We eventually left River Oaks and moved to Lake Worth. We lived at 6101 Graham Street. It was a corner lot and a good sized yard. Daddy always kept the yard so nice and had rose bushes. He was very proud of his yard. We moved there at the end of my fourth grade in school. If my math is right, and that’s questionable due to memory lapses and not math skills, I was eleven years old. Peggy would have been nine and Milton almost fifteen.
When daddy bought the house it was a prefabricated house. It was basically nothing but a shell. Everything had to be finished out and daddy, Ed, and Milton did most of the work. If daddy was working on something, Ed and Milton would be pitching in on anything he wanted including digging lateral lines for a septic tank drainage. Ed and Milton could have their room any way they wanted and, as you remember, they painted the room a light brown with two walls decorated with dark brown cow brands. The brands were worked into the texture before it dried. Grandpa Walker had an old radio the boys inherited and they built it into one wall….sure wish we had thought to remove it when we sold the house.
Peggy and I decided...well, I decided because I was older to paint our room Paprika!! It was really the color of paprika spice, loud!! (I just now stopped writing this to go to the kitchen. I can’t believe they were allowed to paint their room that color!!)
Milton and I used to get in trouble for dancing on the old hardwood floors. We loved to dance to rock and roll. It was called something else by adults back then. (I felt it prudent to leave that name out of print.) Mother would make us stop only to get far enough out of earshot so we could crank it up again.
When Milton was a teenager he was friends with a young man in school that was responsible for Milton going to church and being baptized. That led to mother going back to church and daddy going with her to eventually being baptized himself. (Years later uncle Wayne would serve as an elder in the church.)
I will insert a bit of information on Ed now because it falls in place before Mary Wayne’s next memory. Ed married Mary Lynn. I was their ring bearer. I was told by my mom I had no desire to be anyone’s ring bearer. She said I made the comment, “I don’t wanna go to no marryin’”. I did have a terrible crush on Mary Lynn though so I went through the process without too much urging. I have a brief memory of being pushed down the aisle at the actual wedding but that is all I remember of that ceremony.
Milton married at a very young age and fathered two beautiful children. He and Linda divorced and Milton married one more time. Her name was Judy. He and Judy had a little girl, Gloria, about the same age as my Kevin. (Milton was killed in a car accident when Gloria was an infant.) I communicate with her through Facebook. I rarely get to talk to her or see her. She has two beautiful daughters and I can see Milton in all of his children.
This ends Mary Wayne’s wonderful story. I’m so glad she put her memories into words. You may notice more information was included on Milton than the other sibs. This is because his son, Don Walker, asked for as much information as I could gather about his dad. He was just a little boy when Milton died. He wants to know as much about him as anyone can provide so cousins, pass your memories on!
I told Don all I could remember about Milton and my favorite memory was of seeing him drive down River Oaks Blvd one day in his 1950-ish Ford coupe. It was white with red wheels, chrome rims and baby moons. I was about six and waiting in the car for my mom. I saw Milton and leaned as far as possible out of the car window and started yelling at him as loud as I could. Even though he was stopped at a red light right in front of the parking lot where I sat, he did not hear me. I mean I yelled his name, I waved my arms...he never even moved. Even his friends in the car heard me and punched Milton over and over while pointing me out. He continued to stare at that red light and never heard me. I’m pretty sure he had hearing problems.
I could tell more memories but I guess this has gone on long enough. I will tell the story about Mary Wayne and Peggy trying to drown my brother Glenn, Bruce, and me on a later post.
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