Stroll Down Memory Lane with Me

Another day of being too hot to do much productive. Bah, humbug! I've been playing around with scanning old photos into my computer. I thought you might like to see a few of them. The picture above is my father's mother. My grandmother could do anything. She and my grandfather lived on a farm for most of their lives. She was born in 1905, and knew what it was to survive The Great Depression. In the picture above she's showing off some of the farm's produce that she canned and entered into the Harvest Festival. That porch behind her is one of my fondest memories. I spent many a morning or afternoon in that swing, waiting for the mailman to go by or for the man to come by in his truck full of all manner of things to buy. Mostly I spent the time reading. It was a great place to relax and go off into another world. :)

This is my grandparents with my dad and his sister on the side of that same porch years earlier. Daddy said that they had paid a man to come and build that house, and that while it was being built - they slept in one of the old outbuildings on the farm they had bought. They and the man they'd hired tore down the original farmhouse and built this one. They reused all the lumber and even the nails. It was a wonderfully comfortable house and my sister and I spent many childhood summers there. I know it's not supposed to be done, but this dear grandmother told me when I was about ten years old that I was their "favorite". By then I had another sister and two brothers, so it meant a lot to me that someone thought I was special. She told me not to tell the others and I never did.
This is my grandmother again, here in her living room that was her pride and joy. We messy children were usually not allowed to play around in there. She is displaying a tablecloth that she made (and sold) at Harvest Festival. I can't even imagine how long it must have taken her to crochet that. When I moved back to Mississippi for a time in the vain effort to save a hopeless marriage, one of the good things was being able to spend more time with her. By then my grandfather had moved to heaven and she had moved into "town". (Believe me, it was a tiny place!) She had sold the farm and bought herself a brand new brick house. She was so proud of it.

This is my daddy with one of his bird dogs. He loved his dogs and he loved to go bird hunting. (Quail, in case you're wondering what kind of bird.)

And here I am at my other grandparents' home with my doll Roberta. I have no memory of her, but Mama assures me that was her name. It's even written on the back of the photo.

Life was so much simpler then. It was also harder. Most people at that time did not have air conditioning. Few stores at the time had any either. We all just fanned a lot. :) Remember those cardboard fans with the wooden handle? I remember the little Presbyterian church we attended when I was a child had oscillating fans mounted on the walls around the sanctuary. We thought that was pretty "uptown"!

Thanks for joining me on this little trip. It's good once in a while to go back and remember. I was born in 1948, so I grew up in the fifties and sixties. I graduated from high school in 1966, but our little town was so small there were no drugs there. I can't say the same now, but then - beer was about as wicked as kids could get. It was not even sold in our town at that time. No liquor of any kind could be sold within the city limits. It's what was called a "dry" town. Are there any of those left?

Take a little peek at your own happy memories. And tell me about them.....please.

Hugs and kisses,