I reckon I can remember back to when I was about 12 years old, maybe a might bit younger. I can see my Grandpa almost as plain as the lines in my hand. He must a stood six foot tall if not an inch or two from it. That seemed pretty tall for a man in them days following the war. But then I wasn’t much more than a hair over four foot myself, which might have deceived me some.
I reckon I can remember back to when I was about 12 years old, maybe a might bit younger. I can see my Grandpa almost as plain as the lines in my hand. He must a stood six foot tall if not an inch or two from it. That seemed pretty tall for a man in them days following the war. But then I wasn’t much more than a hair over four foot myself, which might have deceived me some. Grandpa did look to be a good six foot, but he could of been a tad shorter I suppose. I recall the big smile with sm
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I reckon I can remember back to when I was about 12 years old, maybe a might bit younger. I can see my Grandpa almost as plain as the lines in my hand. He must a stood six foot tall if not an inch or two from it. That seemed pretty tall for a man in them days following the war. But then I wasn’t much more than a hair over four foot myself, which might have deceived me some. Grandpa did look to be a good six foot, but he could of been a tad shorter I suppose. I recall the big smile with smoke stained teeth, his nose a bit longer than most, short black hair with a mix of gray, and him coming in from the berry patch dust covered after an afternoon of plowing fields. He’d get down off that old orange oxidized tractor, look me in the eye, then rub my head and ask how long I’d been there. Think he was always more concerned as to how much longer I’d be staying. One time I stayed pert near most of the summer so seemed. Mom and Dad dropped me off and showed up the next weekend, only to leave me there again for another week. I didn’t much mind since my Uncle, the youngest of six kids, still lived at home with Grandma and Grandpa. He was only five years older than me and usually around most days.
The fun at Grandma and Grandpa’s usually begun sometime after dinner. Seemed all the neighbors down the road would come over, bring their kids and some sort of musical instrument, some recognizable, others I’d question the authenticity as a musical instrument. I mean, a fiddle is right easy to figure out, and those squeeze boxes sure are a musical instrument with all the noise they make. But those jugs some of them men folk blew into or the wire pulled through a hole in the bottom of a washtub then stretched up to the end of a stick and tied off. They’d pluck this wire string moving the stick around, which was making low sounds at different pitches. And the sound they caused dragging a spoon across the ribs of a washboard. Add a couple wind harps and somehow it all sounded good. Finding a place to sit or stand around in sort of a circle, they would play music ‘til way past dark almost every night. And the later it got the more we all took up a spot behind them, sing’n and clap’n along with the music.
Some of us kids, we’d run around in the berry patches, through the barn, play hide n’ seek most times. Before it got dark enough to play, we might hunt garden snakes. I recollect them snakes being pretty easy to find. The girls didn’t care much for chasing down snakes. They’d come along but didn’t want to touch them. Grandma didn’t care for them snakes much neither.
One day, us boys had caught a mess of them snakes I’d guess and kept them in a box we’d found in the barn. We were pretty excited to show someone how many we got and we brought the box in the house where the women folk were, just to show them is all. Tommy was holding the box and all the moms wanted to see what was in the box. I suppose we should a told them first what was in the box but we wanted it to be a surprise. Well, snakes-in-a-box was a surprise, but Tommy dropping that box in the kitchen like he did where all the women folk gathered around us was a bigger surprise. You should a heard the screaming. Was so loud, scared all the snakes and they were just a going in all directions. Then too, were all the women folk. They’d scream so loud Grandpa and all the men folk come a running in, most getting knocked down by all the women running out the door. When they’d seen what the screaming was all about, they had a pretty good laugh, but told us kids we needed to catch each one of those snakes and get them out of the house soon. We were a picking them up as fast as we were a catching them but was hard work, because them garden snakes were a going everywhere. Once we’d caught what we thought was all of them, we got out of that house quick. Grandma was hollering that we’d best got all them snakes, but I didn’t think we had, cause I remember some little ones and I wasn’t seeing any little ones in the box. But they were all a hollering at us to hurry up, so we called it good and got out of there. Took those snakes out to the barn and let them go we did. Then we headed out to the back part of the berry patches to play our nightly game of hide n’ seek. Occasionally we hear some screaming come from the house… guessing someone must a found one of them snakes we missed.
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