The First Seven Years

My first seven years I lived at 1603 W. 22^nd Street in Houston, Texas. I remember it was a lovely place to grow up. There were oak trees, an elm tree,  a sweet gum, a pecan tree, magnolia trees, a wisteria vine, rose of sharon bushes, a pyracantha, and a grapefruit tree. My mother grew nasturtiums, daylillies, sweet peas, and shrimp plants. I was always curious about the things that grew in the yard. I remember lying down on the grass in the front yard, wishing I knew the name of every plant and bug.  That practice continues till now.

I remember having tea parties and playing paper dolls with Debbie Hauck. She was my catty-cornered backyard neighbor. When we couldn't go over to each other's houses, we played in the corners across the fence. Her aunt, Mrs. Klaus, was my next door neighbor. She also grew lots of plants, swept her back yard, and had a hand wringer washing machine in her back yard. We all hung our clothes on a clothes line. She was a seamstress, and her husband was a house painter. She made delicious German coffeecake.

 

A few years ago my cousin and I drove by my old house. They were jacking it up to put it on a trailer and move off somewhere to make room for the new condominiums they were building. My mother's daylilies were still growing in a straight line where the fence would have been, and Mrs. Klaus' crinum lillies were growing around where her patio had been. A worker dug them up for me. They are thriving around my house now on the prairie. 

I remember playing army men and marbles and airplane pilots with Karl Kilgore. I remember sitting with him at a picnic table under the big oak tree in Mrs. Eubank’s house across the street, drawing for hours. I think he became an architect, and I have an architect son. 

I spent many hours swinging and singing in the elm tree in our back yard. There were neighborhood games of sandlot baseball in the vacant lot, twilight games of hide and seek and freeze tag, scary forages into the bayou at the end of the street, episodes of venturing out on my bicycle, but only as far as Couch Street. I would later ride two blocks to Shady Acres Grocery Store to pick up items for my mother. 

 

My mother and brother and I walked to Shady Acres Baptist Church every Sunday. It was only a couple of block away, and my mother didn’t drive. I would practice memorizing my Bible verse and walking toe to heel in my patent leather shoes. My dad worked odd hours at Sunbeam Bakery. He didn’t attend church with us.  

When I was six I began my formal education at Helms Elementary School. I had already begun an informal education in botany, etymology, art, and reading. Although we didn't have many books, I remember sitting in my mother's lap reading poetry and her quoting to me Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabel Lee." My best friend in Kindergarten was Arthur Santa Anna Centeno. We painted, played with a doll house, had snacks of graham crackers in little wax paper sacks, and cartons of milk. We played baby eagles around the crape myrtle trees in the playground. We had an aptitude test at the end of the year. I got everything right, except I didn’t know what a wreath was. At the end of my first cycle of seven years I was in Miss Simmons first grade class, where we practiced handwriting and read On Cherry Street in reading circles. I remember the ceiling was high, and the windows were tall.