Then later there is discomfort. Something is not right. I'm experiencing a change and I want to go back to how it was. This lasts for a while. I want to go back to God. Finally, I'm out and I'm in the light of the external world. I feel that I'm smiling and thinking "Here I Am". Of course I did't know English but that is the translation of the feeling that I had.
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One Sunday in the 1980's we were having our Sunday dinner at my parents home. The subject of trains was being discussed. I turned to my Mom who was sitting next to me. I said to her that I recall climbing onto a train with her when I was very little. Her jaw dropped and she said that one train ride was when I was about 19 months old. It was late June 1952. We were living in Comanche, Oklahoma at the time and she was pregnant with my brother. Dad, a minister, had six weeks of Gospel Meetings (Revivals) lined up and would be out of town continuously. Mom and I rode the train on our way to Pontiac, MI. where she could stay with her Mom and have the baby. Also, I remember that as we walked down the aisle, there was a high pitched sound that I heard and by which I was puzzled. I thought of it as a man singing hi and somehow injured or altered. The closest thing I have ever heard since then has been the opening notes of a song called "Cattle Call". The song was originally due to Tex Owen's in the thirties but sung by many since. I don't know if this song was what was playing or if it was just some high pitched sound due to equipment and machinery. Here is a link to the song as performed by Eddy Arnold. The opening "ou ou" is what I remember.
Several months later, we begin to drive back to Oklahoma from Michigan. We stop at a restaurant and the waitress pays a lot of attention to me as the new big brother. Everyone was very kind to me. As we leave I'm encouraged to pick out some candy. I don't know what anything is and I don't know what to choose. I feel pressure to make a decision. The waitress points to something and I nod that it is what I want. But I really did not. It was one of those round, pinkish peanut brittle type things.
I was barely two when Christmas comes. We went to Pocahontas, AR for that. It is where my Dad and I were born. We stay with his parents. Aunt Edna dresses up light Santa Claus and enters the front door. The Christmas tree is in the room that would later be cousin Dennis' room.
Some time later, probably in the summer. We are back in that house and Dennis and I are running and jumping onto a bed which is next to a window. At one point I jump onto the bed and turn a flip and hit my head on the window sill. I bleed. My parents take me to Doctor. It is night time and I recall a white house. I suppose I still have the scar.
We live across the street from a lumber mill. I can still hear the high pitched whining of the saws that were on incessantly. Mom has a red plastic radio she listens to. I look through the window and see kids playing between our house and the next. When they go inside I go out and find they have left a catcher's mask lying on the ground. I know that it goes on the face and try to put it on but I could not figure out how to do that. The inside of our church has wood paneling. I want to say knotty pine but not sure of that detail. Kind of darker.
About two months before my 3rd birthday, we prepare to move to Velma, OK. The moving van comes to the house and begin to move the household items. I am worried they will not take my little rocking chair. I take it and place it on the back of the moving truck and rock back and forth.
On my third birthday my Mom tries to teach me how to say "three" but it is so much easier to say "free". I recall at church tapping someone from behind and looking up I put up three fingers and say I'm "free".
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