MY FIRST REAL LIFE HERO

Blog number Ninety-four                              30 May 2007

I was four years old, maybe five.  I hadn't started school yet.  In the spring of 1936, the depression was still going on.  The farm could not support us, since farm prices were either low or nonexistent, so the family left the farm near Graettinger Iowa to go to Des Moines.  My Mom claimed that she ate so much corn and corn products during the depression, that although the rest of the rest of the family relished fried corn meal mush, she wouldn't eat it.  She would cook it, but she wouldn't eat it.

My Dad got a job at Lake Shore Tire and Rubber Company.  We lived in a house at 2050 Maple Street - an address that was ingrained into my consciousness in case I got lost in the big city.  This came in handy when I followed a boy home from kindergarten one afternoon so that we could play together. 

When we got to his house, he went inside and left me standing there.  I started to walk towards where I thought home was, but I was completely lost.  I must have started crying because some adults asked me if I was lost.  When they asked me my address, I told them and they said, "Why that's THAT way," pointing back where I was walking from.  I didn't believe them at first, but they were insistent.  I don't remember whether any of them took me home, but I did make it.  I don't remember ever talking to that boy ever again - not on purpose, but that's just the way it turned out.

One day I was outside and the postman came by and said to me, "Hi Bud."  I didn't say anything, but I went inside and told Mom that the man had called me, "Bud."  She told me that people called people that when they didn't know their names.

The next day I was walking around the neighborhood when I spotted two boys about my age playing in their back yard.  I walked up and said to one, "Hi Bud." He looked surprised and asked me how I knew his name.  I didn't reply.  Kids that age sometimes don't respond because it's too much trouble to explain, or not worth the trouble, or they just never think of it.

His name turned out to be Roland Cathewood, although I didn't find that out until a few years later.  His brother's name was Robert.  (to be continued)