While my folks were camping at Marble Falls during the Summer of '58, they were looking for retirement property. In January '59, we returned to Marble Falls and purchased a large lot on the corner of Lake Marble Falls and Backbone Creek. The plan was for the family to spend the Summer of '59 building the retirement home.
As soon as school ended in May, the station wagon and the boat were loaded with our stuff and we left for Marble Falls. It was just Mom and us kids because Dad was in California so it took two days to get there from Bossier City. Mom was not real comfortable pulling the boat, a 17 foot wooden Chris Craft inboard, so at 14 years, I most of the driving.
During the Spring, Dad had arranged for the construction of a cinder block building that held two bathrooms with toilets and cold-water showers. When we arrived, except for the area around the bath house, the lot was covered in bull nettle plants and brush full of wasp nests. We cleared a small area for our tents and the cook stove and found a man with a bulldozer to clear the lot.
It took a couple of days to clear the brush because of the wasps. It was exciting to watch the driver jump off the back of the dozer when he hit a bush with a wasp nest. After a couple of minutes, the wasps would settle down and he could douse the nest with gasoline. Several times, we were concerned about him stopping the dozer before jumping off as we had visions of the dozer in the lake.
Once the lot was cleared, we built a shed that overlooked the lake. The shed was 12 feet wide and 55 feet long, covered with galvanized steel, with an enclosed room on the east end, and an all electric kitchen - electric appliances - with running cold water. Mom, Betsy Jane - the only sister, and John - the youngest brother slept in the room while Chuck - the middle brother, had his tent, and Cousin George, and I shared a tent.
After the housing arrangement were complete, we raked and smoothed the ground so we could plant grass. We planted Saint Augustine grass using runners that we gathered from sidewalk edges at the homes of friends and relatives. This grass was nice but it took a lot of water to keep it alive so we purchased a small irrigation system with 20 foot joints of aluminum pipe with a sprinkler at the end - just like to big boy systems used by my Uncles on their farms in Frio County, only our system had 2 inch pipe instead of 6 inch.
The irrigation pump was started early every morning and ran until late at night, pumping lake water through the system to water the grass. Every time, the pump quit, we would fill it with gasoline, check the oil, move the pipe to a different area, and start the motor again.
As the ground slowly got wet, the grass began to grow and we were surrounded by a gigantic swamp cooler air conditioning system. At night, we had cool breezes and the soft, soothing clicking of the water sprinklers to lull us to sleep.
Weekends were always busy because on Saturday, Dad would inspect the work that George and I had completed during the week and line out projects for us during the next week. On Sunday, the Frio County relatives would visit to make sure we were all still alive and none of the kids had drowned in the river. There would be lots of family who brought tables full of food and to this day, the smell of barbaque chicken cooking over a charcoal fire takes me back to those times.
In the Summer of '59, I was 14 years old, learned that girls were fun to be around, parking was a night-time activity, and beer had an acquired taste.
