...but "the green, green grass of home"
is gone...and the people...
---------------
"But as for man, his days are as the
grass...". Psalms 103: 15
1100 REID, CLOVIS (1940-48)
THE BACKYARD
That nice little two BR home where
we lived in Clovis for eight years is
almost eighty years old, and still
looks good--with a new roof and new
stucco.
The neighborhood where all we
little kids grew from young 'uns to
teenagers is no longer green with
clover lawns, bushes, shrubs, and
full flower beds. Green is rare...
The elms, many of them thirty feet
tall, mostly all died later on in the
fifties and sixties. Today the
neighborhood looks a bit barren.
The whole world was young then,
it seemed.
The streets are all paved and have
curbs. The vacant lots where the
boys played baseball and fought
WWII are no longer vacant. There
are no farm animals around there any-
more--no chickens, cows, rabbits,
and horses, with their little white
sheds and pens.
Gardening, such as every house had
in WWII doesn't seem to be popular
anymore. Not to be heard in present
times are the B24's and B29's which
were based at the Clovis AAFB during
The Big One and droned around the
outskirts of town constantly...on hot
summer days.
FDR is not to be heard on the old-tube-
Philco radios, with his "fireside chats..."
Gone also are Fibber and Molly, Bob
Hope, Red Skelton, Amos & Andy,
People Are Funny, Tom Mix, Superman,
Henry Aldrich, Queen For A Day, and
all those good radio shows.
And how could any "go home again,"
to a neighborhood without all our
friends who lived there: Donald,
Charles, James, Michael, Sherry,
Sonya,L. Barbara, Frances, Pat,
Douglas, Art and Bobby Joe?
Those kids have all gone...some-
where.
And who can ever forget Ms.
Purselly, an older woman up the
street, who had the only telephone
on the block. Just north of her lived
that cute blonde actress Priscilla
Lane, whose husband was stationed
at the air base, five miles west of
town.
I have thought a few times about
what it would be like to buy the "old
home place," as the farm folks used
to describe their homes-- and putting
in eight or nine nice trees around that
corner, planting a new lawn (with
clover, in memory of Dad, who liked
clover), shrubs, waxy bushes, and
even a white picket fence...and having
it as an escape home...seasonal or
whatever.
But it would cost many times
the original price of the house in 1940,
and then you've got security, upkeep,
and the problems associated with an
extra property. Renting is iffy.
Also Mom and Dad wouldn't be there;
They are in Beulah Land. So at my age
I'll just remember my boyhood home...
"You can go home again,"
if only in happy memory...
(Besides all that, I still see and
correspond with two of my little neighborhood friends--
Art and Bobby Joe.)
---------
Mil
25 JUNE 2019
