First days in Wichita

Now, back to Wichita 1975. I've dug up a few old photos for the next few blogs—the one above is my mother, with the three kids in front of the rental home shortly after settling there. Telling you about the cattle, & farm pond, brought back some vivid memories, and one pretty good laugh. The laugh came at some wee hour in the morning, when the urge to pee hit, right after moving in.  Remember that we'd lived in 3 states, and 4 different houses in the last 6 months. I was lying in a very black room trying to remember where I was, and where the bathroom was. I could see nothing, and would have to wall-walk—but needed to figure out what direction to head out. In this confused fog, I heard, "Moooooo!".  Now, when we rented the house I knew that it faced a vast open field, but I did not know then, nor at this  particular moment that the large vacant space was a cow pasture! So here I was, with yellow eyes, in a mysterious black room wondering...moo? moo? Where am I?

We did some exploring within the next few days, and found, close to our house, a wooden "A" frame like a small ladder with steps on both sides which provided a way to get over the barbed wire fence and into the cow pasture. We discovered the pond, (watering hole for the cattle) and got the owner's permission to fish (yes it contained fish!) there! Remember, too, that Mel was the only one of us to have experienced 4 seasons, and we all were oblivious to the weather that living in the mid-west could dole out. (We're in Kansas, Toto!) We had lots to learn about cold, snow, tornadoes, thunderstorms, "watches" "warnings" sirens, etc.. I'd never even seen an ice scraper, and couldn't figure out why we were the only ones with plastic garbage cans. (I'd packed in them) The dawn came crashing home when I went out one bitter day to add to the trash can and found a large pile of trash surrounded by splintered plastic! Our "cans" had shattered! Aha! That's why! Lots to learn!

Hugs!