I got these pictures in an email from Glen, my nephew that gave me the tool tips in the post below...he thought you might like to see a picture of us when we were young. Above is my mom, with her hand on his back...and that is me sitting there.
That is taken up at our old home place...I don't know what year it was taken. Probably around 1957-58...(Just think back then...diapers were the norm...pampers had not been invented quite yet. Here is wikipedia's article on Pampers...they were made at a much earlier date than I would have thought. According to the article, 1961 was the date they were introduced.)
Of course I don't remember this being taken...but there are lots of memories of Glen...he spent two or three summers with us. None of us can remember how many...we all are positive he spent at least two summers with us, but other than that none of us know for sure if he spent any more.
It makes no difference how many he spent...we have a lifetime of memories.
There was Gap Creek that bordered our pasture and hayfield...I think we waded it every day of the week. Unless it stormed and the creek got too high. People up the road a few miles had thrown a tire in it every now and then, and when it flooded, it would wash them on down the creek. One would get partially buried in the creekbed. We would catch all the crawdads we could fine and put them 'in the tire,' as if that would actually corral them.
And we were mussel farmers of a sort...you go along and watch for their mouth to be open...all it looks like is just a small dark slit in the sand on the bottom. We would also gather all of those we could and have an area of the creek we would stick them in. Of course they didn't stay...but it was fun to do.
Not to mention skipping rocks, and occasionally actually fishing...nothing big to fish for, except there was supposed to be a big turtle down by the railroad trestle. No one ever caught it that I am aware of so it might have been a figment of someone's imagination.
And I cannot walk where there are a lot of pine/cedar trees without the smell takes me instantly back to our childhood.
I think we spent a third of the day in the creek, and a third in the cedar thicket, and a third in this basement that had been dug for a house....it filled with 2 or 3 feet of water and a house was never built. It was more or less a big mudhole. Actually, there was another pond just a couple hundred yards from the one--I really think they started to dig the basement there, only to have water start filling it right away. It really wasn't much more than a mudhole.
We (actually, my brothers I think) had put sungrannies in it, and I think catfish. Sungrannies were some kind of fish...I don't know what their real name was and cannot remember them too clearly. I just know sometimes we could hold a worm down to the water with our bare hands and they would take it...other times they wouldn't bite anything. We caught and released them because they were to little for eating.
I don't remember being inside, during the summer except at night...and for meals. And I think I probably had to wash dishes at night...I can't remember real clear when that started. Otherwise, we were outside doing something.
