An autobiograhy of James Arthur Casey (Part 2)

 An autobiograhy of James Arthur Casey (Part 2)

originally written on September 18, 1995

Slightly revised on August 18, 2021

Besides the pecan picking they would take us to a stream filled with minnows that led to a quaint pond...here we would throw in our lines and if we were lucky we'd net a catfish or two. The first time I caught one I was probably only 8 years old (estimated) and foolishly grabbed it by the fins. Even novice fishermen know better than to do that because there's some kind of poison they secrete from their gills that may not be strong enough to kill a human most definitely does put the hurt on. 

I wasn't expecting that so after that experience I gave up fishing and opted to wade in the streambed with my brother Charles. The water was very clear and there were areas where you could see big schools of minnows flittering about, waiting to be caught and used as bait. 

Every once in a while the fishing excursions got out of  hand and the older kids would wind up jumping in the pond and swimming (we must have realized this was inevitable, as we all brought along our swim suits). I'll never forget the sight of my cousin Terry splashing into the water and accidently losing her bikini top on the way up. I hadn't even reached puberty yet so the sight of her naked breasts produced only a mild curiosity...a few years later that glimpse would have made a much more powerful impact. 

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We spent a lot of time at Wanda's house in Paden. The seven mile trip from Prague was spent gazing out of the backseat window at scenery which never struck me at the time as beautiful and majestic as it was. If we weren't at Paden we were home in Prague but I'm guessing my brother and I spent more time in Paden during our youngest years. I don't remember that far back and don't have any way to confirm this. All I know is that when we weren't in Paden there was a good chance that one of Wanda's daughters (my cousins) was in our house babysitting us. They weren't that much older than us. Terry was the worst, I have to admit and hopefully she won't read this because I've forgiven her long ago for her "babysitting style". Kristi and Cathy were much better. I remember Saturday mornings watching Dick Clark's American Bandstand and Ronnie Kaye's 30 minute Oklahoma City version of it, "The Scene". Lots of dancing on both of those shows so it was only natural that my cousins and I would dance the morning away. I loved those two young ladies so much although the time frame I'm talking about is still very much pre-puberty. Dancing was just dancing and we didn't care if the Baptists said it was a sin. We were too young to know what "sin" was, even with the Sunday school lessons. 

A propos of nothing Charles usually danced with Kristi and I did my own imitation of those people on TV with Cathy. We must have looked like fools but we had so much fun together. For some reason we never watched Soul Train. The people on that show actually really did dance a lot better than the ones on Bandstand and The Scene. Only a fool would say otherwise.

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My mother loved to watch Lucille Ball get herself into hopeless comic situations on I Love Lucy. She would sit on the couch chainsmoking cigarettes and laughing her ass off. You'd think it was the funniest thing ever known since the invention of television. She'd laugh until the tears came and then guffaw some more. To this day when I see a Lucy rerun I think of my mother's laughter. I watched it with her sometimes and though I found it amusing I was never the fan my mom was. 

She was also in the habit of staying up after bedtime to watch The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Johnny was right up there with Lucy as far as she was concerned. Sometimes she would let us stay up to watch the monologue and the pre-conversation comedy bits. I must say I enjoyed Carson much more than Lucille Ball. 

When I was growing up my mother did not sleep with my father. She would usually get tired of the television and pass out on the couch where she would remain until morning. Charles and I shared a big bed with our father, James Delmer Casey. We were very young at this time and there didn't seem as if there were anything wrong with this set up, and we were only there until we were "old enough" for our own bed. It's very likely that we didn't have our own beds at that time. We weren't poor but things were tough in those days of civil unrest and the Vietnam war on the television every single night reminding you how lucky you were to have a roof over your own head in a small town in Oklahoma. I was only 5 or 6 years old by this time. 

One night my mom in the living room and the rest of us sleeping in dad's bed, I had a dream. My mother was working at a diner called the Dairy Boat and we spent a lot of time there with her when school was over for the day or out for the summer. In my dream the Dairy Boat was on fire, I could see the flames, it was a very lucid dream. I woke up and smelled smoke. Apparently there was a tattered extension cord under our bed and a spark it had caused the bed to catch on fire. I woke up dad and Charles and we put it out. That was quite a miracle. 

Of course I give the glory to God.

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We moved from this house when I was 8 and though I could tell you all kinds of stories about the miracles that took place in that house I will save that for another time. For now we were stepping up into a brand new house on the west side of town, just a short jaunt to the city limits. Dad's first project on that house was to build an underground cellar, using his connections with the "Ready Mix" cement plant where he worked he was able to do most of the work all by himself. With the unstable weather here in Oklahoma and the regularity of thunderstorms and tornadoes this professionally installed cellar surely caused the market value of our home to expand by degrees. 

Dad worked for the cement plant for a long time and as he paid off the mortgage of this house my brother and I finally had a room of our own. Dad built shelves in our closets and mine eventually became the home of my HUGE record collection...but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

The new place was nice...certainly better than any house we'd lived in previously. Another perk for my dad was that his job was only a short walk away. At the time there was a lumber yard, Panell's Lumber company (the owner's son Greg was a great drummer though I never got to know him all that well). If you were to walk across that lumber yard you'd have nothing keeping you from getting into the "works" of what we called the cement plant...just a huge mound of rock and another pile of dirt were the only things keeping anyone out. When I got a little older I used to sneak over into the plant and check out all the cement mixing apparatus...definately a safety issue but I was careful and never let anyone know. The shops weren't even locked sometimes and I'd sneak into them on occasions. One in particular...

This shop had a bunch of catalogs and phone books beneath it's receiver which was mounted by the door. In addition to those greasy, dusty, cement mixing chemicals was an old copy of Playboy magazine. I don't think I ever removed it, though I wanted to. But looking through it's pages combined with having basically broken and entered the shop where I found it produced an almost electric desire to seek out more of these "adult books".