1. Being able to go barefoot on a long dirt roads, getting those round stickers, sand spurs, in your feet...saying ouch, pulling it out, and beginning the routine all over. Now kids would sit down for 5 minutes crying, and need a band-aid. Or they won't go barefoot at all. If I did wear anything, it was flip-flops and you could see the white mark where the straps were and the rest of my feet were as black as a coal miner.
2. Going to my grandma's house for a week in the summer, going to the country I called it...she lived in Sylvania, Georgia....it was awesome, I miss her dearly. It was so cool to go up there and have acres and acres of garden area, or the fields as it was called, (before the crops were in of course) to run in....it was even more fun if my uncle had already tilled it all up. You know, we kids ran from one end of those fields to the other....promised to "watch out for snakes" that was all that was required. Playing in the huge silo that had dried corn for the pigs in it. I was always told by my grandma that a little boy down the road a piece got killed in one of those last week, someone turned it on and that little boy got ground up before you knew it. That little boy died every year, from the same reason. We were told we'd better be careful playing in that thing. We still played in the silo.
3. When I went to my grandma's house, my cousin lived across the street, to call anywhere on the "hill" all you had to do was dial the last four numbers....that was pretty cool to a "city" girl from Bloomingdale. Also, getting my name in the Sylvania Telephone for being a visitor at my grandma's. It was a weekly back then and anything was news.
4. Sitting on the back of a pickup eating watermelon, spitting the seeds out and hearing for the millionth time, "if you swallow those seeds, you're going to grow a watermelon in your belly." If my grandma was around, she'd say, "people don't have "bellies" pigs do.
5. Sitting on the tailgate of the same truck chewing up sugar cane and spitting it out when all the juice was gone....getting daddy to cut another piece.
6. Walking in the barnyard with my granddeddy...yep, that's how you say it, or at least I did, and having him tell me to tell my parents what I stepped in over there...the reply? "chicken shit...!" (he died when I was 7, but I still miss him every day...weird huh?) After he died, being able to look across the dirt road to the church and the cemetary where he was buried, picking flowers off grandma's bushes and laying them on his stone. I also got to see generations of my family and where they were laid to rest. Never being scared a damn bit of being in the cemetary at dusk. Just knowing I was surrounded my family.
7. Fishing all day "down" at the pond, catching brim, and catfish (that daddy had to take off the line with pliers) getting that nasty gunk on your fingers from the worm dirt...not caring...forgetting and biting your nails...nasty...but part of a great memory consisting of a cane pole, my mom, dad and me....my grandma coming down sitting a spell and casting her line in too..and catching more damn fish than we had all day.
8. Shooting my daddy's guns, him standing behind me so I wouldn't get knocked on my butt from the kick. Me,being bonnie-bad-ass ,thinking I could do it myself, demanding I could do it myself, him giving me one of the ones that kicked less, but enough that I landed on my ass....bruised my shoulder too, I leaned against daddy from them on....until I thought I was bonnie-bad-ass again, learning I wasn't-AGAIN
9. Being able to ride my bike, with a playing card in the spokes to make that cool clicking sound, and not have my mom come looking for me or worry about me unless it was after dark. Seeing her car turn a corner if I did stay out too late and knowing I was gonna get a yelling at and a ass-whoopin in that order.
10. Never being scared of anyone or anything....my daddy and/or momma would whoop anybody's ass that messed with their kid...

More later......

posted by MOM IS NUTZ  # 9:32 PM