I Remember When Your Dad and I

Lived on a farm in the old Wilson House outside of Manhattan, Kansas where we learned to ride ponies bareback. Our dad would put us on the pony in a small corral and swat it’s rump. We’d grab a handful of mane and hang on for dear life. Once we learned to stay on we were allowed to ride in a saddle.

Would walk down to a small stream on hot summer days and skip rocks and swim. When we got home mom would have to burn the leeches off of us.

Sled down snowy hillsides in the winter and crash into a rock wall.

Listened to Gangbusters, Fibber Magee and Molly and old Westerns with our heads leaned against the speaker of a floor standing radio.

Hear ghost’s walking on creaky wood floors upstairs above our bedroom at night.

Took our first airplane ride from Kansas to Maryland on a four engine TWA Super Constellation.

Moved to farm northern Maryland where we hid in the bushes and watched a Pentecostal preacher dunk parishioners to baptize them in our creek.

Hunted Pidgins in the barn with our BB guns.

Played Cowboy’s and Indians shooting at, and often hitting, each other with our BB guns.

Moved into town for the first time in Chevy Chase Maryland, got our first bunk beds and TV.

Got into rock fights with other boys on a road construction site through the woods behind our house.

Visited our grandparents on the Chesapeake Bay and get stung by Sea Nettles.

Moved back to a farm near Manhattan where we herded cattle on horseback for the landlord and plowed wheat fields on big Case tractors.

Saw smoke rising above a wheat field where your dad was plowing, raced there with my tractor in high gear and found your dad laying beside a still running tractor on it’s side in a ravine with an expression on his face of “Oh Crap Am I Gonna Get a Likkin’ Tonight.”

Went to high school at Luckey High in Manhattan where your dad went to school with Gret.

Moved back to Maryland where we got jobs at a parking garage in D.C. to learn the parking garage business so we could go to Texas where our dad would run the parking garage for uncle Bill Bennett at the St. Joseph Professional business in downtown Houston.

Started our families in Houston.

Shared MANY cool ones and big laughs at family gatherings over the years.
Just wanted to share a few of the thousands of my good memories of your dad that we’ll always have 🙂

Love, Pat