[RKDinOKC]

Okay, Story Time...

Some people question me remembering stuff from when I was really young. 6 months after I was born we moved from Pryor Oklahoma, a small town East of Tulsa, to OKC. I don't remember anything from living in Pryor or moving to OKC.

The first house in OKC was a rent house. I have a few memories from living there including when we moved to the house my parents bought just before I turned 2. Remember being carried into the attic over the garage of the next door neighbor and watching my brother and the neighbor running the train set in that attic. Remember my brother and the neighbor boy his age taking me up into their treehouse and reading comics with them. Also remember being carried across the yard and set in the wooden go cart my brothers put together using the lawn mower. It was steered by pulling on ropes. Grabbed the ropes then got upset because they wouldn't make it go for me. When we moved one of my favorite toys go left at the rent house. Parents took me back to get it. There was already someone else living in the rent house. My toy was a 2 ft square thin pressed wood sheet painted with grass, dirt roads, and a moat. In the middle of the moat was a metal castle with a drawbridge that opened a closed. Remember being really happy carrying my castle board to the car. Kinda weird I don't remember the little black dog we had when living there or what happened to it. There is one picture of me laying on the floor in front of the TV laughing with the dog licking my face.

The second house in OKC was the home my parents bought just before I turned 2 and lived in for 35 years. The block had ten houses facing the street with the houses across the east end of the block facing the cross street. Our house was the first house facing the street on the east end of the bock. It faced North. The block did not go through on the west end of the block, but the cross street, Waverly was the major street in and out of the neighborhood. Wavery only went one more block North and ended at the gate to a dairy farm at the next block.

On that bright clear morning I was 3 1/2 years old riding my tricycle around on the driveway. I looked west just in time to see a bird fly across the end of the block from south to north towards the dairy. It was HUGE! There was a car parked in front of the house on Waverly and the bird was a long as the car was. And it was easy to tell because it was in line with the car and only 15 to 20 feet above the power lines at that end of the block. There was more distance from the power lines to the ground than there were from the lines to the bird. It made one long slow downward flap of it's wings as it crossed. Where it from behind and disappeared behind show where it was placing it over the houses front yards on the west side of Waverly.

Being a bright clear sunny morning the sun was behind me and the bird was well lit. It looked like a brown eagle with it's head and neck the same color as it's body and wings. But it wasn't as brown. It was dark dark gray to black with brownish and bluish hilights from the sun showing the details of it's feathers. It looked forward the whole time and it's legs were tucked up so you didn't see them.

I jumped off my tricycle and ran into the house to tell Mom about the huge bird I just saw. My mom was in my brother's bedroom with newspapers on the floor painting my brother's desk. I told Mom about seeing a huge bird. She was busy painting, told me not to worry about it and to go play. Didn't even want me to show her where I saw it and listen to the description of what I saw. Took to playing inside and refused to go back outside by myself.

The neighbor across the street and one house over was a Marine recruiter. After a couple of days of me refusing to go outside by myself he, his 10 year old son Jody, my Dad, and my 16 yo brother George took me over to their back yard. They showed me a spot with some loose fresh dirt not much larger than a trash can lid, covered with a trash can lid with a brick on it. His son proudly brandishing his BB rifle they claimed he had shot the bird and buried it there and it couldn't get out because the the lid and brick.

They really should have asked me for details about what I had seen. My first thought at 3 1/2 was why did they think the trash can lid and brick would help. Either it was dead or it wasn't. Asked them to dig it up and show me. They said they couldn't do that it might get away. Told them I didn't believe them. Said the grave wasn't big enough for the bird I saw, that the trash can lid and brick were stupid, and a BB gun wasn't big enough.

Started playing outside again after another week, but I kept a lookout for any big birds in the area. After a while, since I didn't see any more large birds, I forgot about it.

Don't think anyone then or even now believes the actual size of the bird I saw. And I wasn't boogy man afraid that that particular bird was going to hunt me down and get me. And it wasn't an irrational fear like my brother has of snakes. I didn't run screaming, just went inside to tell an adult about it. I wasn't scared of going outside, I was just aware of birds big enough one could snatch a kid my size up in our area and nobody believed me.