PEACE TIME AFTER THE WAR

Peace time 1947
by Seajay

After the war my family got down to the business of making a living and trying to enjoy life as best we could. I really didnt know it but we were ''poor'' by a lot of standards back then. Here is a list of things we DIDNT HAVE...
running water in the house
indoor plumbing
central heating
air conditioning
not one ''fan in the house''
no gas stove for cooking
no modern heater for heat in the house
Mom cooked on a wood stove and we heated with a wood stove in the living room.
of course no television but we did have a kitchen radio.
we actually had a ''ice box'' on the back porch
no real refrigerator.....
no car for a while. dad finally got a 37 chevy.
my mom actually used a ''scrub board'' and a ''boiling pot'' for laundry. she and granny actually made lye soap themselves.
We had a garden for fresh veggies in the summer and we raised a hog for winter meat. We also kept a goat, ''nannie'' for milk for me.
We lived in a five room house with me and mom and dad, grannie Cecil (dads mom) and ''Uncle Harry'' (dads baby brother)
We were really short on material things but we were big on love. We lived in great harmony and life was good as I knew it. I was rich in friends because, in my neighborhood most of the kids were within one or two years of my age. As I remember there was about fifteen boys very near my age and all within walking distance from my back door. There was always something to do during the summer vacation from school. Sometimes we would all work in the tobacco fields and earn lots of money. We would make two dollars a day and our dinner for priming tobacco. (pulling the leaves) We only had to work from daylight until almost dark but we usually took an hour for lunch. We rode bicycles, shot marbles, made bows and arrows, spears, dart guns, and about anything we could get to see in the Saturday morning movies at the Broadhurst theater. (movies back then were 9 cents) We had a firm belief that if we saw it on the ''Silver Screen'' that it was real cause we saw it. ........ Things went well until we saw a series with Bullet Head Man against the Flying Demonds of the Underworld. It seems that these ''Flying Demonds'' had wings strapped to their backs and they could ''filp them out''.....AND FLY..... WOW..... We watched intently and made notes.
Our wings were made from cane that we cut down my the creek. It was fairly light and you could bend it easily. after some trial and error we came up with a set of ''wings'' that were ''fixed'' You couldn't ''flip them out'' but that was ok. The frame was nailed, glued and wired at the critical joints and we even found some electricians tape for ''safety''..... The ''cover'' was an old bed sheet we found in the garbage dump up behind the houses. We found two belts that would do for ''straps'' to tie the thing to Charles's back and we were ready to ''test''.... Charles climbed up on the wood house and went all the way to the far edge for a running start. We figured we would need some speed for take off. With the great cry of ''Death to Bullet head Man'' he rushed down the roof of the wood house, gave a mighty leap and slammed into the fence behind Mr Armentrouts garage. He didnt fly none at all. ....SHUX.......
It's a miracle he didnt not kill himself because he fell about twelve feet and hit a rough board fence just before he hit the ground. We abandoned that idea as tooooo dangerous. We went to something more civil like shooting sling shots at each other using granite rocks out of the road.

More later........
Seajay the sailor man