Isn't it odd what you remember

"I started out as a child" (to steal a line from Bill Cosby) and then rapidly progressed to a major pain in the butt. Seriously, my first recollection is of being stood up on the counter of the store in Rollersville, Ohio. The store was one of those old-fashioned general stores with the gas pump out in front and a huge National cash register on an old wooden counter.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if it’s really a memory. Maybe thinking about it over the years has enhanced a feeling into a fully developed memory. I don't remember the house in Rollersville that we lived in. My older brother and sisters went to school in the schoolhouse and used to point it out when we drove by it in later years. It’s frustrating that so many memories that helped shape me seem to have faded into the background.

Early memories are of rented farm houses and plowed fields. Polegard's house, outside of Bradner, Ohio was the first (the spelling may be wrong, but phonetically it was "POLE GUARD" or "POLE GART"). My older brother and sisters taught my younger brother and me checkers and rummy in this house. Our parents liked the farm and, for a while, they had horses.

Somewhere, there is a picture of my sisters, Chris and Doe, and my little brother, Mike, on the front porch, with me looking out of the screen door, just being barely visible due to the glare of the screen. We also sat for pictures in the front yard. Dressed in striped shirt and a stupid looking Tyrolean hat with the feather in the band, I was holding on to Mike. Not much more than three and Mike was still an infant

My older brother Tom, and my cousins, Donnie and Larry climbed ten to fifteen feet up into some poplar trees (actually big shrubs) that my dad was cutting down. Their weight was perfect to bring the trees down slowly (and in the right direction) and it looked like they were having a ball.

Watching Dad repair the Studebaker Eagle. For some reason, he took the hood off. It really looked cool as he drove it down to the gas station without the hood. He traded it for a forty-nine Ford that was in much better condition and I remember going for the first family drive in that car. We lived at the Polegard’s place for about a year.

Next was the Steinhardt's farm, with the individual hog houses (no hogs, just the houses). The houses were cool because they were just about the right size for three and four year old kids. The older kids were allowed to go in the barn, but we only had the hog houses. It all stopped after some one (I think it was Mike) was climbing on the hog house roof and was injured – stitches were needed. We had to stay in the house yard and weren’t allowed in the barnyard.

The memories are more developed and feel more real: My older brother and sisters catching the school bus in front of the house (to go to the Rollersville school).

Watching TV - especially Combat!, Andy Griffith, I Love Lucy, and The Virginian.

Mike and I played trucks in the backyard . For some reason that I can’t recall, we called ourselves "Ed and Mack".

Dad burned a huge pile of brush on the edge of the field next to the house. There were a lot of bushes and a fair amount of poison ivy. Doris reacted to it after walking through the smoke.

Tom had a bow and arrow and was always looking to shoot birds or rodents. It was after dinner and just about dusk, my dad came in the house and told my mom to follow him out to the garage, I wondered what was up and followed them. In the half-light of dusk, there was Tom (in full stalking stance with his arrow drawn back), Chris peered round Tom, and Doris peered around Chris and Mike brought up the rear. They were after some thing that had just run into the garage. Dad stopped them before they followed the skunk. Dad always delighted in telling that story - he always said that maybe he should have let Tom find out the hard way that you don't mess around with skunks.

My mom had a quarter acre vegetable garden at Steinhardt’s. We didn’t have much money, but we had radishes, carrots, leaf lettuce, fresh tomatoes, sweet corn, fresh cucumbers, fried green tomatoes and bread and butter pickles.

My grandma (my dad's mom) came to stay with us. It was very interesting when the hearing aid salesman came and made a putty cast of her ear so that they could make an ear piece that fit tightly into her ear. It was fascinating for a four year old. She seemed much nicer after she got her hearing aid and could talk to everyone without them shouting at her.