Letters From Uncle Bill Part 2

We were pretty close as a family and I remember playing croquet on our lawn. I think we had four lots and it was all fenced in. The neighbors would line up along the fence and watch us play.
Of course we were all hams and would put on a great show for them, arguing and trying to cheat
one another and knocking your opponents ball to kingdom come.

The boys were all athletic. John, Pat and Jimmy played on the local soccer team and Larry and I played football in high school and ran the dashes in track.

My father, James, was of slight built but was very musculer. He came from a broken family and as a boy of ten he worked in the fields and was in the coal mines at the age of twelve. He was a little on the quiet side but had a good sense of humor. Daddy had a good voice and enjoyed the parties as well, especially after he'd had a couple of hot toddies. He had one song " See Me Dance the Polk" where he sang and at the chorus one of the ladies would get up and dance with him.
I was always always in awe of him (or I should have been) but as I got older we had some fun together. He had a good sense of humor and told me once I was born Ma was so tired of having babies that she wouldn't even look at me. He said he had to feed me whiskey and sugar water
for three days before she would nurse me. I can't say I blame her.

Daddy was really a farmer at heart. The place we had in the "Hollow" had about ten acres and he
grew corn, peanuts, water melon etc. We had a large barn, a cow, chickens, pigs and a horse. Also a model T Ford as well. (Now I can't remember what I had for lunch.) I can see him with the old horse and a scoop digging a basement for the house. One night Pat used the Model T on a date. He must have left a cigarette burning in the car and the barn caught fire and burned to the ground. They saved all the live stock but the old Ford was only a shell. I didn't even wake up until my brother John carried me down the next morning to show me the remains. I had a lot of fun playing in the shell of the old car after that.

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