Number 6's Blog

I was young, maybe 7 or 8. It was Christmas morning. Both Jerry and Sally were old enough to creep down the stairs with me which we did. Now, we had a steep stairway with a door at the bottom which should clue you into how old the house was. Also, we did not have an inside bathroom yet.It wasn’t until I was in 6th grade which was 1958 when the blessed inside bathroom with a commode and a bathtub arrived.

We also did not have TV and the phone was one of those old 15 person party line models. It was one of those old huge crank phones that hung on the wall and had a big transformer. After the new type of phones were installed we rigged up the old phones with some leads hanging out from the transformer. We then used it on the Mississippi to stun catfish by dropping the leads in the wire and cranking the phone which caused the transformer to zap the fish with electricity. The catfish would float to the surface and you had, I don’t’ know, maybe 2 minutes to grab them until they came to and swam away. My how times have changed.

Wow,I really digressed. How did wander from Christmas morning as a youn child to stunning catfish on the Mississippi? Back to the story.

Jerry, Sally, and I crept down the stairs as quiet as a mouse and slowly opened the door. We were greeted by our older brother Jim with a hug smile on his face. He said and I quote: “Boy, we really go some nice presents from Santa.” Turns out he had woken early, and opened all the presents. To this day I’m not sure how he could have done that without waking Mom and Dad. Our old house configuration was a square with the kitchen at the Northwest corner, dining room at the Northeast corner, living room with the Christmas tree and presents in the Southeast corner, and Parents bedroom in the Southwest corner. There were no doors between the living room and the parent’s bedroom, just a rod with drapes hanging down.

I don’t remember if Jim got in trouble for opening the presents or not. All I remember about the rest of the day is I received a warehouse made of mental with some boxes, and maybe trucks. I laid on the carpet all day playing with the warehouse, the boxes, and the trucks.

In any case that’s my first Christmas memory — at least 70 years back.