Aunt Oda's place and a moment of Deja Vu

As a young boy growing up in central Florida during the early 60’s, I had been to my Aunt Oda’s quite a few times. In all of those visits, I had never stayed there overnight. 

One time circumstances required that I do that very thing.

When I asked where I was going to sleep, they said, “Behind the garage. You’ll like it”. 

Now, the only thing I could remember behind the garage was a big field of weeds, or the hog barn. 

Neither one of which I could see myself sleeping in and liking it very much. 

I remember once, when I was pretty young, I was invited to help out with the hogs. My Aunt Oda told me all the guys were out at the barn weaning the hogs and asked me if I wanted to watch them. At the time, I didn’t have a clue what that was.

At first I thought she said “winging” the hogs. That could have been interesting. Hogs with wings. 

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The word “wean” had a nice ring to it, so I thought it might be fun. I ran out and jumped up on the fence to the outrageous sound of squealing hogs and the overpowering stench of hog doo. 

What she failed to mention was that they were also castrating the hogs.

Once I realized what they were doing I made a hasty retreat and left my legs clamped shut for several weeks. I couldn’t watch for long then, and I didn’t want to spend any time with any of those hogs on this occasion either. 
 

When the time came to go to sleep for the night, they took me out to the garage, which was three cars wide. We entered a door on the side of the garage. I found myself in a large room. No cars. 

There was however, a sink, a refrigerator, a stove, a couch that turned into a bed, a TV and a room off to the side with a full bath. I never knew they had an apartment out here. It was great, and I had the whole place to myself. I loved the open feel of the place. All apartments should be so cool! I think this is where I started to become interested in Architecture.

Aunt Oda’s main house was built close to a two lane highway. The house sat on a slight hill that dropped to the road. The hill was only about six feet tall or so. On the rare occasions I would visit there, I always managed to spend some time on that hill watching the trucks drive by. I used to try to get them to honk their horns as they drove by. You know, the old; reach in the air and tug motion. Back then, they almost always did. 

The first couple of times I think my Aunt thought I was out in the street and they were honking at me to get out of the way. She kept telling me to stay away from the road, even though I was sitting at the top of the hill. I guess she finally got used to it because after awhile she stopped running out to check on me.

Every once in a while a convoy of army trucks would go by. 

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To a young boy who loved to play “army”, this was a really cool thing to witness.  To see a dozen or so army trucks rumbling down the highway, each one painted the same dull camouflage green, just seemed like a real unusual treat. I never saw any tanks or artillery, but there were a lot of jeeps, covered personnel carriers, and miscellaneous other trucks that could have been carrying anything. I was always sure that’s where the dynamite and bombs were.


One time I was sitting on the hill watching all the cars go by and antagonizing the trucks to honk when I saw an army convoy coming around the curve. I stood up and waved at them as they drove by. 

...And drove by…

...And drove by… 

I had never seen this many army trucks in my whole life! They just kept coming.

The longest convoy I had ever seen up to this point was maybe 20 vehicles or so. I lost count of how many trucks went by that day, and my arm got so tired I just stopped waving. I finally got so tired I had to sit down to watch the rest of them. I think I may have even gone inside before they stopped rolling by.

Almost thirty years later I was watching a movie when I had a moment of Deja vu. 

Almost the same exact scene replayed itself in a movie. I think it was the “Missiles of October”. 

It was about the Cuban Missile crises and the scene was showing the troop movements, in truck convoys, through central Florida.
After seeing the movie, I couldn’t remember what road she lived on. When I checked a map (good ‘ole Delorme!) 

I found the highway she used to live on was route 27. It goes right through the middle of Florida practically from one end to the other. After checking some historical facts, I learned that this happened in 1962. I would have been nine years old. 

For the life of me I can’t recall why I was staying at my Aunt Odas, but I have no doubt that I saw all those trucks supplying troops to southern Florida for the Cuban missile crises. 

It was an amazing sight.

Have you ever had a moment of Deja Vu?