I was born the youngest of two boys in 1947 . The only chores I had was to get up and eat breakfast ; go to school ; collect rocks ; play with horny toads ; or dig holes in the yard to play marbles . And I couldn't even do that without getting into trouble . My mother got mad at me for leaving half eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches under the pillow for her to find when she made the bed in the mornings . For some reason it made an awful mess on her snow white sheets . My mother was home room mother in my first grade and best of friends with the teacher . I had to walk a whole two and a half blocks home from school , so one day when I came home covered in Oklahoma red clay mud she imediately called the teacher up and asked her what on earth I had dome at school to get so muddy . The teacher told her that I was clean when I left the school . My mother stripped me off naked as a jay bird out side and hosed me off with garden hose gave me a quick bath and marched me back down to have a face to face talk with the teacher and her . They cornered me and ask me what I had done to get so muddy on the way home and I explained to them that I had went through the alley on the way home and found a nice big red mud puddle and decided to play " Aligator" My mother was not a happy camper because the Oklahoma Red Clay dosn't wash out very easy with a wringer washer .