the reservation, the 5 dollar bill, my brother Jack

We used to be good friends with the chiefs son over at the Indian reservation in Colusa. It was about 5 miles from our house so every once in awhile we would walk out there.The Chiefs sons name was Doug. we used to go swimming in the Sacramento river over there and when we were done we would go and raid the refrigerator at Doug's house. Doug's family was really cool. there was this game we played over there. The chief would get this stick and draw this big circle about 10-15 ft. across in the dirt and he would bring out the boxing gloves, 4 of em. and 4 of us would get in the center of the ring and he would throw each one of us one glove each. the object was to get the glove on and beat the hell out of the other guys with your one glove. last one standing was the winner. bloodied lips and noses we didn't care it was fun.

we were always at the river and always walking down the railroad tracks looking for something to do. we could walk right down the middle of town carrying 22's,bb guns, sling shots, bow's and arrows and nobody would say anything to us. They weren't afraid of us, it was that back then it was unheard of for young kids like us to go and shoot somebody on purpose. we were not the most safety conscious kids in the world but we never shot anybody. ( I don't think. ) When we went to the reservation and we weren't packing our arsonal, we would get in the river and float all the way back to Colusa and we would end up at a sandbar right close to town. we spent a lot of time in that river so we were very good swimmers. One time my brother and two cousins said they were going to swim across the river, well this was something we had never tried before and it was a big deal for us. I wasn't going to go because my bro told me not to, but once they jumped in i couldn't help myself, i had to try, so there i go behind them. I got about half way and i decided that i wasn't going to make it because the current got me and i was headed towards the bend in the river.and it's a lot wider there so i turn around and start heading back. I'm about 20 feet from the sand bar but i'm too tired to swim anymore, my arms feel like they weigh about 100 pounds each. i'm trying to dog paddle, float on my back and everything i can think of. what i ended up doing was i would let all the air out of my body and i would sink and when i got to the bottom i tried walking on the bottom but that didn't work so i pushed myself up at an angle towards the sand bar, then i go down and do it again. after doing this about 4 times i finally get close enough so i can walk out, so i look back and i see that my bro and cousins made it to the other side. they are laid out on the sand and so am i. the problem is they have to swim back. they waited for about an hour or so and headed back. well they made it just barely but they got back safely. we were excellent swimmers at a very early age. I know the good lord was looking out for us because there was so many times we got ourselves into predicaments that easily could have turned deadly,but we always seamed to be just one step ahead of a disaster. We used to see a snake and all snakes were gopher snakes to us. we would pick them up and chase each other with them. hey how come this snake has a rattle on it ? aw it must be a baby....hah..... I would never let any of my kids do the things we used to do. I don't think they would want to anyway. I think what use to drive us to do the things we used to do was just plain boredom. I could go on about this but i think i'll stop here.

Back then i think my allowance was something like 50 cents a week and thats when we were working out in the fields, it was o.k. we excepted it. thats just the way it was. the thing is back then 50 cents would get you in the show and buy you a candy and soda, that was good enough for us. you might say we were poor but what does that mean ? we had more fun than most kids in Colusa and we had this big great family and a mom and dad that we loved with all our heart. and they loved us, so you tell me. who were the poor ones. To give you an idea of how it was with money back then for us kids. One day we were walking down the street, 4 of us. and we seen this wallet laying next to the sidewalk, so we all dive for it. After the scrum was over we look in the wallet and there's a 5 dollar bill in there."Eureka"we were rich, 5 whole dollars. thats one dollar and 25 cents each. there was no I. D. or anything else in there just 5 dollars. so after we calmed ourselves down,we start thinking about what we were going to do with our dollar and 25 cents. but we had one problem. how do we cash a 5 dollar bill, without someone becoming suspicious about where these 50 cent allowance kids get 5 dollars. we never went in the store with more than 50 cents. all the merchants new my mom and dad, in fact Colusa was so small everyone new everyone, so we came up with "Charlie" because for him to have 5 dollars was no big deal. so we ask him to cash it for us and Charlie being Charlie he charges us 1 dollar for cashing the 5 dollar bill. we all agree and thats how we cashed it. I know the correct thing to do would be to give the money to mom, but we were kids, so what do you expect.

My big brother Jack was the one who was always watching out for me when we went to play with my cousins or others in the Colonia. Jack was a very patient guy so i used to get away with a lot, but when i got to be too much for him he would get me in a headlock and give me one of those single knuckle shots to the head and that always seamed to work. one day after it rained we were out behind my Grandma's house and we were playing in a "rain puddle" ( sounds better than mud puddle ) anyway we have on our pants with the holes in the knees and our old worn out tennis shoes and here comes our neighbor with his brand new clothes, he's an only kid and his dad has a good job, so his folks can afford to buy him nice things, so he goes over there next to us with all his new clothes and starts making fun of our clothes ( big mistake ) and even laughing at us. this kids bigger than me so i can't do anything, so Jack stands up grabs him and throws him in the "mud puddle" and we start laughing at him. hey this dude deserved it. I was so proud of my brother that day.

Bad dog, bad dog

when we were in our preteens. we had all these pigeons well one day my dad brought home these two dogs he named them Tick and Toc ( Tocs name later became Taco ) my dad ended up giving tic away and keeping Taco. he was one of those real skinny black and white hunting dogs that never got fat no matter how much you fed him. well one day he got into our pigeon coop and killed a couple of our pigeons.we chased him all over the colonia, throwing rocks, sticks and everything at him, poor dog didn't know where to hide from us.my dad found out and said for us to leave him alone and he would take care of it. so my dad went over and got one of the dead pigeons and tied it around the dogs neck. it worked because that pigeon started smelling really bad after a few days. and the poor dog was trying to get it off but he couldn't. one day my sister was at school and the dog was at school and he seen her and started running over there to play with her and he has this smelly pigeon around his neck. and my sister and everyone else is trying to get away from him, but the dog is persistent he thought everybody was playing with him. i guess you get the picture. my dad left that poor dog like that for a month and when he took it off needless to say, he never went near that pigeon coop again. even though my dad did that to him that dog just adored my dad, whenever he seen him he would run up to him and just get all excited.
now this same dog was scared to death of my mom because he went in the house a few times and you know how your grams felt about animals in the house.she chased him out with the broom and being that we didn't have carpet back then ( everyone used to put linoleum on there floors ) the poor dog couldn't get any footing and he kept slipping and sliding as he's trying to get away from mom. so the poor dog is scared to death of mom. whenever he seen mom pick up a broom he was out of there. well one day my dad gets sick and goes to the hospital for about a week, when Pop gets home we put him in the bedroom.and everyone is in there welcoming dad home when we here the back door open then you here click click click, ( Taco's toenails on the linoleum ) it's poor ol Taco. he comes in the house with his tail between his legs looking side to side, probably wondering when the brooms going to strike. he walks over to the bedroom door,looks,sees my mom and starts shaking, everyone is just looking and not saying a word.ol Taco puts his head down and walks right by mom, goes over to my dad and starts licking my dads hand. I don't think my mom ever hit ol Taco with the broom again. my dad was always great with his dogs he always took good care of them and the dogs loved him for it.

Muchachos Locos

when my brother Jack and i were just kids ( before our teens ) we used to walk home sometimes by this junk yard owned by this man named Henry Hocksrott ( real name not made up ) and there was this big water tower just down the street about 2 stories high. it had a loft at the top and in that loft was a bunch of pigeons. i guess you heard about our pigeons from your mom. anyway we wanted to go up there and get them but we knew that the only way was to go at night, when the pigeons were asleep. they don't like flying at night. we also knew there would be some babies that we could get and take home and raise for ourselves, (we were into pigeons big time ) so one day we waited until late at night and snuck out of the house. ( if mom knew, it would've been curtains for us ) we get to the tower without the owner catching us and we walk inside the door and there is a bunch of machinery on the floor with a small clearing where the ladder is. The ladder goes straight up the wall to the loft up above so we start climbing. when we get inside the loft it's real dark and we start feeling around up there and we find some baby pigeons and some big ones, we unbutton our shirts and put as many as we can in our shirts and start climbing down the ladder, me first. I'm about half way down and i hear Jack say watch out and something goes whoosh right by me. and i'm thinking what the heck was that, well it was Jack, he fell all the way down to the bottom, pigeons and all. I was expecting the worst because of all that machinery down there.Now i know the good lord was watching over us, because Jack didn't get hurt and he didn't even lose a pigeon. He fell right next to the machinery. missed it by inches. He told me later when he started to fall he pushed himself away from the ladder because he knew i was right under him. If he would of landed on me he would have taken me down with him and we both would have gotten hurt pretty bad. well he dusted himself off, we secured our pigeons and left. we laughed all the way home, put our pigeons away and went to bed. We went back a few more times and cleaned all the pigeons out of there. never got caught and never got hurt. ( thank you lord )