Allen Thrower

Andrews, Texas
Summer 1947
(Written November 7, 1998)

We went skating a lot that summer. The skating rink was designed to travel from city to city, the floor being of wooden panels and the “building” being a large tent. Skating was one of the “funnest” things for me to do in those days.

Other things we did for entertainment were: going to the carnival, (as long as it was there), going to a shooting gallery downtown, attending movies, hunting rabbits, and having old-timey family evening singing at the Craven’s Trailer Court. Mrs. Craven would play the piano, and others would play guitar, banjo, chicken leg-bones or spoons, etc. while we all sang. Some nights we would all go outside to sing, but without the piano, of course. We sang songs of the old South, Negro spirituals, hymns, patriotic songs, and Cole Porter songs, among others. Everyone enjoyed the evening singing, and it always ended up with either ice cold watermelon or homemade ice cream and cake.

I turned twelve that summer, and someone decided it was time for me to have my first date. She, too, was twelve years old. It was a blind date, and she was probably the ugliest girl in town and she had bad breath. It was a quadruple date. I think we went to a movie. Most of all I remember that she just wanted to hold hands all the time, and I wanted to be somewhere else with somebody else all the time, and after the movie and cokes we all hopped into the car and ended up out in the country at a windmill. It was very late, and I was sleepy and wanted to go home and go to bed. I think my date wanted to go to bed, too, but not at home. She wanted to smooch. I didn’t. So, we didn’t. We just held hands. At one point, I looked outside of the car and saw a pack of about thirty coyotes circling us about fifty feet away. Nobody else noticed. My date just snuggled up real close, and I kept trying to will myself into some other scenario. Next time I looked out, the coyotes were circling about twenty feet away, and I was pretty scared, but still didn’t say anything. Soon after that, I looked out the window again, and one coyote had his paws on the side of the car and was looking in the window at me. I sounded the alarm, and the party broke up and we were out of there in a pretty big hurry, seeking an improved environment, and I think it was at least two or three years before I had my next date.

Later that night, safely in my own bed (alone), from the direction of that windmill, I heard a pack of coyotes howling and yapping, probably in pursuit of a rabbit or something; and, having survived, I peacefully fell asleep.