The Rocking Chair

My mother, Malelia, was one of the finest ladies that ever lived. She experienced an incident when I was about three years old that really threw her into a serious panic. The following story describes the incident.

The Rocking Chair

 

In late 1945, my family lived at the Philview Camp west of Borger Texas. my Dad worked at the Phillips Petroleum Borger Refinery and my Mom was a homemaker. Located to the north across the highway were the Phillips Carbon Black Plant, the Phillips Butadiene Plant, and the Phillips Copolymer Rubber Plant. At this time the Carbon Black Plant did not have filters on the stacks and tons of black soot was lost to the air. My Mom would not hang clothes out to dry unless the wind was blowing out of the south. I was almost 3 years old at the time. My Mom still rocked me in her old rocking chair when she put me down for a nap. The rocking chair was made of wood and had parallel boards at the base of which one was stationary and one was mounted on springs to allow the rocking motions. My Mom was rocking me one day to put me down for a nap, and she was singing….”Oh where have you been Billy boy, Billy boy, oh where have you been charming Billy, I have been to seek a wife, she’s the joy of my life, she’s a young thing and cannot leave her mother”………. I had just about dropped off to sleep and my right arm fell off of the side of the chair as Mom made her rock to the back, when she rocked forward my middle finger was just across the top of the stationary board and the board on the moving part of the chair snipped off the tip of my finger. I woke up and hollered pretty load and Mom was in a hysterical panic. She grabbed the end of my finger and my sister JerrylDine, and we all headed for the ER. The doctor there worked trying to reattach the tip my finger for about 45 minutes, but he said because of the nail and the small size of the finger, he could not reattach it. He threw the finger in the trash and put a patch on my finger and we went home. Some of my friends may have noticed my right middle finger is about 1/4 inch shorter than the left one. My Dad threw the old rocking chair away and bought a new one that was safe for children, but after that I was not so fond of rocking in a rocking chair, so when she rocked me, she sat on the couch and just rocked me with her arms.

My Mom was really torn up by the rocking chair incident, but she shouldn’t have been. I think she was one of the best mothers I could have ever had. Thanks Mom.

That’s me at Philview Camp about a year after I lost the tip of my finger to the rocking chair.

My Mom at about the time the rocking chair incident occurred

The Carbon Black Plant North of us. No clothes will be hung out to dry today.

Thanks  for reading the Rocking Chair,

Hawg Jar Bill