Elm Street

We were so cotton-picking rich growing up we felt sorry for most of our friends. Our house had real brick on the front of it and it was the biggest house we could ever imagine. It had to be at least 900 square feet. It was huge I’m telling you! Friends and neighbors described our house as the one on the street with the trees. My dad loved planting trees. Every time he saw a sale on trees another one was planted in our front yard. Of course no two trees were alike. That would have been boring. Mowing the lawn in our yard was a unique experience. We felt sorry for the poor neighbors around us who walked back and forth with their mowers cutting grass in the hot sun. We never went more than a few feet in a line before getting to go around a tree. The yard was always shady. We were so darn rich.


My dad worked three jobs to make sure we had everything we needed growing up. He was an electrician at the defense plant. He also sacked groceries at the Worth Food Store and cleaned floors and toilets at the Glenview Community Hospital. We felt sorry for our friends whose dads only had one job. We couldn’t figure out how grown men could be so lazy to quit working at 5 in the afternoon. If my dad got home before 10 at night we worried that he wasn’t feeling well.

One day in June, I believe it was in 1956, my dad came home with the station wagon loaded down with something. We knew it was Glenn’s birthday so we figured, “hey, the favorite son is getting a real treat this year!” As it turned out dad had been shopping for Glenn’s birthday but the White’s Auto Store wouldn’t let him charge a toy wheelbarrow and shovel so he went ahead and charged new bicycles for Cindy and me. That way the wheelbarrow and shovel would be a high enough amount to warrant setting up an account. That was one of our favorite birthdays!