Military Brat

Military Brat


I remember climbing up
into the tree house my brothers had built.
It was so amazing to sit up there and look out far in all directions.  We lived on a farm in Hampton, Va.
I was about three years old. Coming down I decided I needed to see where I was going so I cautiously put my feet on the board nailed to the tree with my back to the trunk.  I do not remember  falling.  The story was my brother yelling to mom,
"Cathy's dead!!"

We had a lot of fun growing up on that farm.
Somewhere I have a black and white photograph of me standing by a pasture.
I look like a refugee in a coat, black buckle up rubber boots that were too big and a scarf tied over my head and under my chin.  Mom called it a "babushka!"  To this day when I see a floral scarf I think of me along that dirt road.

We had a sheep named Petunia.  She was tormented by us.  I remember my brother being butted by her up against the fence.  He deserved it I'm certain,

On another occasion,  he and I were in the pasture and a cow or bull ran towards us.  I got away and my brother fell into a ditch.  The animal jumped over him.

We played in the woods.
He and I would race up and down the dirt road to our only neighbor who lived at the end.

We fed the chickens and avoided snakes.
We got poison ivy and got stung by a swarm of bees playing blind mans bluff.
We loved getting filthy.
We considered it fun!

I was badly injured after taking a fall from a motor scooter.  I remember being wrapped in a sheet and being in a car lying in my mom's arms.

My dad brought me a little stuffed wire hair terrier dog when I was in the hospital.  It is one of my most prized possessions.

We built our own covered wagon!  Later that kind neighbor built us a real one when we had to move away.

I consider my childhood as being wonderful.
It was traumatic at times because of my tomboy ways.  I was the fourth of five.  "Scrappy and tough!"  I was a military brat and so very proud to have had those farm memories!

Cathy Windham
5/14/14