Nearly eighty years ago, in 1921, two small boys huddled fearfully near a smoky fire in the middle of a Lousiana swamp, while our young father hunted for firewood and mother fried bacon and eggs as dusk approached. We were surrounded by hordes of mosquitoes, and the grunts and roars of the alligators made a frightening chorus. After supper my mother, little brother David -- age four, and I -- age six, crept into a decrepit tent and tried to sleep, while father stayed up all night, keeping the smudge burning to try to ward off snakes, mosquitoes, and alligators. He was nearly bitten by a cottonmouth moccasin while he was picking up firewood.

The immediate reason for this miserable campsite was that at the end of a day of driving we had come to the end of the road. A canal led on out of the swamp, but we had missed the ferryboat of the day. Next morning, the ferry picked us up with our old Chandler auto, and carried us to the next dirt road.

How did we get into the swamp in the first place? The answer is a tangled and dramatic story in itself. We were on our way from Nebraska to Iowa by way of the Gulf Coast. Strange, I know. Let me explain.

Mother had inherited a fortune, forty thousand dollars, from her pioneer grandparents. They had become wealthy by trading with the Sioux, and other Great Plains Indians in western Nebraska, for buffalo hides. Great grandma had made these into winter coats, mittens, and hats for the covered wagon people going to California. She was small but brave, and sometimes used her broom on unruly Indians.

Dad and mother, college graduates, taught in country schools, then Dad became cashier in a small town bank. Naturally, they deposited the inheritance in the bank. This turned out to be a bad mistake, because the bank president embezzled all the money, the bank folded, Dad was out of a job, and the fortune was gone! And three small children to feed.

They never saw that much money again. As far as I knew, mother never had a word of reproach for Dad, but of course it was a devastating blow. They decided to shake the Nebraska dust from their feet, go home to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and look for a new job. And -- what the heck -- blow what little money they had on a detour to the Gulf. Marilyn was born later.

Of course, I didn't learn this part of the story until I was much older. The rest consists of vignettes from my own memory.

We must have spent several days driving through the rural South, because I had vivid memories of other strange adventures.

One evening we came to a big, old abandoned farm house. After our camp supper, it started to rain, so we took our cots into the house and went to sleep. We were too tired to let small scurrying sounds bother us. But at daybreak, we were startled awake by a loud clattering noise over our heads. Obviously, the house wasn't abandoned after all; but who or what could be living there? After a while, the clattering came down the stairs toward us, and my hair stood on end! It was a flock of goats!

At another campout in another forest, I was sitting on a log fence watching a boy driving a balky cow along a footpath, hitting the cow with a stick and employing a picturesque vocabulary I'd never heard before. I hurried back to the family, trying not to forget the words. When I told them, mother washed out my mouth with soap -- the only unfair punishment I ever received!

I think it was that same night that we were sitting around the fire when we heard a thrashing noise in the tree overhead. Suddenly a snake fell onto the ground beside my brother, with a half-swallowed rat in its mouth. We all watched, fascinated, as the snake with its unhinged jaws slowly continued swallowing until the rat was just a lump in the middle of the snake.

The old car had more than its share of flat tires, usually far from civilization. Dad had brought a tire pump and rubber patches for inner tubes. I still have a mental picture of an inner tube that blew up while he was pumping air into it. The tube flew high into the air, leaving Dad with a bloody arm.

The roads were primitive in those days. I doubt very much whether my parents had the slightest idea (or perhaps they didn't care) how difficult the journey would be. More often than not, when the road is crossed a stream, there was no bridge. Cars were built higher off the road then to allow for deep ruts. It was always a gamble, when we crossed a stream, whether the water would be too deep and kill the engine. Even if it rained too hard, the sparkplugs would get wet, and that would stall the car, too.

Finally, we reached the romantic city, New Orleans. I hope my parents were able to hear some jazz and sample Cajun and Creole delicacies. My only memories were of the fantastic harbor and the shipping decks where big ocean freighters were unloading all sorts of colorful exotic products from South America, Central America and Mexico. Parrots, macaws, huge snakes, bananas and other fruits, and -- to my amazement -- cages and cages of monkeys and other wild animals were sitting on the dock perilously close to the sheer drop-off into the ocean. I watched the monkeys for so long that the family lost me. They came back and found me with the other monkeys, and said some unkind words.

Our next major stop was in the seaport of Galveston, Texas. We stayed with friends of my mother. She was familiar with the city, because when she was a teenager her grandparents had taken her there by train to spend winters. Galveston stays fresh in my mind because my parents almost drowned there. Both ardent fishermen, they had chartered a boat for a weekend of ocean fishing. A bad storm caught them by surprise, the boat nearly capsized, and they were a day late limping back to land. I can't honestly remember whether we boys knew at the time that they were in such danger, but some of my own adventures have made it possible to guess some of the thoughts that must have gone through our parents' minds when they were so close to death.

While we were in Galveston, we all went for a walk along the beautiful broad white sand beach, with no-one in sight for miles. Little brother David tagged along behind exploring tidal pools. After a while, Mother looked back, screamed and behold -- there was no David in sight! We ran back, and by very good luck, we saw his blond hair floating in a deep pool! He had just fallen in. Dad rescued him. I don't know whether he'd have gotten out by himself, but knowing his stubborn character, I suspect he would have.

I can't remember the trip north to Cedar Rapids, so we must have avoided more hair-raising adventures. Dad found a job as a real estate agent, making about two hundred dollars a month, and worked until we had all grown up.