I Am From...................

I borrowed this idea from Mary at Owlhaven, and she has a wonderful post up now using this idea. The point is to build on the words, "I am from.........." It is a writing prompt to tell about your childhood memories, and family traditions, etc. I have posted several pictures and stories about my childhood, but I will try to expand on the idea a little. Those of you who are plumb sick of hearing about me-----Sorry, I guess you can visit some of my other blogger friends and pass on this one. ;-)

I AM FROM............

I am from rural Northeast Arkansas. I am from what some people might consider a very poor family, but we were rich in the things that mattered most. I posted a little about some of my growing up years here, if you'd like to read this first. The house we lived in from the time I was 4 years old up until I was almost 9 had no plumbing, and the only running water we had was when Mama told one of us to run and pump a bucket of water. We had hand pump just like the one to the left, there, but ours was red, or had no paint at all from daily use and weathering.

I am from cotton fields. All the places I grew up that I remember were surrounded by cotton fields, like the one to the right, there. I chopped cotton every summer for spending money, and I bought some of my school clothes and other things with my money, too. I chopped every summer from my 10th year until the summer I graduated from high school. The first year I chopped cotton, I just blew some of the money on kid stuff, junk food and things like that, but I'll wager most of you would never be able to guess one thing I bought with some of that money. I still have part of them, too. Now, remember, I was 10 years old at the time, but I was pretty mature for my age, and I worked hard for that money, too. If you've never chopped cotton, you don't know what you're missing, folks. Anyway...........I bought 2 sets of cotton percale sheets at P.N. Hirsch. The store is long gone, but one set of the sheets is not. I gave Mama a set of the sheets when I got married, and they burned when their house burned, which you can read about here. I still have the other set, and they are worn, but the pillow cases and top sheet are still usable. As Mama would say, you could throw a broom straw through the fitted sheet. I guess I am hanging onto it just for the sake of old memories. I am 42 now, so if I am doing the math right, that would make that set of sheets 32 years old, folks. I think it was a wise investment, myself.

I am from a time of playing with june bugs and lightning bugs. I remember catching june bugs and tying strings around them and letting them fly on the string. We caught big horseflies and what we called dry flies, too, and tied strings on them. Other people call them locusts or July flies, but they are really called cicadas. There's a green june bug to the right, there, and a lightning bug to the left. We used to catch lightning bugs, or fireflies to some people not fortunate enough to grow up in the South, and put them in jars with holes punched in the lid. They would begin their magical flashing a little before dusk, and we ended many a hot, humid summer evening sweaty, but victorious, our jars full of the flickering little critters. One thing, though, that was very important: no harming any of the bugs. They had to be released at the end of the day, if not before. And WOE to the child (or adult) who harmed a toad frog if Mama found out about it.Yes, in our family, they are properly termed, toad frogs.

I am from people who love to raise chickens, like those over there to the left. Sue's husband, Charles is the only one in the family who still has chickens, but Ducky and Donna have had chickens at various times. We had several different kinds of chickens. For instance, we had red ones.....and white ones...............black ones.............You get the idea. We had whatever people gave us or Mama traded for, and then they interbred, so we had what I guess you'd call mongrel chickens, LOL. All I know is the eggs and meat from those chickens were so much better than what you can buy at Kroger these days that it's unreal. If I lived in a house outside the city limits, I'd probably have chickens today.

I am from Tornado Alley. My Daddy was terrified of storms. Only my Mama's composure and good sense kept Daddy from taking her and us kids out into danger sometimes when it stormed. Daddy would wait until the height of the storm, then decide it was bad enough to go the neighbors' storm cellar, or later, to our own. Thank the Good Lord, I took after Mama rather than Daddy when it comes to storms. I remember a time when we kids

were younger, we saw a tornado very similar to the one there to the right. I was about 11 at the time, which made Cecil 10, and my nieces and nephews ranged from 7 on down to toddlers. We were playing on the front porch of the house we lived in at the time. Our nearest neighbor lived about a mile away, and we were surrounded by cotton fields, so we had a long view in every direction. It was a cloudy, muggy day in the Spring , and we were playing with a big old box. We were playing like a tornado was coming, and I was the oldest, so I would herd all the kids (Yes, all the kids! It was a big box, I said!) into the box, which was our play storm cellar. Only one time when I looked across the field, there really WAS a tornado, maybe 3 miles across the field. I ran in the house and told Mama, Sue and Ducky, but they knew we were playing like a tornado was coming, and they thought we were just trying to lure them out to play with us, or just trying to get their attention. I finally convinced Mama to come look. I was practically in tears, and when she saw the tornado, she apologized for doubting me. She called the sheriff's office, but they wouldn't come check on it, so she called the Bay police department, but by the time they got out there, it had already dissipated. It would have been all the same if people had died, though, from the lack of interest from the sheriff's department.

I am from a family that loves food, and loves to cook good food. I was raised on pinto beans and fried potatoes, with cornbread and a little meat sometimes, too. Other times it was white beans and biscuits, and maybe stewed potatoes. Mama always joked that when we got tired of beans and potatoes, we'd have potatoes and beans for a change. Those are dried pinto beans there to the left. That's how they look before they're cooked. There's some cornbread there to the right. Notice it's in a cast iron skillet. In my opinion, it's the absolute best way to cook cornbread, bar none. We still eat a lot of beans and potatoes today, and cornbread, too. Mama made either biscuits or corn bread almost every meal, including breakfast sometimes. Daddy only liked light bread for a sandwich, and he griped if Mama didn't make biscuits, especially if she made cream gravy and he had to eat it

with light bread. Of course our beverage of choice with most of those meals was sweet tea. Iced tea, that is, a lot like that glass over there to the left. Plastic wasn't used nearly as much when I was a kid, and Mama used wide -mouth gallon jugs for tea jugs. I had made tea for dinner one day, and was stirring it with a metal spoon and broke that gallon jug of sweet tea. Do you have any idea exactly how much area a gallon of tea can cover? A BIG area, folks. What a mess, plus I had to make another gallon of tea, plus the wasted tea and sugar.

I am from a family of music lovers. A lot of times after a big Sunday dinner, we'd get out the old hymnals and song books and gather round the table and sing the old songs. A lot of times we had tall glasses of iced tea to drink, too, because we never had air conditioning growing up. Ah, the memories. I learned a lot of the songs I know from those afternoons, singing along with Mama and the sisters. It helped me learn to sing harmony, too, and to this day I would rather sing harmony than melody, most of the time. One of our favorite songbooks to sing from was (and IS) the Heavenly Highway Hymnal. There is the front of one to the right. The ones we used to sing from were a lot more well-used and well-loved, though. Most of the covers were gone, but oh, we loved them. Now some of the family that used to gather around the table and sing is gone, but, oh, how we love them, and miss them.

I am from a family rich with love, traditions, memories..................And did I mention........LOVE?