What's in the Water in Midland, Texas?

Written by Harry Miller

Things I remember growing up in Midland Tx!!
Goat heads and sticker burrs
Dugout forts , in vacant lots, covered with plywood and then dirt.
Christmas tree forts from thrown out Christmas trees after Christmas 
Catching toads after rains. 
Catching tadpoles ,tadpole shrimp and ferry shrimp in rain filled pounds. 
Clod fights
Actually going out onto the tarmac to get on a commercial plane or to great your friends after a plane landed. 
They were prop planes then.
Wearing a suit and tie to travel by plane and having to use the barf bags in rough weather. 
TTA Trans Texas Airlines

Covering silver coins with mercury to make them shine like new. 
Making cigarettes from lined chief brand paper and pulverized cedar post bark. 
Hitchhiking all over Texas. 
Purchase booze at Pinkies when we were 14 years old. 
Killing English sparrows and rattle snakes with our BB guns. 
Pouring water down ground squirrel holes to catch them. 
Throwing knives at the ground or cardboard boxes. 
Fun with friends stretching a string attached to two cans across the road when a car came by. What a racket it made. 
Purchasing cinnamon oil from the Pharmacy and putting toothpicks in it to suck on. 
Trash can lids as shields in snowball, wooden sword ,clod, BB gun, and bottle rocket fights. 
Stripping down your bicycle and reversing the handle bars for racing. 
Kick the can games at night. 
Getting your parents to drive you to whatever the place was that was shining WW2 spotlights up in the sky to advertise their opening. 
Borden’s I’ve cream place. 
At Ann’s Catholic Carnival. 
Big John and Sparky 
Whole family listening to radio shows in the evenings , before TV. 
Swamp coolers and their wonderful smells before air conditioning. 
The first ballpoint pens. 
Crystal radio sets
Clothes line poles
Filling station attendants 

Also add to my list: boys playing marbles with names like cat eyes , clearies ,stealies and agates and girls playing jumping jacks. These are games we played at recess in Sam Houston elementary school.