There was a guy named Cornelius, which used to come to our home on a motorcycle. He always came with a raccoon ridding along with him. I remember he kind of looked like the guy on the Christmas show that took on the abominable snowman.
There was a lady named Mrs. Gertz, who used to visit my grandma. I remember that she talked funny and when I asked my Grandma why, she told me that she was missing part of her tongue.
I remember Mrs. Kotchendorfer, who was my best friend’s grandmother. She lived down the road and would make us zucchini soup. We would always play with her black rotary phone calling people in the phonebook telling them that we were calling them from dialing for dollars. I remember thinking her name was kind of weird, as well as my friends moms name Dagmar. I found out Mrs. Kotchendorfer came from Germany. She had white hair and looked like Grandma Klaus.
I liked our neighbor Mr. Toungstead. He had horses. I loved riding my bike on really rainy days and after it had rained. Mr brother and I would land in all of the holes that were filled with the most water and see how far we could make the water go up in the air. Mr. Toungstead was always nice to me. I remember sitting on the floor at his house while he was talking to me, and I remember that he had an accent and was missing his thumb nails. I think he told me some horses stepped on his fingers. I remember it was really neat when he showed me and my brother his underground cellar. The air was different, cooler, and it smelled like earth. I remember seeing lots of canning jars there, and thinking I was going through what Tom Sawyer must had gone through.
Twice several years in a row, there were big rains in Alamo. I remember going through the creek and seeing a dead cow stuck in the middle of a tree. It was really weird to see it caught right in the middle. The tree was shaped like a y it it sat in the middle. My brother and I kept going down in the creek to see it several days in a row because it was so weird. What was interesting that another flood came a year or two later, and another cow died, getting stuck in the same tree. It was so crazy to see how high the water came up from the creek. It changed the creek a bit from what we were used to. It came nearly as high as the house, then stopped. I remember standing next to the rushing water with my sisters. Now I look back and I thank God, the land didn’t give way while the water was rushing past us, since we were standing on the edge. There were always interesting things happening with animals in Alamo. I remember seeing horses running in the road, because sometimes, somehow a horse or two from the neighbors would get loose. I remember wondering how they would catch them. The horses seemed to have a lot of fun and didn’t want to get caught.
When we were little, my brother and I would take my cousin down in the creek. We had different forts. We would tell my younger cousin John, that a huge giant would come at a certain time over one of our forts, and he would get scared. We would get to see deer in the creek. And we had forts that were under trees, almost like the Indians! You could fit 4 people inside, no problem. We would pretend we were Indians. Then we had open type forts that we could climb up in the trees and have classes in. I remember in one fort I wrote how to become a Christian, in India ink, on the wood. Just in case they missed the Rapture! I figured the India Ink would last a long time, since I heard it was permanent. We would go through the creek and jump from one side of the creek to the other and follow it North or South. Sometimes we would find Indian arrowheads, and 100 year old bottles, that were shaped funny. I remember one area of the creek where there was a railroad track under the water. Once we found a nice sized piece of Styrofoam, and went down the creek on it. We weren’t afraid of much; we even went through the underground pipes just to see where they led too! We would take things like white rocks to remember where we were we started so we wouldn’t get lost.
You could catch fish, frogs, and it was lots of fun. I was never afraid of snakes, or ticks, like I am today! I never got a tick! And I remember we did see a gopher and a king snake. We saw a lot of possums around our home too. Deer would walk by my room at night, and sometimes I would get a little spooked, when I heard their feet clanking on the rock.
We had lots of walnut trees, and people were always stopping by our home to ask us if they could pick some walnuts. There was also a huge raspberry bush on the Toungsteads property. We would always go there and pick raspberries. People would always come by to get berries. It was lots of fun. I remember there were some really powerful storms, where a tree fell on my mom and dads car. Once, one fell on my room ceiling too. It seemed really exciting at the time. I never realized how dangerous it was. I just remember loving jumping in all of the fallen leaves and throwing them all around. I remember my sisters and I would have so much fun getting buried in the leaves during fall. And we couldn’t wait for spring and the mustard coming up. It was tall with yellow flowers, taller than me. We would make lots of forts, and hide in the mustard. It smelled so good. I would bury notes in the dirt, in little boxes, and my sisters, and brother and I would play there for hours. Whenever we got hungry, we would either run to the pear tree, or the apple tree, or fig tree. We had lots of fruit trees. The only time I wasn’t happy with the outdoors, was when the stickers would come up. But mainly they came up on the neighbor’s property, I thing because they grey seed for hay for their horses.
I liked to think I was kind of a daredevil when I was younger, or more like a tomboy. I remember the train going by our home when I was younger, and the house would shake. I loved when the train would go by. When I got a bit older, I went to the part of the train track that went over a fissure. I remember walking on this long pipe that went across the top of the largest gap! I am sure glad I didn’t fall. At night when the train would go by, or cars would go by, through the window, a light would reflect and run through the top of our room. I shared a room with my brother. We would pretend that we were watching a movie and make up things.
There was always something to find or explore at our property in Alamo. It felt so big at the time. I remember finding pieces of metal that came from a plane. I remember showing my grandparents and finding out that a plane crashed over head into another plane dating from World War 2 era. And part of the plane landed on our property, and the other part landed on some other people’s property in Alamo that had a similar name to us, named the Timis.
