That was Bernie. He always got presents for Christmas and he always opened them himself. Sometimes we'd wake up hearing paper rustling under the tree. He didn't just open his own..
That was Mom's cat
Tater. She named him after the baby of Snuffy Smith in the comic strip in the
newspaper.
I think I might have mentioned somewhere how I attempted to grow a few cotton plants here just to see if I could.
Its very blurry but that is the white blossom.
When the bloom closes up it turns pink on the end. If the frost hadn't hit it I might have gotten cotton but I doubt it. The northern season just wasn't long enough. I thought the flowers were ugly but it was exciting to think I'd even gotten a bloom.
This was taken looking down the Farley Road. It was a beautiful scene. The road led past the Haynes and some other families. Eventually you would have reached Halfway Brook. At least that's what it was called then but I looked on a map online and I could find not brooks or waterways at all near there. Maybe what I'm thinking of was called something else. Maybe it was too small to be on a map.
It was the place where we got our milk cans of water for the animals and washing clothes and dishes and watering the garden when it needed it.
I hope I'm not repeating myself too much here. This was the place where I defied Mom and let the Haynes boys and Wilma get me into an inner tube which they towed across the water. I got my legs switched for that. I was sixteen at the time.
I remember once when we got water here, seeing a coral banded snake here. It was the only one I ever saw in my life. Mom said they were poisonous but I was never sure. It didn't mean I wanted to get up close and personal with it though. I had a healthy respect for snakes when I was totally hating them.
I hunted this up online on the maps. I found a Google one for Kingsbury. Switching to satellite view I could follow the Farley road. I saw a lot of buildings that never existed back then. I was despairing of ever finding the brook when I finally did find it but it was named creek not brook. I don't know if I followed it long enough if I would eventually reach the historic Halfway Brook.
Our house would have been right on that corner where you see the four dark green tree like shadows. None of these other buildings were there at the time.
still more buildings
This was all pasture land then. The field on the left side was where we were picking wild strawberries when we saw the UFO.
I'm sure this is it. The place we got our wash water from would be where you see it bending in towards the road in the lower left corner. Mom swore it was bottomless there but I think that was just to scare us most. Having a bottom wouldn't have mattered since we couldn't swim anyway.