POKING AROUND 216 S. FRISCO

After the excursion to the old house in back, we turned our attention to one of the units where Bertha and Mildred lived from 1948 to about 1960. Bertha was my Father's Mother and Mildred (Mimi) was his crippled sister.  She had Polio when a small child and had a number of operations to fuse her back.  She was fitted with heavy iron braces  and used crutches,  She learned to repair watches and worked at the Tick of Time watch and clock shop downtown.  I have told detail on her in previous stories.  Back then, Frisco was a tree lined street where the branches met each other over the street.  One side of the 200 block was a row of white frame duplexes with one family on one side and the other family on the other.  All of the rooms were end to end. Mildred made the income and Grandma was the home maker and took care of Mildred.  Their home was nicely furnished and it felt so homey.  I loved going there in the Summers.  I felt so accepted just as I was..so relaxing to me.  It had an ideal front porch with a porch swing and two metal lawn chairs.  There was a commanding view of the downtown skyscrapers that  just seemed to suddenly spring up from the ground. There was a Skelly Gas Station right across the street and a Safeway Food store a little ways down Third Street.  Their home was only two doors from Third.  I might add that on the corner of Third and Frisco was the notorious Je-Re-Co Club where the real low lifes went to get drunk and carouse.  Many fights in the early hours of the morning and I used to watch them fight in the street from the safety of Grandma's front porch.  Drunk women turned the air blue with there cursing and often women would fight..sounds of breaking glass and the works.  It really scared me.  Another thing that scared me were the thunder storms which usually came in at night.  I never liked loud noises and the sound from a close lightning strike  rattled my rib cage..so very  loud.  I remember lying in my little bed and looking into the small area that was a foyer to the bathroom, my room, and Grandma's and Mimi's bedroom.  The bathroom window faced the West..where the storms came from.  When a storm was coming I could see the flashes of light on the wall of that little foyer.  As  Blythe and I walked around the duplex, I paused at the back door and looked up and saw a hook screwed into the wall just under the eave.  "I screwed that hook in there in 1953...I hung my kerosene lantern on it....I loved my kersosene lanterns and brought one with me"  I tried the back door and it would not open..so I gave it a good kick like the Police do and it opened.  "This was my bedroom and there are the two windows through which Carla watched me undress and also we talked alot through our windows after we had gone to bed."  Blythe went over and looked out the window and across to the next duplex... only about seven feet between them.   "I wonder what ever happened to Carla"  Blythe said.  "That would be interesting....I hope she had good parents who nurtured her and took her to Church.....she was kind of a haunting figure in my memory."  I said.  We went  into the 5x5 foot foyer and looked into the bathroom.  The old water heater and the tub and sink and the stool.  I told Blythe that the only cooling they had until the Summer of '54 was a Homart three speed window fan that blew air out so air would come in through open windows.  It brought hot air in and when it hit 110 in 1954, they bought a window refrideration unit and it was in the dining room window.  We then went into Grandma and Mimi's bedroom which was not big, but adequate. Both of them slept in a double bed which was pushed up against the wall on one side of the bed.  "Every night and every morning, Bertha would unlace and re-lace Mimi's braces from hip to ankle.  Mimi slept on the outside and Grandma crawled over Mimi to get in bed. There was a hand woven and framed piece that hung over the head of their bed....it said   ...What is Home Without a Mother.....Grandma married John when she was only sixteen years old.  They lived in a smaller town North of here named Adair.  John was spoken of as a "real catch"  and I guess Grandma caught him.  He was a descent man, but nothing seemed to work out for him.  He failed in an attempt to run a grocery store.....after they moved to Tulsa in 1922, he landed a job with the Tulsa World Paper and was let go for some reason.   He failed mentally to the point he was put in Eastern state Hospital which was a mental institution.  My Dad went to visit him once and John thought he was a baseball umpire and was calling a game in his room.  My Dad went out side and just wept.  John died in 1944 and I can faintly remember going to his funeral.  My Dad was still in high school, and when they moved to Tulsa in 1922, my dad dropped out of school and went to work to help support the family.  Mildred was crippled by then and the only way she could move about was to sit on the floor and scoot her self around using her arms.  Grandma worked at scrubbing walls and what ever she could find to do.  Dad went to accounting school at night and worked during the day.  He obtained his degree in accounting and went to work for a Mead Brothers Drilling Contractors.  He did well and Homer Mead really liked my Father.  The Meads were a hard drinking bunch and went to parties where prominant oil people were in attendance.  At one of these parties, My Father saw a young lady on a couch and she was lying down with eyes closed.  That lady was my Mother !   Dad fell in love at first sight and went over and kissed the maiden.  They dated quite alot and my Father was so smitten, he was always on her door step.  Both of them decided they were seeing too much of each other and decided to stay apart for a week.  My Mother went to a movie alone as did my Father.  It was one of those grand downtown theatres.  The usher seated my Mother and pretty soon he seated a man who had just come in.  He seated him right next to my Mother.  That man was my Father !!!      They decided it was meant to be and left the movie together.....and..here I am to prove it."...Blythe found all of this to be so interesting.   I suggested we look at the rest of the house and promised her that there would be a story to every room..    (to be continued)