Memories

This was taken at "Our House". The place I spent most of my childhood. It is abandoned now, since my Mom moved into town. This is right on the main highway, but way down off the road, so it is quiet and very peaceful. My sister got the car and the land at this location becomes mine. I can already picture a special home here. The house has been empty now for so long it will just be bulldozed in the future.

We were not well off. There were many meals of fried hotdogs. There were fish fries on Saturday night after the guys fished in the river and cleaned all the catfish. My mom makes the best hushpuppies. There was hand churned ice cream. There were frog legs, and chicken, and deer meat. Lots of cold beer, some southern comfort, and sweet tea for those who didn't or couldn't drink. But we were never hungry.

My Dad was a very generous man. He would help people or give them things with no real expectation of receiving in return. When he was killed in the accident, he died with people owing him money. He always cut those unable to pay the slack they needed. After his death, his friends helped us. We could call Jerry or Pete and things would just get done. Most of his generosity was returned after his death.

He was also competitve. He and a friend were competing to see who could grow the largest tomato. The story about that is just so funny. He built this raised bed, filled it with manure and soil, planted potatoes and tomatoes and dropped in a shovel full of worms. His pruned and trained those tomato bushes and watered and babied all of them. He plucked off the suckers and reduced the number of fruits to allow all of the energy to be focused on his prized specimen tomato.

My Nanny was bad to go down to our house. She would look through the mail, etc. Aggravating habit, but one she pulled on everyone. But she also fixed supper (southern for the evening meal) for us regularly. Dad had been babying this huge tomato for weeks. He watched it as it becan light green, then soft pink and well on its way to red and ready to pick for the big weigh in and measuring day.

Supper that night at Nanny's was to be one of our most memorable. We had sandwiches. As we sat down to eat, my Dad's face got red and then he exploded. I was little and not really paying attention before the explosion. Seems we had tomato sandwiches with our supper, and each sandwich only required one slice of the gorgeous red fruit. My Nanny served us the prized "special" tomato for supper on the night two friends were supposed to weigh and measure the fruit for the bet.

It has become a funny story now. Like most of those kinds, well worth telling over and over. Every real family has them. Characters - funny stories - family legacies.

LAST NIGHT ---- Arizona won. I finished the graph for the Names of Jesus pieces. Dog sitting for a friends dogs. MaggieGrace goodies are being created. Just at a slow pace. I tend to choose intense projects.

Have a wonderful day.