I've slept in some interesting places in my life.  I don't remember the first, I just know about it.  Apparently for the first few weeks-months of my life, I slept in a dresser drawer.  It actually makes sense if you think about it.  Alas, I have no memory of it so I can't tell you if the drawer was dark wood, light wood, painted or covered in wallpaper.  I just know I did.  I think maybe it was a foreshadow of my future life kind of like the whole dad moving us while mom was having me thing.  I was doomed to a life of moving and sleeping in strange (though usually exciting) places.

The first I remember, is Mesa Arizona.  I was seven.  We lived in a one  bedroom apartment while mom and dad looked for a house to buy.  The roof was mostly flat (not enough pitch to roll at all) so dad took me to the roof and let me sleep there sometimes.  It was so much fun.  you'd lay there in the middle of this big city and could see a few stars, listen to the sounds of life around you, and drift to sleep wrapped in the night sky.  It was marvelous.

My next interesting slumber party with myself was almost two years later.  I was in Meiners Oaks California.  We lived on the corner of El Roblar and some other street.  A sidewalk  and then a stretch of grass with occasional bushes separated us from the main street.  We had a strange bush right at the corner of our house in this grass section.  It was very "branchy" at the top with lots of drooping leaves that left the center hollow.  A perfect place to sleep.  I bundled out there with my sleeping bag, a pillow, and listened to the sounds of people walking by, driving by, and imagined what their lives were like.

Some were easy.  Those who stumbled by drunk were hobos trying to drown their sorrows in cheap wine and they ran from them from town to town.  How does an eight year old come up with this stuff?  Maybe from hearing Tramp's Heaven a few hundred times.  Sometimes a couple would walk by "whispering" sweet nothings in each other's ear.  I imagined they'd been separated by circumstance but finally found each other again.  Sound a little like California Joe?

In Ventura I slept on the beach a few times just outside Uncle Lon's camper.  In Landers I was too afraid of sharing my bed with scorpions and sidewinders to risk sleeping in the wash but man I wanted to.  In Missouri, I slept on Grandpa Fullerton's lawn and watched the cars "cruising".  Woke up full of chiggers too.  Note:  If you sleep on the lawn in Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas and similar places, put down a tarp THREE TIMES larger than you think you'll need.  Arms and legs have a habit of flinging off of four trash bags taped together.

From there we moved to Arkansas but were only there two weeks.   When we finally settled in Mojave, at first I slept in the travel trailer.  However, it was crowded in there and while I never complained, dad snored.  I was glad when they suggested I move out onto the "porch".  This was an interesting scenario.  Picture it.

The wind comes from a westerly direction.  The trailer blocks it.  (And rocks like mad when the wind is bad- which is about half the time) There is about six to eight feet of lattice covered patio to the east of the trailer.  My bed is on the far north east corner of this.  I often woke up covered in sand but it was a lot of fun.  In winter dad would heat rocks in a huge 55 drum barrel, wrap in blankets, and put around me then cover me with more blankets.  Boozer often slept at my feet. 

That was the last "interesting" place I slept.  Ever since then it's been beds, couches, hotel rooms, and air mattresses.  I lead a boring life now.  I'm not counting camping expeditions.  Sleeping in abandoned mines is expected when one is camping isn't it?  Should I have included sleeping in the "Okie Camper?"  I think I'll save that for another tale.