The Final Escape

EARLY MEMORIES

My first childhood memories come in threes and they span a period of a year.  They will remain vivid in my mind until death.

“David Paul, come in, your supper is ready.”

I can see my Mama standing in the front of our one-room shack with her apron on.  I run up to her with mud on my hands, knees and face.

“Come see Mama, come see!”  and taking her by the hand I led her around to the back of our house.  There next to some weeds and wild flowers I had just planted my own ‘Tea Garden.’

“Mama, I planted the tea bags you threw away.  I’m gonna watch ‘em grow big and we will have lots of sweet tea to drink.”

Mama got down on her knees and helped me pull out some of the weeds I had missed.  I can still see her fingers working the soil.  Then she reached out and hugged me tightly as I continue to chatter on about my tea garden.  I gathered up my Easter bucket and shovel and went in to wash for supper.

For days I watered my tea garden, anxiously waiting for the sprouts to come up, but to my dismay nothing happened.  After about a week, I was sitting under a tree in an old tire swing and could not seem to stop the tears.  I had done everything just as I had watched my Grandpa do when he planted his garden.  I just could not understand what went wrong or why those tea bags were not growing.  Mama came out to bring me some sugar cookies she had just baked.

“What’s wrong, David Paul, are you hurt?”

Shaking my head no, I wiped away the tears and started to explain about my garden.

“Don’t worry son, it just takes a little longer for tea bags to grow into plants.  I’ve got a magic powder inside.  Let’s put some of it on your garden and see what happens.”

I ate my cookies while she went to get the magic powder.  Then, together, we sprinkled the white powder all over my garden.  Feeling better, I went off to play with my dog Okie.

Early the next morning I went down to the windmill that pumped water into the livestock tank, got myself a bucket of water, and returned to water my garden.

“Mama, Mama!  Come quick, come quick!  Come and see my tea garden!”

Overnight my tea garden had grown two large green plants almost as tall as me, and hanging from each plant were unused, brand new Lipton tea bags.

Mama hugged me and said, “See, I told you the magic powder would work.”

We gathered all the tea bags and, although I was disappointed that my garden never produced any more tea, later that year it did produce tomatoes.  My mama said it must have been the magic powder . . .

In the fall of 1962, about the time I turned four, my great-grandparents lived on a farm just outside Muskogee, Oklahoma.  We had traveled by bus to visit them.  This was my first bus trip and I was very excited.  Granddad was in his seventies and very partial to my sister who is a year younger than I.  He never had much to do with me, and as a young boy I could not understand why.

During our visit my parents and Grandma had gone to town for groceries leaving my sister and me with Granddad.  I was playing in the yard with the chickens trying to catch one without any success, when out of nowhere there he was, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the outhouse.  The door was open and there on the floor of the old wooden two-seater was a small pile of shit.

In his deep voice he said, “Boy, why did you go on the floor?”

“I didn’t Granddad, it wasn’t me” I told him.

Then he thrust an old rag into my hand and made me wipe it up.  He brought a pail of soapy water and made me scrub the wooden floor with a brush.  All this time he was scolding me and telling me I was going to get the worst whipping now because of both messing on the floor and then lying about it.