Childhood Memories

                           

     Childhood Memories  

   My first memory is of the porch at grandma Fayard’s house in Biloxi. I remember asking why the beer truck stopped in front of the house. My grandma said that mother was having trouble having enough milk for the baby (that’s my brother Mike). So the beer was ordered by the doctor to bring about more milk from her breasts. 

   I also remember all the fun time with Grandpa as we listened to Amos and Andy on the radio. I remember with a great deal of gratitude watching my grandpa build model boats. When grandpa Fayard got into the intensity of the building, he would drool into the bottom of the boat and we would silently laugh. Several summers went by and finally the large boat was built. It was 6 foot long and rigged as a Biloxi oyster sloop. I remember Grandpa begging Grandma to make the sails. She finally did, although she kept saying that she didn’t know how. The sails were wonderful. It was a good bit scary to get into that 6 foot boat for the first time. I was five years old. It was frightening to slide into the cockpit for the first time. When the mainsail first caught the wind the boat heeled to the left and I instinctively leaned to my right and felt the magic of sailing. There is a special feeling to sailing that cannot be overestimated. There’s a sound of the rigging and straining of the mast and lapping of the water along the sides and finally Grandpa worrying that I would not know how to turn the boat away from the deep water. He finally got a long cord that he held onto so that he could turn me back toward the shore. He was loving and careful with me. He  took me to the highway 90 bridge where he worked as a bridge tender. It was an overhead style bridge so the cars ran right under us and the bridge would swing wide open and allow boats to come through. The only time I saw Grandpa cuss was when a sailboat was hung in irons and couldn’t get through the bridge and cars were backed up in either direction. 

   I recall a special time of my mother and grandmother in their frantic effort to bring my fever down from measles with a variety of warm clothes and cold clothes and with Vick Salve and just running back-and-forth. In my delirium I thought it was kind of funny. 

   During the regular school year Mom, Mike and I were back in Homestead with Dad and his parents. Much of my recollection of  Grandma Springer was her calm gentle manner and beautiful piano playing. Grandpa Springer played penuchle with her and also claimed that they could read each other’s cards. I recall being unconvinced but that led me to want to know more about Grandpa Springer.

   Grandpa Springer was a horse of a different color. Yeah powerful idea about government and politics and about right and wrong in the public sector. When I was about 10 years old I would sit with him and he would tell me about what happened with Eli Lily and other companies in the drug business. It was my first realization of conflict in the world. Schools do not prepare us for conflict. We must get that from our ancestry and particularly our grandfathers. Right now we are being led into a concern about coronavirus while the politicians make the stock market more profitable than ever. It reached a new high yesterday. This grandpa Springer knew quite well. But we still haven’t done anything about it except that some of the grandchildren are activist In  all of his vainglory Trump may have stirred into being politically active.