Sometimes my father and I would take the wagon and walk the few miles to Kleberg to get groceries. On one such occasion, we stopped at a filling station in Kleberg and my father pumped air into the wagon's pneumatic tires. When my father announced that he had pumped one of the tires to 100 pounds of pressure, the men sitting around the station voiced their disbelief, saying that the tire wasn't strong enough to hold that much pressure. After looking at the pressure gage, they shook their heads and said that, if they hadn't seen it with their own eyes, they wouldn't have believed it. They thought that the tire would blow apart at any moment. We got back home with our groceries without the tire blowing and stood it on its end in the back part of the garage.

The next day, just as we were preparing to have supper, someone spotted a strange dog snooping around the yard. We watched it for a few minutes as it trotted around sniffing and poking at everything until Mom told us it was time to eat and to just forget about the dog. Dad said that, if the dog wasn't gone by the time we finished supper, he would go out and chase it away. We sat down and began eating.

Suddenly, there was a great explosion followed by the yip, yip yipping of a dog. We exploded from the supper table to the window just in time to see the dog going up the side of the railroad berm and across the railroad tracks then disappearing down the other side of the berm, all the while the sound of his yipping fading away. A few seconds later, he came back into view, hightailing it across a field getting as far away as fast as his legs could take him. We went out to the garage and, sure enough, the tire with 100 pounds of air was blown and the wagon had been knocked flat by the explosion. We never saw that dog again and, as years passed, those of us who remembered that sight, laughed when anyone mentioned it. Mom always laughed the most.

Sometimes, the little red wagon helped me earn a little money like on the outside laundry night. Uncle Dorsey, Aunt Velma and cousins Willard and LaQuita were at our place. It was a warm evening and a few coal oil (a.k.a. kerosene) lamps, now mostly known as hurricane lamps, were placed around the yard a distance from the house to provide sufficient light so that all could see to do their tasks. There were shallow firepits, each with large rocks placed around the pit in such a manner as to hold a number 3 tub of water above a fire which was kept burning by fueling it with firewood. One tub was the washtub and a couple were for rinsing the washed laundry.

My job was water boy. To get the process started, I placed a couple buckets in the wagon, pulled it to the well, drew enough to fill the buckets, pulled the loaded wagon back to the laundry setup and poured the water into the tubs sitting over the prepared firepits. I repeated this until all the tubs were full. When all was ready, the fires were lit, soap and dirty laundry was put into the washtub and one of the adults stirred the laundry and sloshed it up and down using a long-handled paddle.

After a bit, the paddle was used to transfer the soapy laundry bit by bit to the first rinsing tub where it was stirred and sloshed to rinse it and then on to the second rinsing tub. I believe that there was at least one tub of cold water to complete the rinsing and cool the laundry so that the pieces could be wrung by hand before being hung on a clothesline to dry.

When fresh clean water was needed, Dad and Uncle Dorsey would take the tub off the firepit, carry it further away from the house and dump it. I would wheel the tub up to the well, rinse it , fill it and return whereupon Dad and Uncle Dorsey would place it on the firepit that needed it. This continued into the night until all the laundry was done and on the clothesline.

As I brought each load of water to the laundry setup, my load was tallied. After it was all over, I was given one cent for each bucketful and a nickel for each tubful.

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