A view you would see if you were flying into Pasadena around the time the Hayters got there. We didn't fly, though. A family of non-fliers.Chapter 6
Dad moved the family from Oklahoma to Texas in, oh, 1948. Late ’48. That’s somewhat of a guess, but I’m getting good at that. Dennis was just a nubbin, and, like I said, I wasn’t yet born. I never heard, but I doubt it was a multi-load trip. It was probably easy to haul everything we had in one vehicle. Mom, Dad, four kids and all their belongings in one vehicle. Sounds about right.
I imagine Dad drove straight to his mother’s house. I do hope he called first. Grandma Pearl lived in Dickenson at the time, a flat, treeless, marshy area between Galveston and Houston. Heat and mosquitoes in the spring, summer and fall. Rain and wind in the winter. “Where are the cowboys and Indians and the buffalo?” I imagine Larry asked Dad that as they drove up to Grandma’s house. Sounds just like a young Larry.
I can only imagine the discomfort Mom felt living in the same house with Grandma, the lady who forged letters in an attempt to get Dad to leave her. Desperation will make you do stuff you never thought you could. You can quote me.
To make sure the stay was brief, Dad bought a house from Sears. It was a build-it-yourself house. Sears does’t have ‘em now. I didn’t know they had ‘em then, because I wasn’t born yet. Y’all are sure making this hard for me. Dad started right off working on the house. I imagine he did it all himself, ‘cause none of the kids were old enough to do more than get his way. Along with the myriad of things I don’t know is the question of the land. I know generally where it was, but have no idea how Dad got the right to build on it. I imagine Grandma loaned him the money for the house, maybe the land was hers. Sounds about right.
Dad had the shell of the house pretty much up, and had tarpaper on the sides and the roof. It was well enough along for the family to leave Grandma’s and move in. Mom would’ve tolerated a partially built house over living with her mother-in-law. Even though the house was never completed, I still learned its location because of a comment that was made every time the family passed the place near Allen Genoa Road on our way to the South Houston Church of Christ. We’d drive by and either Mom or Dad would say, “Well, that’s the place where our house blowed away.”
Dad generally used good English. Usually did. He knew the right verb tenses and all, but he didn’t always appreciate ‘em. When he got mad, he never “came unglued.” He always, “come unglued.” – “Let me tell you, when I saw that, I nearly come unglued.” --Dad was in pieces quite a bit when I was a kid.
Fortunately, we only had one house that went to pieces. That was the one near Allen Genoa. It blowed away. Pieces of boards, tarpaper, clothes, pans, furniture where fairly evenly strewn across the area. It wasn’t a hurricane or tornado. It was just some high wind from a South Texas storm that met a wooden shack on a prairie. It wouldn’t have been enough to destroy a mobile home, but it was sure enough to mess up one of those unfinished build-it-yourself jobs.
The folks were never sure if I was around or not the year the storm took our house. I feel pretty certain I wasn’t. Even if I was just a couple of months old, I think I would’ve remembered our house blowing away. As is, I have no clear image. I have a foggy one only because Dad told the story so well. I can almost see the tarpaper everywhere and the icebox on its side. The roof ended up in a nearby pasture. The barbed wire fence caught some of the clothes. Oh, yeah, I can practically see it, but only through Dad’s eyes.
Dad never tried to rebuild on the site. When God takes away your house while you’re at church, He’s probably trying to tell you something. A man of great faith, might have thanked God for not allowing his family to be in the house when it “blowed” away. I believe my Dad’s faith was at a low point. About a year earlier, God had allowed a nickel to land heads-up ‘causing him to lose his business. Now, God had allowed a wind to take his house… making him have to move the family back into Grandma’s house. No, Dad saw little to be thankful for. However, I’m sure he took things so much better than I would have. I’m not proud to say that, but I know it to be true.
It wasn’t long after the house left us that the family moved into a small-framed, white house over on Spencer Street. Spencer, today, is a six lane major highway running east and west through Pasadena. If you go too far east, you’re in La Porte; too far West will put you on the Interstate headed for Houston to the north or Galveston to the south. Back then there were no interstates, so it’s enough that you know it was a narrow road headed east and west.
Although I have little memory of the place, it was where we lived when I was born. I’m proud to say that I was the first Hayter born in a Hospital. Pasadena General. There was a nurse present and everything. Mom’s only comment of my birth was that I was coming feet first, but the doctor turned me around. Probably used a magnet.
When we moved to Spencer, it was just two-lane narrow paved road that crossed dust in the summer and mud during most of the other seasons. While this account is mostly about Dad, I’ve gotta tell you a non-Dad story, ‘cause it’s cute as all get out. One summer’s day while we were living on Spencer, Mom was the only person in the house. She was ironing. Mom spent 30 percent of her waking hours washing and ironing. This was during the day of the old tub washers with the wringer on top, and of clothes lines strung across the back yard. Great place to hang… a clothes line pole.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, Mom was inside while her five kids were outside on the sodless yard playing, arguing, eating dirt… the usual. I believe only Dennis and I were dirt-eaters at that time. I don’t remember the experience, but I’m sure it happened. Fortunately, there are no pictures.
At some point during the ironing, Mom heard the screen-door slap a time or two, and a lady call out “Hello? Anybody home?” Mom turned to see a lady holding me away from her body. I was in a diaper and covered head to toe in dirt, hanging there just like I had good sense. I wasn’t crying or even fidgety. Didn’t even know I had done anything wrong. From what I remember, guilt never struck me till I went from diapers to underwear. When you get old enough to wear underwear, you’re always thinking you’re gonna go to Hell for something. Don’t know why that is. Rutgers is doing a study.
Fortunately for me, the part of Spencer we lived on wasn’t all that busy back then. Today, you couldn’t sit in the road if you wanted to. I really didn’t know I wanted to. That’s just where I ended up. Lynda was supposed to be watching me, but I believe she was in the Chinaberry tree at the time. I don’t blame her, ‘cause she probably thought I was sitting on the ground under the tree. I pretty much blended in with the dirt.
Mom was so embarrassed she about died. She assured the lady that her eldest was supposed to be watching me. The lady didn’t seem in the least upset. She more than understood, and was just glad to help. I think she had a bunch of grandkids and knew how stuff like that happened.
While Mom was not at all afraid that any of us would ever be kidnapped, she was a little concerned that we might wander into the street and get run over. Or, runned over. – “If you’re not careful, you’re gonna get yourself runned over!” -- We heard stuff like that a lot. It never happened, ‘cause God was looking out for us. Children and idiots. No telling how many times God has saved us.
I really doubt Mom told that story to Dad till I was much older. No telling how Dad would’ve taken that story. Seems like he didn’t really have time to mess with us much, unless we got into trouble. My first complete sentence as a child was “Please, don’t tell Daddy.”
Shortly after my road-sit experience, Dad got a job at a refinery. He had been doing carpentry work all over the area, but the work was less than consistent. Plus when you did win a bid on a place, the weather could mess you up a lot. In other words, pay checks were seldom as timely as the bills.
So, when Dad learned that Crown Central Petroleum Corporation was hiring, he applied. Crown was one of the oldest refineries on the ship channel. And, it is the place Dad would work for pretty much the rest of his life. Yep, Dad was hired on at Crown, and the job would land him onto another of life’s roads.
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