314 Larkin 

Growing up in my home on my granddad's farm afforded me all the adventures I needed. Life there was, and still is, a delight. But beginning in 1957 when I was four, a new routine began. 

My Aunt Pearl arrived one Friday when I was four. She took my little suitcase and loaded me and it into her car for the trip to her house on Larkin Street in the Webb Addition. And for the next thirteen years that is where I could be found on Friday nights.

Aunt Pearl and Uncle Glenn Berry were the closest thing to my parents. They had no children of their own, but counted me as part theirs. Looking back now I marvel at their generosity. They were barely forty years old, and my visits limited their freedom, but I always felt so welcome it was obvious that they enjoyed my visits as much as I did. The front bedroom was called Marilyn's Room.

Everything seemed different at their house. They had a lovely curving flagstone walk leading to the small front porch. And a paved driveway. Their mailbox was on the wall by the front door where you could access it from the covered porch. And they also had a post office box --- No. 51. You could get your mail twice a day in that time.

And my new surroundings were magical! In the back yard was a large cinder block barbecue, a picnic table, a pear tree and a beautiful goldfish pond. Around the pond grew spearmint and peppermint. There were fish swimming around and reeds and a tall privet hedge overhanging it. I whiled away a lot of time in that yard. Separating the back yard from the side yard was a rose trellis that spanned ten feet in width and six feet in height. All around were irises, roses and camellias. The garage had back doors to access the back yard. I thought that was so neat. I clearly remember a fish fry there one Saturday night when an unexpected storm blew up, threatening the party. Uncle Glenn opened the back doors of the garage and the men picked up the food-laden table and carried it right into the garage!  Voila! Supper was saved.

Inside in the spacious living room there was a little reading nook in a corner behind a green brocade wing chair. Aunt Pearl had a bookcase filled with dust-jacketed hardback books, which delighted me, a voracious reader. (The bookcase survives in my living room today.)

It was from Aunt Pearl that I got my love for "pretty things". She had already stocked my bookshelves by sending me a book from every city she and my uncle visited when he traveled for BamaTuft. She loved New Orleans better than any place and passed that love on to me. I still have some of the "riches" she caught for me from the Mardi Gras floats. She took me to Wales Jewelry each Christmas for a ring of my choosing. She did lots of special things that I later realized she could do because she wasn't saving to send a little knot-headed girl to college! 

My aunt and uncle ate out a lot on Fridays. We usually went to Leck's at Mud Creek, operated by our Carver cousins. Sometimes we went to Freck's as my uncle was partial to their catfish. When we got back it was television in the living room. I watched the first episode of The Flintstones on their set. I remember seeing Burke's Law and  Honey West with them. We had a fine time and usually about 8:00 Uncle Glenn would go to Roger's Drive-In for ice cream cones for all of us. Sealtest ice cream!

On the Fridays we ate in, Aunt Pearl served my supper early so I could play until dark. She always cooked me pork chops, pinto beans and chocolate pie. I would be good up until the streetlights came on, ending our endless games of hide 'n' seek or freeze tag.

Aunt Pearl slept with me til I was in junior high. She scratched my back and told me wonderful stories of Jim Bowie and his knife, of Floyd Collins exploring the caves of Kentucky and the man who had hydrophobia and chained himself to a tree in anticipation of madness. We rarely heard Uncle Glenn get up, as he always did at 4:30 a.m. He went every morning almost to Hodges Drug Store, where he would drink coffee and smoke with friends R. L. and Charles til Aunt Pearl  got up.

Aunt Pearl and Uncle Glenn traded at Roy Perkins' Dixie Market just around the corner. And they had an account----all you had to say was "Charge it". I thought this was neat. The only charge account my parents had was at Word Lumber Co. And you could get to the Dixie Market by going through Aunt Pearl's back yard and then through Jay and Martha Cordell's side yard. But the BEST part was this: Mr. Perkins let me pay with coupons! Aunt Pearl took every magazine from Reader's Digest to House and Garden, so there were plenty of places to find them. I scoured those magazines and clipped those coupons and kind Mr. Perkins took them like money! Riches! He was a balding gentle giant whose business dealings reflected his Christian kindness. Always a smile. Always good to neighborhood kids. In addition to candy and treats, he had a counter with various notions, which always fascinated me. In 1959 I bought a brightly colored china turkey, which has graced Thanksgiving tables in my family for many decades. But my favorite purchase were the Santa and Mrs. Claus salt and pepper shakers. The couple were dressed in floor-length red attire and stood about four inches high. I adored them then and for every Christmas since they have been the centerpiece on my dining table. And whenever I look at them, I see kind Roy Perkins, whose goodness and patience helped make my Fridays in Webb Addition a magical time. I wish I had thanked him for those times that I remember in such a special way.

The freedom of the small neighborhood was intoxicating. It was safe to cross or walk the streets in that time. The Craftsman cottages so charmed a young girl that one day she would build one of her own. And, unlike at home on the farm, there were neighbors with lots of children for playmates. Early on, it was the Owens boys and the Sutton kids. In 1959 the Brickley family moved in directly behind my aunt's house, and their son, Keith, became my pal as well as my first grade classmate and fellow Sunday School attendee. Later the Graden kids and occasionally Terri Thomas who spent many Friday nights with her grandparents, J. O. and Flora Chambers, who lived three doors down. In fifth grade Connie Taylor moved into the Harris Keeble house directly across the street and became my running buddy up until high school. We walked to town on Saturdays, up the sidewalks on Laurel Street. When Ann Dicus (Kennamer) moved in on Kirby Street in 1963, she joined us on our jaunts.

It's been almost fifty years since my last night was spent in that house. I continued to visit often and it remains one of the best parts of my childhood. We lost Uncle Glenn in 1978, and in 1997 Aunt Pearl was sidelined by a stroke which left her in the nursing home for seven years til her death in 2004.

When I go to town on Fridays, I visit everyone in Cedar Hill --- we are all together within a forty foot radius.

Then before I go home, I always drive down Larkin Street... just to remember.