When we lived on the “Benton Place,” between Hico and Iredell during my preschool years, we lived very close to the Katy tracks. Sometimes tramps (hobos is a nicer name) would come to the door. Mama usually didn’t have much to feed them. The trains fascinated me. I remember asking about the device on the front of the train. I was told that it was the cowcatcher, but I couldn’t figure out why they called it that. I never saw them catch any cows.
Sometimes we rode the bus to Hico. It never was quite as much fun. We rode the Greyhound. We could actually catch it at Homer LeMay’s store in Elmdale (which we all called “Ellumdale”) or at Boogie Houston’s Café in Clyde. We rode the Greyhound because we were on U. S. Highway 80, which was a coast-to-coast highway (predecessor to I-20). We had to change busses at Cisco for the ride on into Hico. I think we were probably riding on Arrow Coach Lines. The busses weren’t as big or as nice as they are today.
Once we were in Hico, we would usually walk to my grandparents’ house. It seems like we always arrived about supper time and I would look forward to eating off Grammy’s metal plates. I don’t ever remember eating off plates just like them anywhere else. I could nearly always count on one of Grammie’s cakes. As I said, I still think she was the best cake baker I ever knew.
Of course I spent most of the time playing with Raymond. It was usually a pain for him to put up with this little kid, but aside from that we got along pretty well. We nearly always took in movies at the Plaza and debated who was the best cowboy. He practically made me ashamed to admit that I liked Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. They were sissy cowboys because they sang. The real cowboys were Buster Crabbe (a former Olympic swimmer) Johnny Mack Brown (former University of Alabama football player) and Wild Bill Elliott. They didn’t sing.
I thought I took a step toward adulthood when I was allowed to attend the “Midnight Show” with Raymond. I guess I thought we were getting close to something that was taboo. Looking back on it, those shows really weren’t very racy. Basically, I graduated from the cowboy movies to the first run movies of that day. I only recall two of them and neither one of them would have even got a PG rating by today’s standards. One was “Cheaper By the Dozen” with Clifton Webb. The other was “Robin Hood.” In adulthood, I’ve seen an old Robin Hood movie with Errol Flynn in the title role, but it seem so to me this one featured Cornel Wilde.
It was also on these trips that I learned to ride a bicycle. Raymond had a bicycle and I had a tough time learning to ride it. I don’t know how many skinned knees and elbows I ended up with before I learned to ride the thing. I eventually acquired the bicycle and kept it until I wore it out.
Life on the farm at Elmdale was pretty boring, especially in the summer time. I started working in the fields by the time I was ten. There were no other kids anywhere close most of the time and I ended up in conflict with most of the ones who did live around us. A trip to Hico in the summer time was a welcome break from a summer of boredom.
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