Yep, that’s Earnest when I still thought I might grow up to be a cowboy. That’s also the house with the broken door. I lived there from about age 3 to 12 or 13. There are a couple of things of which to take note (in addition to how cute I was). One is the tree behind me. That’s the apple tree that fed the June bugs I flew. Second is the open window. I don’t remember when mom and dad finally got window air conditioning, but it wasn’t while I lived with them. That open window and a large fan upstairs were all we had for cooling. It didn’t do a very good job but I didn’t know anything different so it was OK. I do remember laying awake in the summer tossing my pillow over and over to try and find a cool spot, though.
That was a great neighborhood for a little boy. Directly behind the apple tree is my dad’s garden. The picture isn’t good enough to see it. Once the growing season was over it became lots of things. It was allowed to grow high with weeds in the fall and it became a place for us to fight wars and build clubs out of cardboard boxes and generally pretend we were somewhere other than Kenova. There was another, larger garden across the alley and we would dig foxholes and tunnels in it. War was a big deal for little boys back then.
I wanted to be a cowboy or a soldier. I didn’t become either but it sure felt real when I was growing up Earnest.
