Paddock Calls

The Neighborhood

On our side of the street, there were two houses: ours, corner of Vienna and Peoples, and the Russells, corner of Vienna and Baccich.  I remember going behind our garage and staring into their yard.  Mr. Russell installed fences, I think, and the back yard behind his garage was full of sand and fencing and construction-type stuff.  All kinds of neat things to look at.  What I was really hoping for was a glimpse of Karen Russell.  Her brother Cecil pulled the wings off of dragonflies and ate them raw, and her sister Barbara was not attractive at the time.  About the only thing that Buddy, Pat, Tommy and I could agree on was that Karen was worth looking at.  It is all gone now, of course; Katrina took care of that.  Our house is empty, boarded up, but the Russells is occupied.  When I arrive in June, I intend to take a live look.  In the meantime, I’ll have to make do with these screen shots from Google Earth:

On the other side of the street were four houses.  Starting at the corner of Vienna and Baccich, the houses belonged to the Heines, Pepitones, Massas, and Bracamontes.  I have no idea if I am spelling their names correctly.  The Heines, Massas, and Bracamontes are clearly empty.  It is hard to tell about the Pepitones.

We were definitely friends with George and Steve Heine.  I considered Pat Pepitone to be my best friend, until Charlie Tobelman came along.  Pat’s brother, Tommy, went into the Navy.  Buddy and I were on again, off again friends.  He was definitely a bully.  Mostly, I remember that he swam in Lake Pontchartrain during hurricanes, sold bibles for a time after leaving high school, and ended up as a tugboat captain on the river.  The most vivid memories I have of the Bracamontes are of Little Mother running back and forth screaming like a banshee, and Warren grabbing his butt and running inside after I shot him in the rear with my BB gun.  He thought Buddy did it, and I never said otherwise.  Here is what their houses look like now:

On Peoples Ave., next door to the Bracamontes house, was the empty lot where we played football or baseball.  The canal was across Peoples Ave., and I recall the trains passing by regularly.  That sound was one of the things that put me to sleep, along with crickets, frogs, and the ceiling fan.  When Mom finally had had enough of the heat and humidity, and had A/C installed, the sounds were gone, and I had trouble sleeping.

Our Summer Vacations

I remember three kinds of vacations: The Smokys, The Gulf Coast, and Out West with Aunt Al and Uncle Joe.  I won’t say much about the trip with Aunt Al and Uncle Joe because it lacks shared memories.  It did, however, prefigure my future because I wound up living in all of the places we visited: Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.  Whoda thunk.  Someone somewhere has pictures of that trip.  All I have is this one of me with Aunt Al at the Grand Canyon.

Come to think of it, maybe our vacations to the Smokys and the Coast also had forecast power for me: I now live near the Smokys and, after leaving the Air Force, lived in Houston, a Gulf Coast city.

Smoky Mountains vs. My House

I have no pictures of our trips to the Coast, but several of The Smoky vacations.  What do I remember?  The scenery?  The sightseeing?  The historical and geographic significance of all that we saw?  Right.  Here are my memories:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. ¢ Motels with no pools.

¢ Howard Johnson restaurants where Dad would get the first cup of coffee, and Mom would get the free refill, and then back to Dad, etc.

¢ No meal over $1.

¢ Indians.

¢ Granny splashing holy water around the car after Dad broke the key off in the Kaiser’s ignition.

I just noticed that I see pictures of us and Dad and Granny, but not Mom.  Did she take all of the pictures?

The House on VIENNA ST.

I lived in this house longer than I have lived in any other house anywhere, ever.  My memories of it are vivid, except that I don’t recall its original state.  When I was born, Mom and Dad lived in a rental on Wisteria St.  There are some early pictures of me in settings that I don’t recognize, and I suspect that those were taken on Wisteria.  When we moved to Vienna St., I was still very young, and the house looked like this:

I remember nothing of when the side of the house was extended, the back porch added, and the back yard fenced.  Was the garage built with the house, or added later?  I don’t know.  My memories of the house begin when all of that was in place.  How did five of us ever make it on one bathroom?  Anyway, here is how I recall the interior:

The front door opened into the hall, where Dad’s students would sit and wait for their lesson.  At the end of the hall, on the left, was the entrance to the living room/voice studio.  The far end of that room opened onto a screen porch, which I recall was my ‘nap’ room.  I put nap in quotes because Mom never really made me take a nap.  I just had to go there to be quiet while Anna and Christy took naps.  Mostly, I think Mom just separated us all so that she could have an hour of peace!  Eventually, the porch was enclosed to be Dad’s new waiting room, with a separate entrance for students.  Back out to the entrance hall.  Just past the entrance to the living room, and left, was the bathroom on the right, followed by my room dead ahead.  I loved my room, and spent lots of time there, although sleeping in it was often a problem.  Exiting my room puts the bathroom on the left (how did 5 of us ever make it on one bathroom?).  Then, skirting the floor furnace and angling right a bit past the entry hall, there is Anna and Christy’s room ahead.  Their windows looked out of the front of the house.

Outside of those windows was the Dawn of the Living Dead scratch-the-screen pyracantha bush.  It was the kind of noise that forced you to pull a blanket up above your head, but you still couldn’t sleep.

Continuing past the girls’ room brings you to the dining room, then through to the kitchen.  Off of the kitchen to the right is the Master Bed Room, the one into which I unfortunately stumbled when Mom and Dad were busy, and under whose bed Christy was often found avoiding sirens.  Finally, passing completely through the kitchen takes us outside onto the back porch, into the back yard, and a short walk to the garage.  The very same garage that once housed an enormous, deadly snake.

Thanks to Cecil Russell, that malicious viper did no further harm, unless you count unsightly smeared snake blood stains on the garage floor.

And then, there was Under the House!  I wonder if Stephen King had an Under the House?

DAD & MOM, Part II

Can you imagine?  Your only son goes off to fight in a war because it sounds like fun?  Then, when the war is over, he stays overseas.  When he finally does come home, he steps off the boat with a pregnant Italian woman that no one knows, and only your son can talk to.  Actually, he did call from Italy to say that he was getting married.  To hear Aunt Al tell the story, that call was challenging.  Speaking of Aunt Al, she had just married this huge, military-ineligible biker dude.  As I understand things, Granny was not really happy with that match for her only daughter.  Try to conjure Granny’s reaction when her married-to-a-biker daughter tells her that her only son is coming home from the war with a non-English-speaking war bride (Aunt Al took the call from Dad).  When Dad and Mom finally stepped off the train, the word that comes to mind is ‘tense’.
Can you imagine?  Your only son goes off to fight in a war because it sounds like fun?  Then, when the war is over, he stays overseas.  When he finally does come home, he steps off the boat with a pregnant Italian woman that no one knows, and only your son can talk to.  Actually, he did call from Italy to say that he was getting married.  To hear Aunt Al tell the story, that call was challenging.  Speaking of Aunt Al, she had just married this huge, military-ineligible biker dude.  As I understand things, Granny was not really happy with that match for her only daughter.  Try to conjure Granny’s reaction when her married-to-a-biker daughter tells her that her only son is coming home from the war with a non-English-speaking war bride (Aunt Al took the call from Dad).  When Dad and Mom finally stepped off the train, the word that comes to mind is ‘tense’.

Dad was gone a long time, and had received a wound, so I imagine that the greeting he received was overwhelmingly joyous, and there were hugs, tears, and smiles all around.  How much of that was shared with Mom?  I can only imagine.  She didn’t speak English, so she had to rely on Dad for whatever went on verbally.

Mom: “Charlie, what are they saying?”

Dad: “They are very excited to meet you and have you in the family!”

Mom: “Is that what ‘[email protected]##%^&*()_’ means?”

As Mom tells it, the only people to welcome her with open arms and make her feel like part of a family were Aunt Ruth and Uncle Otto, Dad’s former in-laws.  Eventually, Granny and everyone else succumbed to Mom’s charms; I don’t think that I ever knew anyone who did not love Mom.  Eventually, everyone settled into a family life that was as normal as Paddock family life could be.