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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 349
The Radio:
We listened to the radio. [Did you have Delco lights?]. No. The first radio we had was run off a big battery and had an antenna, like you used to see on televisions in the house. The battery was next to the radio. I had a cousin who was handy with wires. He ran a copper wire out to a ground. The ground was a metal stake or post in the ground. We had to put baking soda in the battery when it went down.
It was about 1938 that we got it. We were just starting to get into the war. Joe Lewis was boxing. People would gather at our house to hear it [the boxing matches] on Friday nights. Mother or Daddy didn't allow drinking at our house.
Drinking:
Some people drank. [Did people make home brew?] Yes. Home brew was put in a big keg; it had hops in it and stuff. They'd take the barrel down and put it in the spring. [How did they pour it out?] The barrel had a hole in the top with a plug in it. When we were little boys, we'd sneak down and pull the plug. One time I got drunk.
Christmas
Cleophus said:
Christmastime wasn't like it is today. Me and my brothers and dad would go out in the woods and cut down a tree. We'd set it up. My mother got little red berries that grew in the neighborhood and strung them with a thread. We put cotton balls on the tree. They were pretty. Mother took strips of the colored paper that we'd bring home from school. She'd take a scissors and make curls of the strips. Each child would get one toy. No more. But we had lots of fruit. We had plenty of food.
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