Dhahran Diary

Title: The Volunteer

DD08

1049-A in 1952. The volunteer is the Acacia in the left edge of the photograph. An almond tree adorns the other side of the yard. (rcc)

When we moved into 1047, a portable on Dhahran's east side near the head of seventh street, we were on the edge of the desert. The town had several areas and they were named with humor intended: Skunk Hollow, the Flats, Whiskey Gulch, Easter Egg Row, etc. Someone told me we lived in Skunk Hollow. There was no camp perimeter fence then and the Arab Police station was just behind our house to the north. Their marching band (percussion and symbols) used our oily street to practice and we would sit on the stair stoop and watch them in the late afternoon. Workers poured the sidewalk on one of those days and as we watched the band, the finisher pressed my sister's feet into the wet cement and neatly printed her initials, JKC, and the date.
1049-A in 1983. The streets are better, the hedges higher, and I was able to find my sister's sidewalk footprints tucked beneath a hedge to the left. (cac)
In 1950, we moved next door to 1049-A. The Redmans were on the other side in B. Shirley Hall’s folks moved into 1047 and John Horn moved in on the corner at 1045. No two places in camp had the same number so when someone asked where you lived, you didn’t say the street. Stevie Furman lived at 1151-B, for example. Our telephone number was four digits! We started with a woven barasti (stripped palm frond) fence; the grass was plugged and began to spread. Dad took down the front fence and sculpted a swooping privet hedge; he trimmed that. I did the lawn and trimmed the side hedge until we hired a gardener.
In the front corner, where the hedge shared the corner with 1047, I noticed a small vine sticking above the hedge one day while I was mowing. The leaves were different from the privet. I searched into the hedge and found the trail down to the ground. It was actually several tendrils and they were twisted about one another. I showed it to Dad and over the years we watched the volunteer Acacia grow to become a 30-foot sentinel. It was a kind of landmark on our street because none of the trees grew close enough to the sidewalk to provide shade. It was eventually the biggest tree on the block. During shamaals it would bend to the south and whip like laundry on the line. It shaded both yards and the sidewalk. Pedestrians used to pause beneath it on hot days.
Melitza and Johnnie Rusher enjoy shade from the volunteer, the trunk of which can be seen behind them. (rcc)
Abdulla was our first and only gardner. He was quiet and we talked mostly with hand signs. He got a better job with ARAMCO or a contractor. (rcc)

When I returned to Dhahran in 1982, I went right to 1049-A. The hedges were tall, untrimmed, and the Acacia was gone! A driveway covered its resting place. Ten forty-seven wasn't the same either; it was still a portable but of a different kind, and the property line between the two homes had been adjusted. The sidewalk was badly spalled except where the hedge overlapped the concrete. I pushed the base of the hedge back in several places and finally found my sister's tiny prints. They are final testimony to families who had gone before and days that had gone by. I made a rubbing and later sent it to her.

I walked around the back by going to the alley at the end of the street. My fort was gone. I’d had it for years and finally we ended up keeping my bike and yard stuff in it. It was made from wooden packing crates in which our personal effects shipment arrived. Dad helped me with the basic structure. The siding was up to me. There were a few places that never got sided. I preferred to think of those as windows.

There was a clothes line in back and it reminded me of how Mom always had to watch out when her underwear was drying. The laborers used to steal anything pretty like that, probably to take home to their ladies. As I looked under the clothes line, I noticed a full crop of grass. At one time no grass grew because we had a gas line leak and it somehow upset the balance and probably poisoned the earth. We complained for over a year and finally someone with laborers came and dug up the ground. We could smell the gas odor strongly. About the time they uncovered the pipe, it was time for lunch and they all left to eat and have a nap. When they came back, the ries-kabir lit a rolled up paper and tried to find the source of the leak. He jumped down into the ditch and there was a big harummpf! The gas ignited and he came out of that hole fast, without eyebrows or lashes. Luckily he had a hat on.

Funny what you remember about the house you grew up in. It was a great house; I lived in it for eight years including the time I called it home while away at ACS (Beirut) and ANA (Carlsbad, CA).

Copyright ©1999-2006 Rolf A. Christophersen
All Rights Reserved.

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