More Azusa Memories

I remember being about 5 years old, and living in this house with my mom and dad, and my little brother, who was about 3. We had a big front yard with a big, full shade tree. My dad would mow the lawn every weekend or every other weekend, and this one time he made tracks in the grass, mowed 'roads' so my brother and I could ride our tricycles in the tracks. Then he sat under the tree, leaning back against the bark of the trunk and drank a beer while we 'drove' around the roads he made. It was a pretty neat day for a 5 year old.

Another time I remember pretending I was a bunny, hopping around the backyard. I hopped into the house through the back door and hopped into the kitchen. I told my mom I needed some lettuce, because I was a rabbit and I was hungry. She gave me a few lettuce leaves and shooed me back outside.

We had a lot of long grass in the backyard, and a peach tree that had been pruned back pretty badly. It didn't grow anything that I can remember. I use to climb up the stump, which was about 4 feet high, and I'd jump off the stump into the tall grass in our yard. I did this often and one day I jumped off of that tree stump, and landed in the grass, and a pain hit me about three seconds after I landed. I had landed the bottom of my big toe, on my right foot, into the opening of a pull top soda can. All the skin from the bottom of my toe was neatly cut off into the can. It bled like you cannot believe, and it scared the heck out of me - so, being 5, I screamed bloody murder, thus scaring the heck out of my poor mom. She recovered, took me into the house and after several large band-aids and some gauze, managed to stop the bleeding. I vaguely remember her reading me the riot act about jumping out of that tree and I don't think I ever did it again.

This was also the house we lived in when I had my first pet, a small red eared turtle I had named Myrtle. Original, huh? He lived in this little shallow pond with an island in the middle. The island had a small hole where a plastic palm tree 'lived.' I would feed Myrtle some turtle food before I went to school and check on him when I got home. I don't recall just how long I had this pet, but I don't think it was very long. I came home from school one day, stopped in to check on Myrtle and noticed he wasn't moving. I poked at him, and picked him up and noticed that he had a large fly in his mouth. I screamed and proceeded to find my little brother, who I yelled at rather loudly. I don't really know if my little brother actually fed the turtle that fly, but I am pretty sure it was him.

I have only two other memories in that house that come to mind. The first was waking up early one morning with a terrible cold and not being able to open my eyes. First, I panicked, because I couldn't open my eyes, which were stuck shut with dry eye goo. I somehow managed to calm down, get out of bed, and slowly make it to the bathroom. The carpet had been pulled up in the hall, though I don't know why, and in my quest for the bathroom sink I stepped directly on the nail strip that holds the carpet down. The sound I made woke up my mom, who helped me out with my gummed shut eyes. (I see even then I didn't want to ask anyone for help - I could have called out to her from my room, but I decided I could do it myself -- at 5. Hmmm)

The other memory started in a dream. I dreamed that I woke up to a sound I heard in my brother's room. In my dream I got up and left my room, walking down the hall to his room. He was in his crib and then I was also in his crib, and there were wolves under his crib. Then he and I were running back down the hall toward my room and my parent's room. I opened my parents bedroom door and on their bed were large, colorful boxes, and in the boxes, rising like jack in the boxes, were hippos. Yep, Hippos. It was all very strange. I woke up the next morning and headed to the kitchen for breakfast and noticed that my parent's mattress was out in the backyard. There was a large burn hole in it. I can't remember now if a lamp fell on it or if a cigarette caused that hole, but how weird to have that dream and then see their mattress outside the next morning.

I think those are all the memories from that house. And now I am done with Azusa.

night all.....