Along The Way #11

My son Douglas was one year and had just learned to walk. He had the cutest way of starting off, he would crawl to whatever was the closet to him, climb up and turn around, for just a moment he would look around, grab his shirt and take off. He did this for about two months, but he was getting better at walking. When he fell down, even in the middle of the floor, he put his hands on the floor and almost jumped to his feet and start there, I was so proud of him, he had no hearing in his right ear, they say your balance is from your hearing, but this never stopped him.

The apartment we found in town was perfect for us, but I missed living out a ways. I just want to clear my husbands name, he is Charles Wayne Cloud, some people call him by his first name and others by his middle, he wanted me to call him Wayne, even though I liked Charles. Our apartment was by the store he had found work. We moved within six months because the landlord lived in the front apartment and their kitchen was on the other side of our bedroom wall. Their cupboards also was on the wall up against our wall and she slammed dishes all the time and we did not get much sleep.

Doug had a cute thing he did while playing, he would go in his room and push his toy box up against the door so I could not get in. I actually had to go outside and look in the window to make sure he was okay, he looked so smug sitting there getting one over on ole mom. While living here his uncle spilled a very hot cup of coffee and Doug just happened to be sitting on his lap. Doug had a long sleeve shirt on and it soaked up the coffee fast. He had a very bad burn, about four inches, the doctor said put nothing on it and watch for infection, I was amazed how fast he healed and the big blister never broke, so he had no scar.

Our next apartment was half a block from a school, it had a imitation fire place, looked just like flames coming from the fake coal. One day I was in the basement washing clothes, Doug was sitting on the top step watching me he was eating a cookie. I finished loading the washer and turned to go up the steps and no Doug. I ran through the apartment looking for him with no luck. We lived three houses from the school yard so I went that way and all I saw was a school yard full of kids., it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I ran back home to call the school and see if they would help me, my heart was pounding like a drum. I decided to go out in the yard one more time and when I looked between the houses there he was, I was too happy to be mad at him, I just hugged him to me and sat down on the ground and cried, I was so happy to have my son safe and sound. He did not know what all the fuss was, after all he was only one and a half years old.

We moved a lot the first four years and I really was getting tired of it, we never had the money for a down payment because Wayne could not find a job that paid good. Our next apartment was upstairs and I worried about Doug falling down the steps because the only way outside was steps on the side of the house, no inside way out, I also worried about a fire, what would we do. Our car went on the fritz so Wayne had to walk four miles to work and back. One thing happened there that made us start looking for another place, in a hurry. The owners of the house lived down stairs, you could not want for a better landlord, they spoiled Doug rotten and were so good to us. Phil, their son liked Doug a lot, when Phil would come home from school, if Doug was out he would push him on the swing or just sit down and play with him. So you can imagine our shock when we read the paper, Phil had killed his girl friend. We became afraid at first and then we wondered what would make such a nice person do this. The paper said they got into an argument in the car, he choked her but he said she was not dead. He was going to leave her, then he became afraid she would tell on him, so he finished chokeing her, she was sixteen and he was seventeen years old. What a waste of two lives, we really felt sorry for both families.

It did not take long to find a little house to rent and so back out to the country. I became pregnant for my second time, I was glad because Doug would have a brother or sister to play with, even though there would be almost three years difference in their ages. I picked out for the girls name Susan and if a boy Ronald, I always wanted a girl but just wanted the baby to be healthy. We only stayed the summer in this house, it was too far from my husbands work, so we started looking again.