A Few Childhood Memories

Today I am going to write about a fun Christmas vacation with Mom, Dad, Roy, Nenie and me.  First of all you need to know that Nenie was my wonderful grandmother that I loved dearly.  She loved me as well, and in her eyes I could do no wrong.  This lasted of course until I got old enough to do something wrong....but she still loved me and she went on most vacations we ever went on as children.  And she was with us on this on.

This Christmas vacation took place just before the story with Roy and Toby on the peanut truck and Roy had on his beloved Davy Crockett suit.  It was a great Christmas as all were.  We spent it in Chickasha at Nenies house and then left from there for our "big" vacation.  Daddy always had "big" vacations at Christmas time and in the summer time and we always went somewhere.  This Christmas we went to Washington D.C.  I truly do not remember what we drove, but it was not the Peanut Truck.  We must have borrowed a car or used Nenies, but I can't bring it to my memory what we drove.  We still lived on 7th street and I never remember we had a car while there.  We didn't get our first car, as I recall, until we moved to 20th street.  From the time I was in the first grade until I married, we always lived on a numbered street.  I always wanted to live on some named street, you know like RiverPark Lane or something....okay I digress.....

Back to the story.  I don't know what car we took, but we took a car.  Daddy and Mom in the front seat and Nenie, Roy and I were in the back seat.  Nenie always sat directly behind mother at the window and of course Roy and I fussed constantly about it was "my" turn to sit at the window.  Usually there was no problem with this, we would just change seats when we made our "pit stops".  But, this was a totally different type of Christmas.

Roy and I had each gotten a watch, which of course never exactly coincided in time, so that in and of itself produced many discussions (fights) regarding whose watch was right.  But, Roy, being Roy also even at this young age was so profound, precise and punctual.  haha....those who knew him knew he had no concept of time at all ever, no, not once.  Time had no meaning whatsoever to him....when he arrived, he was in his own mind, right on time....again I digress, this is about when we were kids.  He was profound and a great debater from the time the could speak so he put it into good use on this trip.  We would no longer switch seats at pit stops, we would now have EXACTLY 30 minutes at a time at the window...by his watch of course.  If he was in the middle my watch was running slow and we should change.  If he was at the window my watch was running fast and he had more time.  It made for a very fun trip from Oklahoma to Washington D.C. and back.  Mother always felt Nenie should sit in the middle so Roy and I could each have a window, but Nenie would have no part of that.

Okay, so we are on our way.  Daddy began our trip with his "trip starter saying,"  "There will be no fingernail biting, nose picking, fighting or farting on this trip, just sit back and enjoy the ride."  He said that every time we ever went anywhere, even on our vacations as we got older.  Another old memory brought back just from writing in the blog.  As I have said before, I do not plan what to say, I just sit and type about that particular memory.  I do have an outline sort of as you have seen and which you have also seen I don't really follow....but again......

Daddy got a Stetson hat for Christmas and Roy got his Davy Crockett suit and coonskin cap which he wore nearly every day for months.... and this trip with his brand new suit was and would be no exception.  Though Daddy loved his Stetson and wore it all the time, he was a real stickler for removing your hat when you went inside a home, restaurant, place of business, etc.  Hence, when we stopped to eat and went in the restaurants Daddy and Roy would remove their hats.  Daddy would put his on the hat rack and Roy kept his in the booth right by his side.  Most of the time.....One time we left the restaurant and had gone when maybe 10 miles and Roy yelled out the had forgotten his Davy Crockett hat.  Daddy turned around to go get it, but not without a lecture.  "If you are going to wear a hat, you need to keep up with it.  If you can't keep up with it then you are not old enough to wear it."  This is not word for word, but it is close and went on over and over.  We got Roy's hat and started back on the road, Roy was no longer crying, he had his hat.  Mother looked over at Daddy and said, "Burney, where is your hat?"  Well, I will not even try to write what was said.  Let us just say it wasn't pretty!  We turn around again and went back to the restaurant and got daddy's hat.

 Just for fun, throwing this in to once again show you the Davy Crockett suit.  Blow this picture up and you will see the infamous coonskin cap in Roys hands.

Also, for fun just throwing this in to show you  he was indeed a cowboy from a very early age...before the Davy Crockett days....

And just so you remember.....at a very early age....note the hat and the watch....again, he was always concerned with time....hahaha

Back to the hat story.....nothing more was said about the hat at that time.  Daddy and Roy both had their hats and all was well with the world.  Moving on down the road and a day later, all was going smoothly.  We would be in Washington this afternoon.  Out of the blue Daddy says, "What was the name of that restaurant where we ate lunch today."  "I don't know," my mother replies.  "Nenie, you remember the name?"  Nope...no one could remember the name.  "Why are you so interested in that restaurant's name," my mom asks, "Why is that so important?"  Nothing was said and Mother and Nenie began to get tickled.  Mother asks again, "Why is that restaurant so important?"  Daddy sighs, "Because I need to call them because I left my hat there."  Hysterical laughter erupts with Mother and Nenie.  Daddy, on the other hand did not find it so funny.  We were going to have to turn around and go back to that restaurant - almost 100 miles behind us - to get his hat.  Finally, as daddy was getting ready to turn around, Nenie puts the hat over the front seat to Mother.  Mother had noticed that Daddy had forgotten his hat in the restaurant and she and Nenie sneaked it out, knowing he would remember it sometime and think he had to go back to get it again.  They (Mother and Nenie) had a really good laugh over that.  Not sure Daddy even smiled, but he didn't forget his hat anymore.

Okay, that broke up the trip pretty well and I can just move us right on quickly to Washington D.C.  I don't think Roy or I even realized what a Washington D.C. was, we just knew we were going there.  When we arrived in the late evening we got a hotel room.  The next day we would tour the city.  Mother and Nenie suggested perhaps a bus tour would be wise, but nope, this wasn't that big and we all knew what we want to see so Daddy would be the tour guide.  Well, we somehow got on some kind of loop, loop, loop, loop, looooooooooooop that literally took us around in circles for what seemed like hours.  I recall Mother saying, "Get off this loop and park this car."  Well, that was the jist of what she said, don't remember the exact words.  We got off the loop.  Parked the car and the discussions (don't you like that word - discussions) doesn't sound anything thing like, shall we say, fussing.  

Meanwhile, as the discussion was getting louder, a gentleman knocked on Daddy's window.  Daddy rolled the window down.  The gentleman introduced himself as Dominec DeBacabella (may or may not be spelled correctly).  This is not the kind of stuff one can make up....  Okay, the man said he had a Limo and pointed to it and offered for $10.00 to give us a private guided tour of the city.  He would even park and let us walk up to the Monuments.  Daddy of course said no, but Mother and Nenie in unison opened their doors and off we went of a tour.  Turned out to be a really great tour.  He did indeed let us out at each Monument and then took us to the next one.  He took us to the Washington Monument and Mother, Nenie and I went on the elevator.  Roy, Daddy and  Mr. DeBacabella waited for us on a bench.  Gave them a nice time to chat.  As it turns out, Roy was fussing saying he wanted to go and we would be up there for hours.....Daddy says to him, "Don't worry, they will be on the next elevator down."  He even went on to explain to Mr. DeBacabella that we would be in the very back of the elevator because we would be the first ones ON the elevator.  Yep, we were squashed in the very back, seems not one of us liked it up in the Washington Monument.

The last thing on our tour was to be the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  I remember getting there and there were hundreds of people gathered to see it.  We couldn't even see the Tomb, much less the Changing of the Guards.  No problem for Mr. DeBacabella!  He takes my mother's arm and holds his other arm up in the air and begins moving through the crowd saying, "Excuse us please, tour coming through, tour coming through".  He wrestled us up front and we were on the front of the entire crowd, right in front of where the Guards met in the center.  Even though Roy and I were both very young we both had a vivid memory of the Changing.  This was a very well spent $10.00 I have been told many times.  Most of the rest of this story is vivid in my memory because it was talked about every Christmas and every vacation we ever took again.  In fact, most of what I write is what I have been told and heard so many times that is has become my very own "memory."

Quick little story here that happened on the way back home.  We stopped in some town and it was pouring down rain and we got a room in the hotel.  I guess they really didn't have a lot of motels at that time because we always stayed in hotels.  This one was old.  We stayed on the second floor and the bath was down the hall.  But, this is what we laughed about so many time over the years to come.  There was a big window and right under the window was a radiator with a very thick rope tied to it.  On wall just above it was a sign taped to the wall.  It read, "In case of fire through rope out window and climb down."  Yeah, couldn't you just see it....all five of us slitherings down the rope.  Makes me laugh now just to think of it.dheeaas  thatoow   year