912 Guam, Wake Village, Tx

On to house number two.

This house is located in a suburb of Texarkana, Texas. Wake Village is a small suburb that has all of the streets named for places, people, ships, airplanes, or battles from World War II. The street that I lived on was Guam Street. This was my parents first house to buy. I guess it was a good place to start.

It was a converted three bedroom one bath home. The third bedroom used to be the garage. I guess you would think that was cool if you don't mind the water heater being in the room that you sleep in. I don't know what my parents paid for that house. I do remember that the guy who sold us the house was someone that we went to church with. We used to play in the pews after services so that mom and dad could talk with the realtor.

I don't remember the move, but I remember getting the house ready.

My room (and Phillip's as we shared a room up until just before I left for the Navy) was decorated with antique cars. The walls had wall paper that came halfway up the wall, there was a wallpaper border, and then there were cut-outs from the wallpaper that were sporatically stuck to the upper half of the wall.

I don't remember what Bek's room was decorated in, but I remember her having a whole lot of stuffed animals and dolls that were put up in the corners of the rooms in corner hammacks.

We didn't have a dining room table for a while. I can remember having pizza on a large cardboard box in the dining room many times.

At this house we had our dog, Fortunatis McGruder (Nat) and aquired a few more dogs that came and went. We had Buckeye, who was my uncle Joe's dog. We had a black cocker spaniel. I don't remember her name. Lastly we had a small black dog, a pomeranian I think.

We lived at this house until I was in the sixth grade. I had been attending school in Texarkana because my mother decided to get her teaching degree and the school I attended in New Boston would not let her student teach there. The closest school that would allow it was Liberty Eyleau. This was ok as the schools that we attended we could walk to.

Back to the house. This house did not have any air conditioning. We had window units in every room and the heating came from a gas furnace that was in the floor. For years after we moved out of the house it was an inside joke that you got little boys Legos for Christmas so they could be fed to the furnace.

This furnace was in the middle of the floor in a small hallway that everyone had to walk over. You could not go from one room to the other without stepping on or jumping over the floor furnace. It had a cover that was probably three feet by four feet with a waffle like grid. I wonder if my cousin still has a waffle scar on the bottom of his foot. I remember one winter he came to visit and didn't know about it, or didn't listen, and walked across it, burning his foot pretty bad. Anyways, the furnace was in a pit that was about three feet deep. Anything smaller than about one inch by one half inch would find its way into the furnace. Pencils, pens, crayons, and legos were often found melting and/or burning in the funace. During the summer when we didn't need it, there was a rug that covered it up.

My siblings and I spent a lot of time alone in this house. No, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Mom and dad both worked multiple jobs and we tended to be a home alone while they were at work. I remember seeing mom a few minutes a day so that she could give us a check for pizza.

We got a VCR while living in that house. It was this huge silver thing. The special thing about the VCR was that it had remote capabilities. Unfortunately for us kids, the remote was corded and didn't reach the couch. One of us had to sit on the floor near the television so that we could fast forward the commercials when watching things we had recorded.

I remeber breaking our first window while living in Texarkana. My brother and I were out in the back yard playing catch when I missed the ball and it went right through the window.

I am sure if I sit here long enough, I can think of another three pages of stories to talk about when thinking of the house on Guam Street.

The next house we lived in was in Atlanta, Texas.

Memories

Last year my wife's grandfather Truett Worley passed away. I only got to visit with him a few times as we lived several states away. His wife Betty has been sending out these emails where she is going through old memories, sharing them with her family. She says she is doing this so that everyone can know the Truett that she knew. She shares pictures, stores, lists of things they owned or did, and sometimes she sends out quizzes to see what everyone knows.

I thought that just for fun, I would start writing down some of my memories and I wanted to start with houses.

I guess that it is kinda spawned by the thought that as of today, I could be the owner (well, with a mortgage) of a new home within three weeks.

Well, without further ado and maybe no one to read, I start talking about all of the houses that I have lived in that I remember living in.

The first house I lived in is affectionately called the grey house. It is located in New Boston, Texas on what is left of my great-grandfather's dairy farm.

This house is a small two bedroom one bath that my grandfather built. This house is still standing, although it is currently not located where it was when I lived in it. The name of this house comes from the color of the outside. My grandfather used what he had and what he had was ammunition crates. The interior of the home had pieces of these ammunition crates nailed up as walls. When I lived there, there was sheet rock nailed over the wood. I learned about the ammo crates many years later when the home was turned into a storage shed.

There was nothing fancy about this house. The floor was always cold as it was just one layer of tongue and groove wood with linoleum or carpet. The house is pier and beam set on cinder blocks. The exterior of the home had shingles covering as much as possible. If you can imagine a quaint little home in the woods with the wood shingle siding look, that was our home except it didn't look cool. Grey shingle sides, grey shingle roof and to try and stay a little warmer, there was clear plastic stapled to the windows.

I don't regret or resent living in this home. It is my beginning. As I look at the home that my parents purchased last year and the home I will be purchasing soon, I like the view of where I started.

My brother and I shared a room as most brothers do. The first bed I remember in that house was a single twin with my head on one end and Phillip's head on the other. Later, we upgraded to a set of bunk beds that I believe my parents still have stored somewhere. Our room had the bunk beds, one dresser, a long toy box called a "barnabus box" two old wooden school desks and scores of toys.

At this time my sister was not born, though she would be born and spend the first few years of her life in this house as well. I remember my parents telling me and my brother that we could talk to our little sister by talking into my mom's mouth. She used to sit on the couch and lean her head back and open her mouth and we would tell Bek (my sister) stories about what we had done that day.

We lived in that house until I was in the second or third grade. I remember being in the fourth grade and introducing myself to a new student as living in Texarkana which is where we moved next.

About 15 years ago, one of my aunts decided to build a home near where the grey house was located. I guess there was to much history in this house to just tear it down, so the decision was made to move it. This was actually quite a large task. Several telephone poles were brought out and laid underneath the home. This was possible as it was pier and beam so you could crawl underneath it completely. The house was lifted, blocks removed and lowered down onto the poles. The rest looked like a country version of what the Egyptians did to move heavy blocks. Chains were tied around it and a dozer and two tractors were hooked up to pull it. We quickly learned that the house was too heavy and the walls were not strong enough to take the stress of the pull. So, we set out to lighten the load. All of the sheet rock was pulled out. This exposed the walls containing the stencilled ammo crates. Some complete walls, all appliances, and all plumbing fixtures were removed in the hopes of creating a lighter load. Eventually we were able to get it done. As the house began to roll across the yard on the poles, we would take one pole from the back and take it to the front. It was crude but it eventually worked. The house used to be about a hundred yards from my grandparents home. It now sits just about directly behind and is used to store various items including old appliances, hand tools and attic style keepsakes.

I will have to take a picture of it the next time I am out there as well as see if mom has any pictures of the house the way it used to look when it was in its original location.