. For a while, I had a piano and enjoyed playing the piano for sunday school and for pleasure.

When I had a leader for the Jr Girl Scouts, with Debbie, We had a big camp out in our back yard on Ford Circle. Eddie cooked hamburgers on the grill. The wind blew so hard and tried to blow the tents down. The girls were telling ghost stories. I believe the hamburgers were raw because it was dark and we couldn't see if they were cooked. They had to brush their teeth with the hose water the next morning. It was fun. We had about 10 tents. The girls had to earn their badges and camping was one of them. 

Eddie went on a camp out with the Cub Scouts once. I didn't go on that one. We all went on a hay ride one time in West Melbourne. Where Palm Bay is now use to be farms and dirt roads and swamp. We picked strawberries down Minton road and there was a chicken farm where you could buy fresh eggs. They were good. The farms had a lot of hay rides during the fall around Halloween time. Sheila and Debbie were cheerleaders during the elementary years. They practiced at Crane Field near Caribbean Dr. They marched in the parade once. Also, the Jr Girl Scouts marched in parade in Melbourne. They carried their flags and looked so good in their uniforms. Debbie was in that.

We were friends with Nancy and Gil and went to see them often. Nancy was a good cook. Gil liked to smoke things out back. We didn't go to many Air Force parties because we didn't like to drink. We went to a few and then stopped going. Eddie and I smoked then because almost everyone in the military smoked. They made the cigarettes cheap, but we didn't really realize how bad they were for you. I went to exercise salons and was constantly working on keeping my weight down. Seems I have fought being overweight most of my life. Eddie was always slim.

After we lived in Melbourne for about 10 years, we got orders for whole outfit of ARIA to move to Wright Patterson Air Force Base Ohio. That was a big deal. A lot of wives didn't go with the husbands on this move. There were probably 14 or so divorces because of this move. Nancy and Gil ended up getting a divorce. She never moved to Ohio with him. When they separated, Wayne chose to live with Gil and Jennifer went with Nancy. That was a hard time for them. I didn't think their kids would ever get over it. Gil had bought the house on Caribbean Drive and when he went to Ohio, he rented it out so he would have it when he came back someday. Nancy and the kids lived in it for awhile when Gil went to Ohio. She was going to college.

Eddie's First Father's Day

We were living in New Mexico in a duplex across from the Alamorgordo High School. Debbie was a few months old. The Saturday before Father's Day, we decided to go to the drive-in after supper. I had put a big pot of baby bottles and nipples and stuff to boil on the little stove in the kitchen. I couldn't see the burner because the pot was so big. We went to the movie and I forgot I had put the pot on to boil. When we got home from the movie, the apartment was standing wide open and all the window were open. In the living room there was a note taped on the kitchen chair from the Fire Department:

There was a kitchen fire. Your neighbor reported it. We put it out and got most of the smoke out of the house. Any questions, call the Fire Department.

The kitchen walls were black with soot. Needless to say, we were so upset. What a stupid thing for me to do. So the next day, Father's Day, Eddie spent the whole day washing down the walls and repainting the kitchen. He was such a good guy. Nothing in the kitchen had burned except the pot of rubber nipples and bottles. All the burned baby stuff was laying in the kitchen sink. I guess the rubber burning is what made all the smoke.

Gil

I want to start putting stuff about Gil's life on the blog so you sons and daughters will get to know more about his growing up years. He went to school in Evansville, Indiana. He did well and got bored real easy. So he did stuff like clubs and sports to fill the extra hours. He played the drums in the elementary school band. In high school, he played in all the different sports. In football, which was his favorite, he played rushing guard. His first job was a bus boy at the dinner counter in Walgreens. Then they put him in charge of salads and he mopped and swept the floor. His family moved from Evansville to St Louis, Missouri. From there his family moved to Florida and Gil joined the Air Force. I will write more about him later. He said he never had any other girlfriends besides Nancy and then after Nancy, he married a disabled girl Sony. In about 3 years, they got a divorce. After Eddie was killed, Gil was taking care of Wayne. Me, Eddie Jr, Sheila and Debbie were a family. We decided to be together and help each other make some sense out of life. We helped each other. We got married at Wright Patterson AFB chapel. Mary Kay Budge was my maid of honor and Debbie and Sheila were my brides' maids and Eddie Jr gave me away. In order for everyone to be enrolled in school in Florida for August, we moved back to Florida to start off the new school year. Gil had his house on Carribbean which was being rented . He got the house back and we moved in to start our new lives. It took awhile for me and Eddie Jr , Sheila and Debbie to adjust to the death of Eddie. It was a hard time. I transferred my job from Dayton, Ohio and started to work right away. Gil retired from the Air Force and decided to start his own machine shop. Gil and Eddie were best friends and were together all their careers at Patrick AFB and Wright Patterson AFB. They flew with the same group of men and planes most of their careers testing and developing and working with the ARIA group. More later.

Deer Soft Soft

Schools

Schools I attended during my youth. Alturas Elementary school, Bartow Jr High, Bartow Senior High, Florida State University, Jones Business School, Orlando, Florida. I also took the test for my Real Estate license for Florida and got it. I renewed it for several years but never got to use it because we moved to Ohio.

Youth Fair

When I was in the 10th grade, I loved my Home Economics class. You learned to sew and to cook. I decided to enter something in the County Youth Fair that year. I entered a dress I made and a fruit cake I cooked. That was the first fruit cake I ever cooked. I got a blue ribbon on each item. That was fun. Men from the Rotary Club and other organizations around town were the judges. Boys entered cows, pigs, chicken, lambs and all kinds of things.

9th Grade

One Friday afternoon while sitting in Algebra class, I was bored and spied a boy out the window over in shop class taking a break outside. I had a crush on him because he was so cute, a senior and a football player. He knew I was looking at him and we were acting silly. The teacher, stopped the class discussion and said, "Gloria, it looks like we won't be able to have our class time until you speak to your friend. So, go over there and speak to him and then come back and we will have class." Well, I think she was joking and mad at me, but I was just enough of a teenage girl, that I took her up on it and went outside over to him and told him what she said, and then I came back and we started class up again. If looks could have killed me, hers could have, but I though it was oh so funny. I was brave that day.

5th and 6th Grade

Living in the country in Alturas had its good times and its not so good times. Going to school in Alturas was hard because you were thrown in together with the rough kids, who had failed a few grades and their parents worked the groves. They had learned to fight to get along. Our principal was also my 5th and 6th grade teacher. He needed to be fired but in the those days, you kept your mouth shut because he was in charge. I was a little overweight and in a strange time in my growing up years. The teacher/principal nicknamed me Fatso and that is what he called me when he asked me a question, asked me to come to the board to write or anytime.

When he left the room, he put one of the older girls in charge on name taking if any of us talked. We were to read or study or do our papers. Well my mouth just doesn't know how to be quiet. I think, if you got on his list for talking too much more than three times, you had to go to the office, and he had a wooden hand paddle and he gave you a swat on your behind. Sometimes, it would knock you out of his office, he hit so hard. I was upset but I didn't think there was anything you could do about it. 

One night, when I was taking a bath, mother saw these bruises on my behind. She was shocked. She asked what had happened. I told her the principal would hit you for talking too much. Well, the next morning, mother took me to school and we went to the principal's office. She told him if he ever touched me again, she was calling the Bartow police and calling the school board. He didn't hit me anymore, but he still called me Fatso. Of course, everyone liked that because then they could laugh at you. 

Those days, girls had lists of friends and lists of people in the class they didn't like. If they didn't like you, they would plan to fight you after school. Well, this crazy principal decided he would let the older girls who hated each other so bad, fight it out the last period at school. He let them go out back of the school and kick each others butt. One girl, got hurt real bad, and she ran all the way home. I couldn't believe he would set this up. There were some of the bad girls who had failed a couple of grades and were being to get too old for the kids in the 5th grade. There were good times too, but you had to put up with the bad times. In those days, you couldn't say how you felt very much. You just kept quiet. That principal finally got fired and went into Bartow to teach. Then they fired him too. Mr. Oster. He also would make girls come up and scratch his bawled head when it itched. He would throw something at you, a book or an eraser to get your attention, and then tell you to get up there and scratch his head. Sometimes, life isn't fair.

Moments To Forget

One day I was in a swim meet at Bartow High School. I was in a relay race. Well, I swim for pleasure and am not a real good racer. Well, it was my turn to swim my part of the relay and I lost count on what lap I was on. Everynone was screaming the other team mates on so loud I couldn't hear what my team was saying. I knew I had gone too many laps but didn't know exactly what to do. One of my teammates ran along beside me on the pool deck and yelled "Just get out Gloria, we lost and no one knows what lap you are on. Just get out of the pool. If I could have dug a hole I would have. It was one of those moments to disappear.

Another time, I was in a glee club practice with a whole bunch of kids. I sang 2nd saprano. My chorus teacher yelled, "Estes, get on key or stop singing". My last name at that time was Estes. That was another one of those moments. As you can see, my school years had their painful moments. I don't know how anyone lives through it.

I went out for Cheerleading every year in High School. I wanted to be a Cheerleader so bad. I never made the cut.

I could water ski real real good. I could play the piano pretty good too. I could shoot real good for a kid. I could make my own clothes, and I could cook. I could drive a car pretty good, but when it came to doing things in a big group together, I could have been better.

Gloria Estes And Swim Team. Gloria is noted by the red dot beneath her to the far right.

Glee Club

Granddaddy Ray

When I was a little girl around 7 years old, Mamoo and Granddaddy Ray would babysit for me. I had such a good time at their house in Lake Garfield, Florida. First I went grocery shopping with them after Granddaddy got off work. Then we would come home and cook breaded shrimp. I loved that. My mother rarely would fix that. Then Granddaddy would take me to the drive in movie in Bartow to see a couple of cowboy movies. Usually Mamoo would stay home and watch the Grand Ol' Opry. Granddaddy always made it fun and I loved going to the movie with him. He was such a sweet man. Mamoo was just as sweet. We would climb up in their big bed and sleep under these home made quilts. They babysat alot with us and we really loved them. Mamoo cooked this wonderful fried corn bread doughnuts. She was also really good at chicken and rice. Really anything she cooked was good. She was a country type woman. We could climb up into her lap and be rocked. She always smelled so sweet.

Horse Tales - Lake Wales, Florida

One weekend, when I was in Junior High , my boyfriend, Douglas Mann, took me to his mother's cattle ranch outside of Lake Wales. She was going to be out there and drove us out. We decided, since I had ridden before, Douglas would take me for a ride on some quarter horses. These horses run as fast as a car, I found out. They use these horses to round up cattle. Well, we started out across a wide open field, and the horses we were on decided it would be great to run wide open and stretch their legs. My eyes got so big and I was seeing my life pass before my eyes. Douglas forgot to tell me how to stop a quarter horse. Well, I started pulling back on the reigns and that made the horse run even faster. The horse decided to try to get rid of me and get me off his back, so the horse headed toward a hammock of tall trees and bushes. I just knew this was it, because I couldn't stop the horse. Ahead were some low fat limbs. All of a sudden, here comes Douglas on his horse. He rode up beside me and grabbed me off the horse and saved my life. It was one of those rare moments. He said, He couldn't get me killed the first day out at the ranch. His mother would be mad. We slowly rode back to the house and doctored my ankles where they were bloody from trying to stop the horse. I lived through it and we, of course, grew fonder of each other. One of the guys I went to school with, said Douglas carved a heart on his garage with his and my name. He is a lawyer in Bartow. He is married and has children.

Chain Of Lakes - Winter Haven, Florida

One time when I was about 17, Eddie and I were boating in the chain of lakes in Winter Haven, FL. These same lakes were a part of the Cypress Gardens lakes. So we decided to water ski at one of the points in the lake. We were very good skiers at that point and we could start from deep water. I was down in the water with my water ski in place and getting the rope, which was attached to the boat, in just the right position. I was down to my nose in the water, in position to be pulled out of the water. I looked over to my right, and there a few feet from me were the eyes of an alligator right above the water looking right back at me. As if to say, 'Hello there'. I couldn't run and I couldn't swim, all I could do was to get Eddie's attention and get him to get the heck out of Dodge City. He pulled me out right beside the gator. I guess I was about to teach that gator to ski.

Alligator - Long Lake, Alturas, Florida

This is a tale of a alligator who almost got us in trouble. Daddy was always thinking of things to show us kids that would be fun, not necessarily safe. He took me and Linda in our small wooden boat with a small motor out in Long Lake to go around the edges and see if he could find a good spot to fish. Well, we were on the back side of the lake near the shore, and there swam a baby alligator. So Daddy thought it would be a brillant idea to put him in the boat so we could see him up close and personal. He warned us about his sharp teeth. "Now," Daddy said, "Keep your eyes out on the brushes over there because if the baby makes a grunting noise, the mother is going to come get him." Well, that baby gator was pretty wild in the boat. He wasn't happy. Then he did it, he starting the call for mama. In the distance, you could see the bushes start moving side to side and a parting of the seas, so to speak. Here comes Mama Gator in all her glory. Daddy knew we were in deep do-do. He had a little bit of trouble grabbing onto the baby to throw him overboard. Finally, he grabbed him and threw him at his Mama. We cranked that motor and hauled tail out of there. Our hearts just a pounding. He said, "Don't you dare tell Mother about this or I might not get to take you fishing anymore."

Raw Footage of Monster Tornado In Colorado

The Beach Boys - I Get Around

Soft Soft

Items Of Interest About the '40s and '50s

Living in Alturas in the '40s and '50s was very relaxed and friendly. Some facts I remember: the doctor made house calls from Bartow and milk was delivered twice a week. It was in glass bottles with cream on top and a paper pull tab lid. The white children went to one school and the African American children went to another. African American women were our ironing maids and cleaning maids. 

Kids would stay out and play all around town and in the woods all day. Everyone looked out for each others children. Adults in town were allowed to correct your children if they were seen in trouble and to send them home. It was so safe. A lot of times, we would go off on walking trips in the woods with a lunch and a wagon. Daddy taught us how to be careful of snakes and how to recognize danger. We were street smart for the woods and back roads of Alturas. Daddy had twelve or so workmen on the grove. He always told them to help look after us if they saw us out and about. If they hurt one of us, Daddy told them he would shoot them.

If you went into Bartow, you could leave your car windows down and the keys in the car.  No one bothered the car. Cokes were a nickle. Candy bars were a nickle or penny. The movie in town was 25 cents. You could come in and see the movie over and over. It ran continuously all afternoon and evening without stopping. You only got put out of the movie if you made too much of a fuss. There was always a news reel and a continuing serial, cartoons and then a movie or two. 

I remember the War of the Worlds. It was one of the first science fiction movies. There were a lot of cowboy movies and musicals in those days. The musicals were so pretty and nice. When I was little, the movie did not show sex or brutal things nor were they too scary. That wasn't allowed. Girls were not allowed to wear shorts or pants to school. Girls wore dresses and skirts and blouses. You dressed out to play PE and then shower and get dressed again. Everyone played an hour outside at school everyday, and we would play other schools at volleyball and softball. I really liked  both. 

We were given vitamins and castro oil by the school nurse at school. Sometimes iron pills. Our elementary school had rich kids and very poor kids. The school had a nurse on duty and could help the sick kids who couldn't afford a doctor. You could get your shots for school at the nurses office too. 

In the third through the sixth grade, we had a school cafeteria and the meals they cooked were really good. You could smell the noon meal cooking all through the school. Daddy raised chickens for us to eat and he would buy 1/2 of a beef cow and have it cut up and put in a frozen food plant in Bartow. We could go in there and use our key and get meat when we were in town. We didn't buy beef or chicken from the grocery stores. Daddy had a garden every year and mother would put up the vegetables in the freezer. We always had good food to eat.

When you would go into Bartow on Saturday, we could go by the drug store to get medicine and to get a milk shake or a soda fountain coke. They would mix the coke from bottles of syrup. We would go by the newsstand and get comic books, magazines and the Sunday newspaper.   Sometimes, Daddy would get a girly magazine. 

Once a year mother would take us to Lakeland to see the family doctor have a yearly check up. His name sort of sounded like Bowwear. One time, Connie got the flu and had to be put in the hospital with IV's. She couldn't stop throwing up. Children could die from the flu in those days. Their fever would get very high and fluids had to be put in. They slept in really big baby beds. 

Daddy had to have a back operation one time. He stayed in Orlando for weeks after the operation. He would cry when we would come to see him because he missed us so much. Finally he got to come home. 

One day after the operation, Daddy and I were out in the grove where they were pulling orange trees out with tractor and chains. I was sitting in the truck, while Daddy walked out to inspect what the men more doing.  All of a sudden, behind Daddy's back, which was still in a back brace, a tree was rolling on the ground hooked up to a tractor. It rolled over to Daddy and hit him in the back and in the head. He came back to the truck hurt, with his right ear hanging down where it had been torn almost off. I guess he was in a state of shock. Bleeding and in pain from the tree hitting him in his back, he drove home. He went inside and got on the bed and told me to go tell mother he was hurt and to call the doctor. She was so shocked when she saw him. He had to have his back operated on again. The tree broke it right where it had been fixed. I couldn't believe he could drive himself back to the house. He was hurt so bad.

Connie Estes

When we lived on Star Lake, Connie was born and she was a very pretty baby. I was about 16 and I would take her shopping with me and everyone thought she was my baby. I always said she was. Sometimes when Eddie and I went to the drive in movie, we would take Connie and let her sleep in the back seat. We very close. She loved Eddie too.

One time, she was in her baby bed in Mother's bedroom and she was fussing and wouldn't go to sleep. We were all in bed. I remember Mother spanking her and she started crying loud and didn't stop until morning. Mother took her to the doctor to give her something to calm down. I remember putting the pillow over my head so I didn't hear her so much.

When Mother came back home from town, she said we can never spank Connie again. She can't take it and it makes her sick. So we knew something hard to understand had happened that night and we could never spank Connie again.
Once when Connie was a toddler, she caught the flu. That year, a lot of kids got a real bad flu. She had to be put in the hospital and given fluids. THe babybed in the hospital looked so big and she was so little. When she had a hard time and was scared in the hospital, the nurse would let Linda come in and rock her to calm her down> All she wanted to do was go home. I could understand that. I think Connie was in the hospital 10 days.
Then another time, Connie had to have her leg operated on for a bone spur near her knee. I believe Linda and John came to sit with her during that time too. I guess mother was not comfortable in the hospital. Some people just can't stand a hospital. DOris is like that. She is terrible with a sick person.

When Eddie and I got married, Eddie held her while we practiced the night before. She was going to miss us a lot and couldn't understand where we were going. We went to Colorado and New Mexico for 5 years. Then we moved back to Florida.Connie was the youngest of us sisters. She will have to write about her young school years. If I remember right, she was so smart and was so bored with the Alturas school. They didn't have special smart classes. I think when she got to Bartow school, it got better./

Snakes

When we lived on Star Lake in Alturas and I was probably 15 or 16, there was a snake migration and thousands of snakes of all kinds were on the move to the east. All of them were going in the same direction and they were everywhere within five miles of Alturas.  When Eddie would come out to Alturas to see me, he said it was like running over railroad ties. The snakes covered the roads, side by side, all lengths and kinds.  I never saw anything like it before nor again since. 

For about eight weeks, there were snakes everywhere. Mother got caught in the garage with two big snakes on the floor. She got up on the truck and held one down with a broom and one down with the mop. She just sat there and yelled for Daddy. They would come into the garage to eat the dog food. Daddy wouldn't let Connie go out to play in the yard for weeks. 

In the lake, you could see hundreds of snakes going across the lake. They were all laying in the hedges on the yard. In the morning sometimes, you would go out to school and see snake skins that had been shed the night before. I think they were traveling away from water and going to higher ground. I remember one night going into town and seeing snakes on the road everywhere. They covered the road for three or four miles. It was just awful. No one got bit but it is something you wouldn't forget. Daddy would take his gun and  shoot five or ten at a time.  

The General Store - Alturas, Florida

When I was growing up in Alturas and was in elementary school, we had a general store that we went to everyday. It supplied most of our weekly needs. For a big grocery week, we went into Bartow to a regular grocery store. So this is to describe the general store. It still exists today, but is all boarded up and falling down in disrepair. The people who had enough money to restore the store have sinced moved on into town. Everyone that really loved the store probably have passed away except for me and few others maybe.

When you came into the store, to the right was a small post office. When Daddy had baby chicks shipped in, that is where they came in a box with holes in it and a bunch of baby chicks. When you went to your left, there was a long counter that had jars and jars of penny candy and little bags to put it in. Then you had your cash register. Then you had a ice cream freezer chest, with little cups of ice cream and little wooden spoons. After that you had you coke-a-cola glass bottles, orange and grape soda's and of course RC colas. You could get moon pies to eat with your RC Colas. Across the aisle from that you had a fresh meat department where they cut up the beef and bacon and chickens. Over to the right, beyond the meat department, were the boots, uniforms, socks, shoes, work shirts, and belts. They had some sewing notions, thread, thimbles, yarn and some material by the yard. Further in the back on the left, they had nails, tools and hardware. Then on the left out the side door, under the roof, they had car and truck repair. The floor was wooden and it had a screen door on the front.

Across the road was the town pool hall. Daddy said only nasty old men were allowed in there, drinking and pool playing. We were never to go in there. In the parking area between the pool hall and the railroad tracks, once a week we could see a movie. They put up a big sheet; we could sit on the tailgates of our tracks and they would show a movie on the sheet when the sun went down.  It was free and if the wind blew the sheet too hard, we could come back the next night to finish seeing the movie. I remember one night, some of the girls decided to wear lipstick for the first time and they decided the movie was a good place to wear it to see what different people thought. Life was so simple back then. 

Rosemary fell out of the truck window one day while we were at the store and busted her lip and head. 

One day, a child fell out the back door of their car and the mother backed up over the child's chest. The child lived through it, but always had a weakness in her chest and lungs from then on. 

On day, when the organist of our church came home and opened her garage door, there hung her husband. He had killed himself while she was in Bartow shopping. I nearly drowned in a fishpond in Daddy's backyard when I was a toddler. I was floating up top and they mashed on my chest to get all the green slim out of my mouth and nose. Daddy took a ax and chopped up the pond. That was the end of that. 

So I'll take more later. 

Mother

My mother was many things to me. She was very protective of her daughters - all four of them. Diane was the fifth but had a different mother, so she was our step sister. Mother never worked at an outside job, but she had many jobs at home. She wanted us to be proper young ladies and Daddy wanted us to be tomboys so we were a little of both. She kept the house so very clean, and we all had chores to do too. She sewed most of our clothes and taught us how to sew and clean and cook.

She encouraged us to do something like piano, singing or dance. I took piano lessons for seven years. She drove us to town once and sometimes twice a week and waited on us to have the piano lessons. I did take voice but I don't sing real good. I did learn to play the piano pretty darn good and was entered in some college competitions at Florida Southern in Lakeland, FL.

Mother didn't love you up and hug you very much but she showed how much she loved us in other ways. We did get our share of spankings.  She dressed us up for church and for school. You wore hats and gloves and always dresses. You also wore dresses or skirts and blouses to school. Pants or shorts were not allowed. 

She cooked really good. We all sat down to supper every night around 5 oclock. We all had breakfast together around 5 am and we had lunch together on the weekends.

Mother thought we girls should marry someone rich so he could take care of us. She was always hard on us about who we dated. Having money didn't matter to me. The way the person acted was more important to me. It is hard to explain all mother was to me. I loved her and she loved me. She encouraged you to the best you could at what ever you were trying to learn. 

I loved to sew, and I loved to play the piano. With Daddy, I loved to plant gardens of vegetables, feed the cows and ride horses. I loved to fish and shoot guns. I once had a be be gun and loved running through the grove hunting birds. With Mother we waxed furniture, washed windows, woodwork inside and ironed clothes, did dishes and learned how to bake real good pies and cakes. 

She was soft spoken and always dressed nice. She liked to visit her lady friends and gossip. That got her in trouble sometimes. She loved to play bridge with the ladies and she was very good at it. She played bridge most of her adult life. Once every couple of weeks, once of month.  She belonged to the garden club and was good at arranging flowers. She was really good with math and could have worked but Daddy didn't want her to ever work. She worked in the yard and vegetable garden with Daddy, but she didn't help with the citrus groves. Sometimes we girls helped drive the tractor and lay watering pipes and pruned dead limbs off the trees to make extra money in the summer.

In the last couple of years of her life she had cancer. We took care of her at her house in Bartow. She showed so much courage and never cried or complained. We brought in a hospital bed so her friends could come by and visit. We hated the nursing home and brought her home to be in her own room. We sisters took turns helping take care of her.  Linda and John took her to the doctor and hospital a lot of the time. She seemed to grow sweeter the sicker she got, she wanted to be hugged and she was more loving during that time. She said life is really so short. 

She looked back on things and could remember all the things we did together. We went to the beach for a vacation every year. Either to Daytona Beach or New Smyrna. She looked back at all the big family get togethers at her house and how much fun we had in her swimming pool. All the times we water skied on the lake in Alturas and all the picnics we had and cook outs. We really had a nice life and pretty much everything we wanted. If Daddy and Mother couldn't get it for us, our granddaddy did. It didn't seem like we were spoiled, just well taken care of.  When you look at it that way, Mother loved us all pretty good. As we all grew older we realized her way was good. She was hard on our boyfriends and we had fights over that but after we got married everything was fine and we didn't ever fight again. 

We miss her and all the family get togethers for meals.  Those times were all centered around Mother and Daddy's house in Bartow. They had many church meetings there and just all kinds of things. There was a big porch and a pool. Daddy kept the yard looking really nice. Jerry, Connie's husband, helped Daddy in the yard. It always looked nice. We all miss those really good times.

Denver-The First Three Months Of Marriage

When Eddie and I got married, we drove to Denver, Colorado where he was finishing up school in the Air Force before we were transferred to our new home base. We drove that TR3 little car without clothes through many states and then into Colorado. We rented a furnished apartment on Colorado Blvd. The building had six apartments. The old lady landlord lived on the top floor. She had her dead husband's ashes in a urn on the top of her stove. The apartment had a living room with a bed that folded up in the closet, hallway, small dining room, kitchen, one bathroom and a big back bedroom. 

The bed was awful - springs, one small top mattress. When you laid on the bed, you both rolled to the middle or you hung on to the sides to stay on your side. That is why the first thing happened was Eddie rolled to the middle and stuck his unshaven chin in my eye. I went to work and began to not be able to see very good and it really hurt. My eye wouldn't stop watering. They took me to the nurse on duty at the place I worked. He said my eye was cut all the way across and he bandaged up my eye and said I had to leave it on 3 or 4 days.  So I drove to the base to tell Eddie and he couldn't believe all the white bandages on my head. He thought I had been in a accident. Needless to say, He didn't know what he was in for, getting me used to being away from home.

The next thing that happened to me was I was not used to cooking on an old gas stove. One that you had to light the oven with a match. I didn't know about how necessary it was to light the oven right away when you turned on the gas. I walked across the kitchen to get the matches after I had turned on the gas. I came back to the oven, bent down with my head almost in the oven and lite the match. Bang, the oven blew up with a big ball of fire coming out of the oven and caught my hair on fire. I ran into the bathroom and looked in the mirror and saw my hair burning. I pounded on my hair and all that hair fell off in the sink, the hair on my arms was burning, my eyebrows. I ran out in the hall way with my blouse off yelling for help. The woman across the hall came running out and gave me some cream and said go back and get my blouse on.  The whole apartment smelled like burned hair. I laid down on the bed feeling like I had died. I wouldn't go back in the kitchen. The hell with supper. When Eddie came home, he wanted to know what in the world happened. I told him, and he made me get in a cold tub of water and soak. He cleaned up the kitchen. I looked really strange for awhile with my hair about a 1/4 inch back to the center of the top of my head. My eye brows gone, and the hair on my arm burned.

My next adventure was learning to cook in Denver. The water was so soft and the city was a mile high.  One time, I cooked dried beans for supper. I first put the beans on in a big pot, and after a while I came back in the kitchen and the beans were up the top of the pot, so I took out some of the beans and put them in another pot. Now I had two pots on the stove. Later, I came back in the kitchen and the beans in both pots were up to the top of the pot edge again, so I got yet another pot out, making three. I was running out of pots.  So after all was said and done I had four bowls of cooked beans in the ice box. When Eddie came home that night, he asked me what I did all day. I said look in the ice box and you tell me. Looks like you have been cooking beans all day. We both had a good laugh over that one.

One day in August, it started snowing. I had never seen snow, I ran to the bedroom window and said it is snowing, then I ran to the other end of the apartment and saw that it was snowing out that window too. I ran back to Eddie and told him it was snowing out that window too. Lets say, I was young and had never left Florida much. I had a lot of growing up to do. Eddie wouldn't go out and look at the snow, so I went out, made a snowball and came back and threw it in the bed under the covers on him. 

Eddie read a lot and didn't always pay me attention. So one Sunday after, he was reading the paper on the bed and I was painting my fingernails. So I decided to surprise him and I painted his toenails.  When he finally noticed what I had done, he learned to pay more attention. Sometimes just for fun, when he was taking a shower, I would pour a pitcher on ice water over the shower curtain to surprise him.

One day, I came home from the doctor and told Eddie we were going to have a baby.  The look on his face was priceless. The first thing he said was, 'Oh no, I am too young to be a father'. This can't be happening. I said well, it was happening and he better get use to it. He soon calmed down and then became very protective. We were young. In fact,before we were 25, we had all three of our children. I think that was good, you have more energy when you are young. 

After about three months, we were assigned to Alamogordo, New Mexcio and we moved.  We did other things while in Colorado, like sight see alot and went to the mountains regularly. They always said to be careful of Rocky Mountain Tic Fever. So we didn't go into the woods, but Colorado is a pretty state and someday, it would fun to visit it again.

 

I did manage to get a job within three days after arriving in Colorado. I went to work with Manpower and they kept me in jobs the whole time. I made more than Eddie. He made something like $76 every two weeks.  I made $70 a week. With that we managed to meet our bills. Isn't that amazing. I worked as a secretary. I could really type fast. So there are some thoughts about living in Denver Colorado, the first few months of our married life. 

Oh, we had two other couples that we were military friends with while we were there.  They were really nice and fun to visit with. 

Our First Meeting - Eddie

Eddie and I met for our first time on a blind date. We doubled dated with Pat Thackrey and Don Kinard. We were all in the same grade at Bartow High School. They drove out to Alturas to get me and Eddie, and I sat on one side of the backseat and he on the other. We slowly sort of reached over to hold hands. All it took was for us to touch each others hand. From that moment on, we both knew we would be together for the rest of our lives. It was the meeting of two soul mates, that once in a life time connection. The feeling just went all over me. We both smiled and knew what the other was thinking. After that date, we went home and got on the phone with each other and talked until the sun came up. We could hardly stand to be apart for any reason.

We went steady during our growing up years - 5 years - and then we got married. There were some rough times, sad times and many many good times. His side of the family didn't like the idea and my mother didn't like the idea. His mother loved me to death and I loved her. After Eddie and I got married, Mother never again said anything against us and she grew to love Eddie just like I did.

Little Richard - Tutti Frutti

Johnny Mathis - Misty / Twelfth of Never

Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel

The Billboard Top Ten of the 1950's

The Top 10 Songs of the 1950’s are a mixture of sweet melody and the origins of Rock N’ Roll. Poodle Skirts sway to the Top 10 songs on jukeboxes in every malt shop across the country as “Squares” and “Drapes” face off. Here's a list of the Billboard Top Ten Songs for every year of the 1950’s as well as offer a few music history tidbits from the gone but never forgotten era.

Billboard Top Ten Songs of 1950
1. Daddy's Little Girl - Mills Brothers
2. Mona Lisa - Nat King Cole
3. Music! Music! Music! - Teresa Brewer
4. The Tennesse Waltz - Patti Page
5. A Bushel and a Peck - Perry Como and Betty Hutton
6. Rag Mop - Ames Brothers
7. If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd Have Baked A Cake - Eileen Barton
8. Harbor Lights - Sammy Kaye
9. Goodnight, Irene - Gordon Jenkins and the Weavers
10. I Wanna Be Loved - the Andrews Sisters

“Guys and Dolls” opens on Broadway in 1950.
Patti Page becomes the first artist to have a Number One record on the Pop, R&B and Country charts concurrently.

Billboard Top 10 Songs of 1951
1. Mockingbird Hill - Patti Page
2. Cry - Johnny Ray
3. Too Young - Nat King Cole
4. Cold, Cold Heart - Tony Bennet
5. Come On-a My House - Rosemary Clooney
6. Because of You - Tony Bennet
7. Sentimental Journey - Les Brown & the Ames Brothers
8. That's My Boy - Stan Freburg
9. Be My Love - Mario Lanza
10. Sixty Minute Man - Billy Ward and His Dominoes

Walt Disney's "Alice In Wonderland", released in 1951, brought us such children’s hits as "All in a Golden Afternoon", "I'm Late," and "The Unbirthday Song".

Singer Dinah Shore begins her first tv show, The Dinah Shore Show, in November.

Billboard Top Ten Songs of 1952
1. Unforgettable - Nat King Cole
2. Blues In the Night - Rosemary Clooney
3. High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me) - Frankie Lane
4. You Belong To Me - Jo Stafford
5. It's In The Book - Johnny Standley
6. A Guy Is A Guy - Doris Day
7. Please, Mister Sun - Johnny Ray
8. Wheel of Fortune - Kay Starr
9. Heart and Soul - Four Aces
10. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Guy Mitchell

On March 21st, 1952 the first ever reported Rock and Roll riot breaks out at Alan “Mondog” Freed's “Moondog Coronation Ball” in Cleveland, Ohio.

On October 7, 1952 “Bob H orn's Bandstand” has its first broadcast on a local Philadelphia, Pennsylvania station. It is later renamed “American Bandstand”.

Billboard Top 10 Songs of 1953
1. That's Amore - Dean Martin
2. The Doggie In The Window - Patti Page
3. Vaya Con Dios - Les Paul & Mary Ford
4. Your Cheatin' Heart - Hank Williams
5. Rags To Riches - Tony Bennett
6. I've Got The World On A String - Frank Sinatra
7. You Belong To Me - Jo Stafford
8. I Believe - Frankie Laine
9. South Of The Border - Frank Sinatra
10. Stranger In Paradise - Tony Bennett

Elvis first visit to a recording studio was in the summer of 1953 where he recorded "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin”.

Frank Sinatra began recording at Capital Records in 1953.

On a sad note, country legend Hank Williams passed away this year on January, 1st.

Billboards Top Ten Songs of 1954
1. Shake Rattle and Roll - Bill Haley and The Comets
2. Young At Heart - Frank Sinatra
3. Sh-Boom (Life Could Be A Dream) - The Crew-Cuts
4. Mambo Italiano - Rosemary Clooney
5. Mr Sandman - The Chordettes
6. Goodnight Sweetheart Goodnight - Spaniels
7. Stranger In Paradise - Tony Martin
8. Three Coins In The Fountain - Al Alberts & Four Aces
9. Oh! My Papa - Eddie Fisher
10. Naughty Lady of Shady Lane - Ames Brothers

In 1954 Bill Haley and His Comets recorded the song “Rock Around the Clock”, which was later used as the theme song for the movie “The Blackboard Jungle.

Two major events in Elvis Presley’s life happened in 1954. On July 5 he had his first commercial recording session at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee and on October 16 he made his first appearance on a radio program in Shreveport, Louisiana called the Louisiana Hayride.

Billboard Top 10 Songs of 1955
1. Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White - Perez Prado
2. Sincerely - the McGuire Sisters
3. Rock Around The Clock - Bill Haley & His Comets
4. Sixteen Tons - Ernie 'Tennessee' Ford
5. Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing - Four Aces
6. The Yellow Rose of Texas - Mitch Miller
7. Ballad of Davey Crockett - Bill Hayes
8. Autumn Leaves - Roger Williams
9. Let Me Go Lover - Joan Weber
10. Dance With Me Henry (Wallflower) - Georgia Gibbs

On January 14, 1955, Alan “Moondog” Freed, produces the first Rock N’ Roll concert in New York.

On October 15th, 1955 future star Buddy Holly open for Elvis in a concert as part of a local duo called “Buddy and Bob”. Other future legends that started their career this year were: Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Eddie Cochran, Little Richard and John Coltrane.

Billboard Top Ten Songs of 1956
1. Don't Be Cruel - Elvis Presley
2. Hound Dog - Elvis Presley
3. Singing The Blues - Guy Mitchell
4. The Wayward Wind - Gogi Grant
5. Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Presley
6. Rock and Roll Waltz - Kay Starr
7. The Poor People of Paris - Les Baxter
8. Memories Are Made Of this - Dean Martin
9. Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley
10. My Prayer - the Platters

Buddy Holly's first recording session for Decca Records take place in Nashville, Tennessee on January 26th, 1956.

On January 28, 1956.Elvis Presley debuts on national television on “The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show” and then he signs a three picture deal with Paramount Pictures on April 6th.

On July 9 1956 “American Bandstand” with Dick Clark as host airs.

The start of other musical careers that are contributed are attributed to 1956 are: Aretha Franklin, Gene Vincent, The Coasters, Charlie Rich, Bobby Darin and Willie Nelson.

Billboard Top 10 Songs of 1957
1. All Shook Up - Elvis Presley
2. Love Letters In The Sand - Pat Boone
3. Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
4. (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear - Elvis Presley
5. April Love - Pat Boone
6. Young Love - Tab Hunter
7. Tammy - Debbie Reynolds
8. Honeycomb - Jimmie Rodgers
9. Wake Up Little Susie - the Everly Brothers
10. You Send Me - Sam Cooke

“Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Será, Será)” sung by Doris Day in the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Man Who Knew Too Much”wins the Academy Award for Best Song in 1957.

On January 6, 1957 Elvis Presley made his last appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, under the name “Tom and Jerry” begin their recording career with Sid Prosen of Big Records.
On March 19, 1957 Elvis Presley purchases “Graceland” in Memphis, Tennessee.

Billboard Top Ten Songs of 1958
1. At The Hop - Danny and the Juniors
2. It's All In The Game - Tommy Edwards
3. The Purple People Eater - Sheb Wooley
4. All I Have To Do Is Dream - the Everly Brothers
5. Tequila - the Champs
6. Don't - Elvis Presley
7. Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare) - Domentico Modugno
8. Sugartime - the Mcguire Sisters
9. He's Got The Whole World (In His Hands) - Laurie London
10. The Chipmonk Song - The Chipmonks

On March 24 1958 Elvis Presley enters the U.S. Army.

The Bee Gees and Marvin Gaye began performing in 1958.

On February 14, 1958 the Iranian government bans Rock N’ Roll claiming that the music is against the concepts of Islam and is also a health hazard.

Billboard Top 10 Songs of 1959
1. Mack The Knife - Bobby Darin
2. The Battle Of New Orleans - Johnny Horton
3. Venus - Frankie Avalon
4. Stagger Lee - Lloyd Price
5. The Three Bells - The Browns
6. Lonely Boy - Paul Anka
7. Come Softly To Me - the Fleetwoods
8. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes - the Platters
9. Heartaches By The Number - Guy Mitchell
10. Sleep Walk - Santo & Johnny
11. Kansas City - Wilbert Harrison
12. A Big Hunk O' Love - Elvis Presley
13. Mr. Blue - the Fleetwoods
14. Why - Frankie Avalon
15. The Happy Organ - Dave 'Baby' Cortez

As we come to the end of an era, three major players in shaping the decade, as well as the Top 10 Songs of the 1950’s, also perish. On February 3rd, 1959 Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. Richardson “The Big Bopper”, die in a plane crash in Iowa. The world was mourning as they faced the societal changing years ahead, the 1960’s.

Music While At Bartow High School - 1950s

I graduated in June 1959. The music I enjoyed during 1953-1959 was rock and roll that you could dance to and slow ballads so you could dance close to someone. In the beginning the big deal was going to the Bartow Civic Center every Friday and Saturday night to meet your friends to dance to the jukebox. We had a great woman chaperon who fed the juke box all night until 11:00 pm. It cost all of .50 cents to a dollar and you got your hand stamped. If you left, you could not come back in. No drinking, smoking or drugs. They also had billiards, but music and dancing was a big thing. We all loved it. 

Mother and Daddy would drop me off and pick me up. Sixth through nineth grades were the most popular with dancing. The boys loved it too. The jukebox was great. 45's were popular and the songs were great. Bill Haley and The Comets were also a popular group. I can't remember all the names but I know them when they are played. Maybe Eddie can help me out with the names that were so popular in the '50s. 

The kids in high school loved the rock and roll and the love songs. Slowly, in high school, drinking started showing up at the dances and smoking. Slowly the dances started using local bands to play, and it became more expensive to come. Slowly, over time students lost interest and did things more private and probably more against the law. By then, I was going steady with Eddie. We went steady for 5 years, and then he went into the military some months later. We got married and moved away for 5 years. We were into music in a big way. I really liked dancing.

Elvis and many other rock and rollers were becoming popular with the kids. Not so much with the parents. Elvis was just so sexy and he got the kids moving, sometimes in ways parents weren't happy with, but I loved it. I actually saw Elvis on the stage at the Lakeland, FL theater downtown. He was in his early years, just starting. He wore his fancy outfit and everyone just loved him. I must have been in Jr High. I can still remember him up there singing. We were lucky and didn't know it. The Beatles were really more popular in the 60s. I was already out of school and married by then.

Alturas School House-grade 1-6

I went to school at Alturas elementary school, near Bartow, Fl. It was the old-fashion wooden two room school with a big bell on top of the school house to ring the students in. For heat, there was an old cast iron pot bellied stove. It had to burn wood to put off the heat.  We had one teacher who taught all the classes.  Grades 1-3 were all seated together on the right hand side of the building with a partial wall with chalk board divided the left hand side. That had the 3-6 graders all seated together. They had their chalk board on the other side of the wall.  Our teacher was on crutches because she had polio.  She taught all the classes all day, walking from room to room. 

At noon, we went outside under the trees and ate our own home made lunch. After lunch we played a while, or sewed and did crafts we brought from home. We played circle games with balls, like soft ball. 

One thing I really liked was called Jump Board. You had to get the Dads to donate just the right length board - usually 8 or 9 feet long, at least 24 inches across and probably a inch and a half to two inches thick. That was laid across a log about a foot and a half thick. The board had to have some give to it but not much. Sixth graders had to be able to jump really hard and not have the board crack in the middle. One person would stand up on one end and another person about the same weight would stand on the other end and start jumping, bouncing the other person high up in the air. They would keep alternating jumping until someone went too high and lost their balance. That was quite a contest. These were country, healthy, strong kids. I held my own pretty good. 

We also, jumped rope, played jacks and marbles. I wasn't good at marbles, but did pretty good at jacks.  The boys practiced with sling shots. 

We all walked or rode our bikes to school.  I had a big accident the first day of school in the first grade. I was all dressed up in a pink ruffled dress. It had been raining and the clay road was wet and slick. I was riding fast down the hill to the school and I hit a slick spot and wrecked my bike, tore my dress, blooded my knees and cried my heart out. I had to go home and change clothes and get a bandage on the cuts. That will bust your bubble. 

But our teacher was so sweet.  I stayed in that school until the 3rd grade, then a new school was built near the old one. We moved over there. They should have never torn down the old school, but they did get rid of it, too bad. 

Better go now; more another day. Oh one more thing. Gil played drums in the band in the grade school in Indiana. When he got to high school, he played on all the sports teams. He was a guard on the foot team. That was his favorite. He said he would get bored. He joined all the sports teams and in the early years played drums in the band. I think that was neat.

Cars

When I was in high school, I loved the family car.  At first, to get us used to the car, Daddy would let us practice our driving by ourselves. We lived in the orange groves, on his land, and we could practice driving without hurting anyone. He would give us the keys to an old Crosley three-speed and said try not to hit any trees and try not to get stuck in the sand. So I drove all over the place and didn't knock down any trees or kill anyone. 

In the 8th grade, we could take driver's ed and get our restricted license. We rode around town with a teacher and about three other kids, each taking a turn.  That is scary when the other kids were driving. We didn't drive in the parking lot. We drove on regular streets. 

When I was 16, Daddy took me to take my driving test and to get my license. That was an experience. In those days in Bartow, some of the cops were big redneck flirts. So when it came time for my test, this cop took me driving and after awhile, told me to drive out on the golf course, (The driver's license place was on the edge of the golf course). Of course, I knew we were not supposed to drive on the golf course, but I was just a kid and thought okay, whatever you say. Then all of a sudden the cop reached over and puts the gear shift lever in park. This car was automatic. I yelled at him, and said you're going to tear up my Daddy's car doing that. What's wrong with you. Then the cop starts flirting bigtime and acting like he wanted to make out. I yelled at him, "We are going back to the station and I am going to tell my Daddy! You are not suppose to do this!" He didn't touch me or anything, but he would have if I would have let him. I ran in and told Daddy. I bet that cop never did that again. (At least, not until, next time and some girl will let him.) Needless to say, I did get my license.

Some times, cops would pull the kids for speeding in town, and all they really wanted to do was flirt with the pretty girls. The speed limit on the highway in the those days was 70 to 75, and we all had big cars that drank the gas. But gas was so cheap. When I was going to business school in Orlando, I could drive from Bartow to Orlando on one dollar's worth of gas.  It took 2 to 3 dollars to drive all week back and forth to school and all around Orlando. Gas was a quarter or 30 cents a gallon.

Daddy bought new cars about every two to three years.  He would buy the car and bring it home and then go tell mother a new car was in the garage.  He always was the one to pick it out. The cars he picked were hot and went fast.

One time the whole family, and a girlfriend were going in town to see a movie.  On the way out of Alturas, there was a black bull standing in the road just around the bend after a curve in the road. It was dark and we didn't see him until we were right on him. We were driving nearly 50 miles a hour. This bull hit the hood, then the windshield and broke it, then the top of the car, then the back window and broke it. Then it hit the ground and got up and ran off. Some farmer had to track it down and shoot it. The hit was so hard, it broke every window in the car. No one was hurt, but glass was everywhere, in your hair, in your shoes, in your clothes just everywhere. A cop said he heard it way down the road and came to see who hit a brick wall.  So that it something I'll never forget.  

I never had a car of my own until I went to business school at Orlando Jones Business College. It was a little Renault. I drove that thing to death. I think we had to shoot it when I was done. There was nothing good left in it. When Eddie and I got married, his had a TR3 foreign car. 4 speed.  I loved that thing. We drove it to Denver, Colorado after the wedding, where he was stationed.  We put all our worldly possessions in that little car.  In those days, we rented furnished apartments. In the military, you moved and it was easier to just move clothes instead of furniture also. After a while, we did buy a house in New Mexcio and did get some furniture. Have to go now. Talk more later. 

That Other Blog

I'm serving as an "editor" other than a "writer" here because I have a blog of similar distraction at Eddie's Home Room.

Good Article I Came Across Today

ESPN's Rick Reilly had an uplifting column back in December that is worth a read. One of my Facebook friends posted a link to it today.

There are some games in which cheering

for the other side feels better than winning.

I'm In! It's Cold! Unemployment is Getting Old!

I finally got through the cookie and java difficulties with my browser settings so that I could log into blogger again. hurray!

Well, on the gulf coast it is freakin' cold and damp today. Of course, the insurance rep I spoke to in North Dakota didn't seem to think that the prospect of getting down to freezing this week was all that cold. It's something like 20 below up there right now. I guess it's not too-too bad, I have the windows open in the house today.

I am trying to find out the companies attending the job fair here tomorrow to see if it is worth stopping by. The placement agency I am working work has a job fair next week that I will plan to attend. Meanwhile, I am browsing the job postings and continuing to touch base with people in my network. Thank goodness for LinkedIn.com, what a great way to find people you haven't talked to in ages. Plus find out more about the local tech forums and groups and when they meet.
So, time for some LUNCH. Cold weather gives me the munchies in a major way.

P.S. I love the Kitty pictures--especially the one where he swears he didn't do nuthin, the other one jes esploded!? We have some of those moments at our house where you aren't quite sure if it was the cat, the dog, the kid, or the husband, or a conspiracy.....Lord knows, it wasn't me!

Florida

The creatures I have seen while living in Florida were different than New Mexico. Alligators, snakes of all kinds, raccoons, possums, rabbits, all kinds of birds, deer, otter, cows, horses, fox, lizards, spiders, beaver, donkey, and even a mule.

A friendly black snake currently resides in the shed.

new mexico

I was thinking about all the creatures I saw when I lived in Alamogordo. New Mexico. I would bring in scorpions on my mop. Horny toads were walking around the yard. You could see coyotes at night on the road to the base. One time I saw a gila monster (a venomous lizard native to the southwestern U.S. and Mexico).

A Gila Monster - a venomous lizard native to the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.

Probably the most seen around the base were tarantulas. They were everywhere. Eddie had them in the shop he worked, on the sidewalk walking up to the building. Kids on the base would bring them home to show their mothers. I am sure there were many others, but those were the main ones down in the valley. Up in the mountains around Cloudcroft, New Mexico were big deer, lots of shunks, rabbits.

Cloudcroft in the summer

Irish Blessing

Click Here: Traditional Irish Blessing. It has cool music and a nice message.

Lil Mommy Soft Soft

Lil Soft Soft

Josh Groban - You Raise Me Up (Live)

There is no life, no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when You come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.

Go The Distance

Michael Bolton's song Go The Distance reminded me what it takes to fight cancer. To write a blog about my time with cancer is hard, soul searching. What a thing to go through and continue to go through.

The four main things that make the difference in a person's life with cancer are: Faith and Trust in God to guide your path and hold you close, a loving husband whose love, care and support is constant, a doctor who has your best outcome at heart and knows his job, and family who each one gives you love, support and encouragement every day that goes by. This includes your church family and your own family and having each pray for you.

You soon realize you need to face one thing head on and make a decision on how you feel about death. That is - how do you really feel about death? And you have to come to a place where you truly understand how much you trust God. People say they trust God but those are only words most of the time. You and God have to have a serious talk. God has the ability and love to change anything He wants to, if it is a part of his plan. He can cure my cancer and make it disappear in a moment or He can leave it as is. I am a part of a bigger scheme of things, much bigger than myself. God uses many things for the good of everyone and in the end everyone closes out better. I had to come to the place and understand I am a child of God and no matter the outcome, I will be okay and God will take care of me through all eternity.

In other words, I am not afraid to die. I feel I will be here as long as God is working out the plan in my life and as long as He is using this cancer to work in someone else's life. It has already affected many people that have come across my path. A lot of people are afraid to die or are afraid of things they can't control and that will cause them pain. They don't understand God will help them through the pain and provide whatever you need if you trust him with your life.

Gil, my husband, is the first part of my life God put in place. A life mate to love me and care for me through out my life. He is so positive and won't allow me to dwell on negative parts of the cancer. You can find endless bad things about everyday if you think it in a negative manner. It takes a lot of love, good positive thoughts, as little stress as possible, good food, plenty of sleep and follow the rules the doctor gives me. Gil goes to the treatments and doctor visits and hospital stays with me not showing any fear, just love and support. I am so blessed.

In the beginning, a lot of people thought I was going to die in days. In the beginning I knew and was shown that God was in control of the plan of treatment. The right doctor, the right operation, the right chemo and a husband to help me through it all. I let go and relaxed and decided to do everything the doctor said, and as the doctor said, 'take one day at a time'. Don't borrow from tomorrow what hasn't even happened.

People tell you all kinds of stories and you can't let that become your story. You have control over how you see your day and how you see your cancer. You can give up or you can tackle everyday head on with the belief there will be a good outcome. I stayed in the hospital after the operation to remove as many tumors as possible. Who knew my bowels would have to be cut in two places also. I couldn't eat for awhile because my bowels were asleep, It took weeks and a lot of sleep. Then I was so weak. Too weak to walk very far. But in a short while, I started chemo, lost my hair and got even weaker and wasn't sure I could come back from the point I had come to.

Gil worked so hard to watch my every move. So I wouldn't fall, so that I would eat at least something each day. He did all the housework, cooked and bathed me and watched me and encouraged me every minute along the way. That is what got me through. And God carried me through when I didn't even have the strength to ask or know what was happening. The chemo worked and the tumors started shrinking. Six months of hard chemo and many shots to keep my blood count up. There were many nights, I wondered if I would wake up the next day or die in my sleep. I was so weak, when I shut my eyes, I felt like I went down, down into a deep well of nothing, but, I came out on the other side of the first chemo and for awhile was cancer free. It came back in 3 months and I started a new kind of chemo again.

The doctor said my chances were not as good now that it came back, but I decided to be as active as possible and exercise some everyday, eat good, rest well, and keep trusting God. My hair grew back and my color started looking more normal and I felt like being around people more. I started helping out at the office wherever they needed me and I could be of help. Being back around people, going to church and thinking of other things besides cancer helped also. I try not to be around stressful things. I am lucky because I could retire, I am older and have a choice of what I do, and Gil and I have enough money to pay our stuff and live pretty good.

When I first got married, when I was twenty, I felt Eddie and I would spend the rest of our lives together. We had until the end of Eddie's life. I had no clue what the rest of my life had in store. Gil came into my life and we are going through the second half of our lives together. Who knew we would be together? Who knew? God knew, that is who. Someday, we will all be together again. Those who have gone on ahead. We here have our lives to live and people to love and things yet to be done. I am asking to be cured this year.



I have often dreamed of a far off place
Where a hero's welcome would be waiting for me
Where the crowds will cheer when they see my face
And a voice keeps saying this is where I'm meant to be

I'll be there someday; I can go the distance
I will find my way if I can be strong
I know every mile will be worth my while
When I go the distance I'll be right where I belong

Down an unknown road to embrace my fate
Though the road may wander it will lead me to you
And a thousand years would be worth the wait
It may take a lifetime but somehow I'll see it through

And I won't look back; I can go the distance
And I'll stay on track, no I won't accept defeat
It's an uphill slope but I won't lose hope
Until I go the distance and my journey is complete

But to look beyond the glory is the hardest part
For a hero's strength is measured by his heart

Like a shooting star I can go the distance
I will search the world I will face its harms
I don't care how far I can go the distance
Until I find my hero's welcome waiting in your arms...

I will search the world I will face its harms
Until I find my hero's welcome waiting in your arms...

New Mexico years-some events

We lived in New Mexico 5 years. At first, we drove into town from Colorado and thought we had come to the end of the world. Along the way there, we saw ghost town after ghost town with only foundations left and very few gas stations. Old signs that looked like signs you would see in the old western movies. Dry, flat rocky desert with rolling tumble weed in the wind. We stopped once on top of a hill on the road and looked in all directions and no sound but the wind. No cars as far as the eye could see. Two lane road. Hot and dry. There were signs to get water to take with you because there was no water for many miles and no gas. It was like the twilight zone. We both sort of looked at each other and hoped our gas and water would last and this wouldn't go on forever. The only thing missing was our covered wagon.

On the map, I would see a town's name and thought Oh good, we can get some gas and water. But when we got there, it was only a intersection with a couple of buildings and no gas or water. No one around and we just kept on going. There weren't interstates back then, just old two lane highways. Thank goodness for the base - Holloman Air Force Base and their regional hospital. The base had a commissary, movie house, hospital, shopping bx and gas station. Alamogordo had one drive in theater, some shopping areas, a bank, a school and of course housing.

A large percentage of the population was Mexican, and they didn't like the military guys. Eddie was told to never wear his military uniform downtown after duty hours because he could be shot. One time he came to where I was working to take me home, and when we came out to the car on the side street, there were about 8 Mexican boys sitting on the car hood and bumper. Eddie told me to not look at them, or say anything, just walk up and get in the car. Eddie started the engine and started to move and they all got off. Nothing happened. We were lucky.

Our entertainment was a trip to the root beer stand for a root beer float or the drive in movie for $1. That was the only thing to do. We did have a small TV but the time zone was different and the TV signed off at 9:00 pm. Things that you usually see at 11:00 pm happened two hours earlier. So we went to bed at 9:00 pm. Plus there were only 3 or 4 channels. You used an antenna.

I worked at a loan company in town and for an attorney for a few months. I had all three children while we were in New Mexico. Not a lot to do but fool around and have children. We were so young and so in love and so happy. We didn't have hardly any money but it didn't seem to matter. I had girlfriends and we traded baby clothes and let each other use things, so it all worked out. The groceries were cheap and $1 for the movie. You could see three movies in one night. The kids could sleep while we watched the movie.We went on mountain picnics too. We were 30 minutes away from the top of the mountain in Cloud Croft. There was snow there too. Of course, the base was in the valley basin beside the mountain range. One winter, it got down to 14 below 0 in Alamogordo. Everywhere we went, the weather got weird and extra cold. It snowed in August in Denver and the next weekend was 80 degrees. We had a blizzard in Dayton, Ohio and below 0 there too. There was a park in the middle of town, with swings and I took Debbie there a lot to play with my girlfriends kids. I am going to have to write more later. There were exciting things that happened in Alamogordo. That is it for now.

Daddy

Daddy taught me to shoot a shot gun, a rifle, and a 22 pistol. He took me hunting for quail and taught me how to look out for snakes and bulls in a pasture. We once went to a turkey shoot in Lake Wales around Thanksgiving. We shot at targets. I won a turkey shooting a rifle. Daddy didn't win anything. I was about 13. Daddy taught us how to launch a boat, and run it safely. Every Sunday, before Daddy started going to church, he and I would go fishing (casting) in Long Lake. I would drive the small boat and he would cast for bass. I always asked him why Mother went to church and we didn't. Finally, we started going to church. Funny thing, mother stopped going for awhile when Daddy started going. Maybe she didn't like his singing. I never figured that one out. Finally, she started coming to church again and we were there as a family.

Daddy liked to scare our dates by showing up with his shot gun across his arms, if we were late or sitting in the drive too long, or just for fun so they would know who was boss. One time, Eddie and I were late coming home, and Daddy came out with his gun. Scared Eddie half to death. He backed his cool car out onto Daddy's yard running over one of Daddy's favorite plants and then gunned the engine, leaving ruts all the way up through the grass until he hit the dirt road. Eddie only stopped for a moment to look at me, and then tore out up the dirt road like the devil himself was after him. I cried, Daddy laughed and Eddie left. Daddy called Eddie the next day and told him it was okay and he could come back to see me. Eddie must have really loved me at that point, because he did come back. One time, Eddie was kissing me good night at the door and he didn't know he was leaning against the doorbell. So he rang the doorbell several times and mother came to the door and said, "If you are going to have a long kiss, at least get off the doorbell. Come to bed, Eddie go home."

When I was sent off to college at FSU, I really wasn't prepared for college. Mother mostly sent me there to get a break from Eddie and to meet other boys. I was so miserable. I didn't do very well and it got worse everyday. I cried a lot and finally, near the end of the first semester, I called home and talked to Daddy. I was so unhappy and couldn't take it anymore. Daddy came and got me the next day. He just said, you have to work or go to college somewhere else. You can't just sit home. He saved me again. He would always listen to your side of the story and always showed how much he cared. One time after Eddie and I were married living in New Mexico, I had to call Daddy because we couldn't make our car payment. Eddie's only thought was he would have to send me home for awhile until he could make ends meet again. Daddy, said "Oh no, don't send her home, I will send you the money each month. She is just fine where she is." I don't think he wanted to deal with me and mother together again under the same roof. She and I made life very interesting for Daddy. So, right now, I am going to get ready to go to work for awhile. I have a Sunday School Class later.

Daddy

Well Eddie said to post something to the blog tonight for the first time. I couldn't think about what to say. This is a place to put thoughts about the past and the present. Things I remember to the best of my knowledge and would like my family to know about. The first person to come to mind to remember is our Daddy. You see, Lawrence Estes, wasn't just my daddy, he was our daddy, my sisters and I. We all have memories and they are different. I don't remember what Diane experienced with Daddy, I only remember things Daddy and I did together and what he was like as I saw him. Daddy loved us all so much and we knew it. He was a big man with a little boy inside fighting to get out and play. He worked hard, not minding the dirt, giving each day his best effort and came home to his family. We always ate at the table together at the same time each day.

He was a citrus grower, grew flowers, vegetables, trees produced nuts, fruits of all kinds, blackberries, watermelons. For a while he had cows that he milked. He loved to fish, fresh and salt water. He loved to hunt birds with bird dogs. He didn't hunt deer. He loved to cut up and make lots of noise, even at the kitchen table. He would take his silverware and beat out tunes on the water glasses and plates until mother made him stop. He told dirty jokes at the table until mother told him to stop. He grew vegetables and brought them to the house for mother to cook. He brought the quail he shot home for mother to cook in a stew. He caught fish brought them home and cleaned them and then mother cooked them. Everything always tasted so good.We always thought our Daddy was our hero. He had a truck that was dirty because he always took his dogs in the front seat or the back and there was lots of dirt in the grove. He sometimes took us with him,which was our delight. He always had something special to show us that he had found earlier. Usually a nest of new baby birds or a nest of rabbits. or some huge turtle down by the water hole. He has brought us home a baby rabbit on many occasions. Once a owl that lived in our bathroom for a while, eating raw hamburger meat. He loved all of nature. Once he built cages and bought a lot of parakeets from a woman in Lake Wales. He had nesting boxes and raised the babies they had. He sold the birds. The babies had no features and big eyes. He raised chickens for us to eat, turkeys, pheasants. He always had dogs-big dogs and kept them outside in big pens. We loved them all. He loved boats. He taught himself to water ski and us.

Daddy was a tender-hearted man. Didn't mind getting dirty, but on Sunday he cleaned up real good. He went to church, then we went out to eat and saw a movie almost every Sunday. He dressed up in a suit. He sang off key in church but he didn't care, bless his heart, he just sang real loud anyway. He was a deacon and worked hard for the church too. He joined the rotary club and worked hard for them. One time. he even cooked breakfast for my senior all night party. The Rotary club cooked for us the next morning. That was a little weird. But one thing we all knew, no matter what we did, he first checked the car out to be sure it was in one piece and then he told us he loved us. We knew he loved us. We sisters were a little wild sometimes. Not drinking and stuff, just fooling around. We drove way too fast. We lived 12 miles from Bartow and had to fly like the wind to get home in time. We always had to get home early-11:00 pm. I don't know how we lived through it. We drove 90 or so. Never saw any cops - probably going too fast for them to catch us. We just didn't want Daddy to catch us out late. Daddy took the family on vacation every summer, usually to the beach, sometimes the mountains. We liked the beach better - it had cute boys. Daddy took his boat and fished early then joined us at the beach. He always did stuff with the family. Once in a great while he would go off and fish down south with some men friends for a few days. He really liked doing that. Well, it is my bed time. Early to bed has sort stayed with me all these years. We always got up at 5:30 am. Type some more later.