Episode #27: 1969 The Year I Become A Country Boy

 We moved to the very small and very rural community of Callisburg Texas from Irving in the summer of 1969 after I completed the 6th grade. We had lived in Irving since moving from the Oak Cliff area of south Dallas during the Christmas holiday break of 1963, when I was in the 1st grade. I had lots of friends there and didn't like the idea of moving away, but that was the plan my parents had after buying 45 acres in Callisburg from Gene Westbrook earlier that year. My Dad was working in Denton at the time and was driving about 45 minutes north for work. My Mom was working at a Dallas newspaper and would soon be working at the Denton newspaper and they would both be driving about an hour south for work.

Over the previous several months we spent many weeks looking at mobile homes and floor plans to find the one that would serve as our new home in the country.  They wanted a custom built home and  found the manufacturer they liked and we took a quick weekend trip to the factory in Cabot Arkansas in early spring to finalize the floor plan. What they bought was a bit of a novel home in those days, which was basically two 12' wide single halves put together and suddenly is was a double wide and it was a three bedroom, two bath home with a utility room and formal dining room. The home was 24' wide x 56' long and had almost 1350 square feet and was bigger than the Irving house we had lived in for the last 5 1/2 years. The home was built, delivered and set up on time and we moved in during early July of that year.

The following is a couple of pictures of the delivered 2 piece double wide mobile home. The first photo  is of me and Danny standing on the trailer tongue before the two halves were bolted together. Behind me on the left was the living room and behind Danny was the kitchen. The photo below that is the north end of the house where the master bedroom was located.

The trailer was set only about 100' or so off the road on a corner that was the convergence of 3 gravel roads and it was dusty all the time and very dusty when a truck would drive down the road in front of the house. We seldom had the windows open unless the wind was from the north which helped blow the road dust away from the house.

We had to move in before everything at the new place was ready because the Irving house was sold and the new owners were ready to move in. As a result, we had to live a little primitive for a while. We had to have a water well drilled since there was no community water available and it wasn't finished out and we had to haul water for many days. Additionally the septic system was not finished and that took another couple of weeks but we got it done.

A few weeks later we are all moved in and now have all the comforts of home now, running water and all the amenities. We have lots of work ahead of us but we are excited about life in the country now that we are here. Below is my mom, dad, Danny, me and our new puppy Tiger. My mom is 34 and my dad is 33 in this picture below. My youngest two sons, Brad and Jacob are now 34 and 31. 😳

School started in late August and that was a whole new adventure for a couple of city boys that had been transplanted to the life of this very small and rural school. I knew only one kid the day school started, that being Eddie Westbrook who was the oldest child of the family that sold us the 45 acres and they lived about a quarter mile down the road. The school bus came by in mornings before 7am and the route was almost an hour long. That bus would drop us off at the high school campus and the Jr High kids would then get on another bus that would transfer us to that campus about 7 miles away. Jr High was an adjustment as it was since there was a different teacher for each subject, but fortunately for us, the kids stayed in the same room and the different teachers would rotate and come to our classroom. This was the first year of the newly consolidated school district utilizing the old Woodbine school building. That campus was so small, they had to bring in two portable buildings to serve as additional classrooms.

I found out pretty quickly that I did not like this long daily school bus ride but did not have much of a choice as we lived about 2 1/2 miles from school. The only thing I liked about it was there another new family that moved in that same year from Pennsylvania and they didn't know anyone either. The oldest was a boy my age so Kent and I became friends right away. Everyone else on the bus was either a little older or a lot younger. 

That summer of 1969 I turned 12 years old and since we were now living in the country, I got my first gun as a birthday present. It was a Remington .22 caliber single shot bolt action rifle. I still have this rifle 55 years later.

It wasn't long for my dislike to turn to hate for this long, dusty and rough gravel road school bus ride every single day. The next year when I was in the 8th grade I would leave early enough and walked to school many times when the weather permitted. 

In January of 1970 we had a snow event and even though we had lived only about 60 or so miles south of here I had never seen this much snow (which was only 1 1/2 inches) and school was canceled that day. This was because almost all of the bus routes were miles and miles of gravel county roads that presented a hazard for the bus and the kids on the bus. I still remember grabbing the camera and going out to the road and taking this picture.

One of the things we had to learn here was how to share the telephone. We were on a eight family party line and had to always be prepared for another family to be on the phone when you wanted to make a call. With that many families, someone was always on the line and receiving a call was even worse than making a call because that phone line was so busy.

Other than hating the bus ride to school, life in the country was really pretty good and I learned to like it quickly. The place had a large pond that had some really good fish in it and I could go any time I wanted to take about an 8-10 minute walk to the northeast corner of our place. Of course there were snakes and scorpions but we just simply learned to watch where we stepped.

Not long before we moved, our folks bought us a mini bike from Sears and Roebuck and we wore out the sidewalk on Priscilla Lane. I know the neighbors had to have hated us zooming up and down that sidewalk just as fast as that little engine would go. You can see the black marks on the side walk in the pictures below where we would hit the brakes and come to a sliding stop. That mini bike made for a lot of fun for me and Danny when we moved to the country. I bet we put 1000 miles on that little scooter before it played out and definitely got their $99 worth of entertainment and fun.

I made new friends quickly and played football in the fall and ran track in the spring. We soon had chickens for eggs and fryers, cows for beef, a pig for pork and a garden for home grown veggies. I am sure we missed on some opportunities offered by not growing up in the city but I have never regretted us moving to the country that summer in 1969. It was a good place for a couple of city boys transplanted into the rural life of Callisburg and I am sure that Danny would agree it was full of good memories.

Epilog-

I moved out in October 1975 when I got married. Danny moved out in August after he graduated high school in May 1978 and enrolled in a auto mechanic trade school in Dallas. My folks sold the 45 acres including the mobile home to a guy from Kansas in early 1979. The current owner is a relative of the Westbrook family that sold it to my folks in 1969. That old Air Liner double wide mobile home stood the test of time but was finally torn down in 2022 after 53 years. The brick home that is there now is very close to the location of the old mobile home. I took the picture below earlier this week in almost the same location as the one above showing the north end of the home (master bedroom) before it was bolted together. Only this home is about 50' closer to the rode, which is now a chip sealed road so no more dust.

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