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

I have already done Diane's version of this, but Mary at Owlhaven has a contest going on using this, so here is my formal version. If you want to participate or read more about it, you can find the details HERE.

I AM FROM.......

I am from cast iron skillets, from Ivory soap, and hard work.

I am from, "Yes, there's plenty for one more.....Diane, get 'em a plate, and Cecil, fix 'em a glass of tea," with the smells of good food, pinto beans, fried potatoes and cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet wafting in the hot, humid summer air.

I am from the bouquets of violets and dandelions, and small branches off our "money tree", placed in old glass bottles scavenged from the burn pile, and lovingly given to and received by Mama, the rich green of the cotton plants in the fields, and Ducky's creamy white magnolias scenting the early morning breeze.

I am from all the family and some friends gathering at our house on Sundays and holidays, and going to bed early and getting up before the chickens, from Fred and Martha and Frank and Lue.

I am from people who love to hunt and fish, which many a time put food on our table, and who cherish family and friends and our Faith.

From coffee that will either put hair on your chest or turn your toenails black, and not wasting food, because somewhere in the world people would love to have what I didn't want, nasty as I might think it was, and for my part, they were welcome to it, just come and get it.

I am from Southern Baptists and Assembly of God, and a few heathens that we are working on, (smile). I am from chilly Easter sunrise services, and paper fans and fighting mosquitoes. I am from church Homecoming services with counters and tables overflowing with the best from our gardens and the best from our baking and cooking. I am from knowing and loving the same church families and friends from birth to death.

I'm from being born at Smith's Clinic in Trumann, Arkansas, and I and all my family still live with 25 miles of our birthplace, and from chicken and dressing and homemade Wesson Oil Cake with 7-Minute frosting and coconut.

From the time I stepped on the bottom of a broken Coke bottle and cut my ankle to the bone, but I begged Daddy not to take me to get stitches, and I have a big scar there to this day, and from the time we were moving into a new house, and as we pushed the cook stove back against the wall, the bottom of the stove cut into the 220 watt cable and shorted it out, and Mama and 3 of us grown girls all went through a standard-size doorway at the same time, and the way Charles always had to comb his hair before he sat down to eat, even if he was filthy elsewhere.

I am from photographs and what-nots, from little bits of jewelry, scattered among all of us 5 daughters, from a family that truly knows the worth of those things, since Mama and Daddy's house and a lot of our family photos burned in 1987. But I am also from a family that realizes that as precious as those things are, our memories and the lives that were saved that day are even more precious. Those precious memories and lives are everything. They are priceless.