Sidetracked Charley

I wouldn't be twelve until June. But the Ruskin Heights tornado and all which followed that week made me grow up fast. Mother was focused on Dad and his grief and loss. And I was left in charge of my five month old sister and my not quite ten year old brother with Aunt Amy. I had not a clue about baby schedules and what Aunt Amy once knew she seemed to have forgotten. Mother's schedule with funeral directors, etc. caused Debbie to be weened fast. Aunt Amy and I puzzled over how to mix formula. She was the mother of my two high school aged cousins. Debbie showed an instant distaste for Gerber. Aunt Amy and I resorted to blenders. Amazing what you can blend up. To this day I can recall infinite detail about Aunt Amy and Uncle Bill's kitchen. It had windows all along one wall. I was happy in that kitchen mixing up baby food for my sister with my Aunt Amy while the other adults seemed to have vanished. Uncle Bill, my mother's brother, and Amy's husband was a pol...

Aftermath of Ruskin Heights Tornado May 20, 1957 We were settled into Albuquerque by then. It was just beginning to dawn on me we were not moving anytime soon. All my aunts and uncles (but one), my father's mother and stepfather, and those cousins I knew were still in the Kansas City area. My baby sister still very much a baby. There were three networks on TV. One was not CNN. There was no 24/7 news coverage. NBC, CBS and ABC had sign off times and sign on times with test patterns. And between test patterns just snow. Mother found me in front of the test pattern that May 21st, 1957 when she woke up to get the day going for the family. "Turn that off," she said handing me my baby sister nodding off in my arms. "Help me with breakfast. What are you watching that for anyway." "I am waiting for the news," I said, as I put my sister down in the play pen. I had just that year, as part of social studies, developed an interest in the news. We...