Okay, here we go again. Still up on Alaska Street. As I said before everything was rationed, including fuel for the furnace. Our furnace was a coal burner and as we were renting our landlord, I am guessing a little bit here, decided we shouldn't be wasting coal so he converted the coal furnace to sawdust. That was horrible stuff. They brought it in a large dump truck and just dumped it by the coal shoot and then we had to shovel it down to the basement. The pile of sawdust looked really soft and inviting and one of my brothers talked me into jumping into it which I did, I still itch from it. I don't remember exactly when we moved from Alaska Street to 33rd Ave So, but it was prior to the end of WWII. There were some things that went on on 33rd that I will not go into, leave it that it affected the remainder my life and my relations with most of my siblings, and pretty much led to my never really wanting to go home again. I remember moving day, and really the only thing I remember about it is that Dad had one heck of a tooth ache and apparently wasn't much help. People complain nowadays about not having enough room. Remember there were 7 people living in one house. The folks bought this house, it was less than 1,000 square feet. One bathroom, 2 and 1/2 bedrooms. The 1/2 bedroom was the boys room. It was an add-on to the original house. The folks put a bunk bed and one twin bed, there was room left for one (very) small chest of drawers. There was just barely enough room between the bunk beds and the twin bed for one person to stand up. A very small room. No insulation, one window, one bare light-bulb dangling from the overhead. As only fair I got the upper bunk, Bob would pay for that later. There were times when the ice was so thick on the inside of the window that you couldn't see out. We weren't on city sewage so we had a septic tank that was hooked up very well and a lot of raw sewage went straight under the house, not pleasant. The regular bedrooms weren't much bigger that the boys room but not as many people had to share them. The girls had the bedroom nearest the bathroom. Mom and Dad had to go through the girls room to get to the bathroom. The living room was large enough for an 8X12 rug with maybe 18" on all four sides. The one unique thing about this house was the living room floor. It was laid down similar to the floor you would find at a roller skating rink. It was made of solid oak about 1/2" thick by 2" wide by approximately 2' long. There were several of these pieces left over, for patching I guess. At any rate by the time the last of the Howe's left (Mom and Dad) all of those pieces were broken over one or other of the boys behind mostly Bills. Whenever one of us would get in trouble, we all paid. Dad would take us in our bedroom, bend us over the bed usually Bill first and I was closest to the door, as soon as the first blow I was out the door and gone. Most of the time I didn't get caught, thank god I was healthier and younger (a lot) than Dad and could outrun him. Rae, my current wife, and I went back to visit one of our neighbors in 1958 and they were still talking about Dad chasing me all over the neighborhood, with the last of the oak boards. Hard telling what it was I had done.
Have to run now but I will be back.
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