jgoodman Wrote:
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> My friends and I would ride our bikes over there
> and climb around on the rocks and try to catch
> those little bream or sunfish using bacon. The
> water was very clear and I guess we waded in it.
> It was a lot clearer than the creek at Steven's
> Park golf course. I suppose that was a 8-10 mile
> ride from my house. Jim
A few days before Christmas in 1955 (I was ten years old), my family went shopping, but I elected to stay home alone. Soon after they left, I walked the few blocks to the zoo, and spent a good part of the day, mostly clambering around the creek, watching fish and turtles, including the numerous orange breasted darters and Texas log perch. It was one of those warm Texas winter days, temperatures may have been in the seventies.
I fell in, and the water was much colder than the air. I walked home, and changed clothes, leaving the wet ones in my bedroom floor. Since no one was home, I decided to walk to my brother's apartment, which was in "Mustang Village" on Plymouth Road, just west of Hampton Road, and across from Coomb's Creek, which flows through Stevens Park. I guess that was 3 miles away. It was so warm when I left that I wore no jacket. I had on the only pair of shoes I owned, the ones I fell into the creek with.
Long before I got to my brother's place, a blue norther, spitting a little snow, and very windy, had blown in. It was after dark when I arrived.
My sister-in-law took me in, wrapped me in blankets, fed me beans and hot chocolate, and called my mother. Lela, who knew I was missing of course but didn't expect me to show up at her apartment, couldn't take me home because her car (an "English Ford" iirc) had no heater, and she had a baby just a few weeks old. But I was thrilled to be taken home by a policeman in his patrol car. The police force had been alerted that I was missing, and I guess when he got the report that I'd turned up but had no way home, he decided to help out.
I have never asked my mother what she thought when she found my wet clothes in the floor. That's only one of the many things I wished I had asked her when I still could.
Dave McNeely
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2016 10:50AM by old man from dallas.