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.
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