memory - 2

The houses on my block in my growing up years were built during a housing boom in Augusta – this because of a nuclear plant being constructed nearby in South Carolina. The homes were of a pre-fab nature in that the walls and such were built elsewhere and trucked in to the site. Every other house was brick and the one in between was just a brick front with asbestos siding the rest of the way – ours was just a brick front. It was only two bedrooms, so people were stacked everywhere at night.

All six of us siblings were present in house when we moved there but my older brother and sister both married and moved away within a year or two. The four of us younger kids did most of our growing up at this Hickman Road residence. It would have been considered in a middle class neighborhood in its day – even though we weren’t quite up to middle class. We were the only folks within several miles that kept chickens in our backyard – not sure how popular that made us with the neighbors.

We must have had the most patient folks in existence living next door, the Jessups. She was a schoolteacher and he worked with the government in some fashion and they were both very well educated. They had a couple of older offspring but they were of no interest to us since they were too old for us kids to play with – one was even in college – ancient.

All the yards had fences of some sort separating the back yards from each other and the one between the Jessups and us was fairly worn at the corner fence post. This post had an angle brace down to the ground and this was our quick way to get over the fence, we would run up the angle brace and jump over. We did very little playing in their yard, but it was a quick passageway over to their neighbor who had a son about my age that we palled around with.

This was a day and time when kids played outside – imagine that! We wouldn’t think of staying in the house unless we were sick or the weather was inclement – there were just too many things to do outside. We played most any game we could think up, I’m sure there were some organized sports around town, but I don’t remember playing any of them. We weren’t sophisticated enough to seek these things out and couldn’t have afforded the uniforms if we had.

Most any of our chasing or hiding games would involve passing through the Jessups’ yard at one point or another. On the far side of their house was a picket fence with a gate. Sometimes we would open the gate to pass through but when in a hurry we would hold to one of the crosspieces and jump over. One particular time when we were playing – hide and seek as best as I recall – I was in a huge hurry and I didn’t take time to stop and open the gate, just partially climbed and jumped over the rest.

Sometime in the middle of this jumping over the picket fence, a slip or miscalculation was made and I came to rest hanging upside down with one of my feet caught between two of the picket slats. I started yelling for someone to help me and they finally came and got me loose, but not before they collapsed with laughter about my predicament.

It’s good to know that I can go to God with my problems today without fear of being of being laughed at or made fun of – God has the answers if we will just accept them. ec