Asher Sisneros

In this lesson, I must write three stories that will go in my autobiography. This three stories in this assignment must have a minimum of five hundred words.

My story probably starts when my family moved into a tiny house in Dayton, Texas. This house boasted a modest 1,300 square feet and sat on a half-acre lot, which was a major improvement from the non-yard condo we had lived in previously. Even though we all sat on the ground in the bare, unfurnished living room, there was still something relieving about no longer being in the claustrophobic city of Houston. The city is pleasant temporarily, but children should dig their feet in the dirt. We could do that here where It was quiet and relaxing.

We finally felt relaxed, not having to worry about our neighbors underneath us complaining about us kids stomping too much. Here, in Dayton, we weren’t in a condo and didn’t have neighbors underneath us. It was just us, and we felt liberated.

However, this was contrary to my parents’ initial impression of Dayton. When first visiting the remote city, they were very unimpressed. But with a fourth child on the way, my parents were desperate to get out of the condo. My step-grandfather said he owned a rental property in Dayton, and if we were interested, he’d be willing to sell us the house. Finally, they conceded to visiting the property. We met up at an old run down Burger King in downtown Dayton, which aside from two donut shops, was the only restaurant in town. We walked inside the Burger King and were met with absolute filth! Everyone in there was smoking and was incredibly inhospitable. The floor appeared to be swept once a month. If this was a representation of Dayton, the city was practically screaming “Get away fool!” Understandably, my parents did not want to see the property after this experience, but they drove too far to call it quits now. The house was three minutes away.

After driving up to the house, surprisingly, it wasn’t bad. The neighborhood was pleasant and the house fairly secluded. There were trees and a large flat yard. Grass. Grass that I could step in. I certainly couldn’t do that in the condo. Even though the house was built in the 1920s, it was merely made of wood; we could fix any imperfection. The important thing was that the yard and neighborhood were nice. My parents would consider it.

Three months later, we moved in.

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After moving in, our first order of business was getting some chickens. They were a necessity for a Texas homeschooling family. We contacted our friends in Lake Jackson, Texas, and placed the order; five hens were on the way.

Now all we had to do was build a chicken coop. My dad quickly got to work sketching out a blueprint, and the chicken coop was underway. Even though we were new to the large family, homeschool life and completely inexperienced in raising chickens, there was one thing for sure – our coop wouldn’t be a standard chicken tractor. No, we would create a palace for our hens, and it would be the envy of all poultry-owning Texans. Instead of laying our chickens in a chicken tractor with faces in the dirt, our elevated coop would ensure the hens sat comfortably in a thick bed of pine shavings. The coop was three feet off the ground, and eight feet tall. We even made a ramp so they could comfortably get in the coop at night. It turns out our design was fairly common, but we were still proud of it.

When our friends came to deliver the chickens, everyone wanted to hold the plump, large feather spheroids. The hens were just fat bundles of joy. When I first picked one up, I remember making the mistake of wrapping my two arms symmetrically around the chicken. My left arm was propped the hen’s neck against my chest and right arm was firmly underneath the chicken’s tail feathers. Emphasis on underneath! Underneath the tail feathers! Pick up I’m laying down? I can still distinctively remember that instant feeling of regret. I won’t go into detail, but I’m sure you get the idea. My father and his five-year-old humor went into hysteria. I don’t blame him.

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Not long after moving to Dayton, my dad decided to stir up some trouble locally with the small town bureaucrats. During Ron Paul’s 2008 & 12 presidential campaigns, he met a ton of like-minded folks. Come to find out, when a bunch of young Republicans got together in a small concentrated area, they could have impact. With this new discovery, my dad and his buddies didn’t waste any time getting into fights with the local officials.

One of their biggest passions? Lowering taxes. When the city wanted to pass a massive bond to repair the school, and “become the next Kingwood” they all got fire-eyed. I’m won’t get into all the boring details of block walking or holding signs, but I will tell you about one beautiful instance of Sisneros’ obnoxiousness.

We had three “vote no” signs in our front yard. It turns out that because Dayton was a small town, all the old folks knew each other. Well, the DISD superintendent got angry about my dad’s vocal stances against the bond and couldn’t stand his three signs. On one unsuspecting day, we got a call from my grandmother. The Dayton ISD superintendent had called my step-grandfather and told him that radical trouble makers were living in his house. She told him he’d be wise to evict us as soon as possible. Evict us! Because of our “radical views.” My step-grandfather then kindly informed her that we weren’t renting, but had purchased the house. We were also his relatives. My parents got furious when they heard the story. In retaliation, we struck back like true Sisneros’. The superintendent had a problem with our signs? We could fix that. The next morning, my dad put about forty signs in our front yard! The yard signs weren’t three inches apart. He covered every square inch of our property in “vote no” yard signs. It was a true spectacle.

After that, we took a break from doing anything too out there with our yard. Instead, we’d just focus on gardening and the chickens. Even though some people in Dayton were snarky, and very unsocial, life would prove eventful there, and we would learn to make it our home.