Once upon a time

My earliest childhood was spent in Red Oak, Oklahoma, a town where both sets of my grandparents lived within two blocks of each other. Some random memories:

1) Swinging on a swing hung in Ma's & Pa's pear tree. I was probably three years old. I can remember some of my Dad's sisters being there. Ma & Pa are my Mother's parents, Edna May (Lambert) and Simon Henry "Bud" Stalcup.

2) Standing on Ma's & Pa's screened in back porch talking with some of Dad's sisters.

3) Watching the construction of our new house just across the driveway from Ma's & Pa's house.

4) Making ice cream using snow. I don't know for sure what the snow was used for. I suspect it was in place of ice to cause the freezing. Snow of much depth is fairly rare in Red Oak.

5) Waking up one morning in our new house and going to Ma's & Pa's garage, getting my fold-up kid's lawn chair, going into Ma's & Pa's house, and sitting in my chair beside their bed until they woke up. Since they always got up at 6:00, I must have been up real early. Ma's & Pa's garage was an unpainted, unattached wooden structure with no doors. There were stalls for two cars. A "smokehouse" was also attached. The smokehouse had a regular house-type door and was used for storage. It was full of junk. I suspect a lot of it would be very valuable these days. Ma's & Pa's back door was never locked. The front door was always locked and never used except on Sunday mornings to go to church which was just across the street from their front door.

6) I can remember my Dad coming back to the house after going being in a parade in his Navy uniform. Dad served in the Navy in WWII. I'm guessing this parade was Armistice Day (now called Veteran's Day) in 1947. I think it was in McAlester. Apparently they wanted all WWII veterans to march in the parade in their uniforms. Winning WWII was still considered a major event back then, if not a miracle.

7) I can remember catching the train in Red Oak to go to Casper, Wyoming where my Dad was working for AT&T. This was probably around March 1949. I was four years old. My Mother, my sister, and I were going together. I can remember the train pulling into the Red Oak station. I can remember that at another station we went by we looked at the window to see if we could see Uncle Dick who worked for the railroad at that station. We didn't see him.

8) I can remember someone (maybe my Dad) wringing a chicken's neck and then the body walking around for a few seconds afterwards. Back then, a lot of chickens were raised in Red Oak for food.