Another Memory

One time I recall spending the night with my cousins. I’m not sure how old I was but I think I was around 18 or so. They are both younger than I am. It’s kind of a long story, and I won’t go into it here, but at that stage of their life they were pretty much living alone. They have a brother who is around my age but he was not there that night, but he did live there.

It was during the winter and their only source of heat was a heating stove which was in the living room. The bedroom was very cold. We all slept in a regular bed and they had an electric blanket. They had a big electric fan on the dresser which they turned on. I said, “Good grief, what are you doing turning the fan on and it zero outside?” Susan said, “Well, if someone is going to break in and kill us we just as soon not hear’em coming.” I told them I did, so I could maybe get to heck out of their way and under the bed and maybe while he was trying to kill one of us that the other two might get away or at least try to beat the crap out of him. But they wanted the fan left on. That was the way they were used to sleeping. They liked to sleep late and the mailman came along around 9 a.m. and he usually ‘scratched off and threw gravel’ when he took off from their mailbox and woke them up. As long as that fan was going they didn’t hear him or anything else that might disturb them.

I didn’t sleep very good that night. I kept listening for the murderer to come! Funny how those suggestions make you worry. Back then we didn’t lock doors like we do now. They lived way out in the country and the closest house was about a half mile away. I slept in the middle and being crowded between two people and not being able to turn on my side and draw my legs up, like I like to sleep, and basically having to lay flat on my back, under an electric blanket keeping you toasty warm from the neck down while the fan blew on you, in an already cold room, and your head froze off. I sure was glad when that night was over!