Childhood memories

 

Listen, can you hear it? Echoes from our childhood

 

I am not exactly sure how old I was when we moved in the little house down on the alley.

For the younger generation in Sharpsburg, that alley would now be called Montgomery Street.

What I do remember is all the mishaps that I seemed to get into back then. 

There was the time I fell out of the big tree that sat in the coroner of the yard, landed flat on my back, and knocked the wind plumb out of me.

And the time I saw what I thought was one huge spider in the dark corner of the building out back where mommy had her wringer washer. 

I was scared to death of that spider and I climbed as fast as I could up on an old dresser and jumped through the window to get away. As I landed on the ground I heard the dresser mirror hit the floor and crash.

That same night we went to the drive in and I slid down the slide and landed in a huge puddle of mud …April said, well  it’s because you broke that mirror now you will have seven years of bad luck!

Once I came up with the idea that I could keep our dog from chasing cars. 

I figured if I could tie a rope around his neck and then wind it around my ankles and tie it to the porch post “Blackie” would not get ran over.

Well, I had that dog all tied up and anchored to my ankles and the post, when along came a car down the alley and sure enough the dog barked and jumped and tried to get loose.  

That rope started to unwind around my ankles and burned right through my skin.

And one time mommy told me not to put my hand in the metal tub of rinse water because she had one of those little electric water heater thingys in there.

Of course I had to see what it would do and stuck my hand in the water and got shocked.

We didn’t always get into trouble, we had many days of fun and adventure too.

We used to turn an old wash tub upside down and stand on it for our stage while we belted out songs loud enough for the entire town to hear. 

Seems to me we sang songs like Happiest Girl in the Whole USA, Stand By Your Man and some Elvis songs thrown into the mix.

One time after we had been to either a revival or Bible School at Donald Fosters church, Dwayne decided he was gonna preach some hell fire and brimstone to his siblings.

So, my brother made him a pulpit with some old concrete blocks that he probably took from the house Pepper Jewel was working on. … where George Riley now lives.

That street is where we lived when me and Daphne Fair would push our doll buggy’s up and down the road and where we had a fabulous time playing in the dump and rummaging through the chicken house.

That little house we lived in on the alley still stands, but it looks much different now.

The big tree is gone and so are the neighbors who lived beside us. 

The back lot is now clear where a small branch of water once trickled past a big grove of trees.

But I imagine if you listen real close on a windy day, you can still hear the echoes of six little Hawkins kids laughing and singing.