On Politics and Parks: People, Places, Politics, Parks

3. Orange, Texas

22 Orange, Texas, was a brief one-year stopover for us. The town is located near the Gulf of Mexico in Deep East Texas on the Sabine River. My snapshot memory says our time there was about crawdads, Brooks and Nellie Conover, a near hurricane, Korea, and “the bomb.” I am not sure why we left Denton in ฀ugust 1949. I think it was because Mother, who was still working on her master’s in library science, needed library work to complete her degree, and her dear friends, the Conovers, helped her get a position at Orange High School where Brooks was the head football coach. We moved into a duplex with the Conovers on St. John Street. For a Texas plains kid, the street was strange: crushed oyster shells with ditches on both sides, brimming after rain (which was often) with crawdads. Being so close to the Gulf, Orange was always wet it seemed. When it wasn’t raining, it dripped, or steam rose from the saturated ground. Early on, Brooks and Nellie took us to see the mothballed fleet at the naval yard on the river. For what seemed like miles, ships of every sort, World War I and World War II vintage, lay at anchor. Hopes that these would never go to war again changed on ฀ugust 29, 1949, with the explosion of the first Soviet atomic bomb—followed by the takeover of China by communists. Those two events saturated the newspapers and radio broadcasts. People talked at the grocery store and at Friday night football games. Even my fourth-grade classmates talked about these events, perhaps not intelligently but constantly. We had photos of the bomb and worried about the possibility of an attack. We practiced climbing under our school desks as quickly as possible. ฀nchors were weighed, and the mothballed ships sailed off. I remember the neighbor who lived behind us. He had a large shortwave radio Orange, Texas CHAPTER 3 Orange, Texas 23 in his garage, which faced the alley through which David and I walked to school. ฀fter school, we’d often stop in and listen to strange languages and reports from faraway places. What he’d listen to most were reports from a place called Korea. The “commies,” it was said, were on the move and threatening. The “Iron Curtain” was falling across the globe, casting a pall that was to permeate life and politics in ฀merica for generations. The Cold War was upon us, even in hot, humid Orange. But it was not all-consuming. David and I explored the town in all directions, on foot. When I went back thirty-five years later, I found the house, the school, and other places without missing a beat. It was a time and place when small children could walk far and explore without fear. When we weren’t walking, it seems we were catching crawdads with string and bits of bacon. It’s funny how something as seemingly insignificant as crawdads can be a significant memory, even a jewel. So new to me, crawdads made a lasting impression. They were everywhere to find and catch. The crawdad (or crayfish) looks like a small lobster, usually weighing in at only a few ounces, although in 1934 “Ol’ Papa Épicé” topped the scale at ninety pounds, or so it was said. Ours were small and lived in holes in the street ditches and front yards. There were plenty of pleasant diversions. One was Friday night football. Brooks Conover was the high school coach, so I came to know a good deal about the game I would later play. There was a trip to the Galveston beach, Sunday lunches at a famous fried chicken emporium across the arcing Rainbow Bridge in Bridge City, and a trip to Houston to see the sights and visit ฀unt ฀ggie and Uncle Rob. ฀ggie was my dad’s youngest sister, and over the years she and Rob have been mainstays of my life. Today, in their nineties, they still live in Houston and continue that supportive role for me. We traveled to Denton on the train at Christmas. We enjoyed eating the best ham-salad sandwiches ever at the downtown drugstore before Saturday matinees. Mother’s colleagues , John and Mary Wheeler, took us on picnics and fishing outings in the Piney Woods lakes and ponds that abound in the area. ฀nd we prepared for a hurricane that never hit but left us with a flooded front...