Memories, Chapter Three - My Room

Just three years old and living above the Biloxi Bakery, there is one special memory...

MY ROOM

There is one room remaining - mine! It adjoined mom and dad's room - on the northwest corner. The sun streams into the room from the double windows on the west and north. The pale blue walls and white ceiling make you feel like you're suspended high in the sky. Below, the ground is a clear varnished hard pine floors - so shiny and slick -the surface is marked only by the raised wood grain. Slick! It's not surprising the throw rugs are always out of place - victims of a long slide or short stop. They lay scattered along the edge of the ivory colored baseboard that surrounds the room.

The mammoth white bed where my first dreams were born, reposes peacefully in the north corner of the room. Its curved head and foot boards wrap slightly around the sides of the bed - enhancing the feel of security. The edges are trimmed in a green enamel, and gold gilt leaves that make it look like a miniature Mardi Gras float. There are small amber rattan panels in the headboard; close-up, the octagonal weave looks like a honeycomb with the bees gone on vacation.

By the door is a matching armoire, dresser, and a piece of furniture you don't see any more - a vanity set. Three tall mirrors grace the back of a low table with drawers on each side. The two side mirrors hinge from the center mirror - fold them almost together and it’s an instant fun-house of mirrors!

A lonesome toy box rests by the dresser - its contents missing - scattered hopelessly about the room. On the table near the bed is a small bright red phonograph decorated with decals of animals singing and dancing. There's a small pile of records on the shelf below - those old 78's - the kind that shattered into a thousand pieces when they hit the hardwood floor. There were two records that survived longer than the others. The Churken Goose -the musical story about a creature hatched from an egg -tended by three sitters - a chicken, a turkey, and finally a goose. The poor thing tries to find its mama - questioning the various barnyard animals. Along the way he launches into the title song... "I gotta beak like a chicken, and feet like a duck, and when I laugh I go 'Yuk Yuk'--". I played it until it was a mass of scratches, pops, scuffs, and finally just one continuous "Yuk- Yuk, click... Yuk-Yuk, click...... Yuk-Yuk, click...... "

And then there's the record VERONICA ... I hear what sounds like a young Ella Fiztgerald backed by a trio of voices in close harmony - all to a swing beat ...

WHEN VERONICA - PLAYS HER HARMONICA DOWN ON THE PIER IN SANTA MONICA...
SHE PLAYS THAT JIVE TO THE HEP CAT-FISH, SHE EVEN MADE A SCHOOL OF TUNA
SWING WITH A SWISH.

A BIG FAT TURTLE - WHO'S NAME WAS MYRTLE... SHOOK AND SHOOK UNTIL SHE BROKE HER GIRDLE! THE WHALE THAT SWALLOWED JONAH SHOUTED OUT TO SAY..
"I'LL OPEN UP MY MOUTH, AND LET YOU OUT TODAY..
TO HEAR VERONICA - PLAY HER HARMONICA DOWN ON THE PIER IN SANTA MONICA..."

Then a harmonica solo, another verse, and silence.... shhh-click, shhh-click, shhh-click, shhh-click .... the needle is helplessly stuck at the end of the record. I pick it up - carefully placing it at the outer band. I repeat the song hoping to understand a few more lyrics, but somehow never quite comprehending what JIVE, HEP, and half a dozen other words and phrases meant - I just liked that song! One more time...

WHEN VERONICA - PLAYS HER HARMONICA ....

Sometimes late at night the room took on a sinister personality. As the cars passed on the street below, shadows from the partially closed venetian blinds glided across the room - imitating a giant shapeless phantom flying over my bed - disappearing into darkness. And there was the closet door next to my bed. When ajar its tall outside mirror cast an image from the outside street light across my covers. The image shifted ever so slightly. Petrified with fear, I imagined the door slowly opening - guided by someone or something hiding within the depths of the closet.

But the most terrifying of all was the rain gutter outside my window. The night is black - and suddenly there is a brilliant flash on the horizon - I can see the white fingers of lightening spreading from sky to ground. A pause. Silence, then and craaaaaack BOOOOOOM. The blast makes the whole house shudder - the vanity mirror vibrates under the assault. The storm moves ever closer as the bombardments increase, and finally the rain arrives -first slowly with a hiss -then a gentle pelting against the windows, and finally the giant drops begin hammering on the tin roof across the street. I know what's coming any minute now.

The rain collects on the flat roof, and without warning a blast of wind violently sweeps the pool towards the rain gutter - the body of water in motion pulses and lurches creating a drumming rhythm within the hollow metal down spout. The constant beating sounds like the approach of ferocious warriors. I rush, screaming in terror to my parent's room and climb up onto the edge of the bed - Dad is holding the covers back - somehow he knew I was coming... I crawl safely in between my protective guardians - no longer caring about the frenzy of the storm or the drumming monster in my room next door.

I wake up next morning in my own bed - maybe it was a dream. No, it will happen again, and the ending will always be the same.

Then there was that one night.

It was about 2 AM. I couldn't sleep - it wasn't a thunderstorm or a monster - it was probably the coffee that Grandpa let me taste after supper - when no one was looking. Wide awake, I climb down from my bed. The rubber soles of my pajama pants grip the polished floors. I plod through the doorway and straight to Mom and Dad's bed; they hear me coming. There are no questions. With a silent rustle, the covers open wide and I climb up onto the bed and into the warmth and security that exists no where else.

I still can't sleep. Moonlight spills into the room -its icy white rays transform familiar shapes into blue shadows with white trails that fade across the polished floors. I close my eyes and try to sleep. But the brilliant moon won't go away... It hangs like a giant spotlight that floods the entire landscape. A few street lights along Howard Avenue radiate a dull yellow glow but can't compete with brilliance of the mighty moon. The windows across the street reflect the ghostly image of the traffic light at the corner - red-green- yellow-red-green-yellow - no one around to appreciate its solo performance. I look back again at the moon, and I notice something different, faintly at first, and then more distinctly. I see markings on it! Is it words? No. Pictures? Maybe... As if in some hypnotic spell, the moon absorbs my attention and I set out to unravel the mystery of this unfamiliar sight.

I try to stay awake - but I'm soon asleep. Half dreaming, I remember my mission and I awake - eyes wide open continuing the study where I left off. The cycle repeats until I make another discovery.. the moon is moving! I can't believe what I see! First it was over Clower's furniture store, and slowly it seemed to creep westward -now above Kimbrough and Quint's drugstore, now on over Elzey's hardware,. And finally - it begins to disappear behind the tower on the corner of Lameuse and Howard. It pauses briefly as if posing with the Witch on broom atop the old weather vane. Then it makes its final descent, drifting out of sight.

I am frightened, and, at the same time, fascinated. Frightened that the moon is falling and I'm the only one awake to see it for the last time. I think, "The people in China are going to be surprised when it lands..." I can't be bothered... The moon is gone, that's all. And so I drift off into a deep sleep.

The next morning I can hardly wait to tell mom and dad. I ask them to read me the newspaper - surely the Daily Herald had captured the story... Instead they were amused and tried to explain what I saw - but their explanation was a bit too much for my small mind. I was sure they were mistaken. But, I suppose they were right -the moon was back that next night!



There is a story book land outside my north window. But, the people are alive and the scenery moves and changes. At the edge of the bakery roof I see Washington street and a white stucco building trimmed in green. I always think its a church, but it's really Fallo's Dry Cleaners. If I look hard enough and squint, I see the colored pasteboard displays inside the large picture windows. Stylish models with beautiful smiles - wearing perfectly pressed fashions of the day. Words float above their heads in cartoon-like balloons - promising carefree happiness if you have your clothes dry cleaned.

Occasionally a thin burst of steam erupts from the side of the building. It cools and grows into a billowing cloud that quickly disappates - floating across the narrow driveway into the yard of a well-kept yellow two family house. The paint on the wall nearest the cleaners peels -under the incessant steam attack; the boards buckle slightly, but the rest of the house is free of blemishes.

Aunt Katie lives in one half of the house. My mother says the Collins' lived in the other half, but I never knew them. Aunt Katie was a soft spoken kind old lady who sometimes cared for me those few times when mom couldn't be around. I can't say I remember much about Aunt Katie except that her house was terribly neat. I remember how the linoleum floor covering crackled beneath your feet -probably from all the cleaning - as you made your way to the kitchen in the rear of the house. Actually, Aunt Katie wasn't even related to us - her name was Katie Hildebrand, and she was one of the last of the old Biloxi mid- wives. Still we called her "Aunt" out of respect. Southern protocol required children to address all adults by title, especially the senior elders. To this day I'm still discovering that aunt... or uncle... or cousin-so-and-so were only friends of the family and not true relations.

The house, deceptively tall, was only a single story. Perhaps it was the high pitched corrugated tin roof that made it look bigger. Under the front center eaves there was a small window - bordered by rectangular panes of colored glass - a window that probably looked into an unfinished, unused attic. Below the window another corrugated tin roof sloped outwards to the yard providing cover for the front porch that spanned the width of the house. The white washed supporting framework was decorated with wide scroll-work shapes at the corners. A neat row of vertical bars filled in the railing on each side and front. The twelve foot wide stairway flanked by square wooden pillars descends into the tiny yard below. At the base of the stairway there's a path of sunken masonry blocks - their tops barely above the soil, leading to the concrete sidewalk.

The unpretentious yellow house rested proudly atop the two foot high brick pillars - the typical Biloxi orange-red brick that seemed to be everywhere. I remember looking at one of the bricks I had found in the back yard - molded into the surface were the words "St. Joseph". Sure, it seemed logical to me - after all I knew Jesus' dad was a carpenter - maybe he was also in the brick business like my great grandpa in New Orleans...

In the summer there were zinnias in the small, well-kept flower beds - as colorful as they were they couldn't compete with the running-roses that trellised up from the side of the porch. The vines were carefully tied to the lower edge of the overhanging roof -completely framing the porch with a deep green border and hanging clusters of small crimson roses. From my window, it looks almost like one of my dad's decorated cakes.

The rest of my view - at least from Spring to Autumn - is awash with the yellow green leaves of two old pecan trees that live behind the bakery. And if you look really, really hard, you can see the steeple of the old Methodist Church at the corner of Main and Washington - the church that one week miraculously changed into a furniture store.

Those trees... My grandfather's other children! He was their sole guardian and protector. I can see him standing below the two mottled brown giants, examining the bark. He removes his glasses and peers into the highest branches that tower out of sight. He pokes at the bases, spreading fertilizer and watering them when the summer drought had gone on too long. And when the silk worms of late summer spun their nests in the leafy branches, he was out there burning the nests away. There he was - poking flaming wads of newspaper attached to cane poles. I hear dad shouting out the back door of the bakery, "Papa, you're gonna burn the neighborhood down". But grandpa continued, undaunted, determined to rescue his leafy children from the lecherous invaders. Dad knowing that the situation was hopeless, dispatched some of the bakery workers with pots of water to chase the glowing ashes that drifted down from the tree tops - hoping that none would land on a nearby roof.

And in the fall when the branches were near breaking under the weight of the ripening pecan clusters, grandpa nailed boards together as props for the lower branches. As a last resort, he sometimes shook loose some of the green clusters - the tree was more important than the harvest. And for all this care and attention, the trees rewarded him well. Most years there were hundreds of pounds of pecans collected in yellow metal cans and stored along the wall of the family dining room. For weeks to follow there was the sound of cracking, until all the sweet meat had been freed from the hard wooden shells. The Thanksgiving season was approaching -time to make the fruitcake and pecan pies.

Those two trees. They survived pests, droughts, occasional hard freezes, and two or three major hurricanes. They were the last living inhabitants of the bakery. But eventually they fell -innocent victims of urban renewal 25 years later. A new Federal Court House covers their graves. Perhaps, I hope, their children survive today - maybe by the merciful help of a kind gale or errant squirrel...



I can see far away - any time of year, wash hangs out to dry on lines hidden in back yards. Sometimes it's funny -seeing old Mr. Tony Finka's long johns - with the button seat gaping like some overgrown puppet. And sometimes it's embarrassing - seeing the women's "unmentionables" discretely hidden by sheets on all sides - but clearly visible from my vantage point. Clothes hung out to dry -broiled in the summer by the relentless sun -and whipped dry in the winter by bone chilling gusts that somehow manage to sneak through the maze of houses and buildings below.

The relative quite is broken by the call of a steam locomotive plodding down the track - barely one block away. Three times a day -regular as clockwork - the Louisville and Nashville passenger train moves through -first pulling into, pausing, and then leaving the old station on Reynoir. The gray smoke billows from the giant black engines - the cloud catapults high up into one of those Gulf breezes where it's quickly torn apart and rendered invisible. The soprano chords of the steam whistles became familiar voices -especially the Hummingbird -that was the L&N line that ran from New Orleans to Mobile and back.

Regular freights pass through during rest of the day. Many never stopping - just slowing a bit as they make their way East towards the old Ocean Springs bridge and onto Pascagoula and places beyond. I remember once when all the windows were closed in the winter - I could hear the sound of a freight off in the distance -it sounded like some living creature - although not quite human -the dense cold air causing it to roll and moan. It sounded so sad and lonely. The memory still returns whenever I hear a distant train.

My room... It was more than just a bedroom - where Danny and I played - sometimes it was a club house - a castle -an ever changing stage where we lived out our first childhood fantasies.

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Methodist Church
NE Corner of Main and Washington Streets
Biloxi, MS
about 1925