Category: 1950s

My Birth Certificate shows 1948, but Billy Windsor First Memories 1953.

Brother Tony was born 1950 and sister Wendy (aka Woot Woot Wooter) was born 12 days before my fifth birthday in 1953.  Billy Windsor First Memories 1953.

This is my brother Tony (16 months apart). Our Mom often dressed us alike. I have no idea where she got the money for the clothes as Dad was always underpaid.

I always thought we were rich, but when Dad died and I was the Executor, I learned that he always did without.

I did not have a beard at age 5.  LOL.  I had a high forehead (like my Dad), so I looked like I had a receding hairline when I didn’t.

I have a small mouth (except when I talk), and Doctors have said I have the ear canals of a six-month old child.

We lived in Columbus, Georgia from 1948 to 1953 where Dad was General Manager of WGBA Radio.

I had been on the radio by age 3.  Dad did the play-by-play for the Columbus Cardinals baseball team. I knew all the players, and I would sit with Dad in the Press Box and go on the microphone to comment on plays by my favorites, including second baseman Dom Barczewski.  His stats indicate he wasn’t very good, but I liked him for some reason.

I loved to play baseball.  I played through high school.  I was good on everything but pop files; I couldn’t judge fly balls.  It wasn’t until I was in my 50s that I learned I had eye dominance that affected my vision.  My eyes told me I was lined up, but I wasn’t.  Someone should have told me to close my right eye.

I loved my baby sister, Wendy.  Wendy (aka Woot Woot Wooter) was born 12 days before my fifth birthday in 1953.

I believe I was a very sweet and well-mannered little boy.

I believe I was a good brother and son until junior high school when I know I became too big for my britches.

Dad drove from Long Beach California to Columbus Georgia with Mom nine-months pregnant with me.  They hit a cow in Salome Where She Danced, Arizona, but Mom and I hung in there.

Dad checked in at a motel when we arrived.  Mom went into labor, and we were taken by ambulance to the City Hospital where I was born at 2:26 a.m.  Six pounds, 13 ounces, 10 fingers, and 10 toes.

Dad didn’t want his son to go home from the hospital to a motel, so he rented a house.  We lived at 2222 Buena Vistaa Road, 1701 17th Avenue, 1340 17th Street, 4609 Dogwood Drive, and 2834 Mimosa Street.

Dad took a job in television in 1953, and we moved to Duluth, Minnesota to handle the application for the first televison station there.  Dad bought a lovely home there at 47th and Robinson.  I guess he was planning to stay and manage the station once the license was approved, but a bigger opportunity presented itself.

My first memories are Duluth.  SNOW.  There was snow everywhere, and Tony and I found a sled in a shed out back.  We had a ball in the snow.  We built a very solid snowman.

I remember playing in the living room one night when water came down through the ceiling.  Someone forgot to turn off the water in the tub when running a bath.

Dad was offered and accepted his second job in television in 1953 as General Manager of KCMC-TV, and we moved to 1700 block of Hickory Street in Texarkana, Arkansas.  When Dad went back to Duluth several months later for the closing on the sale of the house, the  snowman was still there.

I remember standing on the state line in Texarkana with one foot in Arkansas and the other foot in Texas.  Other than that, I don’t remember a thing about Arkansas.

We moved to the Texas side in a rented home, and then we bought 4105 Rio Grande Avenue in Texarkana, Texas.

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10233434654634860&set=a.3465500322805