MOTHER KNOWS BEST – Boy Was My Face Red

One family lived close enough to be considered a neighbor, when I was a child, and consisted of a middle-aged man and his elderly mother, there were no children to play with. Consequently, I eagerly awaited my first year in school.

At six years old that much anticipated event occurred and I experienced my first day of school at Billingsley High, which consisted of all twelve grades and sported an attendance of about 300 students. That day, the whole school gathered in the auditorium. I had never seen so many people at once before, nor so many children my own age – about twenty-eight.

School immediately became the social center of my life. I experienced some of my greatest joys (plays and operettas) there and one of the most embarrassing events in my life.

In Grammar School, most of my clothing was cotton and made by my Mom. In the second grade she bought me a pair of silk, what the English call, knickers. Oh my, they were splendid with lace and ribbons around the waist and leg openings! Unfortunately, Mom pronounced their waist elastic untrustworthy and forbade me to wear them until fixed.

Being a very busy woman, repairing those knickers wasn’t high on Mom’s list. It was taking her much too long to-get-around-to-it, so I decided to wear them to school, anyway.

I had got about twenty feet down the hall, when I felt silk slither down my legs and pool around my ankles. I think I stopped breathing. There were upper classman behind me, who were in various degrees of laughter induced paroxysm.

I slung them off my feet and ran for the classroom. One conscientious sixth grade girl opened my class room door holding the silky things out to me and said, “I think you left these in the hall.”

February 26, 2010 · Carolyn · 2 Comments
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REA – Electricity Comes to the Country

Did you ever live so far into the country that the power company wouldn’t furnish you with electricity?

We did. Although, we lived only three miles outside of Billingsley, AL, I was four years old before the REA came through the country side.

I still remember that day. The family gathered round the drop-cord in our sitting room, and someone held me up to the light switch, for it had been decided, that since I was the youngest, I’d get to be the first one to turn on a light.

One of my brothers humorously declaimed, “Let there be light.” And I turned it on.

Wow! To a child raised around kerosene lamps, that light was miraculous. So much so, that I will always carry that scene with me.

Learn about the TVA and how it brought electricity to the country!

February 25, 2010 · Carolyn · 3 Comments
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First Ripe Melon of the Season

Did you and the crows ever keep watch over a watermelon patch trying to hurry those beauties into ripening?

My brother and I did every summer, accompanied by crows in trees along the edge of the field. We kept tabs on all the larger melon’s state of ripeness by watching the color of its curl.

When the curl started dying, we’d switch to the thump method of determining the readiness for consumption. In dirt so hot we hopped around to relieve the burning of bare feet, we stood by promising candidates trying to hurry the process, but if they didn’t have that deep, flat, thud sound when thumped, we gave up the vigil for the day only to come back the next one for a repeat.

Our parents had, of course, given us the usual warning, “Leave the watermelons alone. They’re our cash crop.”

In the ’40’s and ’50’s we didn’t know and didn’t care what a cash crop meant.

At last, when the curl and thump agreed, we’d carefully remove the melon from the vine, hopefully leaving no evidence of our pilfering for Daddy to find.

The reward of our long wait had come. We’d smash the melon on the ground, busting it open, and causing the heart to come loose as one big, sweet, juicy piece.

Reaching in, we’d pluck that heart, divide it between us and eat; sweet juice running down our chins and dripping from our hands.

There never was a better melon than the first ripe one of the season.

What’s your watermelon or other Oldtimy Country story?

February 24, 2010 · Carolyn · 4 Comments
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