Part V

I had no idea what a "Casitas Springs" was, but it sounded pretty. I remember Daddy and Mama taking us there while the house was being built.

It wasn't very pretty at all. There was a lot of dirt, and a lot of bulldozers that moved it all around. It was dusty and dirty. The worst part is that "Casitas Springs" was a little tiny town with little tiny houses in it, and Daddy decided to have our house on a big hill above the tiny houses. I didn't understand. We were still going to be by ourselves.

We wouldn't have any friends to play with and our driveway was really long.

Daddy and Mama acted happy, but I couldn't help it. I thought our house was going to be see-through with no windows or doors. I also didn't like the dirt instead of grass to play in and wondered why they would want us to live there. Daddy seemed so excited, so I tried to pretend. Finally in the car on the way home, he asked what we thought about it and I broke down. "Daddy I don't want to live there! I want windows and doors and grass, and ....(my voice trailed off) I'm scared to sleep there!" I thought I saw Daddy try not to laugh, but Mama just turned her head again for a minute.

Daddy and Mama then started explaining that the house wasn't finished. We WOULD have doors, windows and a pretty room. I was better, but still didn't like the idea of moving. I was just getting used to the house where we were. All except the cat on the wall. Then I remember making sure that my new room would NOT have a cat. (I asked Mom years later why they didn't paint over the cat knowing how much I hated it. She said she had no idea it scared me, and because they knew the house was temporary, they thought they would keep all the characters) The more I thought about it, the more I realized I NEVER DID TELL THEM I HATED THE CAT. They were so excited about our room, I didn't want to hurt their feelings.

Rosanne acted like she already knew the house wasn't finished, but I didn't know HOW she knew. She always seemed to just KNOW things.

I never, ever called my older sister "Rosanne". From day one, Rosanne's name to me was "Bawe" (pronounced Bay-We) for the exact same reason I thought Mama's real name was "Honey Baby". Mama and Daddy always called her "Baby" and I couldn't say it right when I was small. The name just stuck. Here I was walking around 5 years old calling her "Bawe" every time I addressed her.

Cindy was getting bigger now, and starting to walk. That was a fun thing for me for a while every day. I liked holding her hand while she wobbled and walked like a little duck. I liked trying to teach her words and listen to her "version" of what I had said. I sang to her and played with her, but she WAS a baby and couldn't do everything me and Rosanne did. I'd get bored after a while and play with Rosanne, or Penny, or follow Mama around or visit Daddy in his office if he was home. Of course, Jethro LOVED Cindy's garbled words. He again got it down to a perfect imitation. UGH. Yes, that bird expanded his vocabulary with some very strange non-words.

Now that Cindy was outside more, that made Homer a huge menace. Daddy kept a chain on his collar now and gave him a limited amount of room, keeping him from knocking her down and scaring her to death. The pool was out there, but it was separated by a chain link fence from the playing yard, and we had very strict orders not to ever go in there without Mama or Daddy.

It didn't seem long before we moved to Casitas Springs. I don't remember the move, but I do remember thinking the house was beautiful. The house was finished all except a "gold room" that had to be completed, and the yard wasn't dirt anymore. It was grass; patchy, but grass.

Our driveway was enormous, long and winding all the way to the top of a hill where only our house stood. The front yard and turnaround was huge. It was all contained with a large chain link fence in front of the turnaround, because straight down was a very steep pasture with a gate and what seemed like a million steps going down to a level area where Daddy said we'd have horses and a barn one day.

We had a very big kitchen with knotty pine cabinets (including these big lazy susan cabinets that I was dying to test out), a built in desk, and a huge table that sat in a separate eating area overlooking the yard and drive. We had a beautiful white and blue living room accented with purple facing the front of the house, and on the back side of the living room, a rustic sunken den with wagon wheel chandeliers, brick floors and steps from the kitchen and up to the foyer. The foyer was my one of my favorite places. Mama always wanted an aquarium, so of course Daddy had to have the biggest one possible for her. When you came through the front door, the white living room was on the right, and the aquarium was recessed into the entire right wall except for a door to the hall leading to the bedrooms! It was about 5 feet wide and 4 feet tall. A cushioned bench was positioned right under it, so I'd kneel backwards on that bench for hours, watching the fish and the little moving pirate ship that was at the bottom of the tank.

We had four very large bedrooms with two rooms on each side of the hall. The first room on the right was initially the guest room with sliding doors to the front yard. A bathroom was in the hall past the guest room, and the room across from that was Cindy's nursery because it was quiet and dark. The next room on the right was the Master and the last room on the left and to the end was mine and "Bawe's." We LOVED our room. It was huge. We had a walk in dressing room/closet with white painted saloon doors to enter and mirrors on 2 large walls opposite the closet doors. If you walked past the dressing room on the same side of our bedroom, you'd find our bathroom. Two little twin beds were under the windows facing the bath, dressing and entrance doors. Windows were also on the wall opposite the entrance. We thought we were in Heaven.

The Master Bedroom was really different...even for the 60's. The entire thing was black with a few white accents. The walls were black, the ceiling was black, and the carpet was black. In the bathroom, black bathtub, black toilet and the sinks and tiles were black. There was a row of narrow, long windows over the bed with, you guessed it....black drapes. But the coolest thing about that room was the ceiling. Daddy wanted to feel like they were sleeping "under the stars" so the ceiling was sprayed with silver and gold glitter. If you were in the room even in the daytime, you could pull the drapes, lay on the bed, and staring at the ceiling, you DID feel you were under the stars. Daddy also said that that room helped him sleep when he came home tired from singing. Mama seemed to love it too, but I liked my room better.

On the opposite side of the kitchen, we had a laundry room, powder room, door going to the garage, and at the very end, Daddy's new office also with knotty pine walls. He had a door to go to the backyard in there, and it was a fun place to visit.

If you went out the front and walked around the side of the house towards where Daddy's office might be, you got another surprise. There was a door. Mama said it would be the "Maid's quarters" and when we got a maid, we were never to knock on that door for any reason unless it was an emergency. I had no idea what a "maid" was but it sounded scary. Another big surprise outside was a long, steep set of wooden stairs at the end of the turnaround. At the top of the stairs was a huge built-in brick barbecue pit and a few picnic benches and tables. I didn't like it up there, but you could see far away from the top of the stairs. Daddy loved it.

Strangely, I don't remember Penny or Homer ever being there. I don't know if that's a blank, or if something happened, and our parents just didn't tell us. Maybe they did tell us and I can't remember. I do know that I didn't miss Homer much, and I knew Mama didn't either. I did miss Penny though. Of course, Jethro was with us. By then, Jethro might as well been one of us kids. We loved him so much, and he was a lot of company, especially when Daddy was gone. At night, we had to make sure his cage was covered with a blanket, then it was magical. He didn't talk when his cage was covered. Not a sound. You could tell he didn't like it when he saw that blanket coming, but if you peeked under it, his eyes were always closed and he was asleep, just sitting there on his perch.

What a strange little creature.

At first it was pretty lonely, then Daddy gave us the greatest news I had ever heard. Grandma and Grandpa Cash, AND Aunt Reba and her family were all moving out to California to live close to us! I was so happy I couldn't wait. Daddy said as soon as he found a place for them, they were coming. I asked him to please hurry and he told us he thought he already found a place they would really like.

My life would be complete again.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

• Tweet