The Early Years

I was born in the early 1950's and life in a small town was very peaceful and quite. We lived across the street from my Dad's mother (my Grandmother). It was a bigger house than my grandmothers with a large screened front porch that we played on and it was a great place to play when it was raining or at night you felt like you were outside/but protected from the darkness by being in the house on the screen porch.

There were five of us kids and I was the youngest.

One day the front screen door was blowing open and closing with the wind and mother yelled for one of the kids to put something in front of the door to keep the door closed. One of my sisters picked me up and put me in front of the door and gave me something to play with and I became the door stop.

Our house had six rooms with a large hall in the center. There were two bedrooms on the left of the hall and on the right side there was the living room and the kitchen.
And at the back of the house beside the back porch was the bathroom.

Just before I was born the bathroom was added and I never had to grow up using an outdoor privy unless I went to some of my friends house that lived out in the country.

The large hall between the rooms was also used as a bedroom and if we had company you could double up in bed or we also had trundle beds that were stored under the regular beds during the day time.

Moving To Our New House

We lived in this house until I had had my first birthday and then we moved to a new house that my Uncles had built for us on the other side of town in the Hood Subdivision. We were one of the first houses in this subdivisions. It was a brick house and we had plenty of room to play and not many neighbors to start with. The streets in the subdivision were dirt and so was our driveway.

I remember that we used to burn all of our trash that was burnable in a open wire basket that looked like a garbage can but made out of wire and everything else was put into the garbage cans for the city to pick up once a week. If a jar got put into the burner it could get so hot that the jar would melt in the fire.

Our First Dog

My parents decided that we could get a dog and one was selected and someone gave it the name of Shep. Being the youngest I was always too young to play with a lot of the other kids, so Shep became my best friend. I went everywhere he liked to go. In the summer he knew where all of the cool spots were outdoors. In the flower beds or under the house.

I would take him for rides in my wagon down the driveway. It was so much fun to fly down the driveway in the wagon and feel the breeze of air on your face and wonder why Shep wanted to jump out of the wagon. Wasn't he having as much fun as I was.

When mother wasn't looking I tried to sneak him into the house but as always the eyes that were in the back of her head always saw us. I never got to let him share my bed with me.

My First Dog

When I was about four, I developed a breathing problem and the doctor told my parents that I had Asthma and it would be something that I would have to learn to live with. I wasn't able to run and play and get hot or play in the woods, or get dirty because it was bad for me. How can you be a little boy growing up in the South and not do all of those things? I remember many days looking out the window and watching all the others playing and having a big time while I was stuck inside or sitting under the shade of a tree. Life got to be pretty boring for me.

A lady that traded with my dad at the store told my dad that her son had had Asthma and that they had gotten him a Chiwawa dog and it had taken care of all of his problems and he could run and play like all other kids. My parents thought it over and decided what could it hurt and so we went to pick out my first dog. There was a small beige puppy in the litter and as soon as I picked it up it gave me a lick on my hand. It was love at first lick, and we became best friends on the spot. My parents tried to discourage me because it was a female, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I still remember that first night Trixie like it was last night. She was going to get to sleep with me because this was how she could help me breath better. It didn't matter how it would make me feel, just the thought of having Trixie to protect me through the night from darkness was going to be great. After settling down for the night we slept the whole night with no interruptions. This was a first because usually I would wake up several times during the night because I couldn't breath and I would have to be calmed back down and then go back to sleep.

It was working, I don't know how it was but one thing I know it that I didn't worry as much as I had before and yes I got to play outside.

Trixie loved to chase cars when we were playing outside and I didn't think of the danger of this and I would laugh at her as she would chase the cars going down the road. I had had her for about four years when one day she got to close to the car and got run over. We took her to Dr. Shirley the vet, but sadly all he said that he could do was put her to sleep and put her out of her misery. Know one ever said anything about helping me in my misery.

We took Trixie hope in a shoe box and I called all of my neighbor friends and let them know what had happened and let them know that they were invited to her funeral that would be that afternoon. I had dug a hole in the corner of the backyard and we had set up some chairs in the living room to have the funeral. We covered the piano bench with a towel and put the shoe box on the Piano bench. I had covered the shoe box with aluminum foil to make it look like a silver casket and wrapped Trixie with a pillow case. She looked like she was just resting. We sang a couple of hymns and prayed and shared experiences of what Trixie had been to us. I carried the shoebox out to my bike and tided the box on the back fender of my bike and all of my friend got on their bikes and we turned on our bike lights and off we went in our funeral possession around the block where Trixie had loved to play. We came back home to the back yard to bury my best friend. It was the hardest thing that I had ever done to put the dirt over her box as I covered her up. The next day I planted a small pine tree in front of her grave and even today that tree is still standing and is over thirty feet tall. "May she rest in peace, the best friend a boy could ever have.

Well, it seemed as though I was cured of Asthma and Trixie had done that and it didn't look like I would ever get another dog. After about six months the breathing problems started to happen again and we visited the same lady as before and I got another Chiwawa puppy and this one was a make that was black with withe spots above each eye that I named Chico.

Palmer Waters