Monday, March 07, 2011

MEMORIES

I was just sitting here thinking about when I was a kid. This one house we lived in is one place I want to go back to and visit. Oh now it's probably all gone, but surely I'll be able to find the foundation or the cistern, or some sign of the house. It sat about 1/2 mile off the road and now it's just all grown up with weeds. Someone lives a little ways down that road in a trailer. I would love to go and ask them if it's okay if I walked in there to look someday. Of course I would get someone to go with me. I surely wouldn't want to venture in there alone. There were two rows of huge maple trees in the front yard. Surely I can find them and use them as a guide.

Out back was the smokehouse and the chicken house. My friend and I used to play "Annie Over" out there using the chicken house to toss the ball over. Behind all that was our huge garden where Mom and Dad grew all kinds of wonderful vegetables. I was still pretty young back then and don't recall working in that garden all that much. Maybe though, my memory leans towards the fun things more than the not-so-fun things! Those days we rode the mule or the horse. That is where we lived when Dad bought me a pony. He brought it right into the living room to show it to me after he got back from the auction that night! I woke up and there he was with that pony standing at the foot of my bed! Talk about one happy little girl. I sprung out of bed and jumped on its back! Once I had made over the pony Mom told Dad to get the pony out of the house! Haha! My parents were never one for cirtters of any kind in the house, but Dad knew how much I wanted a pony. I had begged for so long! He also had a great sense of humor!

I spent many hours riding that pony who got the name of "PeaJack." Of course that was a name that Daddy gave him. I had wanted to name him "Red." With Dad calling him "PeaJack," that name seemed to stick and he learned his name as PeaJack, so PeaJack it was.

When Dad would go to work he would walk out the lane and he usually carried his dinner in a paper bag. At the road he would wait for the man he carpooled with. One would drive one week and one the next. He said PeaJack would get in the road and had to have a treat from his dinner. He said once PeeJack saw that paper bag he blocked the road and wanted his treat! Dad got in the habit of taking something extra just for PeaJack.

The barn was a few hundred feet from the house and the pig pen was right next to the barn. We always had hogs back then. Come November on a cold day one would get killed and that we used for our winter meat. I'd sure love to have some of that good homemade sausage right now. There was nothing better!

As kids there was never any lack of things to do, especially if you had a friend over. We played in the hayloft. We would walk in the mostly mud pond. We would be barefoot of course and sink in up to our knees and have to help pull each other out! Then we'd get in the other part of the pond where there was still some water and wash off before going home.

Ah, those were such fun times. I don't know why I was thinking about that place this morning and the great memories it brings back.
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