HB poem 2013Jan13

In the corner of the yard
Where the bushes are
Where the weeds grow
Where the flower tree is
Where the bees go
That's where my dad shined my bike
Where I once did my homework
That's where the shed is near

-HB 2013Jan13

New Year's Day

My son and his mother are in the kitchen at 8939 Turriff Houston TX on New Year's Day. The kitchen window looked out past the utility room door and past a large oak tree. It had twin trunks each about 18-24" in diameter.

Beyond the utility room door, on the outside wall was successively, the electric meter and the window of the bathroom for the "master bedroom" which was a converted two car garage.

There was a walkway of concrete pavers that paralleled the outside wall.  Just beyond the electric meter, there was a gate to the backyard fence.  The fence, six (?) foot chain link I had installed my self, was perpendicular to the outside wall.

After the gate, the fence turned toward the house at a 45 degree angle to the gate.  The tree was inside the fence.  Just beyond the fence on that end of the back yard, was a fig tree, a shed and another fruit tree.

The fence went to the back property line where it turned again to follow the line to the far corner of the lot.  Later this part of the fence was torn down by the neighbors behind us (without my knowledge or permission) and replaced with a six foot wood fence.

It had been raining and the ground was soaked.

She is preparing black eye peas and telling our son that Southerners do this on New Year's Day for good luck in the new year.  Whereupon the tree comes out by its roots.  It falls away from the house.  It rips down the electric line, pulling the meter partly off the wall.  It damages the phone line.  It damages the fig tree, the shed and the other fruit tree.  It just misses taking out the neighborhood power, which lines ran along that side of the house.

8939 Turriff Houston TX

This house was purchased in 1971 while empty for some time for less than $30k.  It was occupied late in the year (November?).

With a two car garage converted into a "master bedroom", it had more than 2400 sq.ft.

Starting in the summer of 1980 and finishing the following year, I reroofed this house myself.  The roof being replaced was an asphalt roof over a rotting cedar wood shingle roof.  The roof had four valleys and therefore four separate ridges.

After removing both roofs, I replaced about 25-33% of the 1x4s used to support the wood shingles.  I also replaced one of the rafters.

It took about 100 sheets of plywood to replace the roof.

I moved to Pittsburgh late October 1986 to work at Duquesne Systems.  The children came up January 1987 by Greyhound bus.  Their mother came up in the middle of the year (May?) and we looked at houses. We purchased 3823 (?) Baytree around July.  I moved the family and some household goods up August 1987.

Summer of 1987 S returned to this house and stayed beyond of the summer.  She returned only after a discussion she and I had on the subject.

She returned to this house for several additional summers.

This house was sold 1992, probably at a loss.

New Year's Day

Jura Foster Burrell

m.Carl Burrell
s.Brabson Carleton Burrell
s.Everett Burrell
s.Schley H. Burrell
s.Lyman F. Burrell
s.Richard J. Burrell

219 Highland Ave neighborhood

the neighbors

Next door up the hill were the Rakers: they had three children, Joe, Peggy and Neal. I played with Joe who was my junior.

Next door down the hill were the Ernsts: They had several children, including a boy older than R, a girl in R's elementary school classes, and at least one other child.

At the bottom of the hill was a large empty lot containing a drainage area; it belonged to the next house where lived a woman Mrs Domminick and her two unmarried daughters. One of the women was named Estelle.

Across the street from the Dominicks, on the uphill side of the intersection with Lucerne, lived the Massmans. They had boxer dogs and sons.

The intersection featured mirror symetric cut stone entrance markers over a story high.

I remember nothing of the house on the other corner.

Across from the Ernsts, were originally the Beckmans (?). Mr Beckman originally recruited Dad to be the City Treasurer/Clerk.

Across from our house were the Collette's. The father owned a liquor store, which still exists in Erlanger and is still in the family. The oldest child, Richard (?), was one year ahead of me through Blessed Sacrament Elementary, Covington Latin School and then physics major at Villa Madonna College. There was a daughter Jeanette, then small chidren one of whom was Jimmie. Their house was built while we lived in the subdivision.

The next house up the hill was the Shepmans. Both sons were I believe older than I. Then came Pop Acre (?) who I never met. Then came the house of Dr Brennan, a dentist, who had a son. He died of cancer. The story was that in the early days of Xrays, he would hold the film in the patients with his fingers. Those old machines were very inefficient.

At the top of the hill were the Richardsons, who had a son Delton, with whom I played. I remember their back yard as ploughed and that there was a cherry tree on the right side of the house.

Across the street from them was an unmarried woman, Nellie Wallace, who had a son.

Coming back down the street there was a family called the Gronemans.

See: 219 Highland Ave, Ft Mitchell Ky

219 Highland Ave, Ft Mitchell Ky

This was the second of three places Vera and Andy Kuebbing lived. The first was a second floor apartment on Holman St in Covington, the third was 72 Greenbriar in Ft Mitchell.

They moved there in the late 1940s. I believe it was about the time T was born.

The house is small; one bedroom, one bath, the living room, the kitchen, and a small knotty pine paneled dining area on the first floor. The basement was unfinished; it contained a coal-fired furnance, later converted to gas. The coal was fed into the furnace by a worm-gear mechanism. Each morning dad would clean the "clinkers" from the fire. They were large agglomerations of burnt coal pieces.

I am guessing that the second floor was partly finished as a single long, narrow room when they bought the house. The stairs came up the middle, length-wise. Their was a small ceiling, and then slope of the roof came half way down to helf-height walls. There was sheetrock/plaster on these walls, sealing off the edges of the area. Each side had a small door leading into unfinished storage area.

<>

The house next door down the street (on the right) was owned and occupied by the Ernst family. (One of the males name was Ray.) They had a daughter my age.

When I was young, on a fall day, the Ernst house exploded in fire. My memory is that a pilot light went out. The gas filled the house until it found another working pilot light.

The flaming side of the house fell on our house, which caught fire.  That side and part of the roof burned.

The only other detail I remember is that Mother had been baking Christmas cookies.  She had several sheets of uncooked cookies.  She handed them out to the neighbors.  For decades afterward, she had a grudge that not all of the recipients thanked her afterward, and at least one had the temerity to criticize her cooking/recipe..

See also:
R's bike . 219 Highland Ave neighborhood . rak_0

R's bike

I didn't learn to ride a bike early.

After my father returned from service in the Army in the Pacific, we lived at 219 Highland Ave in Ft Mitchell Ky. It's on a hill.

My bike was a gift from my maternal aunt Gertrude. Trudy was know for being "penny wise and pound foolish." In this case she bought me an upscale adult bike - a light, a horn, mud flaps, incredibly heavy but no gears. It was the same metaphor as the automobiles of the era - we won the war, big and heavy is good.

I was/am less than completely coordinated. So an adult held the bike while I was getting on. Then ran down the hill with me as the bike coasted faster and faster. If I stayed on the bike and pumped my feet, I was immediately faced with an uphill.

Or we could walk up the hill toward Gertrude's house at 115 and the flat part of the street. Neither the adults nor I were that ambitious that often.

Brabson Carleton Burrell

(1921-2011Sep24)

b.Clayton GA f.Carl Burrell m.Jura Foster Burrell
g.Rabun County High School
joined Manhattan Project Oak Ridge TN 1944 where he became a health physicist
m.Ruby Lee Southworth ~1946
d.Sharyn Lee
s.Donald
s."Jack"

snow and ice #3

I think we were driving a van. I suspect we were already living in Pgh. That would make it 1987-1994, but could have been much earlier with the original Dodge van.

We were headed back to Houston. We stopped to get gas in W Memphis AK. We found out the whole state of AK had had snow like we did here last night. It had melted during the day and refroze at night. Rough ice all the way.

I drove from W Memphis to Texarkana. It was not freeway speeds.

The ice ended around the state line. We got gas. I gave the wheel to Sharyn. US59 was not freeway but was 4 lane, often w/median.

She drove 15-30 min before hitting glare ice. I think it is what is now called "black ice".

She spun and landed on the right shoulder, where there already were several cars.

I was in no shape to drive, and she was shaken up.

While we were resting, the county salt truck came up w/chains on. It did a 360 trying to stop.

I don't remember what happened after that, but it must have been uneventful.

snow and ice #2

The year is after 1980 but before Bob and Ruby Burrell split up. The place is south on I75 in KY just north of the TN border. The road there is mostly flat but winding. The car was the Chevy "woodie" station wagon that my mother gave me when my father died.

As I came around a curve, I saw cars in the distance as far as the eye could see, stopped. As we got closer, I could see the cars were stopped, bumper to bumper, with two wheels on one of the shoulders.

I slowed and pulled to the right shoulder. I stopped the car and tried to get out. Glare ice.

Don't remember how we got out of there, but I have a faint recollection that somehow we left the pavement for a nearby road.

Anyway we proceeded to Oak Ridge, exiting the freeway in Clinton.

The road from Clinton to Oak Ridge leaves the "urban area" and travels along the Clinch River, which is on the driver side of the car. On the right is a rock face. After Ruby left, Bob bought a house up on the rock.

Here also the road is mostly flat but winding. As I came around a curve near the Oak Ridge city boundary, the area widens out and there is an intersection to the left. There are buildings at the intersection, including a small grocery and a restaurant or bar. From a distance, I could see that there were cars parked on the right shoulder.

As we got closer it became clear that there were multiple rows of cars, very close together. At one point they blocked the road, where the road had widened into two lanes each direction, with a grassy median.

I slowly stopped. At that point, the car very slowly slid to the right, contacting the other cars. A crunching sound occurred as the forces between the cars in the pack reached equilibrium.

Later an Oak Ridge city truck came from the oncoming direction. It had bags of salt but refused to come and the crew refused to bring the salt to us. So a group of the men went to the truck and retrieved multiple large bags of salt.

Starting with the car whose owner was present, and whose position made it the best candidate to leave first, we made tracks of salt from each of the tires.

It wasn't especially cold, so the ice melted rather quickly. As soon as the car had traction, the driver left, headed into Oak Ridge. When my turn came, I got the family into the car and we left.

Since this was long before cell phones, Ruby and Bob had no idea where we were.

snow and ice #1

In honor of the blizzard of 2010 (w/side of ice) in Georgia, I am trying to remember all the family snow and ice stories I can.

Sometime while living in Pgh, I was driving a van to Cincinnati on I70 west in OH. The road was mostly flat at the point of the story and mostly straight.

There was snow on the ground and it was cold. I think Teresa was with me.

As I looked ahead, the car in front of me just disappeared. I suspected it was ice. I slowed down as much as I could before we got to the bridge.

As we crossed the bridge, we spun out and wound up on the right shoulder. After a few seconds to collect my wits, I drove right off the shoulder and on my way.