my childhood in Bakersfield...

YEE HAW!!!! guess the secret redneck is out,tonight... thinking about my childhood,in Bakers' pit(Bakersfield,for you people,who do not understand)... i still remember it being very hot in the summer,and freezing near thirty two degrees,or lower,in the winter... my family grew up there,and i spent some wonderful years of my childhood there,too... listening to Willie's Roadhouse(classic old country music),on SiriusXM,right now... i still remember being bucked off my grandma's white stallion,at age five,or six,right onto my head... i was not on a horse until i turned nineteen,after that... i still smile about the summers there,running around with friends,or by myself... i remember Sundays at Dewar's,eating rainbow sherbet in the back seat of the family car,and eating a banana split,or two,there... i remember sliding down the stairs of the "treehouse" once,and to keep me from breaking my neck,i stopped my momentum by actually grabbing a piece of barbed wire,and deeply cut my left hand... i learned how to play basketball by shooting a red ball into a garbage can,or a cardboard box,in the back yard... getting sliced open by a rusty tin can lid thrown by my brother,who grabbed off a line above a dead garden,in the backyard(at least four stitches,above my left eye)... i remember nights delivering the Bakersfield Californian with my father,and then going to Winchell's for donuts,and hot chocolate... i remember Cecelia Diaz,who was my serious girlfriend in school,if you can say at age ten,you can be serious... she was a sweetheart... i loved tap-dancing in the kitchen,and going around the neighborhood in a pedal car... i remember watching semi-pro,or junior college football at Bakersfield College(the Renegades)... i remember the night Martin Luther King,Jr died looking at the newspaper,and everybody being quiet that night,and walking five miles,that next Saturday morning(getting huge blisters in the process)... i remember walking in my body cast to the bathroom,and after twelve long weeks(and some grumpiness from the folks),surprising the family by slowly walking into the kitchen one Sunday morning for breakfast(Mamish almost dropped my tray that she prepared for me,as she turned around-i had prepared all week,without telling anybody,to surprise everybody)... you may be surprised to know that i really remember all that... YEE HAW!!!!