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.