Waking up to the fragrance of the gardenia bush outside my bedroom window was always pleasing to my senses. I would awaken early and look out my window into the street and contemplate what I wanted to do with my day. Since these were the days before air-conditioning, I could hear the birds in the trees as well as other sounds as my neighborhood in Grand Prairie, Texas began to wake up. I would hear the milk truck drive up and park, and then hear the clink of the milk bottles as the milkman left them on the porch. I would hear my dad pull out of the driveway on his way to another day of work at the factory (LTV Aeronautics). Because these days seemed long, lazy, and never-ending, I liked to plan things to do. Of course, I knew that before I could plan anything for myself I had to clean my room and make my bed. There were a few times when these morning activities were completed that my family would actually go on a few days of vacation. Of course, as a family, one of our faults was that we really didn’t know how to allow ourselves to enjoy leisure time. We never slept late even on vacation and there certainly weren’t any spas available. Taking a trip without air-conditioning was an experience in itself. You would roll all the windows down, and then your hair would almost blow off your head! And with all three of us kids in the back seat (David, Shirley, and I) things would get really sticky as the thermometer went up. However, you did get the added sense of smelling or hearing the places you passed, and sometimes even tasting it if there were bugs around! We made a few trips over the years, one to Yellowstone National Park and another to South Padre Island, even though the majority of the time was spent driving. I remember my Dad driving over the bridge into Matamoras, Mexico, as if the act of driving across was vacation enough. His thinking was that we could tell our friends that we had been in a foreign country! There were also trips to my grandparents in Athens, Texas. We would return with fresh eggs, peaches, blackberries, black-eyed peas, beans, or plums in season. Of course, when we got home I had to help my mom shell the peas or peel the fruit which didn’t “a-peel” to me!
We would always play outside during the mornings because the mornings and evenings in Texas were the only bearable time to be outside. There was a neighborhood park where they had games and activities for kids. On Wednesday mornings there were movies at the Uptown Theatre. In the neighborhood we would ride our bikes up and down the street, skate on our skates that fit over the bottom of our shoes, and sometimes play in the garages of our friends. We never played inside anyone’s house, we knew we were to stay outside until lunch and we did what we were told. When lunch time came, our mom would call us and we would come home to a sandwich every day because, of course, there were no microwaves!
In the afternoon we would stay inside until about four o’clock. This was the time I would read my books. My favorites were the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. I usually read one book a day and went to the library on Friday mornings before we went to do our weekly shopping at the grocery store. If I didn’t read I would have to watch my mother’s soaps, “As the World Turns,” “Search for Tomorrow,” or ‘Queen for a Day,” which was a show where women told a live audience their problems and if their stories emitted enough sympathy they would get a prize of a washing machine or stove. That was really before women’s lib came on the scene! If we were fortunate in the afternoon, someone might take us to the Turner Park Public Pool, but that usually happened only about once a week. I still remember how wonderfully refreshing that water felt as you dove in, and how all my problems seemed to vanish away as I floated in the water.
After dinner, all the kids in the neighborhood would come outside again and play until dusk or sometimes after dark. Most of the parents in the neighborhood would be out also, so it was a magical time of visiting and playing. Many evenings we would make homemade ice cream with a crank ice cream maker, or we would eat red or yellow watermelon. There were baseball games almost every night that all the neighborhood boys played in and we would be there watching every night we could. Some nights we would go swimming in the city pool. We would also go to the drive-in movie. There was usually a playground where the kids could go to watch the movie and play at the same time. You haven’t lived until you have watched “The Ten Commandments” from the playground at the drive-in! At bedtime we would feel the heat the most. We would turn fans on ourselves and sometimes even wet the sheets to cool ourselves down. Finally after a few hours the air would get cooler and the neighborhood would settle down and I would drift off to sleep knowing that everything was all right with my world. There were no locks on our doors and no locks on our hearts, I wish for all of you that even though you might have to lock your doors now, that you never lock your heart away so others cannot love you.