Friday, February 26, 2021
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As Barbara Ann's brother, her passing will forever leave a void in my life. I only knew her as Barbara Ann, because our mother's name was Barbara. Since high school she has been in Texas and I in Indiana. I treasured our long conversations over the phone every two or three weeks and the visits between Texas and Indiana for the past years.
Since I was with Barbara Ann mostly during our "grade school years", the following memories are from then.
We did most things together, along with our neighbor and friend, "Calvin". We would ride our bicycles all over the county and even into the neighboring state (to purchase fireworks around the 4th). Every day was an adventure.
There was more than twenty acres of woods behind our home and the three of us conquered it. We created narrow trails throughout that only we knew how to follow. We built caves and two cabins. Our first cabin (using the word loosely) we named ABC Hangman's Lodge (ABC for Alan, Barbara, Calvin). We were around nine years old at this time. We also built a platform about twenty-five feet up the tree that was holding up our cabin. We had many meals up there (we reached it by climbing the limbs of the tree). The cabin was about 300 yards into the woods and we made a trail so that we could ride to it with our bikes. The cabin was only about seven by eight foot in size, but we had a table to eat from and play cards etc. and occasionally we would puff on cigarettes that Calvin had swiped from his father's stash (we didn't know how to inhale). With our cabin we were the envy of the neighborhood kids and for that reason our cabin was vandalized several times. We kept it padlocked, but the locks would be forced off. So, we put a five-gallon bucket of water on the platform above the cabin and rigged it to tip when someone approached the door. Later on, we dug a grave size hole in front of the door and placed a large hinged door over it. We covered the door with dirt and leaves and rigged it to drop if someone stepped on it. We had reasons to believe that both those traps worked well.
When we were about twelve years old, some of the neighborhood boys started building a one room cabin about a quarter mile further into the woods. The back portion of the woods was owned by a farmer and was accessible from a farm road. These boys had older brothers and they had hauled in material with a tractor for the cabin. The material was much more substantial with barn beams for the foundation and metal for the siding and roof. We discovered their cabin when it was about half finished. They did not realize that they were building on our parent's part of the woods. We confronted them and our father confirmed that it was on our land. They had all the material there to finish the cabin, so the three of us offered to purchase the material they had hauled there for thirty dollars over six months at five dollars a month and a crude agreement was signed. When it came to the last five-dollar payment, I typed up an acknowledgement of payment and of our possession. We also had them sign an agreement not to vandalize the new cabin or it would be taken up with the fathers of the group. I still have those agreements. I tried to make them as official as a twelve-year old could, but looking at them today, none were dated. So, they would not have held up in court. I guess we're safe now. We finished the new cabin and abandoned the old one. We constructed a booth with a table for four and put ten coats of varnish on the table top. We had hidden compartments, two bunk beds and a trapdoor in the floor to place apple cider in a hole in the ground to keep it cool, as it aged. We used a kerosene heater in the winter for heat. This cabin was only, maybe, ten by twelve in floor size. But it was a grand place to us.
I remember the three of us, on most Saturday's, would wave down the Greyhound bus that passed in front of our home each day. We'd take it into Evansville to have lunch at the five and dime, buy some comic books and see a movie (usually a western at the American theatre). Then to the Greyhound bus station to buy our ticket home. Our parents approved this, as back then parents didn't have the concerns todays parents do.
Definitely Barbara Ann was a "tomboy". But it seems she grew out of it enough to get married. She, however was always ready for adventure or something new and a most fun person to be around.
Love! Brother
