W's Childhood Home

home of 2 presidents"We were always organizing a game," Bush said. "We played for hours until our mothers would pull us away. My childhood memories are of playing in Little League games and going over to Mike Proctor's house, my best friend. To get to a friend's house in Midland, you would walk down a couple doors, climb someone's fence, and cut through a yard, only crossing the street when you absolutely had to. You could ride your bike downtown and take in a movie. We walked to Sam Houston Elementary School every school day for six years."Like many of Midland's parks, Cowden Park was built in a natural depression known as a playa lake or buffalo wallow. The baseball field was a man-made attraction. But the park held more mysterious secrets. Neighborhood children waited for the park to come alive after a playa-filling rain. Toads by the hundreds emerged from their subterranean hideouts. In the 1950s, young George and his running buddies were there to catch a few croakers.