Pampa, Texas - Again

Pampa, Texas Again

At this point Daddy was stationed in Amarillo, Texas again for four months of schooling to work on jet aircraft and to become a jet mechanic. He got us an apartment in Pampa, Texas again so we could be close to my grandparents while he stayed in the barracks on base during the week and came to see us on weekends. He thought it would help him to concentrate better on his schooling, which I am sure it did, but I remember Mother helping him learn a lot of what he had to learn on the weekends. Especially the math part. That must have been frustrating for both of them as neither had had much of an education. Daddy had dropped out of school when he was about thirteen and I think the sixth grade. The teacher would whip him with a leather strap for stammering. He quite and ran off to live in the woods with his eccentric Uncle Jim, one of his mom’s brothers, where he learned how to be a hunter. He said he and his uncle spent a long, cold, winter living in the mountains near Cortez, Colorado where they ran a trap line, and hunted deer. He had an Uncle Jim on his dad’s side too, better known as Injin Jim because he looked so much like an Indian. Grandpa looked like the Irish man he was, short, stocky, and red haired. His brother looked like the Cherokee part of their bloodline.
Mother had had a bit more education than Daddy having made it to the eighth grade when she was almost sixteen. She had missed a lot of school over the years from being sick with asthma. It is said that she wasn’t expected to live to be grown because of the asthma she had. It was probably the move from Colorado City, Texas where she was born to Silver City, New Mexico that saved her life as the weather there was thought to be good for people with TB or tubulosis. She was ten when they moved there to see if her dad would do better in that climate. His doctor in Texas had predicted he only had about six months to live when they moved. If it was the move or his will power he lived for another sixteen years. Granddad had been ‘gassed’ while he fought as a sniper on the front lines in France during World War Two.
When we left Vermont Daddy was supposed to bring our dog, Skippy, with him when he drove down to Texas with the car. But he didn’t. I’m not sure of the reason why but he gave the dog to some people we knew. I know he wasn’t much of a pet, but I was very upset that he left my dog. I had had several dogs when we lived in Albuquerque but all of them died from distemper or some other reason with in a few months of getting them. At least Skippy hadn’t done that.
Mother did get me a parakeet when I was two or three and still in Albuquerque. When we went to Vermont we had left him with Gram and Papa. Now we were able to get him back but he was never the gentle, sweet, parakeet that so many are.
This time while in Pampa I was supposed to go to school, too, and finish first grade. As in Vermont I hated the school in Texas just as much if not more. The school was within an easy walk from our apartment but I found it very difficult to do. It was through a nice, fairly large park, but every day I would get lost either going to school or coming home. With in a couple of weeks I was throwing fits, having temper tantrums, and screaming and yelling at my mom at the thought of having to walk to school each morning. In desperation several times Mother called a taxi and had them take me. That was the worst thing she could have done as I then expected her to send me that way every day that she insisted that I go. Many times she just gave up and let me stay home. These where on the days that she was unable for one reason or another to walk with me. With two smaller children it was a difficult time for her, and I am sure I didn’t make it any easier. If she had known then what the problem was it would have been so simple. Of course at the age of six I didn’t know how to say that I simply couldn’t ‘see’ how to walk though the park and kept getting lost. Sometimes she would have to get my sisters ready and come find me when I didn’t make it home when she through I should have. I was to have this same problem in second grade. It wouldn’t be until third grade when my teacher, Mrs. Stevens, would finally be able to convince my parents that I couldn’t see and needed glasses. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so shy and socially inept if I some one had said I should wear glasses sooner. I can’t blame my parents. They didn’t know either.
I have had eye problems all my life. I still do. My sisters and I are convinced that if their was any kind of birth defect that could be passed on, from any part of our family bloodlines, that one or all three of us would get it. And as far as we know our cousins seemed to get bypassed when it came to handing out these problems.