willyp's story about the power pole falling on their car dredged up a memory.
i lived in puerto rico for about 3 years as a kid,my dad was at his last station in the air force before he retired,he was a lowly maintaince mechanic in s.a.c.,and he must have been about 50,we lived on base with other americans,it was like a small town with people from probably every state there.
our house was concrete block like most houses on base and i think they were referred to as hurricans houses,our house sat up a pretty good incline and the yard was sloped,and there wasn't much you could do.on the corner down the street was the johnson's,they were from oklahoma and they had two son's,larry was my age and his brother about a year older but i can't remember his name.
their dad use to give me a hard time about being from texas and would ask me why we let all that old sand blow out of texas into oklahoma
,at the time it didn't mean anything to me,i was about 8 or 9,it was 1964 i think..their yard was level and we use to have some great marble games because they had a tree that shaded the yard it it was dirt bare and made for some good rings.you could get a bag of cats eye marbles,glass i think for pretty cheap so it was a great way for parents to keep their kids busy.
we played for keeps and i kept all my marbles in the hershey cocoa containers that had the snap in metal ring top,i'm not braggin' but i could play marbles pretty good,the trick was learning to make the marble stick in one spot so you could clean out the ring.
their faces are vague,all i remember was is the larry had problems passing blood out his urine and that they figured out he was eating onions and salt to much and that this was causing his problem some way.they had about a 57 plymouth with the fins and two- toned if i remember right,and they asked me if i wanted to go to san juan with them one time and so i asked my parents if i could go and they said yes,man that was going to be fun,san juan was at the opposite end of the island,about 90 miles away,and the road system was okay i guess only it was slow going.
i don't remember much about the trip there,his folks were going shopping and to just see the city,the island was starting to experience unrest and talk of independence with the occasional yankee go home stuff,and here i grew up thinking i was a rebel
.anyhow larry sat in the middle of the back seat between me and his brother with his brother sitting behind his dad who was driving.we were getting close to the base and along the way they were harvesting sugar cane in the fields,we began to slow behind the traffic in front of us and a couple of men were kind of directing traffic,as we were passing there was about a 2 and a half ton flat bed backing out of the field,as we got closer i could hear him gunning it like he had gotten high center and had a wheel losing traction.
about the time we got even with him the wheel got traction and it lurched out of the ditch right into the side of the car.the corner of the empty bed busted through the back glass where larry's brother was sitting,everything seemed in slow motion to me,just as the truck was about to hit the car larry's brother ducked,and i kid you not,when his brother raised his head it was touching the corner of the bed.
well,i heard a bunch of jabbering in spanish and larry's dad got out to get the truck seperated from the car,don't remember much else except the car was able to run and the biggest part of the damage was to the window and part of the quarter panel.we all had shattered glass in our britches,at least that was all that was in mine,i can't speak for larry's brother,but we had to wait till we got home to get it out.
quite an adventure for a kid,probably a headache and a little stress for his dad,we were kind of foreigners there,i guess common sense ruled out,one of those memories from the past.
i lived in puerto rico for about 3 years as a kid,my dad was at his last station in the air force before he retired,he was a lowly maintaince mechanic in s.a.c.,and he must have been about 50,we lived on base with other americans,it was like a small town with people from probably every state there.
our house was concrete block like most houses on base and i think they were referred to as hurricans houses,our house sat up a pretty good incline and the yard was sloped,and there wasn't much you could do.on the corner down the street was the johnson's,they were from oklahoma and they had two son's,larry was my age and his brother about a year older but i can't remember his name.
their dad use to give me a hard time about being from texas and would ask me why we let all that old sand blow out of texas into oklahoma
,at the time it didn't mean anything to me,i was about 8 or 9,it was 1964 i think..their yard was level and we use to have some great marble games because they had a tree that shaded the yard it it was dirt bare and made for some good rings.you could get a bag of cats eye marbles,glass i think for pretty cheap so it was a great way for parents to keep their kids busy.we played for keeps and i kept all my marbles in the hershey cocoa containers that had the snap in metal ring top,i'm not braggin' but i could play marbles pretty good,the trick was learning to make the marble stick in one spot so you could clean out the ring.
their faces are vague,all i remember was is the larry had problems passing blood out his urine and that they figured out he was eating onions and salt to much and that this was causing his problem some way.they had about a 57 plymouth with the fins and two- toned if i remember right,and they asked me if i wanted to go to san juan with them one time and so i asked my parents if i could go and they said yes,man that was going to be fun,san juan was at the opposite end of the island,about 90 miles away,and the road system was okay i guess only it was slow going.
i don't remember much about the trip there,his folks were going shopping and to just see the city,the island was starting to experience unrest and talk of independence with the occasional yankee go home stuff,and here i grew up thinking i was a rebel
.anyhow larry sat in the middle of the back seat between me and his brother with his brother sitting behind his dad who was driving.we were getting close to the base and along the way they were harvesting sugar cane in the fields,we began to slow behind the traffic in front of us and a couple of men were kind of directing traffic,as we were passing there was about a 2 and a half ton flat bed backing out of the field,as we got closer i could hear him gunning it like he had gotten high center and had a wheel losing traction.about the time we got even with him the wheel got traction and it lurched out of the ditch right into the side of the car.the corner of the empty bed busted through the back glass where larry's brother was sitting,everything seemed in slow motion to me,just as the truck was about to hit the car larry's brother ducked,and i kid you not,when his brother raised his head it was touching the corner of the bed.
well,i heard a bunch of jabbering in spanish and larry's dad got out to get the truck seperated from the car,don't remember much else except the car was able to run and the biggest part of the damage was to the window and part of the quarter panel.we all had shattered glass in our britches,at least that was all that was in mine,i can't speak for larry's brother,but we had to wait till we got home to get it out.
quite an adventure for a kid,probably a headache and a little stress for his dad,we were kind of foreigners there,i guess common sense ruled out,one of those memories from the past.
Good story David.