Fall of 62 – Coming Home

Old photographs can sometimes take you right back to that time. The people, the place…even tastes and smells. I find that a photograph is a story. Heres one…..

So lot of days and nights in the Cogdell Hospital in Snyder and finally got to come home. Now home was a bit tight for me and my equipment…remember we were all new at this. Before the wreak my room was the space off the kitchen (with no wall) where the washer and dryer would go…if we had one. As I remember it 9″wider and about 6″ longer than the single bed I slept in. A pier and beam house about 4 steps high and a tiny bathroom door…home wasn’t making this easy. But I was so glad to be there. We all were. Not wheelchair friendly or ADA compliant. But then ADA doesn’t happen for another 25 years.

The two options for my rehabilitation were: 1) Gonzales Warm Spring Rehab hospital, a inpatient facility in San Antonio which came highly recommended. It had a strict visitation policy that was designed to separate the patient from their current situation as a method of teaching self reliance. Did I say … highly recommended. 2) West Texas Rehab facility in Abilene which was out-patient allowing the patient to live at home and spend the day at the same Hartford St address that it occupies to this day.

Now Dad was weighing the value vs the cost and talking to me about it when Mom announced we would be moving to Abilene where the family could be together and I would sleep in my bed. I only remember my mom making a few large unilateral decisions. This was one.

Back to this photo. Jerry Neighbors was very close to my entire family. He was and is my friend but he was a big brother to Crickett and my Mom and Dad considered him being in the house to be the normal state of things. This photo appears to be the occasion of us receiving our JV jackets from the previous year. Jerry wearing his and mine on the bed like a display. Mom starting to be a bit roly poly with my sister Mary Jo is obviously pleased to have her chicks at home.

In another photo Jerry, Dad and I eat a watermelon. By this time my single bed is in the living room. Mom and Dads life is as normal as it will ever be.

We would only live in this house for a couple of months longer and the start of “63” would have us in a rent house on LaSalle St in Abilene…one city block from the Rehab center. I would roll myself in the middle of the street and often Dad would tow me in his car. Dad off to work and me off to my job.

In the LaSalle house I would learn how to live with the new realities and balance on my back wheels. I would meet my new baby sister and my mother would correspond with my future. Lela. I enjoyed this time and the people but there was only one thing on my mind and that was getting back to graduate with my class in Roby.