Memorial Glenn intro

Memorial Glenn was a poor apartment complex on the outskirts of the ever growing Humble, Texas. Humble is pronounced with a silent ‘H’, so you could always tell if someone was from around here or not, because if they weren’t, they’d pronounce it like it was in the Bible. The place was laid out like a horseshoe, and though we moved around a few times while living there, we eventually settled into a second story apartment in the center of the horseshoe. There were lots of other kids there my age, comin’ and goin’, comin’ and goin’. It seemed that no one stayed there very long.

Although poor by most people’s standards, we did have a swimming pool. It was only cleaned a couple of times a year at most, and usually come winter the water was a nice pine green, and only us kids would swim in it. But in the spring, when they cleaned it out, it was as nice as any pool you ever swam in. It had a kiddie pool and a big pool, a whopping five feet deep. I met Pat at the pool. Pat was a tall skinny college age kid from Minnesota. He used to throw his keys in the deep end and let us kids who could or wanted to learn how to swim dive in after them. He told me that in Minnesota nobody had a pool because it got too cold. He said winter lasted most of the year and the lakes froze over and people actually played on the ice. He said he moved to Texas because he was sick of being cold. He liked to sit in the pool with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, talking and laughing with his friends, with the other parents, with us kids, with anyone. I liked Pat right away. He wasn’t a kid, but he wasn’t quite a grown up either.

There wasn’t much around the apartments except a few fields, the woods, and a large bayou surrounding three sides of the property. At the entrance to the complex there was a convenience store and a gas station. Hop across a field and there was a car wash. And across the street we had a Laundromat, or Washateria as they’re called in Texas, and the Arcade. Two places filled with machines that take quarters.

At the center of this world was six year old me, living with my Mom, my Dad, and my younger Brother, Little Randy. He was Little Randy because my dad was big Randy.

I’m not sure how or why my Dad’s leaving came about. I guess he and my mom just stopped being friends. Or maybe they never were. I remember hearing them arguing one night, shortly after we moved in there. Little Randy’s crib was in my room and the door was always open so they could hear him if he cried. I was in bed listening to my Mom and Dad fighting, being both scared and fascinated by the whole fiasco. I heard my Dad yelling at my Mom, “You won’t even let me see you naked anymore!” To which my Mom yelled back, “You don’t ever wanna see me naked anymore!” Next thing I know he was out and it was just the three of us.

I found out later that he’d tried to take my brother back with him to Arkansas, where he was from and where he’d met Mom, but she had no hard time convincing him that he couldn’t take care of a baby on his own. He didn’t try to take me back with him, and I’m glad of that.

Anyway Little Randy stayed and Big Randy went, and after a few years, when Mom and Dad were able to work things out a little bit, we’d go visit him for a month or so in the summer, when school was out, and every other Christmas. He lived and worked on a big farm in Arkansas, with Me-Maw and Pa-Paw, and I loved going there. I loved the Ten hour drive and I loved picking pecans out of the yard and loved many things about it. But that was later. For now, Memorial Glenn was my world.