Mineral Wells, Texas

Wineral Wells was a small town near Weatherford where Mary Martin came from. It was about an hour from Forth Worth. It was the home of Crazy Water Chrystals. There was even a Craxy Water Hotel where the Hoosier Hot Shots played and broadcast nationally every Saturday night. This wash board and rubberband Band will turn up in my life about 25 years later/ Hope you will all be with me when they appear again.

Ptolemy asked how we got to Texas. We went there by rail. I don't remember if we had upper and lower berths or if we had just bought tickets for the upper. I know we spent most of our time there. I think we headded straight South and then went West. It was unbearably hot and uncomfortable. But what happened after we had to go by a little spur to Mineral Wells was like day and night. This little train had all the windows open. People were standing in the ailes and the people in the seats were in layers and some of them were eating cold fried chicken. And the flies were having a ball. Luckily it was a fairly short trip of maybe an hour or two. The temperature was over 100. From the station we took a taxi and we were so eager to get into a shower or a bath tub. We drove over huge flat areas and all of a sudden a sky Scraper appeard in the distance. Baker Hotel where we had reservations.

When we arrived in our room on the topmost floor, we had a big double bed with a huge fan, slowly rotating above. I kept looking for Sidney Greenstreet coming out of the shadows any time. We had to go out in the heat to get something to eat for we were starving. We ate in the diningroom at the hotel and S ran into a Lt. he knew from School. They chatted about the possibility of finding apartments in Mineral Wells and this man had tried for over a week and the response was always 'In five or six weeks.'

We spent a restless night and early in the morning S left and shared a ride with someone to Camp Walters. I knew that our divorce would be the next importtant chapter of my life if we had to live in this hotel. So I got dressed and went out to see about an apartment. I tried the obvious apartments and got the same message we had heard yesterday. So I tried the back streets and the small little houses and the verdict was the same. So I had a brilliant idea. I would go to the newspaper and see if they knew anything. I was standing at the counter waiting my turn when the man ahead of me said I want to put in an ad for an apartment for rent. He looked exactly like B O Plenty in the Dick Tracy cartoon. I said can I see the apartment before you put the add in? Well of course, little lady. Let's go and see it. Get in my truck and I will have you there in minutes. And so off we took in a red rickety pickup.

The place when we got there looked clean and neat from the outside. But it ws a tiny, tiny house. We knocked on the door and Mrs Plenty and their two children stood there. The older one was probably in her teens and the little one was 5 or 6. Mrs P wanted to know what kind of people we were before even showing me the place. She said: 'we don't allow any drinking here.' Oh, we can't live here then, for my husband has a drink every day before dinner. She looked puzzled and said: do you tell me he drinks and never gets drunk. I assured her that was the case. Well maybe we will make an exception. Let me show you the place. The house, probably up until yesterday had been a one family residence. An then the family moved overr to one side of the house. They had what had been the livingroom and the kitchen We would get one bedroom and one bedroom that had been turned into a kitchen.

There was one bathroom in the house and that was between our bed room and our kitchen. That meant the Plenties had to come over to our side to use the bathroom. And our lovemaking would be heard on the P's side, for it was obvious that the walls were paper thin. They mentined the rent and it was cheap. I said I have to show it to my husband before I can say we will take it. We will be back when he comes back from the Post.