Taken from 'Emma Street'

First Sight


The year is close to 1939 and the family of five children

and two adults have moved to a rental property until Dad

can find a suitable house to put his family in.

This house is on East Emma Street!

A big (to me, later not big enough) house painted an

ugly brown sitting on a beautifully shaded street in

a middle class section of a small, growing town in

west central Florida called Tampa.

The street is paved with asphalt bricks, as are many

streets of that era and there is a canopy of large

oak trees covering the street to make a kind of

tunnel as you walked down the sidewalk. Yes there was

a sidewalk; not all areas in this town had a sidewalk

yet so this must be a fairly good neighborhood. At

least we certainly thought so.

My first impression of the new house was a good one

as it had a great big oak tree in the back of the lot

just made for boys of five to climb up. There is also

an orange tree, a tangerine tree and a grapefruit

tree. We have really struck it rich! Needless to say

as this was the spring of the year there was a yard

full of oak leaves to be raked up by one five year

old.

My second impression of the Emma St. House as it was

to be fondly called in years to come was one of

horror.

As we entered the house to begin cleaning there must

have been ten thousand roaches scurrying about! Let

me quickly explain that "roaches" in this part of

Florida are the two-inch Palmetto Bugs that love to

fly at you if disturbed. Apparently the house had not

been occupied in some time and as these "bugs" are

prone to do, they came in and occupied the house

waiting to antagonize its occupants forever. They

certainly did an excellent job of that over the next

twenty years.

I really have a difficult time remembering exactly

how Mom and Dad divided us kids up to sleep as there

were three boys and two girls. The girls were both

older by two and four years so they probably demanded

some separation but in a two bedroom house. I, for

the life of me, can not recall where we slept. I do

know that the boys had the back bedroom with the bunk

beds in it. I did say three boys. Right? I was five,

then there was John, three and Ralph, just one.

Ralph, for the record was called "Cooger" as he was

just as quick and elusive at that age as any kid you

would ever see!

The girls, Joan (we always had to call her JoAnne)

and Clarice were so much older, eight and six

respectively, that we boys just kind of ignored them

most of this time.