Summer of 1959

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.

Summer of 1958

My middle teen years were highlighted by the Summer of '58 spent in Pearsall and the Summer of '59 spent in Marble Falls.

I spent most of the Summer of '58 in Pearsall with my two cousins Clinton and George Meek.  The three of us were close in age, good friends, and always up to something.  Their family lived in old house set back from the highway on the north edge of town.  Behind their house was an dilapidated, one-car garage which had a room attached to the back that was our headquarters.

The headquarters was a great place for three young boys.  It had a couple of overstuffed chairs, a couch, and bookcases filled with old paperback books.  We spent many hours here reading books, planning our next activity, and smoking cigarettes when their mother was gone.  One of our favorite daytime activities was killing varmints.

The house next door belonged to Aunt Retta Fields - she was kin to us somehow through our grandfather but we never fully understood how. Behind Aunt Retta's house was a citrus orchard, populated with many rabbits and rats, and where almost every day, we went hunting with our .22 semi-automatic rifles.  A rabbit would take off and the shooting would start.  It didn't take long empty the magazines and we hardly ever hit anything unless we got lucky.  Sometimes we would line up grapefruits and oranges for target practice to improve our aim.

During a hunting trip, each of us would use several boxes of .22 cartridges and best as I can remember, a box of 50 shells cost around 25-50 cents.  Between hunting expenses and night time expenses for gasoline, cokes, and other nocturnal activities, we needed a source of income.

My maternal Grandfather had a farm in Derby and he had a big field of tomato plants.  The gang of three got permission to pick tomatoes which we sold them to Roberts Model Market and folks in town.  Now we had big time money and could afford our hunting habit.

Unfortunately, the hunting expeditions stopped because of Aunt Retta's dog.  When we were in the orchard killing rabbits and rats, we weren't very diligent about removing our victims.  When the dog was allowed out, it always would return to the house with a souvenir from the orchard.  Aunt Retta was not happy about this and thus ended the hunts.

In mid August, I was taken to Marble Falls where my family was camping at the lake.  As I recall, we spent a couple of weeks at McDonald's Fishing Camp before going to Blanco for Uncle Harry's wedding, my mother's youngest brother.  After the wedding, we returned to Bossier City for school in September.

Growing up in a Military Family

Life began in November, 1944 in Pearsall, a small town in South Texas on the Laredo highway 60 miles south of San Antonio. Mom was living with her parents in Derby which was 10 miles south of Pearsall, while Dad was flying P51 fighters out of England.

Dad came home in the summer of 1945 and got out of the Army Air Force to work with his brother in law. Within the 90 day window to return, Dad determined that drilling wells was not for him so he went back into the Air Force. This begins the story of growing up in a military family.

As our family grew and moved around the United States and overseas, we got to live in some interesting places which molded of our lives. These are those places and periods of my life:

• The early years, 1945 to 1951 - Texas, Panama, and Germany
  
• Kindergarten through Fifth Grade, 1951 to 1956 - Texas, Kansas, Alabama
• Sixth Grade through Tenth Grade, 1956 to 1961 - Bossier City, Louisiana
• The Summer of 1959 - Marble Falls, Texas
  
• Eleventh Grade, 1961 to 1962 - Marble Falls, Texas
• Twelfth Grade, 1962-1963 - Kindley Air Force Base, Bermuda
• Texas A&M University, 1963 to 1968

Janice and I were married in 1968 after I finished my undergraduate degree at Texas A&M University. Thus began the rest of my life:

• Graduate School at Texas A&M University, 1968 to 1970
• KFA Julich Germany, 1970 to 1972
• Texas A&M University, Bryan College Station, Texas, 1972 to 1976
• Munich Germany, 1976 to 1978
• Texas A&M University, Bryan College Station, Texas, 1979 to 1998
• Marble Falls, Texas, 1998 to 2007, Small Business Owner
• Marble Falls, Texas, 2007 to today, Retired

Today, I am blessed with a wonderful wife, two great daughters, a fine son in law, and three grand-dogs.