Part 9 (1/2)

I still don't knohy I was sent to Grandlad I went I came back with a deep, dark secret of my own and a pleasurable memory to add to my storehouse

In our youth, if any of us kids coiven a ”scientific” ue for our parents to look at If there was the least bit of white coating on the tongue, it o to bed

I' ”calomel” correctly because I failed to find the word in my small dictionary And I sort of doubt that our family doctor kne to spell it But it's just as well I have yet to find a doctor who can write so anyone can read what he wrote anyway

But anyhow, that was the science of ue is coated, take a pretty little pink tablet and wash it doith a glass of water

I hated even the thought of taking one The slightest taste of one gaggedin the kitchen, I would ask Mao out on the porch and take mine

Now, I kneasn't apt to vomit on the kitchen floor, but Ma she didn't knoas that there was a knothole in the porch floor, under which, as years went by, a se h the hole because it was always dark No one ever took calo else to do but sit around and wait for a call to the bathroom, which ay out back in the cold-always cold Not one of us ever had a coated tongue in the summertime

Mama would say, ”Hurry, now, it's cold out there” I knew full well it was cold out there But I wasn't about to take that little pink tablet I was deterh ice or snow or any other bad weather rather than have that little tablet go through h a knothole, throw a glass of water out into the yard, and get back into the warm kitchen I don't kno the other kids made out The knothole wasback, I can easily see that I should have let the entire family in on my secret They could have saved the cost of the tablets as well as thosetrips to the cold bathrooue disappeared during the night the saht years old at the time-that is, at the time I learned to use the knothole I enjoyed it until we moved away froan to understand the scripture where it reads, ”As a man thinketh, so is he” The scriptures proved to be true I thought I didn't want to take the tablets, so I didn't I thought I would get well, so I did

Another verse reads, ”The Lord will provide” We often overlook the little things the Lord does for us, like putting knotholes in the most convenient places Fifty years later, I learned that at age eight I was a Christian Scientist They too, are a group of people who do not believe in taking medicine

Many years later, when I was 40 years old, a neighbor told ht kno to get rid of them I told him, ”Try Calomel I used it when I was a kid and we didn't have fleas under our house”

When I was quite a s cotton one day We had stopped at the end of the rows to get a drink and sharpen our hoes Playfully, Frank pickedto throwme over the fence and stood me on my feet down in some weeds And there between my feet was a beautiful little pocket knife

This seeood to be true I was the happiest little boy in the whole orld I guess every boy wants a pocket knife, and I had one-all my very own

The others all looked at the knife and wished they had one like it Jokingly, Frank said the knife was half his because, if he hadn't pitched me over the fence, I wouldn't have found it So, a few days later, when he asked if he could borrow it, naturally, I loaned it to hiht it was half his, but because he wasto school at Haht it was time for him to return my knife, he told ive it back And that was the end of my knife

Now, did I hate Frank for what he had done? Of course not I was too young to hate Hurt, yes, but hate, never! I still loved Frank just as much as I ever did And it was the same when he had to correctan and after he stopped

At any rate, one for sure But a feeeks later, I dreaht that I found another knife, just about like the first one And, as before, I dreamed I found it by the fence at the end of our cotton rows I drea when I woke up, I went and searched my pockets, but the knife wasn't there

A feeeks later I drea still another pocket knife And I drea the first one but had lost it by putting it inonto it So this tihtly in et away fro I felt sure there just had to be a way to pass fro that knife with ain and had to conclude that it just couldn't be done

After that decision, I began putting my dreams to better use When I drea, I would do things to entertain other kids-things no one else could do, like sliding down the roof of a big barn, dropping off the edge, and just before I hit the ground, I would close my eyes so the fall wouldn't hurt me

At other times I would tease a vicious bull until he would chase after h at him and close my eyes He couldn't even find et hiain, only to lose est son is narownsohway in Texas It had been raining for weeks and was still raining The highasWe et, cold, tired, and stuck in a ot in the car and called to Larry to get in out of the rain and take it easy He was puzzled, but he got in the car, sat down, and asked, ”Why?”

I told him, ”Relax and rest, I'll wake up in a fewall this We're not stuck out here in the hways in Texas and no Model T cars on the that you are out here in this wet and cold withto you You are lying up somewhere in a nice warm bed Come to think of it, so as to be just the way I had described them to Larry in my dream

Another ti in theinto the valley below Dinosaurs were grazing down there and walking around One cute little felloith a neck about as long as four telephone poles, came toward us and stuck his head up over the rock banister where I stood Iotten scared and ran to the car I called to her, ”Ima, don't be afraid Co because these things have been extinct for thousands of years Co who ever petted one-or even saw one”

In high school ere told that a long dreaht take place within a few seconds But I already knew it from first-hand experience