Reflections and Stories of an Iowa Guy
Hi, my name is Tom Pickering – some call me ‘Tommy’ but I don’t like it. I live in Iowa City with my Mom and my Grandma and Grandpa Phend. My Mom says she’s going to get a divorce from my Dad, but she hasn’t done it yet.
I have my own room on the second floor – it’s really a porch with windows, and the floor slants some though not enough for me to roll out of the cot I sleep on. Sometimes when I decide to leave the house I crawl out one of the windows and walk across the porch roof to a tree that I shinny down to the driveway.
I’m pretty skinny so sometimes it’s hard to keep my pants up ‘cause I don’t have a belt right now. Since I don’t have any brothers or sisters I spend a lot of time by myself and make up games to play alone – some of them are lots of fun and I’m never bored or lonely.
My grades in school are mostly B’s and C’s, but once in awhile I get an A and sometimes a D – never an F. My Mom’s not around very much – I don’t know where she goes. She’s nice enough but my Grandma is the one who takes care of me when I get sick and she fixes food for me to eat even though she says she doesn’t like to cook. I eat cereal, lots of tomato and split pea soup and bologna sandwiches. Sometimes we have wieners, and sometimes peanut butter sandwiches with grape jelly on white bread – you know, the kind of bread you can take the crust off of and roll up in little balls- they’re soft and taste like fresh pie dough that I also get to eat sometimes
On Saturdays I like to go to movies by myself and if I have enough money, buy a Super Man or Captain Marvel comic book and a baby size Dad’s Old Fashion Root Beer for my way home. I’ve got a big box of old comic books up in Grandma’s attic and sometimes I go up and read ‘em again. There’s also a chemistry set up there, but I don’t play with it very much ‘cause the stuff I make usually stinks. I can’t play in the attic all year – it’s too cold in the winter and really hot in the summer.
My Grandpa has a garden out by the airport. After supper in the summer he rides his bicycle out there to help the food grow – he’s always home before dark because the light on the bicycle doesn’t always work, and the reflector on the back fender is broken.
I have friends in the neighborhood who play with me. One of them is Billy Strabla who lives four houses down Washington Street from us. Billy’s dad is a mailman and he has 5 brothers and 6 sisters. Someone told me they’re Catholic.
Our house has a walnut tree in the side yard – that tree sure makes a mess when the walnuts fall off. There’s a tree in the back yard – I don’t know what kind it is – and I can shinny up it to the first branch where I nailed a board to sit on and watch the sparrows, wrens and squirrels or keep an eye out for any dangerous guys that may be looking for me – I keep my 6 gun close by for any trouble.
At the bottom of the hill in our backyard is an old garage with a dirt floor. There’s a tree on the side of it that I can climb and get on the roof – it’s about 10 feet up in the air. I duck walk across to the edge and jump off into my Grandma’s garden. The ground is soft and doesn’t hurt when I land. After I land in the garden I like to eat tomatoes and radishes.
At night I sometimes listen to radio shows like The Shadow, Green Hornet, Jack Benny – Dennis Day is a good singer and Rochester is funny, and Fibber Magee and Molly who live in a house with a closet full of old stuff.
I really like being 10. Did you like it too?