As often happens when I wake up on a really cold morning my mind races back in time to earlier life here in Bandera. To say things are easier now weather-wise would be putting it lightly. Back in the day central heat would have best been explained as everyone sitting in a circle around a wood burning stove in Granddaddy Kindla's kitchen.
School day mornings in the winter were an event to behold if the weather was extremely cold. Brother Eddie and I had a bedroom on the screened back porch which required tarps covering the screened area during fridgid weather. It was made inhabitable by piling on layers of heavy blankets. Luckily it was just a few steps to the heated bathroom and kitchen.
Any show of resistance about rising became a battle of wills and my mom always won. Always! If the verbal threats didn't get results the broom whacking on the foot of the bed soon brought us out of hibernation. The smell of cinnamon toast was added incentive for us to hit the cold concrete floor but even today I can still feel that warmth and comfort we had under those blankets.
Early married life in the winter brought on a change of my attitude. We were living in a small two bedroom woodframe house with one propane heater in the living room and one in our bedroom along with one small one in the bathroom and a propane kitchen stove. Leaving the heaters going all night was a no-no except in extremely cold conditions. I guess it amounted to taking a chance on burning up the house or freezing to death. Anyway, becoming the one to get up first to light the fires gave me a greater appreciation of my mom's winter daily routine in earlier times.
By the time my son came along and we bought our first house central air and heat were a common household item. If there were struggles to get him up for school I was unaware because I commuted to San Antonio for work and I was long gone before the roosters started crowing.
Later when grandkids came to live with us and there was some resistance to early morning waking while I was around I would march into their bedroom playing 'Reveille' on my make believe bugle. At first it was viewed as irritating but eventually it became more of a fun tradition. Well it was fun unless I used it to wake my wife on mornings when we had someplace to go.
All those events make my memories of growing up in Bandera feel a bit warmer. Now I can just see my friends from back in the day nodding in agreement as I recall those cold winter days from our early Bandera life. We all had our own stories.
Next time maybe I'll include some less familiar stories like when the older boys at St. Joseph's Catholic School showed some of us younger boys how to pee on the cast iron radiator heaters in the boys bathroom on cold days. They swore it was a rite of passage even though that sort of behavior never passed the smell test.
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