Afterthoughts

Patricia and Sharol      In the late forties, after the machine gun was banned, who would have thought one would show up in the small Texas town of Tahoka.  To my family's surprise, it did in my stepfather's possession.  That was the last thing my mother ever expected him to bring home.  He came into the house all excited and insisted we all go with him to shoot it.  So, we piled into his car, and he drove to a field several miles outside of town.  When we got out of the car, he propped the gun on a fence post and fired.  With our hands over our ears, we watched the dust fly into the air as the bullets sprayed across the dirt.       The next day he took it with him to the radio and television repair shop where he worked.  We never knew how he got it or where it went.  There is one thing I learned from that experience. Just because something is banned doesn't mean a person can't get hold of it.  Also, I was having a lot more fun playing cowboy and Indians at home than wa

     Patricia and Kathleen      While driving down US-87 to Lubbock Texas, I had a hard time concentrating on the road because I was listening to my mother.  She said, "At sixteen months you climbed over our fence in the back yard.  We looked everywhere but couldn't find you.  Finally, we walked across the street to a construction site to find out if anyone there had seen you.  When a man making cabinets saw us, he grinned and pointed to you playing in the sand with some blocks of wood.  He commented, 'I knew someone would come looking for her.'  We thanked him and took you home."         I turned to look at mother causing the car to swerve a little.  My voice rose in excitement at the discovery I had just made. "Mother! I remember that.  Since dad was a carpenter as a young man, I always thought he took me to work with him.  I've often wondered why I was there by myself, and my sister and brother didn't get to go."      I calmed down and drove t