Quietly I turned the attic doorknob. Mom called from the kitchen asking what I was doing. "Nothing," I answered, pushing open the door. Mom was frying eggs for a Chinaman who had come to the back door asking for food. Why she didn't give him the green beans I don't know. “People are starving in China,” she or dad would tell us while making us eat our green beans. So this man had to be a Chinaman to have come to our house in need of food. Careful not to step on creaking boards, I made my way to the back attic window. Turning the brass latch, I opened the window and waited to see where this Chinaman would go. I wanted to know which direction from High Street, China was.
“What are you doing?” Mom standing in the attic doorway, she knew the steps that creaked too? “Close that window and come downstairs.” The Chinaman had taken an egg sandwich and a couple eggs with him. I raced to the front door to watch where he went. China was across High Street, just like I had guessed.
Later that day Dad came home for his early dinner before heading to his second job. Dad worked two jobs to be sure us kids could go to college. They talked about mom feeding hobos, with dad saying some of the hobos could be dangerous. I was disappointed that wasn't a Chinaman who had come to the backdoor, but still mom could have given him some green beans.
Mr. Koos, our next door neighbor, had kept an eye on the hobo while mom fried the eggs. Mr. Koos had seen me leaning out the attic window, while sitting there keeping an eye on the hobo. Neighbors kept an eye out for each other when I was a kid, mostly to warn when the rain was coming on Mondays, or when the big incinerator was burning garbage. The city's incinerator filled the neighborhood with stinky smoke, making everyone's wash smell.
There was nothing I could do that Mom and Dad would not know about before I got home, thanks to a neighbor. Mrs. Martin would inform Mom I was in her yard drawing. Mrs. Miller called Mom once that I was in her yard drawing and was bringing home a white snake. Most neighbors were friendly, not so with Patty Matthew though, who sunbathed while listening to a portable radio. Her uncle lived in a small apartment above her parents. Her uncle, Ray, was nice. He had been hit in the head by a baseball when he was nine and it caused him to stutter. He was another grown up that kept an eye on us, though he was more like a kid too.
I had my own speech problem. I was known as the one that doesn't talk. It was easier for me to sit and draw than talk to people. At the end of summer I'd be starting school, mom and dad decided I had to go to the “banana lady,” as I called her. She was supposed to be a speech therapist but all she did was stuff my mouth with bananas and make me say different words. Couple times I had to talk with marbles in my mouth. Dad waited in Grandpa's car, which he borrowed to take me to the banana lady. Sitting in Grandpa's car, he read or did crosswords while I swallowed marbles and spit out bananas. I started first grade still not being able to speak clearly. My brothers and sisters could understand me, why Sister Claire had a problem, I don't know. She was always telling me where to put my tongue. The girls in school decided I had cooties because of my speech. I hated school, but then I got my first art lesson from Sister Claire. Only on Fridays did she teach art. Had no idea I would grow up to be an artist. First grade was the only grade I had art lessons. Those lessons must have stuck, even though there were no more art lessons till art school, I kept my head down and drew portraits through grade school. English book open or my math book open, I just drew.
