Sunday..Another Trip Down Memory Lane

This is a picture of me at about three years old. Daddy had scanned this picture and sent it to me awhile back. I did remember where the pictures I was looking for yesterday were...kind of. I know they are in a faded pink album. Now, where that album is, I don't know. I mean, I don't know at all. Usually you have an idea where something is, a general area. Not this time. It should have been with all my other picture albums. Its not there. Its going to be one of those things that just turns up one of these days and I will say "Oh! I wanted this album a while back!"

Today...is pretty much like yesterday. It is dark and overcast. It poured rain last night and afterwards has gotten increasingly colder and the wind is blustery. So here I sit again today. It feels different today. I am being interrupted by Shelby again and again. I think she wants the computer, but right now I need some alone time to take my mind back in time. It isnt often I ask time for myself and I think she became mildly irritated with me when I cut her off this past time and asked her to please close the door behind her. She is, after all, an only child and used to my attentions. Today I feel I need some time for me though. Ian will be off work tomorrow and things won't be quiet and homeschool, laundry, dishes, cooking, animals wanting...all that will be going on. So right now, it is my turn at the moment.

My Daddys brother lived on the Chattahoochee River. There was a small house that was originally there, but the main living area was a double wide they attached onto the house. I was always ready to go to Uncle Rileys. It was always fun there. I was never very good at catching fish, but I tried. There is an old picture of me holding up some fish on a line we caught somewhere amongst my parents picture albums. I remember the front room of the old house always had one of those wire buckets full of crickets in it...for fishing I suppose. I remember fish on the grill cooking. I remember taking a nap in the cool of my aunt and uncles bedroom on their white chenille bedspread. There was no air conditioning in the house, just in the trailer.

One time when we were out there the river had dried up in that particular spot. I mean it was nothing but mud. You could walk out there where the water used to be..or so I thought. My younger sister and I went traipsing out and about. Way out I saw some duck eggs laying on the ground. Erin and I went to investigate...but halfway there something awful began to happen. I did try to skirt around areas that looked too muddy. I remember poor Erin, in her knee high zip up brown boots...sinking sinking down. The harder she tried to pull out, the further down she sunk. I dont recall our exact age. I am going to say she was 5 or 6, so that would put me at 12 or 13. I was in a panic. This was a very scary situation in a childs mind. What was I going to do? If I left Erin there to go get help, was she going to be there when I got back? I was going to get blamed for this no matter what. I was supposed to be careful. I was supposed to be the one in charge. I was afraid of sinking and getting stuck myself. What if we both got stuck? Then how would anyone know we needed help at all? All this and more ran through my panicked young mind. Eventually I mustered up the courage to grab my younger sisters hands and pull. I pulled and pulled. Eventually she was able to pull one muddy boot clad leg out of the muck. The other one...well...somewhere there is a brown knee high zip up childs boot at the bottom of the Chattahoochee. We walked back to the house and I don't remember the details, but I am pretty sure our parents weren't happy about us losing that boot. ;) I do remember Daddy asking us why we went out there in the first place. When I told him about the duck eggs he just shook his head. Thats the way I remember it anyway.

I had a sandpile in the back yard. I think most kids did. I spent many hours making mountains and digging out caverns going through that mountain. I had my little plastic animals I played with out in the sandpile. I made mudpies and I made 'soups' with grass, the berries from monkeygrass and other things I could find in the yard. I was not a squeemish girl about frogs and lizards. There were always anoles running along the fence in the thick honeysuckle vines. If I could catch one I would pet it and love it. I found out that I could lay the lizard on its back and rub its tummy and it would go into a trance. One time I brought the entranced lizard into the house and showed Mama. She was accomodating but hurried my back out the door with the creature. Much much later, when Ian and I had already married we purchased a baby iguana for a pet. She lived for fifteen years. I found out through having this iguana and doing a lot of reading that when you lay a lizard on its back...the reason it appears to go docile..lol, is because the blood is rushing out of its head and makes the creature barely concious. HMMMM...oops. Oh well, I thought I was the lizard whisperer. ;) Frogs were always interesting to me. The little grey toads were abundant in our yard. We had a small creek that ran next to our house that always had tadpoles in it. We even had crawfish in there too. I was always amazed at the different marks each frog would have on its neck. Sometimes the mark would look like a letter, usually a small "i" or an "l" shape. The only drawback to picking up toads was initially they didn't like it, so they would 'wet' on you...lol. It never seemed to deter me.

My childhood was not always fun and games. Sometimes Erin and I had to get out in the yard and work with Mama and Daddy. We had to rake leaves and bag them. We had to pick up sticks and pinecones first though, so they wouldnt put holes in the leaf bags. Daddy had a garden. He has always had a garden as long as I can remember. Still does today. I never had to really work in the garden, but I would go and pick beans and tomatoes and squash with him. Erin and I would help Mama on Saturdays cleaning the house. Dusting was our job. We never had to clean the bathroom, that was strictly left to Mama. Sometimes we had to clean out our closets, or straighten our chest of drawers. Erin and I would help wash, dry and put away the supper dishes, things like that. I think back now and I am glad I learned how to do these things. I think it has helped me in adulthood to keep my house and yard in order, most of the time.

Its rocking on 1 o'clock, and I have to get the school schedule done for next week. Laundry awaits, as do animals. Shelby is playing music upstairs while she cleans her upstairs. She even cleans her bathroom. :) The music is distracting my thinking though, so I think I will close for today. Ian will be off work tomorrow so I doubt I will be online until Tuesday. Until then, everyone have a nice Sunday and Monday. :)