Summer of '57

Birthday's haven't been special for most of my life. I do remember a couple that were above the rest. The one when I was 40, and the one when I was 12. When I turned 40 my wife gave me a surprise party that was really the best I ever had. That is not the one I am going to write about though.

The summer I turned 12 was very unuasal. First off, that was the year Lake Texoma went over the spillway for the first time. We went as a family to see the water go down the river. That is always a great site. It dried out after that, and I remember it being extremely hot in july. On my birthday my father gave me a break from hoeing the sunflowers out of the maize. Because it was my birthday I got to drive the tractor instead trudge along on foot chopping weeds. I remember my older brother didn't think I was big enough to drive the tractor, but I got to anyway. Maybe this would seem like a bigger deal for a birthday if you were the one who had been chopping sunflowers in the hot sun.

Dad