I was born in 1947 in Los Angels, California. I was only
there about a year, then my dad decided he couldn’t
make it in the big city so we left to travel in the car and
be “fruit tramps”or “pickers” so we all -7 kids- lived in
a 37 Chevy car. I have memories of camping in a large
tent under a bridge.  I have memories of living in a big
house in Sacramento for about 3 months and we had to
go with a welfare worker to some office to apply for
help. My mom my baby sisters and me got to ride in a
Newer 1949 car with big back doors. This had to be in
1951. I remember my older brother was playing in a big
field behind the house. I remember that my older sister
lost a needle in the front yard and I sat on it and she
laughed really loud.
In that same big house I was running in when we got
back from somewhere and there was an old time
broom sitting by the door, this was the type of broom
that had a piece of tin holding the bristles to the broom
handle. Well my foot hit that piece of tin and split my
foot wide open. I started crying in pain and my dad told
my mom to hold my foot “that was bleeding like mad”
while he proceeded to poor turpentine all over my
open wound. That set me on fire and I was in terrible
pain for hours, my dad said this would keep down the
infection cause we didn’t have money for any doctor
care and we would have to do the best we could with
what we had.

Then in 1953 we moved south to a very small town
called Farmersville, Ca. We stopped under a large oak
tree with a small stream going under it. All we had was
that old car and a tent. My mom cooked with 2 iron
skillets. She cooked biscuits with one skillet turned
upside down to immolate an oven. She did this cooking
over an open campfire. She would always cook up
some “taters and beans” that was our main diet
because that food cost less and we ate that twice a
day, for lunch and dinner. Sometimes we would get
some milk at a dairy and we had gravy and biscuits in
the morning time, boy was I lucky when we got milk.
That gravy and biscuits filled my tummy and lasted me
a while. Just in case we did not get to eat again that
day. Yes lots of time we had to do without any food at
all.  One time my dad went to a yard sale and someone
gave him a monopoly game. Us kids really liked
playing that game to pass the time while we were
camped under that old oak tree by the stream, of
coarse we had to fight off the mosquetoes.

After a while we were lucky enough to get a house on
Shasta street in Farmersville, California. I believe that
was about 1954. It was a very small house but dad said
at least it was a roof over our head. It only had One
bedroom but all 9 of us (7 kids) and 2 adults shared it. I
can remember several things that happened it that
house. The First thing I remember is we had a big pit in
the back yard where we put all the trash and later
buried it. It was a very big hole, about 14 ft wide and 20
feet long.
Another thing I remember is my sister who was one of
twins fell from the high chair and hit her head and got
cereable pausly. The state came and took her away
after several court apeerinces by my parents.
We met a the people next door and they were an Indian
family from Arizona. One of the boys was named Gus
Marks and he and I used to play together sometimes.

Most of my memories was in another house out on
ave. 288 between Exeter and Farmersville. The year
must have been 1956.
One thing I did there is with my uncle Lester Hendrix, I
planted 2 very small pine trees. They are now 60 feet
tall.

We had no indoor bathroom in this house we had an
outhouse that was located about 300 feet away from
the house down the trail almost to the creek. It stunk
something awful because it was an open hole in the
ground with a small building built over the hole. It had
two spots to sit when you had to go.


 I used to clime the trees and swing on the grape
vines. The grape vines used to grow all around and
inside the trees and all around the limbs.  One of the
things I did when I was a kid, I would swing from one
tree to the other just like Tarzan. One year the movie
company came, they bought a lot of the grape vines.
They came in trucks to get the grape vines so that the
actor (Johnny Wiesmiller) could swing on them when
they made movies.

I had some ghostly experiences there as well.

I was sleeping in the house all by myself. About
midnight I heard foot steps walking across the back
porch, then I heard someone open the back door then
walk across the room toward my bed. The foot steps
very slowly walked right up to the edge of my bed. I
ask him what do you want?. It was so dark I could not
see anything in front of my face. The sound of the
footsteps then turned around and walked toward the
back door. I heard the screen door open  and then I
heard the foot steps again walk across the back porch.
My life by Danny Jones Sr.
Danny Sept 2001
Danny
January 2010
Salvation
Mountain