Living in the 50s

Not long after my brother was born, probably in the fall of 1952 because I had started school, he had a condition called intussusception. This is where the small intestine goes into the large intestine – in simplest terms – otherwise google it. This was serious and required surgical correction. He had surgery in Hotel Dieu, a hospital on the south side of Beaumont, on the west bank of the Neches River. This was successful and Terry sports a scar to this day. I am still astounded that they could diagnose it and fix it in a 4 month old infant

My most intense memory from this incident was when I walked home from school on the day of his surgery and went into the house, my dad was waiting for me (I assume mom was at the hospital with Terry). He took me in his arms and burst into tears. He told me that he was so happy that Terry was going to be ok and the he loved us both. I was a little scared by his crying.

I had never seen him cry before.

Last night Kathy and I were watching an episode of Monk where the tune to Polly Wally Doodle was involved. You may not know this song so google it. I know we sang it in elementary school. Anyhow, there is at least one set of alternate lyrics. I am pretty certain my dad sang these to me. There was a little chigger Who wasn’t any bigger Than the point of a very fine pin. But the lump that he raises Just itches like the blazes And that’s where the rub comes in. Comes in Comes in And that’s where the rub comes in.

The rest of the story: Growing up on Idylwood street in Beaumont had one tremendous blessing. Behind our house was ’The Woods’. I have no idea who owned it, but it was several acres of woods with a gully running through it. What an awesome place to play! We build forts, played hide and seek, chopped down trees, blew up stuff with firecrackers and, in season, picked dewberries for mom to transform into a dewberry cobbler. The dewberries attracted birds and the birds were attractive to snakes so we had to be careful when harvesting the dewberries.

Another side effect of the dewberries and the woods in general was that they boasted flocks, gaggles, murders, bunches (who knows the right term for a ‘whole lot of’) of chiggers - which we knew as redbugs. These were tormenting creatures about the size of the point of a pin - thus the second phrase of the song. Once they got onto one of us (or all of us actually), they migrated to a constricted area, e. g. Under the waistband of our undies, or in the seam between the leg and the butt or the armpit. There they burrowed in and began to feast. As they resided there for a while their little bodies caused our bodies to react to this foreign object and raise a red bump - like a mosquito bite. And this bump itched like crazy. And we scratched like crazy. My dad tried to get rid of the chiggers by using a sterile needle to extract them from their subdermal burrows. While doing this he sang the song above to the tune of Polly Wolly Doodle…. That’s my story and I am sticking by it.