My brothers dating years in the '40s, 50's and 60's came to light one day when we gathered for a family reunion dinner. I realized that times really don't change much when it comes to teen aged boys dating. But, my brothers always seemed to get into trouble with Daddy and Mother.
Picture is one of my brother Lawrence and my daddy standing by the pickup truck in 1950.
My Brothers Always Got Caught
My seven brothers and sisters and I have a “reunion dinner” every January 1st .We have a great time! We have our New Year’s Day dinner, always with the traditional black-eyed peas, of course, and sit around the big dining table talking about old times and memories of growing up on our farm in Southwest Wilson County.
We are all in our 60s and 70’s now.
The last time we were all together, we were discussing our social life back in high school. I found out that young men through the ages never change.
My brother Lawrence, when asked who was his first girl friend, thought about it and said, “I think it was Ima Lee Gloor.” We all laughed, because we all knew that. He was just a little boy and Ima Lee was 8 years old than he. She was in her teens. She lived with her parents and her three brothers down the road from us. They were our closest neighbors.
Ima Lee and I reconnected again several years ago, before she passed away. We talked about those olden days on the farm. It was back in the early 40’s. She told me about the time she stayed with us children while our parents were in San Antonio for several days for my grandmother’s funeral. Lawrence was about 9 years old. When we all went to bed at night, we all went over to kiss Ima Lee goodnight. That is, all but my brother, Lawrence. He was too embarrassed because he had a crush on her. He hid in another room. Of course, we teased him unmercifully.
When Lawrence got older he went to Poth High School, in 1948, '49, and '50. He always had a girl friend. He liked all the girls. One of the girls he liked, Melba, worked at the Arcadia Theater and one afternoon he was with my brother Bob. Lawrence was driving our pick up truck. Lawrence saw her at the theater and swung the truck around quickly to go back, and hit a light pole. There was a big dent in the fender. He took it to a local man to fix it before he went home, so Daddy wouldn’t find out. Lawrence never told Daddy. One day Daddy was in Floresville and the man saw Daddy and asked, “When are you going to pay me for fixing your truck?” Yes, Lawrence caught it when he got home that day.
Lawrence tells another story: “You know I used to always stay out late.”
Everyone laughed, “Every time you left the house!”
He said, “Well this one night, I was coming home late and it was really late, and when I got to the lane up by the mail box, that led down to our house at the farm, I stopped the truck, turned off the lights and took off my clothes except my underwear and drove on down the lane real slow without the lights on. They weren’t going to catch me coming home late this time. I was going to sneak in and go to bed and they would never know.”
Well, he said, “I didn’t know Daddy had gotten up and gone out to that little “house in the back” and was on his way back in, when I came creeping up the lane in the truck. I didn’t see him standing there in the dark waiting for me to get out and come up to the porch. I was carrying my clothes and walking quietly.”
“Suddenly I heard Daddy yell, 'Who in h---- have you been out with?’ He scared me to death!”
Then my brother Bob informed Lawrence that he used to do the same thing a few years later! And sure enough, the same thing happened to him - Daddy coming from his early morning visit to the outhouse, but what he yelled at Bob was, “What in h--- is wrong with the lights on the truck!”
Actually it was Mother who was more concerned with the time they came in. Daddy was more interested in why the truck had no lights, and who they had been out with!
Then my brother Don talked about how Mother and Daddy made Lawrence and Bob take him with them when they would go into town to the dances or the movies. They didn’t want to, but they could not argue! He was just a kid and considered a “tag-along”. Their words to Don in the truck going to town were said very sternly, “Now don’t you go and tell Daddy and Mother anything that goes on, you hear?” And Don never told them a thing. But I think Mother and Daddy had a purpose in this. If their little brother was along, they had to come home at a decent hour!
My brother Don had it a little easier. Mother and Daddy sold the farm and moved to San Antonio, so he stayed in the country and lived with the McDonald family and worked on their dairy farm while he finished his last year of Poth High School. No telling what time he got home from his dates. I think he was more interested in football than girls anyway. Unless he didn’t tell us everything!
My youngest brother Sammy had a girl friend when he was about 15. This was in 1964. Mother and Daddy were living in San Antonio by then. He and his girl friend went to a high school football game with me and my husband one night. They were to meet us at the car after the game was over. We got back to the car after the game and waited and waited for them. Just as the parking lot was almost empty, we saw them running to the car. Sammy was very embarrassed. He said, “We were in the wrong car. We were sitting in the back seat in the dark. We weren’t paying any attention to anyone around.
A man came up and opened the door and yelled, “What are you doing in my car? Get out of here!”
We never let Sam forget that night. I hope they got in their “smooching” before he came. He still laughs about it too.
My brothers have many stories of their youth, some of which they said they would never tell. Someone told me the other day “The past is present”. So true .
For a time, I perched myself on a flat rock, comparing my life with the Guyandotte River. Just as its tributaries replenish it daily, changing it in some small—sometimes great—degree, so have the day-to-day occurrences of life changed me. Like the ri
Asa D Seeley, a young Afro American man, shares his struggle to leave his past behind as he reaches for his future. In his one-of-a-kind style, he searches for answers...from the visible & invisible. A Memoir in Poetical/Prose form.
My Brothers Always Got Caught
