As kids living mid way back in a big pasture on the Rodgers Farm off Sublett Road, we had such a great life. We never knew we were poor. We had everything we “needed” and really I don’t remember wanting or ever wishing for much of anything.
(Mom always taught us that wishing was the same as coveting and we were not to do it!)
We would get up early and eat our breakfast Mom had made us and then she would say, “Go outside and play!” We did and didn’t come home until we heard her or Dad honking the car horn signaling that it was time to come home!
Our favorite thing to do was go exploring in the back pasture. This extended from where the Apartments on Median presently are and over all the homes by the KHS was all the way over behind McDonalds on Sublett into the far edges Bayberry Hills Neighborhood, across the 287 freeway. (Of course it was not there then)
We would walk along the “Branch” that wound through the woods. It was really deep and once we got down in it, sometimes there was no way back to the top for a long way! This was the dry creek bed, but would sometime have places with water in it, that we of course would have to cool off our feet in and let our dogs, who always protected us from snakes or skunks, get a long deserved drink out of.
We had several destinations along the way that were a must to stop and look at as if we had never seen them before.
1. The Giant Christmas Tree – The tallest Cedar Tree you had ever seen.
2. The Owl Tree – We had a GIANT Owl that lived in the tallest Cottonwood Tree along the branch. He could be seen sitting on the limb’s each evening at dusk. We always looked up into the tree as we walked under it, making sure he was not swooping down to carry off our dogs or worse, our youngest sister Pat, who was still pretty little at the time.
3. The dumping place in the Branch where old colored medicine bottles were discarded along with lots of solid wood dressers and table with MARBLE tops. They were dumped down there when the Rodgers women wanted to update their “old furniture” to the fashionable tables and dressers with veneer and plastic laminate tops. They threw them in the wagon and told one of the farm hands to go dump them. Then when Papa and Uncle Dave came home to a house with no furniture, Grandma told them that they all were broken and not of any use. So off to Fort Worth they would go that weekend to buy just what the girls wanted. (WHAT??? Wish we could find them today!) Those Rodgers women got what they wanted! LOL
4. The Wrecked Airplane! As kids we loved to hike to the back pasture to see this wrecked airplane. Daddy made these pictures years earlier right after the crash. He always told us the pilot died in the crash? It rests there still to this day probably under lots of brush and undergrowth. This section of land is still mostly undeveloped at the back of a Ranch/Farm that bought the back section this side of the apartments on Median.
Pat Turner said he and Ted watched the plane crash. “It was about 1947-1948. The plane had been “buzzing” the area for a while and on his last “buzz” the engine sputtered and down they went. When we arrived at the scene some of the men had loaded the pilot and passenger in an Ford sedan and headed to hospital.”
5.The CEment Crossing – was where a low water crossing was and Grandpa Rodgers poured CEment as we all pronounced it to be able to drive wagons and later trucks across it to get to the back pasture. This is probably still there in the Branch close to 287 now.
6. The Big Tank – Stocked with huge fish! (Now covered up by Bayberry Hills homes.
7.The Hay Barn was a must on the way back. (Mom of course never knew. She told us it was full of snakes or the bales of hay could tumble over on us!)
8.The cement water trough, where David put a huge catfish once. The well water was as cold as ice water as it was a constant trickle out of the faucet. We would cup our hands and get a drink ourselves at this point in our adventure.
9.The old barn by the water trough. Here we would climb on the roof to see all the cut off cow and bull horns that were thrown up there. The machine that was used to cut them off was inside this barn. We could hear them squalling from our house on the days they were gathered up for dehorning. We never knew why the horns were thrown on top of the barn and kept there?
10.The Buggy Barn, where back in cowboy days, the wagons and buggies were stored under this barn for cover. We liked visit it, trying to imagine what kind of buggies they muct have had? We also tried to picture where exactly Uncle Dave hid Sam Bass back in the day, when the Texas Rangers were chasing him. Evidently they were old friends?
11.The Cow Shoot, where one of us invariably fell and got cut before we would make it home.
Thank you for going on this adventure down memory lane with me.
My kids and grandkids don’t find this at all interesting. I hope you enjoyed it.
