Yeah, Ebbie: Us depression babies knew a different life than kids do today. This is the rest of what I've written about those first years:

"The only renters that I can remember were Tommy and Florence Pope: the last ones we had before we took down the doors and expanded into the full house. Tommy was an alcoholic, although I probably didn't know the term at the time. He had ongoing bouts of heavy drinking for years, holding down a job when he had a sober spell and being dependent upon Florence's income during the times when he was drinking. Florence tried to keep his alcohol comsumption down to a minimum by cutting the flow of money into his hands when he wasn't working, but they had credit down at Simonsen's grocery on the corner. There were plenty of things with acohol to drink, if you weren't too fussy. Of course, it might look strange for a man to stop in and buy a dozen bottles of Extract Of Vanilla every week. That's where I came in. I was young, very innocent, loved Tommy and was allowed to take my wagon and go to the store by myself. I was always happy to run to the store for Tommy, and I suppose they never made an issue of my unusual orders, because I was only a kid. Monday mornings when we carried the trash out to the curb, there would be a bushel basket or two of clinkers from our coal furance, and one or two bushel baskets full of empty Listerine and Extract Of Vanilla bottles.

But, even though Tommy must have been half intoxicated a lot, I don't ever remember him being drunk. I guess he held his Extract Of Vanilla well. He always had the time for me and my sisters: somthing that must have seemed strange. I never thought of it that way, though: a man being home all day during the week. At a more sober time in his life, Tommy had been a fine musician. He had played French Horn in Sousa's band and had the photographs to prove it. And, no matter what he had been drinking, he was always happy to take out his French Horn and play it for me. There was one tune in particular that he loved, as I did. He would play it for me as long as I would sit on the edge of his bed and listen to him. Tommy was a gentle man who was broken somewhere along the line, and he didn't feel that he had much left to give. But in my eyes, he was wonderful. I wasn't old enough to understand the consequences of his drinking. He was a rare adult: someone who would give all he had, even if it was only a song on a French Horn. That was enough for me.

Tommy and Florence moved out when we opened up our house and we didn't see them often after that, although my parents liked both of them. A few years later, he was in a serious car accident in one of his drinking bouts and as far as I know, he never licked the problem. As I grew up, I gained a more balanced picture of Tommy, but I never forgot all those days sitting on the edge of his bed, lost in the pleasure of listening o him play his French Horn for me.

I'll post the lyrics to the song I wrote about Tommy separately, as this post is already longer than it should be.