In the late afternoon of one day, Mom and Dad decided that I should get a haircut when he and I went on one of our occasional trips to the grocery store in Kleberg about two to three miles away. So, Dad and I (pulling my little Red Flyer) walked to Kleberg and stopped at the barber shop where the barber was cutting a man's hair. After a bit, others who were waiting one by one got up, told the barber they'd be back another time and left until Dad and I were the only ones waiting. I noticed that, a couple times, the barber turned away from cutting hair and, obviously, took a drink from a small bottle he held in a paper bag. Eventually, he finished the man's haircut and it was my turn.
The barber put the child's seat on the barber chair and started his clippers across the sideburns on one side and right up to the top of my head cutting all the hair to the skin. As he turned the chair, apparently to do the same from the other side, Dad saw what he had done, jumped from his chair yelling at the barber to stop. After several words passed between them, Dad made the barber sit in one of the waiting chairs and took the clippers and completed my haircut while the barber promptly fell into a drunken sleep. Dad did the only thing he could under the circumstances.....he cut it all off. I do believe that was my first "baldy" haircut.
We went on to the grocery store and got what we needed. After putting the bags into the wagon, Dad pointed out that the tires needed air so, we went to a filling station and filled them. Since I was a little tired, Dad had me get into the wagon; I sat at the back with my legs astraddle the groceries and he pulled the wagon home.
When we got home Mom got her first look at her bald son, let out one of her, "Oh! My God!" screams and started to give Dad the dickens for having all my hair cut off. Dad and I only took a few moments to calm her by telling her what happened. She declared that there would be no more visits to that barber.
When various berries were ripe, Dad and I would get up, have breakfast, get my little Red Flyer and walk to a berry farm somewhere near Kleberg, getting there before first light. The owner's home was a large farm house next to the road and the berry fields covered a large area beside and behind it. Several other people had come to pick berries and were standing in the area near the back door which could be reached from a landing at the top of a few stairsteps. The way they were talking with each other, it was evident that many had been here before and knew each other. Others arrived after we did.
Eventually, the back door opened and a man, evidently the owner, stepped out onto the landing at the top of the stairs to greetings and hails from the assembled berry pickers. He welcomed everyone and explained which berries were being picked this day, how to tell if they ripe, and he only wanted only ripe ones. The berries needed to be completely picked before mid morning to get them out of the sun.
When he finished, anyone who hadn't brought their own container picked up one from the variety of sizes, from tomato soup cans to #10 cans that were on a table beside the back stairs. Everyone hurried into the berry patches and started picking as the sun started rising. When your container was full, you brought it to the back door where your berries were checked and dumped into a larger container. Note was made as to how much you would be paid for your size container and you went back to pick more.
The owner signaled when quitting time was reach and all the berry pickers came to the back door, turned in their last picking and were paid for all they had picked. I think I made fifteen cents for picking three nickel sized cans.
The berry farm owner sold many of his berries by running a home berry route in Dallas. A couple times, he hired Dad to go with him to learn the route and be introduced to the customers. Sometimes, Dad made the run for him and, once, I got to go with him.
I rode in the front of the panel truck until we got to the beginning of the route. Then, I moved to the back with the berries and one berry disappeared from each of some of the boxes while Dad was going to the customer's door to find out how many boxes they wanted. Dad would come back to the truck and tell me how many boxes of berries the customer wanted and I would hand them to him. If the customer wanted several boxes, Dad would have me help carry them to the customer's door. All in all, it was a great day and I enjoyed it, hoping I could do it again.
Dad got some pipe and pipe joints somewhere and made a framework. There were two ends each made by connecting two identical lengths of pipe in a shape like /\, then connected one end piece to each end of a longer piece of pipe. Then he made two swings using two short lengths of board each with two holes and a length of rope threaded through the holes of each and tied to the horizontal pipe bar. We had a swing set.
That wasn't all - he showed me how to grab the horizontal bar, swing my legs up between my arms and hook my knees over the bar and then helped me go through the process until I could do it by myself. Sometimes, I would hang there for several minutes before dismounting....it was fun.
We also placed some sheets of corrugated metal against the frame to make a shelter. Rosalie and I would get inside of it to get out of the sun.
Sometimes Dad would bring a newspaper home. On one such occasion, he showed me the headline which was in big letters, "HITLER INVADES POLAND" and told me that some of his mother's relatives lived there. At another time, he showed me his name in a long list of men selected for the draft and told me that all he had to do was to let them know that he had five kids and he wouldn't have to go.
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