I think I mentioned I didn't live with my Mom and Dad all the time. When the following happened, Mom and Dad weren't even together. She and my brothers and sisters and me were staying with my aunt. I was about five years old.

The day started out allright, but I got my head stuck between slats on the back of a chair, and it took some doing to get me loose. Not long after they did, my belly started hurting. Maybe Mom and my aunt thought pulling me out of the chair caused it. Keeping my undies over my belly made it feel worse. I sat or lay around a long time. When Mom realized something was wrong, after that everything went real fast.

An ambulance arrived right up to our door. Men in white uniforms put me on something that had wheels. As they pushed me to the ambulance one of them grabbed a sheet, and threw it over me.

Everything happened so fast I didn't have time to be scared, until the man pulled the sheet up over my face. I remembered a movie or something I'd seen, where overing somebody's head meant they were dead. My belly hurt so bad! Maybe I was dying.

When the driver didn't pull out of the front yard onto a road but just took off, across a big deep ditch, I thought for sure if I closed me eyes, I might not ever open them again. When I did, I was on something else that had wheels, and nurses were bringing me out of an operating room. My belly didn't hurt anymore, except it felt strange when I touched it, and felt all the thick, wide tape.

Years later, when Mom and my Aunt talked about my sudden appendectomy, they'd hold their bellies, from laughing so much when they got to the part about Auntie sobering the doctor up, so he could operate.

A few years later other things changed, faster, and more scarey than the ambulance ride. World War II began. Mom and Dad moved us to Houston where he got a job making ships for the war.

Life was so different. I couldn't visit Grand Pa, and couldn't run and play across big grassy fields. Houses stood close together. Yards seemed so little.

Our house was small, too. I can't remember if we had a builtin bathtub, but I kind of doubt it. My aunt did though. She had moved to Houston, too. The first time I saw her's I thought "Wow", and I soaked in it a long time, until they kept banging on the door. Bathrooms were needed for something besides bathing, I guess, since there weren't any outhouses around.

I don't know why children remember some things, but don't store away others. Psychologists say we're more likely to remember some because of the emotions we had when they happened.

I just know that Mom and Dad and all we kids were in the house. Dad had just come home from work. I can see it like it only just now happened. He kind of rared back in his chair, as he told Mom Mom what happened when he reported for the Draft.

He said the man told him a mistake had been made, that they didn't draft fathers with six children. As he repeated some of the story, he laughed a little. We can't afford allotment pay for your half dozen."

When my Dad was about to say something he wanted you to remember, he had a way of tossing his head back a litle and pausing, to hold your attention, and he did that then, and said: "So I said to the man, can you refuse to let me sign up?" The way he said it to Mom, I knew it wasn't a question.

My father had joined the Navy. The government would send us checks. But I about wore my little legs off, going to the mail box down the road for Mom every day, to see if any arrived. It was a long time before they did.

Strange, how what you're doing pushes thoughts away. Day after day you just get busy with living. I had to get used to going to a new school, and finding friends and a teacher to like me. The daily trip to the mail box kept me busy, too. Before long I seldom thought of Grand Pa's back porch, or the daffodils.