What I am trying to do here is post things I remember,some times it will just read like a list.And some times I will expand on the memory's a little bit. I have been told many times by my off spring that I never tell them anything about my youth. Well I always felt uncomfortable talking about it,because when ever I did it always sounded like I was looking for sympathy or that I was using it as an excuse for not being a better parent or person. Having said that I plan to slip little tidbits of my child hood experience into these memories. This way they get to pick up the history in bits and pieces as I go along.It may take me awhile to get to more recent history,but I promise to tell things the way they happened.In some cases I will state my opinion and sometimes I won't. With that out of the way let's get back to reminiscing. Good memories from Christmas when I was a kid. Hard candy,A toy rifle that made a bang and let a puff of smoke out of the barrel when it was fired,A black Tom Mix cowboy hat,(Bud Thibedeau one of Nanny's grown sons would on occasion give us kids a ride down town to the Ware Theatre ,which is now know as the Cabot Cinema.There on a Saturday afternoon we could see a newsreel, 2 or 3 cartoons a weekly cliff hanger, and a full length movie to boot. I guess that's where I got hooked on oaters. But anyway getting back to my Tom Mix hat, on the ride to the movies Bud would always say with a grin on his face What are you guys going to see? Tom Mix and cement! needless to say there was a collected groan from the back seat) One last good memory of Christmas, when I was about eleven or twelve I had to get up and out of the house at four a.m. to do my morning paper route( more about the route on another day) and Nanny let me open my present on Christmas eve. It was a little cardboard basketball court and you could shot a ping pong ball at the net.I just loved it. The one thing that I just hated about Christmas was the annual Beverly Christmas party that some well meaning people held for poor kids and state wards. This was held at the YMCA with a fake Santa and all the do gooders standing around a ratty looking tree handing out second hand clothes and cheap toys,It was one of the most demeaning and embarrassing things that ever happened to me as a state ward and believe me there was many. It was easy for me as a kid to under stand discrimination.Needless to say they never got a second chance at my sorry ass. one other thing stands out in my memory of winter when I was a kid. Getting back to Nanny's rule of having to go out side to play regardless of the temperature. There were days when it was so cold that you just had to ether sneak into the basement or find another spot to get warm. (she didn't do this to be mean, she really thought it was the right thing to do) the place I found and really enjoyed was Parker Davis's chicken coop.It was large bright and warm. With a thick carpet of wood shavings on the floor and a mixture of chicken shit mixed in it had an aroma that was not at all unpleasant.I would sit there and watch the foul for hours. I usually had a bag of hard candy left over from Christmas in my pocket,so I was quite content.For the rest of my life I enjoyed raising poultry. Another dumb think we did riding in Bud's car was sing Christmas carols.Walter and Frank Elwell, Noel and I and Victor Bernson would shout more than sing this inane verse "We three Kings of orient are traveled afar to get a cigar, it was loaded it exploded! We had to walk because we didn't have a car. We thought that was a riot.Bud would just sit there grinning and shaking his head.
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