Got cha with that title didn't I. This post is not about the former President, but rather, is about blink-and-you-missed-it Clinton, Oklahoma (some of this material was adapted from an especially affectionate letter from me to the youngest child, and yes, it is as ever, all true).
Now for the details.
I must have been 4 or 5 years old and middle child, a couple of years behind me, when in about 1958, we moved from Newfoundland to Clinton.
At that time, Clinton was most definitely small-town, middle America at its best. It had turn-your-kids-loose-safe neighborhoods, woodsy parks and Sunday and Wednesday church meetings attended by everyone in town. While we were there, we often enjoyed picnics, rides on the miniature train, outdoor concerts at the "bowl" and penny smashing under the full-sized Sante Fe Railroad trains that passed through town. Some of us (guess who) even enjoyed the annual fall grasshopper plagues and the excitement of spring tornados.
We lived in Clinton for a year or so while waiting for base housing. Even after we moved on base, as we always did, Clinton remained central to our lives, because the base and town were so close to one another, and because the entire area was so remote from anything else (well, it is close to Elk City, ever heard of that one?).
When we first arrived, middle child was in diapers. I know this because I remember she would dry them on the floor furnace, and say, straight-faced with furrowed brow, "No, Mommy, my diaper isn't wet." Well, it was the naked truth. Middle and I climbed the tree in the back yard together (she would cry because she though she could get up, she could not get down), and when we sang "this ole man came rolling home," we actually rolled in the sun-yellowed grass, down the hill in our front yard. All in all, life in Clinton was pretty carefree, and a lot warmer than Newfoundland.
Now for the details.
I must have been 4 or 5 years old and middle child, a couple of years behind me, when in about 1958, we moved from Newfoundland to Clinton.
At that time, Clinton was most definitely small-town, middle America at its best. It had turn-your-kids-loose-safe neighborhoods, woodsy parks and Sunday and Wednesday church meetings attended by everyone in town. While we were there, we often enjoyed picnics, rides on the miniature train, outdoor concerts at the "bowl" and penny smashing under the full-sized Sante Fe Railroad trains that passed through town. Some of us (guess who) even enjoyed the annual fall grasshopper plagues and the excitement of spring tornados.
We lived in Clinton for a year or so while waiting for base housing. Even after we moved on base, as we always did, Clinton remained central to our lives, because the base and town were so close to one another, and because the entire area was so remote from anything else (well, it is close to Elk City, ever heard of that one?).
When we first arrived, middle child was in diapers. I know this because I remember she would dry them on the floor furnace, and say, straight-faced with furrowed brow, "No, Mommy, my diaper isn't wet." Well, it was the naked truth. Middle and I climbed the tree in the back yard together (she would cry because she though she could get up, she could not get down), and when we sang "this ole man came rolling home," we actually rolled in the sun-yellowed grass, down the hill in our front yard. All in all, life in Clinton was pretty carefree, and a lot warmer than Newfoundland.
©2006 David R. Childress. All Rights Reserved
©2006 David R. Childress. All Rights Reserved.
4 comments:
And now for the faint memories of the middle child. . . I have a vague memory of placing wet panties (not diapers - who can get their own diapers off? Back then there were no pullups, and diapers were held on with a big old safety pin! I don't think I could have gotten them off!) I have this vague memory of placing the wet panties on the radiator, like what you might see here.
Was it Clinton or Denver where Grandmother and Big Daddy overheard 2 little kids saying, "I like 'em, and I don't like 'em."
Transplant,
I'm certain it was a floor heater, not a radiator in Clinton. In fact, I don't remember ever having radiators. In Clinton the floor heater grate was in the hallway leading to the bedrooms, with an inch or so of hardwood flooring on either side. You couldn't walk past it without stepping on it. We had one in Newfoundland that got so hot it burned our feet if we walked on it without shoes. Maybe you weren't in diapers in Clinton, but something wet was on the grate.
Transplant, I always thought of the "I like 'em, and I don't like 'em" as something they overheard us saying in Jackson. I pictured us in the den, on the couch that made into a bed.
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