OK, so I admit it – maybe not a perfectly, perfect childhood, but if it wasn’t, I did not know, not then, not now.

         Growing up in Meridian during the 1950s/60s was, needless to say, a simpler time, a sweeter time. Momma was a stay-at-home type and took care of me and Daddy. Did I mention I was an only child – could be part of the perfection, I suppose?

    Until I was age three, my parents rented a nice apartment in a Victorian home, which was located on 24th Avenue and 12th Street. Daddy worked downtown. He claimed to have heard Momma call my name many times as he walked home from work. Momma never believed him, though.

         Shortly after my third birthday, Daddy had the audacity to hire a contractor to build one of those compact, modern homes. Momma claimed to have always lived in an “old barn type house” and was ready for something different. The home was built on 43rd Avenue and 19th Street, near Highland Park. Right next door was an almost identical twin of our new house that had been recently built as well. This was radical for the time because the neighborhood was old and had several Victorian homes.

         In addition to building the compact, modern house, Daddy added a first for the neighborhood – a carport. Once we moved to the “outskirts,” daddy needed a car. He bought a Studebaker in the most gosh-awful greenish color. Daddy loved his Studebakers and became a lifelong customer of the Lex Chamblin Dealership.

         The new house next door belonged to an elderly couple and the wife’s old maid sister. They were Carrie and Frank Dennis, plus Miss Eula Lamb – very important people in my life. Since there were no other children in the neighborhood and the fact that I was an entertaining three-year-old, the neighbors immediately invited me to address them as Grandma Dennis and Aunt Eula. Now Mr. Dennis never asked that I call him Grandpa. He was Mr. Dennis and I was OK with that. However the twinkle never left his eyes when I was around.

         Mr. Dennis had recently retired from GM&O Railroad. He was a conductor, who made the New Orleans route; therefore he was acquainted with Cajun style food. It was on a Saturday afternoon, when Daddy returned from work, that we (Mr. Dennis, Daddy and I) drove to downtown in the new Studebaker. Daddy drove because you see Mr. Dennis never owned a car – didn’t want one. He and Grandma, also Aunt Eula, preferred the city bus, which they boarded at the corner of 20th Street and 43rd Ave. I mean for everything – groceries, church, doctor appointments, and visits to their son who lived near downtown.

         But back to Saturday afternoon – Mr. Dennis said, with a twinkle in his eye. “Howard, there’s a surprise we need to pick up at the depot.”

         Boy did my ears perk-up. However I never missed anything anyway. We drove 20th Street east to 24th Avenue and headed downtown. We passed the A&P Grocery where Momma and Grandma Dennis shopped, and then we turned in front of The Temple Theatre, passed Nylons Coffee, and turned right. Next we passed the Threefoot Building and as well Marks Rothenberg, where my Uncle Oren Calvert was the Men’s Department manager.

    I glanced toward Mangles Ladies Wear, where Aunt Ilene Knotts was manager, but she was nowhere in sight. Finally we turned in front of Lamar Hotel, where Uncle Berry Brooks was manager. I was familiar with all of these places but I had never been to the depot.

         We arrived and parked. Daddy grabbed a large cage out of the trunk. As we entered the depot, Mr. Dennis greeted his old friends and introduced me! I felt like a princess. Then it happened – the surprise. It was a huge live crab from New Orleans that Mr. Dennis threw in the cage. Everyone must have been in on it because they watched as I shrieked and Mr. Dennis gathered me in his arms.

     “Let’s go,” he said. “Grandma has a pot of boiling water ready.” And she did.