Back to the farm days —

Among the animals that mom and dad raised, they raised a lot of chickens.  They were not my favorite at all, they were so “messy”.   They would buy the baby chicks and they were kept on the closed in back porch type area with heat lamps on them.  I do not remember how long we had to keep them on the porch, but it seemed a while.  We constantly heard their peep, peep, peep.  They were cute, but there were so many. They would peck each other’s behinds and she had to put this medicine on them that was red and looked sort of like tar and that kept them from doing that.  In my opinion, this was gross.  As cute as they were, actually a lot about them was gross to me. As they grew, they were kept outside in their large fenced in  pen. We had two roosting houses.

I did not like to gather the eggs either.  I never liked sticking my hands under the roosting chickens or even walking in the houses. You never really knew what you would find in there.  Some of the eggs were pretty gross too.  My sister agreed to let me just carry the basket, but we could not get out of there soon enough for me!  I guess I am a wimp.  I did not even like eggs anyway.  Unless, of course, if they were in a brownie or something. I do not much care for the taste of eggs today either.

The chickens would grow up and it would be time to “harvest” them.  At least that is what I call it.  At first, it was not bad and was actually quite fun because we had duties according to age. Naturally, my little brother and I had an easy job, it was sort of cool, too.  A lot of family came out and helped at this time.  Okay, this is not meant to offend anyone, if you are please just do not read it.  It was the way of life.  The older men would get the chickens and remove their heads.  That quote about running around like a chicken with your head off is a true statement!  Those chickens took off!  My brother and I were right behind them.  Some of them ran down the hills into the woods.  So, we are weird I guess, but when you were a little kid, that was sort of fun. We chased them all around and some of them went pretty far! I am sorry, but it was also pretty odd to see, at least in a child’s eye.  Think about it, the trauma of having your head chopped off and you then take off running?  You cannot even see where you are going!  How in the world can you run and why would you even try? I was told it was a reflex/reaction, but what a horrid reflex to have. Looking back on it, what a terrible thing to witness. Our generation was probably accustomed to it, but the kids today may have nightmares from that.  I am sure we saw a lot of things back then that they would have no idea about. As a matter of fact, I am absolutely certain that I could not do half of the things that I did back then!

This part is the worst.  We carried the chickens to the ladies and they took them by the feet and dipped them into very hot water.  That smell of those wet feathers….once you smell that, you will never ever forget that smell.  It was the most unpleasant smell. You could even say it was foul….pardon the pun (f-o-w-l, haha.) To this day, sometimes when I eat chicken, I feel like I can taste that smell.  I cannot finish eating it then.  I guess this will be a lifetime issue with me. Your taste does depend on your smell as well, you know.  Researchers say 80% of the flavors we taste come from what we smell, which is why foods become relatively flavorless when our sinuses are stopped up.  I always have to explain myself when I tell someone that the chicken tastes like feathers. I have been able to “teach” my family that point, however.  When they eat the piece of chicken that I refused to eat, they can taste the difference, too. At the moment, I have not had chicken for quite some time because lately they all seem to be smelling/tasting like feathers. Here is a side note, when we were children, we use to get milk straight from the cow and there was this taste that it had that was not so great.  I am assuming the pasteurization may have taken some of that out, I do not know. Occasionally when you buy milk today, some batches have that taste in there that you can detect.  I then say this milk tastes like it came from a cow.  Try explaining that statement.  People just laugh at me. Some have said dang, hate when it tastes like it came from a cow!  Haha.  I still try to explain myself.  My family has now learned that taste too.  Haven’t you ever had a potato and it seemed you could taste the dirt?  I hope you can understand what I mean here.  Sorry about getting off track a bit, but back to the chickens… They had to dip the chicken in the water to make the plucking easier.  When I grew up and this became my task, I hated it!  That smell…..yuck.  The feathers did come out pretty easy, though, but then there were the pin feathers and they were harder to remove and you never actually got them all, not even close.

The chickens were cut up and frozen for later use.  I grew up and had to participate in this part as well. I will not go into all of the details of that, but it, for me, was not as bad as the plucking, but I really did not like this job either.  I could not stand the sounds of the popping and snapping. (When I go to the chiropractor, I tell them to try to do what they need with no “popping of my bones”.To this day they have not popped anything. This may be why I cringe when I hear people popping their knuckles.) There were many more unpleasant things about this job, but we will forego them. After harvesting, it would be quite some time before I could stomach eating chicken.  I surely did love my mother’s fried chicken, though. It was the best and my favorite meal! Well, not when you would get the occasional piece that tasted like feathers! Haha! That meal was fried chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes and corn! Most of the time, homemade biscuits accompanied the meal. However, have any of you noticed that the chicken does not taste like it did back then?  Actually none of the meat today is as good as back then.  Hamburger is the most noticeable, it does not even smell as good as it use to.

We had ducks as well, two of them.  I have no idea why.  I guess for the novelty.  They were funny, though.  We would play with them and they would follow us around.  I guess mom and dad just wanted ducks.  Is there a reason for having them?  Does anyone know about that?  Do they assist with chickens somehow? We did have fun watching them waddle around.  I just do not know what their purpose was other than being a duck. Do not get me wrong, that is purpose enough. They were snow white and absolutely beautiful!

Mom and dad loved to eat quail!  They had an opportunity to purchase some of them so they did. My brothers also hunted quail.  Remember in the old days when you would see quail and pheasants running down the road?  I cannot remember the last time I have seen a quail or a pheasant.  I wonder why that is?  I miss them being in abundance like they use to be.  Perhaps it is due to the abundance of coyotes that we do not?  Anyway, harvest day for the quail came.  Mom and dad had them captured in one of the roosting houses.  Everyone came out that day and were ready to help.  Mom opened the front door to get them but I guess my little brother had a different idea.  As they opened the front door to get some, he threw open the back door.  Quail were going everywhere! People were going everywhere after them!  I just wish all of these things could have been on video.  Such a funny sight to see.  They lost most of the quail.  Funny thing, they did not seem to be all that angry because my little brother did not get into too much trouble.  I remember mom and dad fondly telling the story in later years and just laughing and laughing about him doing that.  On the bright side, at least my brothers would have more quail to find when they went hunting!

This “harvesting” of animals was a learning experience, but I am pretty sure I would be just as good without having some of these memories.  The butcher is good enough for me. Sometimes seeing some of that stuff makes my stomach a bit queasy as well.  It is pretty neat that mom and dad dabbled in so many things. They probably would not refer to it as dabbling.  They were probably trying to make a living and feed their children.  I am sure it was an awful lot of hard work for them. In my opinion, since I was a child, life was so interesting and such fun. There was always something go on and life seemed so exciting.

The snow is so beautiful!  I absolutely love it!  Everything becomes blanketed in white.  The sounds are different, hard to explain, but just not the same.  They are sort of hushed.  The snow falling makes a noise itself, the limbs sway and sort of make a crackling noise, the crunch of walking on the snow and the sound tires and snow plows make are all nice to hear. It feels warmer outside as if it is God’s insulation.

I love, love, love it at night time.  The snow is God’s big night light to me.  You can see everything outside.  I do not like night time so well anyway so the snow makes it better for me.  I also love to hear the plows come by at night even if it wakes me up.  You can see the animal tracks and know that deer have been at your house while you were sleeping.

My pastor, my friend Dorothy’s son,  told me long ago that white is a sign of purity and that may be another reason to like snow.  Watching the snow fall is such a peaceful, calming thing to see. It is like living in a snow globe.  I always say, “someone is shaking my house”! The children get to build snowmen, snow forts, have snowball fights and go sledding.  Their laughter is the best.   Snow can be such fun….and then there is snow ice cream and cancelled school days.

Yes, snow is cold and wet.  Yes, it is terrible to have to work outside in it and I feel sorry for those people.  Yes, the roads can be bad and that does worry me, but put those aside and I am sure you all would have to admit that snow is absolutely beautiful!

I absolutely cannot bowl… at all!  I have never stopped trying, though.  In high school I would go bowling with my friends.  I did not get to do this for long as the owner asked me to not bowl there any longer.  I am sure others bowl how I do, but I never improved. Sometimes I would release the ball as it was heading backward and it would go sailing behind me.  I had a knack for releasing the ball at the wrong time and it would rise high into the air and hit the lanes with a terrible crash.  I could never keep my wrist straight.  I have the same problem throwing a frisbee.  Being a baby boomer, frisbees were a big thing. I could only watch. Try as I might, it always went to the left or right and never straight.  When you curve like this while throwing a bowling ball, your ball will jump two to three lanes over.  This is the reason the owner had the unpleasant task of asking me to please not bowl any longer.  I complied and just would watch my friends bowl. Much later in life, I mentioned that to the owner who was always a very, very sweet man.  He questioned me that he did it and said he felt absolutely terrible and he was so sorry.  I laughed and laughed and told him not to feel terrible at all, he really had no choice.  It is fortunate that I never injured anyone with my wild tosses. He thought that felt so mean of him to do.  He was so sweet!

I remember that you would write your scores yourself on a sheet of paper, but I feel like I have a memory of that paper being able to be projected on to the screen at the top.  I am not certain about this, but I feel like you could see the scores up there and it was not yet all electronic.  Anyone can correct me below or tell me your memories, I would appreciate knowing. I am not sure, but I feel like somehow you could see the scores and I feel like there was someone writing them on paper.  I think it was the case as I never liked for anyone to see my scores!

When I was older, I would go bowling with my sister, her husband and her two sons. The sons were so young and so much better than me.  My sister could never understand why I could not do something simple like bowling.  She would coach me on how to hold my wrist straight.  She would tell me different ways to try, complete with walking up to the lane and rolling it.  One time when we were bowling, it was like a light bulb went off for her.   I am left handed but do most sports with my right hand.  I am not too great at  any sport, however.  She told me to bowl with my left hand, and that she was sure that was my problem. I assured her that this was not the case but she persisted in having me try it.  I did and I swung back my arm with the ball in tow and brought the ball forward straight into the side of my knee.  I am not sure I have felt pain like that in my knee ever.  It turns out there was no damage, but it sure did hurt.  At least, everyone had a good laugh over that one! One time my ball got stuck back with the pins and the owner’s son had to get back there and remove the ball.  My sister whispered to him to stay back there and the next time I bowled, for him to be sure and knock them down.  Well, I bowled and missed them all on the first try, the second try I missed them all as well.  Out comes this hand, very obvious, and he knocks them all down.  What a great laugh we had! Again, no pictures captured that!

I then went bowling with my husband (who happens to still have his trophy from back in the day) and with my children.  I was no better, but I wonder why I thought I would just improve with age and no practice?  I was happy when we found they had bumper guards and I could bowl a little better.  I found a spot that I could hit that bumper and knock several down.  I am surprised I could hit that same spot, but I should not have been because after all, it was the gutter.  That is where most of my balls went! My children, however, did not “need” those and really did not want to bowl in those lanes so my “great” bowling days were over.  I think the lowest I have bowled a game was an 11 and the highest was a 110.  I am not sure how I got this high score, it must have been the bumpers or people taking a turn for me.  I am certain that others have these same types of stories to tell about bowlers they know.  I cannot be the only one.  These tidbits of my bowling experience, or rather lack of, is just a prelude to the story below.

The story about bowling that tops them all, is one about my Aunt.  She was a great bowler and was on bowling leagues for years.  They wore those cute league shirts that came in different colors.  Each league had their own color with the team name on the back and their name on the front of them. I remember that I was always impressed with the fact that she even owned her own ball!  We went to some of her games when I was a child and I can remember the atmosphere.  It was so lively with all of the different leagues bowling at once.  You could hear the balls hitting the floor and rolling down the lanes.  I loved that noise as well as the pins slapping to the ground.  The bowlers were all smiling, having such fun and excited to be there. They had a soda fountain and grill.  The hamburgers smelled so good and the sodas were great. There were a few pool tables and pinball machines. This was just a fun experience and good memory for me.

My cousin, Scottie, however has a great story to tell and he shared it with me. He and his little brother, Timmy, were taken to the bowling alley with her, their grandmother.  She was bowling and as she was approaching the lane, she sneezed.  Guess what happened??? She rolled the ball at the same as her sneeze and she spit her teeth, the top plate, out right down the lane!!!  I bet that tops all of the stories!  Probably not a  lot of people know anyone who has done that! Again, oh for a cell phone with a video camera!!! Scottie said she ran and grabbed her teeth quickly and about busted her behind doing it! He said she turned five shades of red and ordered him and Timmy to get out of there quickly!  I am told that she was so mad all of the way home and was cussing fixodent!

People that knew my aunt, their grandmother, knew that she was a hummer.  She hummed at different times, but actually quite a lot of times.  We learned that she hummed at different things, happiness, her favorite songs,  nerves, anger, excitement, etc. and in different manners for different emotions.  Scottie said that on the way home, there was an awful lot of humming going on.  Haha!  I know just what hum that was as I have heard it before! Story has it that when she got home, she was on the phone for about three hours doing damage control.  Even though he was eight or so at the time Scottie says he can see it clear as can be to this day and it is still just as funny!  He said she was getting mad at them for laughing about it so much.  When they got to her house he and Timmy went behind her garage and relived what they had just witnessed and laughed for hours!!!  I wish I would have seen this, but being told the story was just as good.  I can just picture it all! She was such a great, fun woman.  My mother and her had so many wonderful adventures.  There were three of the sisters.  There will never be any like them again.  They were such fun! I am sure there will be many, more stories of them and their antics.

Speaking of fixodent, if that were on film, what a great commercial it could have been for fixodent!  Don’t let this happen to you, get fixodent today!  I realize she used fixodent, but they could still use it, no one had to know that she did.  Hahaha!!!!

Mom and Dad had New Year’s Eve parties. They were not really parties, they involved the family and were a bit different. When we were children we would try to stay up late so we could go outside and make noise at midnight. This was a tradition that Mom and Dad had. We did not always make it until then since we were so young. This was a night to play games and watch television. We had all sorts of snacks during the evening, complete with some left over Christmas goodies! When we did make it up until midnight, it seemed that great things happened! It was such fun to go outside and make noise. Mom gave us pots and pans and wooden spoons and we would get to bang on them as hard as we could. Clang! Clang! Clang! I always liked the angel food cake pan. You could put your hand in the middle of the pan and bang away! The older brothers would fire shotguns into the air. We could hear the other neighbors making noise as well and some had firecrackers. It seemed such fun to be able to go outside late at night and make noise! I have no idea why they thought of going outside and making noise, but hey, I happily participated. It was fun and it was really neat! The sounds of talking in the distance, sounds of merriment and noise-making echoing through the woods and the area was something to hear! Some noises were muffled as they were more in the distance and we would try to guess what neighbors were doing what. This was such excitement for little kids and the grown ups seemed to enjoy it too!! After the noisemaking, Mom honored the tradition that a man had to be the first person through the door of the house the first day of the year, so we had to wait for Dad or one of the brothers to enter the house first. If a woman/girl entered first, she would have you walk out backwards so a man could then enter. Walking out backwards must have “un-done” your entrance. I think some of the times, we would open the door so we could let the old year out and let the new year in.

After the noise making, mom and the older children would come in and call relatives and friends. All of the phone prefixes started with the same number then so if the year was 1965, they would disguise their voice and call people and say is this 1-9-6-5? They would for some reason find it funny if the person would say no and they would laugh and say yes it is! They would shout “Happy New Year!” They would only talk for a brief moment as they had others to call and do the same thing to and they did not want them to beat them to it!

The bad part of this was the next day. There was some sort of food mom had to serve. I am shocked that I do not remember this, as I was always upset that she made it, mainly because I did not care for it. It was either cabbage, or beans and corn bread. It was something that she said was to be the traditional first meal of the new year. I do not know which it was. Her mother was German, so I am thinking it was cabbage. Well, I have talked with a reliable source, my cousin, Scottie, …and he states that it was corned beef brisket, and cabbage, boiled with potatoes and carrots. He still eats it every New Year’s Eve! Scottie, I never really cared for it, but I am thankful you were there to remember for me.

When our own children, were younger, we would have snacks and sparkling grape juice to toast with at midnight. We would play some games and perhaps watch a movie. We enjoyed watching the yearly countdowns, top music, top news, etc. As the children aged, we would host game nights with plenty of food. We would allow the friends to all stay over (in fact we preferred it) so no one would be out driving with the ones who drive and drink. We would go outside at midnight and make noise, but we never heard anyone else and it felt sort of silly to be doing that. The kids did not really see the point, so we stopped that. We would serve breakfast for the ones who stayed over. Some times, we would have the same type of thing at church and stay there until midnight or later. The church sort of lost interest in this or the people did, so we had it at our home mostly. We always liked to provide alternatives for the children. We had such great times on New Year’s Eve.

No game night tonight! All of the children and their friends are grown and really are not too interested in coming here. I wonder why? I even have pots and pans I would let them bang on!

Happy New Year, everyone! Enjoy and please, please be safe!

My husband and I pull into the grocery store parking lot and I see my cousin, we will call her Lucy, and my aunt, we will call her Alice, in a car.  Excitedly, I hop out of the car, tell my husband to hurry, and I run to catch them before they leave.  As I am running to their car, I notice Lucy’s husband, we will call him Chad, returning the cart to the bay. I immediately change directions and run over to him giggling and laughing and begin telling him how good it is to see him.  I grab his arm, link my arm in his and start walking him to the car. Okay, maybe I was actually sort of dragging him to the car.  He was keeping up, though. I point out that my husband is in our car and we both wave to him while happily skipping along. I  motion for my husband to come on as Chad and I are chatting and chatting on the way.  As unbelievable as it is, it should be noted, that sometimes I fail to let people get a word in.  I tell Chad I will give him a hug later, but let’s hurry to the car.  We arrive to the car with Alice and Lucy in it. I start telling Alice and Lucy how thrilled I am to see them, too, and motion for my husband again.  What is taking him so long??!! He is starting to be a bit rude.

I hit them with questions….how long will they be here, when did they get here, will we be getting together and other important questions.  Keeping an eye on my husband, I keep motioning for him to come join, but for some reason he is being all sorts of stubborn! The heck with him, I am excited.  I do not know what his problem is, but  let him stay in the car. I have  noticed that not just him, but everyone is acting sort of weird.  Except for Chad, we are arm in arm and still both smiling and laughing.  Strange that he is more excited to see me than the others because he is not as close to me, being that he is a new in-law.

Finally, Lucy asks who I am with. I am a bit puzzled and thinking she is odd  What an unusual thing to ask. Chad and I look at each other and we both laugh.  Aunt Alice and Lucy just shrug.  Chad and I laugh again.  They are so funny! We start talking about a good game of Rummy being started but Aunt Alice, a little perturbed, interrupts asking who the guy is. Chad and  I shake our heads and laugh.  Why are they continuing this charade? Seeming perturbed herself, again, Lucy asks who.  They are doing a good job playing this whole bewildered act because I am actually believing that they are.

Finallly, a bit annoyed, I  sigh heavily with something like well, duh…it is your husband.  Her eyes widen a bit, she is sort of looking a tad bit shocked and perhaps a little fearful.  I laugh and she widens her eyes more and shakes her head. I look at Aunt Alice with questioning eyes and she frowns. a little worried looking, and shakes her head.  Still clinging to Chad’s arm, I look up to him and without missing a beat, he smiles and says, “Does this mean I am not going to get that hug now?”   HaHa! What a way to relieve an awkward situation!  At this moment, I realize Chad is a lot like me! He, too, just plows through an embarrassing moment! I could not have picked a better stranger to haul around with me!  I look over to see where my husband is and he is, of course, still in the car.  He holds his hands up like he is not surprised at all and shakes his head.

Do NOT sit on that toilet seat!  Line that seat with toilet paper, says your mother.  Like any good child, I obey my mother.   

We often visited my husband’s family, a 45 minute trip. One particular time, I do not remember why but on the way home, my husband wanted me to drive.  We had four of the children with us, the two youngest and the two oldest.  He pulled over on the highway and stopped the van and told me to just climb over to the driver side and he would walk around. He is such a gentleman.  Too bad I am not as nice as he is!

The Walmart stories are always abounding.  There are the videos of the people of Walmart and how they dress and various other “Walmart” stories going around. I, too, have numerous stories but I will not put those on here as most of them are negative.  Negativity brings you down and I would rather try to focus on the positive because it helps you retain your good mood.  It feels like a chore enough to “have” to go to Walmart and moreso when you have all of the negative encounters there.  I am going to share a story that, in my opinion, is just a tiny bit humorous, at least to me. Then I am inviting you to share your story here.  You can share whatever type you like, positive or negative, but please feel free to do so!

It seems like my memories of my oldest brother were of him not living at home.  He was 13 years older, so I do not remember him being at home with us much.  He did visit all of the time, though. Or maybe he was living there, I honestly do not remember.  I remember having the mumps and he gave me some awards that he had won and they were on his boy scout uniform.  He pinned them to my pajamas.  I was so proud to have them!  I remember him playing with me and making me laugh, but most of my memories are of him grown and I have plenty of those to share later! This brother is the one who came up with the idea to walk the barrels.  He was full of ideas and such fun!

My little brother was three years younger than me.  He and I had to get immunizations. I was on the exam table and my brother, being so young, was on my mother’s lap.  The doctor gave him his shot in the butt and he started screaming and crying.  He cried so much he quit breathing.  They all went running out of the room.  It seemed I was on that table forever!  I kept thinking if only I could jump down or if I could just reach this or that.  There was some pretty interesting stuff on that tray and counter and all shiny, too! What a long time I sat there. It got very dark in my room because the hallway suddenly went very dark. I wondered when they would come back in.  It turns out, they all took off for the hospital which was just up the road. The doctor told my mom that he was sorry and pronounced him dead.  She screamed at him to do something!  It turns out, the doctor was able to clear my brother’s throat from mucous and bring him back to life.  My mother said that he stuck a tube down his throat and sucked it up into his own mouth and then spit it out.  My little brother checked out fine, so he sent my mother home with her baby and called the office and told them to close up!  Hey!!! What about me???  No wonder I am like I am.  Left, locked in and forgotten about! That could cause a complex!  She got home and asked my older brother where I was.  He said he thought I was with her. She thought he took me with him when he left.  They made some calls and they found someone to check the doctor’s office.  They found that I was, in fact, at the doctor’s office, locked in, all by myself.  My brother came and picked me up.  The nurse or receptionist, someone who let him in, asked if I would like a sucker and extended a little jar of suckers for me to pick from.  I said I wanted the whole jar.  They both laughed and she gave them to me.  I had like a little bouquet of suckers and I felt that I deserved them.  It felt so good to hold my little bouquet.  When I got home my mother said she would keep those suckers for me.  Yeah, right, I didn’t get very many of them. You know, too much sugar and blah, blah. I have a newspaper article about my little brother being pronounced dead. I am sure glad they were able to save him!

My next to the oldest brother was 10 years older.  Mom and dad use to have him  babysit while they went shopping or on errands.  Boy do I have memories of that!  As soon as they left he would make us clean up the house and he took the credit for doing it.  Mom and Dad just thought it was wonderful how great he was to do that!  They loved it!!! Of course, we knew better than to bust him out for it and admit it was us.  Believe me, later in life we told them it was us!  Who wants to go though life without credit?

If we misbehaved he would have us stand in the corner and put our noses up to the wall with our hands behind our backs.  After a few seconds he would say something like don’t you move, but, uh, oh, there is a spider crawling down that corner right by your nose! Yep, we were scared!  After a few times of this happening, we knew to ignore him.  He would have my little brother do something like wrestling with me.  He made an area to use as a ring and he would have us wrestle there until he ended the round.  I think we had to go only 3 rounds or so.  He would read a magazine and look up from time to time and say round over. He would forget once in awhile to stop us and my sister would get mad at him and he would say round over. Sometimes he would have us put a piece of bread in our mouths so it looked like we had mouth guards in   He was not brutal, do not get the wrong idea.  He was just being an older brother. He was fun and we loved him.

We were always in the woods playing.  I remember going down there with my brother this one time and I was so totally excited when I found these huge sand piles.  Someone had piled them up into great big hills.  I went running for them and my brother was telling me not to.  He was not babysitting today, so who did he think he was?  I jumped right into the big hill of sand and kept jumping and jumping.   It was such fun.  My brother was running up to get me and I wondered why he did not want me to play in the sand.  That was just mean of him.  All of a sudden, I started screaming and screaming.  My brother picked me up and ran up the hill with me and started taking my clothes off.  I was screaming my head off.  Mom and dad came running out of the house and my brother told them I had been jumping on an ant hill.  My mom took me in and put me right in the bath tub. No wonder he did not want me playing in the sand. Man-oh-man, can those things bite!  I do not know what they really were but we called them army ants. Well, that is the story my brother told anyway.  He told me I was so lucky because those army ants were called that because they pulled soldiers down in to their holes and ate them.  He told me it did not really matter if you were a soldier, they would eat you anyway and thankfully he saved me.  I had no idea about these things and had  never seen them before.  There were 4 or 5 of those huge “sand piles” in the woods. I don’t remember seeing them much after that so I think that Dad must have done something to get rid of them.  They were something to see, though.

My brother and his friend were burning the trash one time and some how the woods caught on fire.  It was the woods, but several of our out buildings were nearby and then our house. My older brother was called and he came right over. I have no recollection really of how it happened but what I do remember is that there was no volunteer fire department then and the city fire department would not come out to the country  My mom just called the radio station and people started arriving with shovels and gunny sacks.  They would wet the gunny sacks and swat at the fire.  We had to pump water from the well. Trenches were dug beyond the parameters of the fire to hopefully stop it from spreading but the fire just kept spreading.  The radio station kept announcing updates and asking anyone who could come to come out.   More and more people arrived.  It was unreal how many people showed up.  How nice everyone was back then, so kind and loving and willing to help.  We need more of that today. There was a back hoe parked over in a field and someone suggested calling the owner and asking him to come help since the hoe was just right there.  They called and he came too.  The fire was finally extinguished without damage to any homes or buildings.  Whew!  So thankful that people were so kind. It sure makes you thankful for the volunteer fire fighters!!!!!  If any of you reading this remember this, please comment.

Both of my older brothers were hunters.  Although the older brother did not live at home, he would come over bright and early in the mornings and go rabbit hunting with my other brother.They would hunt in our woods and bring back rabbits and immediately clean them for breakfast.  My brothers had these green coats with huge pockets and they would fill the pockets with the rabbits they got.  I never liked seeing that.    Sometimes, I was elected to hold two of the legs while they gutted the rabbit.  As you can imagine  this was not my favorite thing to do at all! It took two people, one to hold the front legs and one to hold the back legs and then stretch tightly.  The third person would cut it up the middle and gut it. Mom would make fried rabbit, biscuits and gravy.  How would you want to eat that after witnessing the cleaning anyway? I would never eat it after only one time of tasting it.   I did not care for the flavor, but the rest of the family loved it.  My mom, at some times, would try to trick me and tell me she made chicken.  I was not that stupid.  I have never seen a chicken leg have that bend in it.  I would tell her I knew she was trying to trick me and that chickens did not have elbows or knees in their legs that bent like that. She was so frustrated, she wanted me to like it. To me, that meat had an unforgettable twang to it. People call it a gamey taste.  Well, apparently I do not like a gamey taste!  I could not even tolerate the taste the rabbit gave the gravy. What a cruel thing to do.   Homemade gravy is the best, how could you ruin the flavor of it with rabbit?

You may not like this story, but I still to this day think this is a good story.  Rabbit hunting was done in the winter and Christmas is in the winter.  The whole family loves a good joke and we are a bunch of pranksters.  My big brother was always there when we did this, too. My dad came up with this idea of leaving a wrapped present alongside the road and watching out the window to see who picked it up. This present was always the fanciest wrapped gift you would ever see. They put the nicest of ribbons around it and a beautiful big bow on top. The trees had all lost their leaves so we could place the nicely wrapped gift a bit down the road from our house and watch the cars stop and get the present. Not a lot of cars came by so there was a little bit of a wait. Not one car ever went on by, though.  Some may accidentally  pass it but they would screech the brakes and back up! They would open the door and get out and look around to see if anyone noticed them.  They would try to nonchalantly pick up the present and put it in their car. Inside of that nicely wrapped gift  was a box full of the rabbit guts!  Terrible, I know, but so funny.  When the cars stopped to get the present,  they could not stand to wait and they would  hurry down the road and turn at the first  corner and park the car to investigate their wonderful treasure. They were parked where we could perfectly see them.  It never took too long for them to suddenly open the door and throw that gift right out in the ditch and speed off!  Oh did we laugh! Hmmm, I suppose you should not take something that is not yours.  What if some poor person had lost that gift and came back looking for it?  They may have learned a lesson.  No, I doubt that they learned a lesson, I bet they were just furious! That thought made us laugh even harder. In fact, we still laugh today, just thinking about it.   You may disagree with our joke, but well ….we all had a lot of  laughs over it. It certainly helped to pass a winter day and there is an old saying…. it is better to give than to receive.!?

So, we had the farm life…. the animals were fun.  Sarah, the cow, you know about.  Harold the goat gave milk and Elmer the pig gave birth to little piglets. Shows you what us kids knew about animals!  Well, the farm venture came and went and our mother and father decided to change the barn up. Stories of all of  our outdoor ventures and “play time” will be posted later.

They remodeled and put in wooden floors and a “kitchen” area.  They started square dances on Saturday nights with food and drink for sale as well!  They started a night of dancing for Western dances also. That really took off so they added an extra night of dance and had “teen” dances too.  The barn really rocked!  So, so many good times were had there.  People even came from out of state to dance.  All of the music, both for the country dances and the teen dances, were live bands.  We really got to meet a lot of interesting people. My mother could really dance, she was always listening to music and dancing everywhere. My father could pick up any instrument and play it.  He loved the saxophone and the harmonica.  He always had the harmonica in his mouth. He had a piano for a while and he had an accordion.  Mom and Dad are probably why we all had such a love for music and dance! They were always trying their hand at different things. They loved people and they loved children which is why they started the teen dances too.

One night at a dance, a huge black snake dangled down from the hayloft and was swinging from the rafter in the middle of the dance floor.  My brother and his friend came to the rescue.  The friend grabbed the snake and ran outside.  The dance went on but some of us ran outside to see what happened with the snake.  The friend said “Watch this!”  He took the snake by the tail and like a rope he swung the snake around and around and then he jerked on it.  The head of the snake came off and a bird flew out!  The bird did not fly out as birds fly out,  he flew out as in propelled out of the snake.  The bird, of course, was dead as snakes swallow their food whole you know.  My friend and I were watching the whole thing.  As the bird came out, my friend put her hand to her mouth in a gasp and the bird actually hit her right in the arm pit.  I will never forget this entire scene.  As gross as it was, we all broke into laughter.  The dances were great fun for us kids. We had so many children we could play with at the dances.

Mom served sandwiches, chips, coffee, soda and pies. Her pies were so well loved, people would request she make an entire pie just for them to purchase and take home with them! She served this homemade barbecue on Saturday nights and everyone loved it!!

Barbecue — that lead to a couple of other ventures.  My next to the oldest brother was drafted and served in Vietnam.  Sad, sad day when he left!  I will probably talk more about that later.  Vietnam was not good for anyone.  It not only affected the young men, it affected their entire families.  The young men were never the same, in my opinion.

He loved mom’s barbecue.  He said he sure wished he could have some.  That request was all it took to set mom into action!  Dad  found a place that would process her food and put it in tin cans like the type vegetables came in.  (I hesitated to say she had it canned because to me, I think of people canning things in mason jars and preserving foods.This was actually in a can.) They mailed him about 7 cans and some buns. My brother said they warmed it with some sort of torch or lighter while it was in the can. He shared it with his friends and said it was the best ever.  That lead to mom and dad starting a barbecue drive.  There were articles in the paper and mom called various businesses and people and got monetary donations as well as ingredients donated.  What was not donated, mom and dad gave. She took names of other soldiers in the area so that she could send them some too. They got it canned and shipped it overseas to the boys!  Mom and dad had such good hearts!

Mom’s great cooking lead to the opening of a restaurant with home cooked meals and baked goods. My father always, always encouraged her to do these things.  He was her greatest fan, he believed in her and they did these ventures together.  They were always supportive of each other. Granny’s Kitchen and Bakery was opened and it was a success.  My little brother remodeled the building they rented up on the town square.  He built the booths and tables.  It was beautiful!  He was the grill cook and she cooked the main entrees and sides and did the baking. Dad did whatever was needed from him. Dad, however, was a retired railroader.  He was now working across the street at the courthouse as a bailiff. He was at the restaurant all that he could be, though.  My wonderful aunt did the dishes and helped in all areas that she could.  My sister-in-law was the waitress along with some others who were hired.  Some of our cousins were waitresses, (mom and dad’s nieces).  A lot of family was involved at Granny’s. I later moved home and helped waitress as well.  Actually everyone pitched in wherever they may have been needed.

All of the dinners were home made too. I do not remember the exact hours but I know they were opened for breakfast, perhaps 6:00 a.m. or 7:00 a.m..  I know we were there working at 4:00 a.m. The “coffee drinkers” came every morning and we always had such good times with the customers.  Breakfast was served all day. I thought the biscuits and gravy were the best!  I remember that the lunch special was $1.90.  What a deal, too!  You were served more than enough.  Lasagne was served every Wednesday and bright and early Wednesday mornings the calls would start coming in for pick up orders.  The lasagne was a huge hit and several pans were made of it.  My favorite was swiss steak.  I have yet to be able to make it taste like hers, even when I attempt to follow the recipe.

She had a bakery case at the front of the store that was filled with so many delicious baked goods  Her cinnamon rolls were highly sought after!  People would come from out of town on a Saturday and purchase enough for the entire week.  The cinnamon rolls were as large as the saucer! They were extra good when warmed and topped with melted butter and, of course, you would need a cold, cold glass of milk! She made a cookie/cake type of dessert called candy bars.  Those were my favorite.  It was an oatmeal cookie/cake dough with caramels and chocolate chips layered on top and then more of the cookie dough. There were sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies, chocolate chip cookies and a variety of other cookies, cakes, bars,  and any type of pie you could think of including cream pies. She made everything you could imagine. They did not serve supper.  They tried that but there were not that many customers in the evening.  The uptown square area sort of went to sleep when the businesses closed.  It did not use to be that way, but the times have changed.  The shopping establishments, theaters, barbers, etc.  moved away from the square and the courthouse and law offices seem to have taken over. They stayed open for after the bars but that was not profitable either.  Therefore, the closing time was 4:00 p.m. rather than right after lunch rush because the employees on the square would come for an afternoon snack.  She had a cook book published with all of her goodies in it.  I may post that cookbook on here at some point or on face book and link it here for you.

This was, I believe, their last big venture.  In between the barn dances and the restaurant, she was chairman for the Cystic Fibrosis foundation.  There will be a post just for this at a later date in order to keep this post shorter.

In summary, mom and dad were such great parents.  They worked so hard in life and yet continued to do things to help others.  They were a great example and so very loving. Our house was always filled with friends and family.  Cards or some sort of game was always being played. When one of us children moved out, our friends still would go to mom and dad’s and hang with them!  Anyone that came to visit was always offered something to eat.  If  nothing quick was available, mom would cook them something.  I have never met anyone like them.  Their sense of humor, their pranks, the fun they made, the love they gave, it is hard to actually describe just how they were. They loved laughing and made any situation into a fun situation even if you were waiting in a long line or whatever you were doing, it ended up being fun! They never knew a stranger.  You actually just had to know them. If you did, and would like to share a memory below in the comments, please do so.

Thanksgiving… what can you say about Thanksgivings?  The memories of old when you were a child with your family, the memories of you with your children and your family, the memories when the children grow up and leave.

Thanksgiving memories as a youth—- the night before and the morning of was such a flurry of activity.  The smells in the house were awesome!  Sometimes family would arrive the night before and how thankful we were that they made it in, what with the snow storm.  There is hardly a snow storm on Thanksgiving now as the weather has changed and continues to do so.  There was snow by early November and it actually stayed on the ground until the January thaw. It was such fun to play in the snow on Thanksgiving with all of the relatives.

Everything was homemade, of course.  Mom made several types of home made pies, chocolate, pecan, raisin cream, coconut cream, mincemeat and of course, pumpkin! She was noted as the best baker, ever!  Everyone loved her pies.  There were homemade noodles (my favorite), turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, several types of dressing: sage, oyster and chestnut,  cranberry salad, homemade rolls, gosh, I cannot even remember all of the food.  One of my favorite memories every Thanksgiving was tearing several loaves of  bread into pieces for the different dressings.  When we woke up, the television was always on with the Thanksgiving parade on, which I remember as being  much better back then. We would tear the bread while watching the parade.  It was always so exciting to see Santa at the end!  That set the mood for decorating for Christmas that night.  The family was huge!  Great, great times.  Those memories will probably be brought up later as they come to mind in my other posts.

Thanksgiving memories as a mother…. Our children were too young to remember my mother’s Thanksgivings which is a shame.  My father passed away before our children were even born.  My mother passed away when our youngest girl was 4 months old.  By the time our children were in their early teens, I lost my sister and two brothers, so my family is greatly diminished.  Most of my nieces and nephews are not even in the state, so it is rare to see them on a holiday.  One of my brothers still lived in town until he passed away and his wife and children usually stop by every Thanksgiving night and play games and visit, etc. We enjoy those times together. The Thanksgivings on my husband’s side were held at his grandmother’s  She had a large two story farm house and there were so, so many people there.  The children had other children to play with and they probably have memories like I do of my childhood Thanksgivings but I do not know for sure their memories and feelings.  There was lots of family, though, and that is what I think is the most important.

Our children have moved out and the Thanksgivings are not what they use to be. So many of the family have passed away, some have split up with their boyfriends or girlfriends and some have divorced.  We miss each and every one of them and still love them all!  We are still thankful to be together but we all miss the gathering of a large amount of family. We do stray from tradition, though. None of us much care for the standard turkey and I have a gluten issue, so we eat differently but it is all still good, good food, at least in our opinion. This year our appetizers were chips and salsa and chips and hummus. We had Apple crisp, cherry crisp, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, scalloped corn, chili, lasagna, ham, beef and rice, green beans, red hot jello, corn bread muffins, deviled eggs, and more. It sounds like a weird combination, but this way everyone has something they like.

Nothing can be done about the ones who are no longer with us and the ones who live far away are probably feeling the same about the losses and longing for older times,  but we do not linger on those thoughts. All of us are thankful for the family we do have.  We create our new memories and carry on and have a wonderful time.  We try to make each one special and memorable.

Something you notice about life, it truthfully repeats itself as does history.  Your thanksgivings are huge and then people die off and break up and they dwindle, then new family is added by marriage, dating, birth of children and they again are huge.  People die off and they dwindle again, then they grow again. I hope that this is a little bit encouraging to you who are missing the larger old time thanksgivings.  There will be larger and new ones again.  Make the most of your times together and have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Do not dwindle on the past, remember it with a smile, share some of your memories with laughter at dinner or after dinner and have a good, good time.  Do not miss out on your blessings that you have right in front of you.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

As you can tell from the title, this will not be a continuance of my previous blogs.  I feel like I need to talk about this concert. I will most likely jump around like this from time to time.  Perhaps one post a week will be the continuance and the second will be a different subject if I feel prompted. I have never been one to stick to a program or plan.  I am spontaneous so here goes.

IT STARTS! (Don’t miss the reference here —- Lion King!)

I was born the fourth child with two brothers and a sister being born before me (another brother followed me). Childhood, of course was awesome. We moved to the country when I was around 4, so life was so interesting with all of the exploring we could do on the property and we spent most of our time in the woods playing in the creek, building forts, looking for Kool Pop houses and whatever came to our imagination!

There was a commercial about a big old owl who lived in a little “woodsy” house and he would give children who happened by a Kool Pop. There was also an owl on the tootsie pop commercial wondering how many licks it took to get to the tootsie roll, but this one was different. I wonder if any of you remember the Kool Pop house? Children would be on a walk and come upon this cottage/treehouse thing and the owl would give you a Kool Pop. Our dad would go out and half way assemble something (we found this out later in life) then he would walk around with us through the woods and say, “There is a Kool Pop house!” and point in the direction. We would excitedly look and it was just a partial frame. Dad would say, “Oh I am sorry, I saw it and it disappeared because I am a grown up.” Our older brother and his friend were always building forts, etc, out there, so it may have been some of their failed attempts as well. We spent days looking for those houses. This was probably a good ploy of dad’s to keep us occupied for quite some time! We wanted to find one so much!!!

We had great times there, we had a huge garden, orchards, lots of animals…pigs, cows, goats, chickens, horses, ducks, quail, rabbits, a bit of all farm animals. Dad had a very long sledding hill built for us and a pond. You can figure our childhood was filled with lots of fun things to do. My older brother one day asked me if I wanted to ride Sarah, the cow. I of course said sure. He hoisted me right up there and off Sarah and I went. We went all over those 10 acres! When we returned, my brother came running up and started helping me down asking if I were okay and if the cow tried to get me off of her or run me into any trees or fences. When I said no, he started excitedly hollering, “Hey everyone we can ride the cow!” My mother heard this and I am pretty sure she was not too happy with my brother, but I was safe and had a nice ride!

The entire country was ours for the exploring. We would walk or ride bicycles all day and visit neighbors and gather in each other’s yards or woods for the day to play. We would run out that door at sun up and return at lunch and head right back out until supper. When we needed snacks, we could grab something from the garden or have some berries, apples, peaches, cherries, whatever was growing. I sure miss those fresh foods! It seemed that most of the time everyone was at our house. We had a huge yard. We would play baseball, starting with flies and grounders. As cars would come by they would stop and get out and play and before long we would have a baseball game. The same thing would happen with kickball or flag football. It was amazing that people who never even knew you would feel comfortable enough to stop and get out and ask if they could play! Of course, we welcomed them.

We caught the rain water in barrels so we had a lot of barrels. We would “walk” on the barrels and have races. I have a picture of this that I might post some day! We had barrels for our appropriate sizes. My little brother and I had the smallest ones. Doing this took some balance and leg strength! The neighbors came down and got in on this activity as well. People passing by would always stop and join in the fun. What great times! My older brothers became more competitive and adventurous and would race with my little brother and me on their shoulders! Pretty sure mom was not thrilled with this either.

Well, this is a bit of background. I really did not think I could just jump in and randomly tell stories. I feel this background helps you get to know me and my family and to know my character. I will try my best, but I probably will not tell stories here in chronological order and I may just want to talk about things at times and not tell stories. I have always been one of those people where so many random things pop out of my mouth that I even surprise myself sometimes. Often times, it is the case that I would have been better off keeping my mouth shut. Oh how I try to talk myself out of the situations I get myself into then. It is always good for a laugh, though!

I will probably post on two days a week. Thank you for coming back again to read what I have to say. More to come………………..

Welcome.  Today, since I am starting out, I really do not know what to say and believe me, I always have a lot to say!  I write in tablets, binders, any type of booklet that i pick up.  I sort have kept a diary since I was 13.  There are many unfinished ones lying around the house and in storage bins.  My children may or may not have a good time reading them when they come across them.   They may think, if they do not already…. What a crazy mom!

Let’s start with the title …. Follow what brick road?  That was taken from my all time favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz.  It is too bad that there was not such a clear cut road to follow in life. There are more turns, hills, valleys and loop de loops than one can handle at times. That is what this will mostly be about, all of the many paths life leads you down.

Next, we will sort of introduce me…. I love to laugh, love people, love children.  I grew up in a family of 5 children.  There was always something going on. My mother is responsible for this.  We will go into detail about her later.  She was definitely one of a kind.  You might say that our family never met a stranger.  We always talk to people, meet new people, and love it! Often times, this can lead to some very funny and embarrassing situations which will be mentioned here later.  Great times! My husband and I  have a family of 5 children ourselves and we love a house full!  Our home as well as my parent’s home was open to all.

Bear with me here, this may sound dull, but I promise you it will be interesting.  It is hard for me to stay on track and not talk too much at once. For instance, when I mentioned my mother, I could have went into several stories, but I need to try to keep some sort of organization.  Some people call them bonus stories, others call it getting sidetracked.

I hope for this to entertain, encourage and enlighten.  The stories of the family are too good to let just disappear and I like the memories. The lessons learned may help others.  The biggest goal, besides my getting to write it down and recall the wonderful memories  is that perhaps you will just enjoy this and maybe it will bring a  smile or laugh to you.

THANKS FOR JOINING ME!