All night I had words and sentences flying through my head for something my mind titled “That House on Canal”. About 0500 I had a whole entry about the impact of our home in Markham on my subsequent life. I have always, I assumed, hated Markham and all it stood for. When we moved to Markham I was in total rebellion about being hauled from Washington and Oregon to the primitive backwater of Texas. Oklahoma was bad but tolerable because I had, over the years, been exposed to cousins and life styles there through family vacations. Texas had hook worms, Indians, guns, wild cowboys, and a generally unsettled way of living. Worse was when we went to the near by big city and saw water fountains with colored water that was the same color as all water I had ever seen. The damned fools even lied about their freaking water. All the kids in the sixth grade had names with all consonants and had never seen or wanted to see a mountain or snow. Shit! They did not even know about states other than Texas. Gradually I adjusted to life in Texas. Mom got me a job at Orr’s Grocery Store and I learned the exquisite pleasure of watching people. Over the years I found that Texan did not much care about things outside Texas because Texas had everything.
When we moved from OK to TX we first lived in a semi-rundown two story hotel building owned by, perhaps mythical, person named Mrs. Fisher. Most of the rooms were vacant and the place was full of echoes. Mom was pregnant and, if I remember correctly, sick or uncomfortable most of the time. My brother and I knew no one and were slowly adjusting to school. My sixth grade class was studying subjects that we had covered in the fourth and fifth grades in Washington and Oklahoma. Plus these things called “blue northers” would blow in and freeze our desert adjusted little butts solid. My older sister was born while we lived in the hotel.
The building is very rundown now, the picture was taken 9/4/2006, compared to 1952 but is still a formidable pile. I wonder if anyone lives there today?
Sometime after that we moved into a building that used to be the bank in Markham. The bathroom was where the vault had been. While living in that building I think our younger sister was born.
I remember my dad and uncles making jokes about pregnancy and sex in front of my brother and I. They, most likely, did not know how much we knew about the whole subject. Comparatively speaking, my 10 year old grandson knows about a bazillion times more about sex that I did at 12. Different times! While we lived in the bank building our Dad and Uncles started building a new home for us on Canal Street.
Every weekend the uncles and dad would start working on the house late Friday night and work almost continuously through the weekend till Sunday night. The uncles and their wives would go to their homes until the next weekend. Brother and I as the young males in the family were supposed to work on details like sanding the taped wall board joints and etc. We did do some work but I’ll bet we were poor help. The house was finished in January 1957 and we moved in. There were three bedrooms, no interior doors, and one bath. The family was two parents, two teenaged boys and two very young girls. After the house was finished my dad would go help my uncles build their homes.
I have, until now, never thought about the changes in my life caused by the house on Canal. I grew from a stupid young teenager to a callow stupid older teenager in that house. I learned to cope with a hated institution called school. If not for football in the first year at Tidehaven High School I would have quit. I totally sucked at football but I could work off frustration and anger while wearing the pads. I learned to attend to my responsibilities while working at Orr’s Grocery. Mister Orr taught me how to determine if a worker was worth his salary and what to do if not. I learned while living in that house on Canal that people are and always be the most important and only creature on this planet worthy of intense study. I learned then that all resources on this planet or any other possible place are free and it is only the human effort of extraction and production that costs. I learned that everyone on earth has a mate somewhere and that my parents apparently knew that mine lived in Markham.
Today I know that every belief and attitude and behavior I have today was forged in that 800 square foot home in Canal. Even today with my cell phone constantly at hand I find myself literally “hunkering down” while I talk on it. Our phone in that house had a 5 foot cord, Mom paid extra, and was by the couch in the front room. I used to squeeze myself down behind the couch and cup my hand around the phone and my mouth so my family could not hear me while I talked to my future roomie. I learned from my Dad that no job or task is so complicated that any reasonably normal person could not learn how to do it over night. I never saw a task while building that house that my father could not do. I watched him ask the sale people how to install or use and item and then he would do it. I have never flown on my own power but I know that if I had to I could figure out how to do it.
The house shown in the picture is very neglected. Dad and I put these shingles on in 1978. I’ll bet the roof leaks. I felt a sense of shame when I saw the condition of the house today. I hope Dad doesn’t see the place now.
While I was living in that house on Canal SHE was living in her house on Canal. She lived on north Canal and I lived on south Canal. Her mom ran a beauty shop behind the house approximately where the garage is in this picture. Her childhood was chaotic as were many of the children of military personnel during World War II. After his discharge her dad moved constantly around the Texas Gulf Coast area trying to find a good job. Her grandmother lived in Markham and served as a home for her.
Her dad finally went to work at Ohio Oil same as my dad. Ohio Oil later became Marathon Oil. If not for the booming petroleum industry, fueled by pent up civilian needs and wants, neither of my families would have settled in Markham. Perhaps WWII was intended to bring roomie and I together. Far fetched? Who knows God’s plans?
Roome spent many hours across the street with her grandmother and her grand aunt. Of all the houses impacting my life in Markham only this house has been kept in good shape.
I first proposed to roomie under the cedar tree visible to the left of the house. The one with the white shiny trunk not near the power pole.
But before I saddled up in the rented van and went to Markham to take the pictures above I went to feed the fish. HORROR! HORROR!! The Koi pond was almost empty and the liner was about half way out of the hole. I filled one of my reserve 50 gallon containers with water and treated it for chlorine and ammonia and put the filter in it to start aerating the water. I netted the big gold Koi and the two Fan tail Goldfish with little trouble and transferred them to the container. I netted and netted and finally trapped the multi-colored Koi and made the transfer. I pumped most of the remaining water out of the liner and had to drag the liner over to the grassy area and poured out the rest before I could find the Plecos. While I was cleaning the liner I pumped the water out of the hole. I put the liner back in the hole and started filling the liner with water. Added twice the volume of required treatment chemicals and replaced the plants and pumps and scooped the fish back into the pond.
I think that the stream out of the water jug of the “Our Lady” figure go too weak to fall into the pond and thus ran down under the liner. Fortunately the pump filter was tall enough that all of the water was not pumped out of the liner. I repositioned the outlet so that no matter what happens the water will run back into the pond.
Kent County Daily Times, The--West Warwick, RI
Watchdog group says: Coventry needs help with CoNE
Jennifer A. Salcido,
Daily Times
09/04/2006
COVENTRY - One Coventry resident has expressed the belief that the Town of Coventry needs more qualified help in dealing with its largest development.
He brought his concerns to the town council last Monday.
Wayne Asselin, president of Citizens for Responsible Development (CARD) and outspoken watchdog of the Centre of New England (CONE), has taken steps in recent months to bring issues he believes to be noteworthy to the attention of the council. Chief among these was a large petition regarding a possible access road near the Hopkins Hill School playground, which elicited a response from a CONE legal representative stating emphatically that developer Nicholas E. Cambio would be pursuing no such access road, nor had he considered it in the past.
Last Monday, Asselin took to the podium during public comment after passing out a three-page document entitled "Reasons Why Coventry Should Retain Specialized Legal Counsel for the Centre of New England (CONE)" to the council. He implored the council to look into retaining the services of an attorney specifically to deal with the 400-acre development.
Sounds to me that the town solicitor has some kind of deal with the developer if he is warning the council to take care dealing with Asselin. I have no particulars but I do hope that he has support of a great number of voters.
Rock County Star Herald, The--Luverne, MN
Audit reveals local road hazards, suggests change
By Lori Ehde
The Rock County Highway Department recently participated in an audit that studied the overall safety of local roads and intersections.
Road Safety Audits, as they’re called, were conducted in counties throughout Minnesota this summer, with the primary objective to improve safety.
"I think it was worthwhile," Sehr said following the community meeting Aug. 15 at the library. "They came up with a lot of good information."
Specifically, he said the goal of the audit is to reduce the number of fatal and personal injury accidents through low-cost engineering improvements at sites identified as problematic.
What the study does not say but should it that the great majority of the accidents are not caused by hazardous road conditions but by people driving beyond their capability. A car that would allow the driver to only perform certain safe driving maneuvers would really cut the accident rate and save lives and money.
Valley Morning Star--Harlingen, TX
Shock and grief
Survivors recount tragic night
By EDWINA P. GARZA
edwinag@valleystar.com
956-430-6292
SAN BENITO - The only things out of place on the bridge on West Hudson Road Sunday were empty plastic bottles, cups and a white K-Swiss Classic sneaker that friends believe belonged to one of the two teenagers who died in a car that plunged into a resaca south of the city.
Eliseo Rios, 15, and Saul Villafranco, 14, died when the four-door Pontiac Grand Am they were in went out of control and rolled into the water, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers said. The two were among a group of eight teenagers who had gone cruising after leaving early from a Friday night San Benito High School football game.
One survivor, David Torres, 14, was in the back seat. He said the driver was arguing with another passenger just before the car went over the resaca bridge.
Torres said Villafranco was driving.
How many times does this have to happen before parents regain their cajones and refuse letting the young teenagers drive and especially at night with friends? Fourteen is way to young to cruise at night.
Buy bird feeder for birds like cardinals and mount of 3 inch 6 feet tall PVC pole.
remove middle lattice so I can remove pile of dirt around koi liner.
Clean shed work bench.
Buy wireless routers.
Start prep work to install remaining tile in kitchen.
Call Farmers Adjuster Ryan Cockrum
Use coffee can to measure amount of water from sprinklers.
Spray weed killer on obvious weeds in wildflower bed.
Update Lee’s Nurse’s stories pages.
Peace
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