I, for some reason, forgot to tell something about myself and Wayne. I don't rightly remember which house we lived in at the time, but I do know I was about 12 years old. For some reason, my two front teeth rotted so bad they had to be pulled out!!! Well, Dr. Foster in Opp did the honors and he was a rough dentist, but I don't guess he hurt me too bad, I have never been afraid of the dentist. The only way they could replace missing teeth at that time was to put a solid gold crown on the two teeth on either side of the missing teeth to hold the false teeth in. So it was that I had TWO bright gold crowns in the front of my mouth. I absolutely hated those Crowns!!!! But I lived with them, it was better than no teeth at all. I do not know why my two front teeth rotted so, but they did.
Now Wayne had what they called soft teeth. They would not hold fillings and he had to have ALL of his teeth pulled when he was about 16 years old and he had to start to wearing dentures at that time. He, Mamma and Daddy all had dentures. Mamma and Daddy got theirs later. More about the gold crowns later on in my saga about my life.
Now I want to go back to the piano. Our piano was HUGE!!! It was almost as long as our couch and almost as tall as I am now (I think). Anyway it was BIG and black. It had little wooden curlicues glued to the front panel for decoration and that panel would tilt out to make the sound louder. Anyway, I, by myself, removed all the black paint off that big old thing and refinished it. I had never done anything like that before nor since. But it turned out beautifully!!! I was very proud of the job I did. Some time later Mamma decided she wanted to have the top cut down and a mirror installed across the top. It was popular back then to do that. But it still was a beautiful piano. I doubt I would undertake such a task today. It took me quite a long time to do it. This was after we moved into the house on 7th street in Opp.
I remember that while we lived in that house, I cooked my first cake!!! I worked so hard to get it just right and it was just beautiful. But, guess what, I simply could not even stand to take a bite of it! I guess it was the mixing of raw eggs, sugar, flour and milk and everything, I guess I had had enough cake for one day. I don't think I ever ate any of that cake.
Daddy started driving a gasoline truck sometime, can't remember just when it was, but I think it was after we moved to Opp. He worked at the Texaco gas station as a gas truck driver for several years, all over south Alabama. He was known far and wide, going to all the little gas stations out in the country and small towns. He only had a second grade education, but he could figure gas and prices and keep up with it all really well. He had to wear khaki pants and shirts, starched and ironed to work. I learned how to iron pretty good, cause Momma was working too and I had to do a lot of things at home and ironing was one of them. Momma had worked at the sewing factory in Andalusia, later at Boutwell's Grocery store as a cashier and then at B.C.Moore as a sales clerk for a long time. Can't think of her working anywhere else right off. But we had a good home life.
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