The house we lived had a two bedrooms on either side of the living room one faced east, mine faced west. From the living room an open doorway led to the kitchen which featured a nook containing the kitchen sink, with running water, and a main area highlighted by a woodburning stove with a table and four chairs. There was enough room in front of the stove to stay warm when we filled a galvanized metal tub with hot water for our bath. There was a door from the kitchen to the west leading to our yard, which fronted a dirt road leading off to the north. There were several houses up that street. The room to the east of the kitchen held the washing machine, a large round agitator with a wringer on top. After wringing the water out we hung up the clothes to dry. On nice days they went outside. This room was open to the outdoors, with screens along the east side. To the north was a small room which might have served as a garage but which we used to store our fire wood. Every fall the Company brought by a load of mill ends from the planer which kept us toasty throughout the winter. The door to the wood shed featured a small dog door, large enough for a small boy to scuffle through, which I did one afternoon after Mom had dressed me up in my suit for a visit. When she saw my dusty disheveled state she directed me outside to get a switch. The door from the washroom to the east led to an uncovered porch and the raised wooden walkway that headed east for a while then forked. To the left was our two hole outhouse, and to the right was the path down the hill to the plank road that led up the hill to grandma's house or down the hill to our cousin's house, and then on to the paved highway. The front yard was seldom used. There was a pile of dirt where I played with toy soldiers or little wooden cars. When I was four Mom gave me an Exacto knife, a razor sharp blade attached to a round handle, to be used for carving wood. She suggested an elephant, and plopped a cube of balsa wood in front of me. I cut my fingers several times but managed to eke out something resembling a creature with a trunk. Mostly I carved up short pieces of planer ends into cars, or tanks, to play with in the dirt. The back yard was shaded by a giant maple tree. In the summer mom would fill up the galvanized tub with water outside so I could pretend to swim or just sit in the water on a hot day. Further down the path were more trees and a garden plot. A seldom harvested peach tree stood next to an apple tree which produced Gravenstien apples that sometimes became a delicious pie. Near the bottom of the hill was a walnut tree. I mostly used the walnuts for throwing. The tree was very good for climbing, and a small boy could hide up in the tree with a pocket full of walnuts, still in their green skins, and pelt unsuspecting passers by. This sometimes led to a switch hunt. Mom was not cruel, but she was under a lot of stress with a husband somewhere in the steaming jungles of New Guinea fighting for his life and a small boy with an independent nature. Working at the sawmill was not easy either. One afternoon I saw her limping as she came up the hill from work. Her job was to mark grades on the pieces of lumber as they came by out of the planer. There had been a lull in production and she was sitting on the edge of the table chatting when the chains carried down a piece of wood with a large splinter which jabbed into her unsuspecting right gluteous maximus. (butt cheek) She was sent limping and bleeding to the first aid station then sent home for the afternoon. The next day she was back on the job. The living room had a radio sitting against the wall on the south side, and there was a couch against either wall, and we would sit in the evening and listen to the news or to radio shows. I was certain at first that the radio was some kind of funnel which gathered sound coming up from the California to the south. I especially enjoyed the late afternoon shows, 15 minute serials starring Tom Mix (who had actually died several years before,) Terry and the Pirates, Captain Midnight, who led a group of young people on flying adventures, and of course The Lone Ranger. In the evening Mom liked to listen to Lux Radio Theater (Lux was a soap,) and a string of comedians: Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Fanny Brice as "Baby Snooks", Jack Benney, and Bing Crosby. She also like to listen to The Inner Sanctum, tales from the crypt, and other mysteries with sound effects that scared me, and often caused me to ask if I could sleep in her bed. We also listened to the news, Gabriel Heater, intoning "There's good news tonight," and other commentators from far off war zones. In 1944 my dad returned from the South Pacific in time to join us listening to the news of the election race between Roosevelt and Dewey. "Phooey on Dewey" we would shout at the radio. It was cosy little house, if primitive. We stayed there until dad wrote us from Denton, Texas, where he was now stationed, training Air Force personell no longer needed in Europe how to become jungle fighters. We were to pack up and drive the Hudson Terraplane to Texas and join him. Change was coming.