2701 Herring Ave, Waco, Texas

When I was home last month I drove by my old child hood home located at 2701 Herring Ave, Waco, Texas.  Driving by the old homestead brought back so many memories.  The screen saver on my computer just showed several pictures from those days and the memories came flooding back.  I tried to put some of those memories down on this ozone tablet but just can not seem to get it all down. So here is some of the memories of 2701 Herring Ave, Waco, Texas

The house at 2701 Herring Ave, in Waco, Texas was the house my sister, my parents and I lived in the longest, when I was growing up.

As I remember it, we moved to 2701 Herring Ave when I was in the 3d or 4th grade.

The house was a nice sized wood framed house on the corner of 27th street and Herring Ave. The house had a sloping front yard that made it hard to cut the grass. The slope was so steep I had to walk side ways when I tried to cut the grass in the front yard.

The house had two front doors on the front porch of the house. One door led into my sister Carla’s room, while the other door entered into the living room. Carla had a nice size front room. I do not remember much about it since I was not in her room that much. The living room was a nice sized room, which had a water-cooled air conditioner in it. This room also had the heating floor grade in it. Once you entered the living room if you turned left you entered the hallway. To the left was Carla’s room, to the right was my room, the bathroom and Mother and Daddy’s room which was located at the end of the hall. Now that I think about it, we must have exchanged rooms later, because I also remember the front bed room belonging to Mother and Daddy, Carla having the middle room and me having the room at the end of the hall. So we must have lived there so long we moved about. We only had one bathroom. I have a hard time remembering how we managed with only one bathtub. In those days we did not have a shower. The only other room we had was the kitchen, which was off of the living room and the location of the other door of the house. The back door of the house led out into the back yard of our house. We had a very large cement front and back porch attached to the house.

The back yard was very large with a large red fence around it. We had a large weeping willow, which had been struck by lighting, before we moved into the house. The large tree was held together with very large bolts. It was a nice tree and I enjoyed climbing in it and sitting under it.

We also had a one-car garage that was always full of stuff. We had a walk in door and a garage car door. The garage was old and seemed to lean a bit. Our back yard was divided into two sections. One good-sized yard between the house and the garage and another yard without a fence between the garage and the alley. Yes in those days we had an alley that the garbage trucks use to drive up and down to collect the trash. Mother and Daddy had to drive up a slope to get to the garage. Mother and Daddy and Carla and I later used the second back yard to park the vehicles since the garage drive way only held one vehicle. I remember Daddy making changes to the house after I moved out and joined the Army and they were great changes. Daddy enlarged the kitchen by taking out the wall between the kitchen and the living room and added a large kitchen island.

So we lived in this house while Carla and I were in elementary school (North Waco Elementary), Junior High School (North Junior High School) and High School (Richfield High School).

It was during this time that I was in the Boy Scouts of America where I worked my way from Tender Foot to Eagle Scout with Three Palms with Troop 262. While with the Boy Scouts I managed to go on my first camp out, the fist of many. I learned to swim and later became a lifeguard and worked at all the city pools.

Carla and I both learned to drive while we lived in this house. Mother taught me how to drive and that was not an easy task. I still remember learning how to drive on the way to Lake Whitney. We drove to Lake Whitney just about every weekend to the Brown’s Lodge where we had lots of fun. We later drove to the lake to visit Aunt Ruthie’s Lodge after Aunt Ruthie and Uncle Eddie bought a fishing lodge at the lake.

Mother worked for Owens Illinois Glass Plant for 35 years or my entire early child hood, while Daddy worked for Library Binding Book Company, then for a discount house like Wall Mart and then for Waco Paint Center which he later bought and owned until he retired in 1990.

While living in this house Carla and I attended North Waco Baptist Church where Carla met Jim M who was an evangelist. Carla left the house when she married Jim M and she and Jim are still married.

I worked for the Owens Illinois Glass Plant in the summer of 1969. I saw the U.S. land on the moon while I was at work at the glass plant. It was neat working at the same plant at the same time my mother worked there. I made more money working that summer than I had ever made in my life. It was during this time that I fell off of a metal conveyer and cut my left hand. I still have a one-inch scar on my left hand where the doctor stitched my cut.

I left the house when I left for college at Tarleton State College at Stephenville, TX to play football.  Later changed from football to ROTC and then decided full time college was not for me and returned to Waco.

I later returned to Waco and lived and worked at Wilkerson & Hatch Funeral home where I worked driving the hurse picking up deceased people and greeting people at the funeral home chapel.

During this time I attended college at McLennan Community College where I met Ann G. I then started working for the Waco Police Department as a Police Cadet since the police paid for my college under a police officer grant.

Shortly after starting work for the Waco Police I joined or was ask to join (draft) the U.S. Army and later became a Military Policeman. I returned to Waco on leave from the Army to marry Ann G, then left for Viet Nam.

While I was in Viet Nam my parents sold the house on Herring Ave and moved several times in the Waco area after that.

The house is still there on Herring Ave but the area is not the same and the owners in that area no longer take care of their houses as they did back in the days when I lived there.

Names may have been changed to protect those mentioned…smiling