Living down that old dead end dirt road as I grew up was a great childhood. We were happy, we had most everything we needed and some of what we wanted.
A smell like pinto beans cooking can transport me back in time and open up the windows to my youth. I can see Mama standing at the stove stirring the beans. I can see me as I stand on a box to reach the cabinet as Mama taught me to make cornbread. I still make it the same way today. I loved to cook then and I still love it today. Stuff we cooked then was mostly home grown. Not much store bought things. I long for a dinner eaten off the table sitting across from my Daddy like I used to.
I see Daddy mowing the lawn with that old wooden push mower or maybe plowing the garden with Ol' Dixie. I love to tag along and "Help" him feed the chickens, horse, pig, and cow down in the barn.
I look up and I see Brenda running across the pasture and I run to meet her. I see Norman and Paul climbing the trees in the yards or along the lane that connects the two homes. I see Auntie drawing water from the well that is way down by the RR Tracks or maybe drawing from our well to give the cow Old Pet a drink.
I see us walking to Hall Parks or Keys store with maybe a nickel,or maybe not, for ourselves. Sometimes we bring back something Mama has sent us to get.
Laying in bed on cold mornings listening to the voices of Mama and Daddy. I can't hear what they are saying but the soft buzz of the beloved voices rings in my ears. I smell coffee brewing and bacon frying just before one of them comes to my room and tells me to "Get up now"! I just snuggle down in the covers and lay there until I'm told more firmly to "Get up right now" and I say "I am up".
I see Mama rocking my baby Brother Norman while she feeds him. She is trying to get him to sleep and I'm standing on the wooden rockers jabbering till she tells me to "Hush Clydene". Sometimes I get my toes rocked on, scream out and Norman starts crying.
We play ball in the pasture in front of Brenda's house. We need to watch because Ol Smokey is in there and he is a mean Ol' thing.
So many memories can materialize in my mind by a smell, a sound, and a vision and I'm back there in my childhood as a skinny little kinky headed girl. I become that girl again. She is right here inside my mind and I'm hanging on to her as tight as I can.
Sometimes I look in a mirror and think, Who in the world is that ol' wrinkled up prune? Where the heck did that smooth faced, black haired, skinny little girl go. In my heart I'm still that girl growing up. “Hey I'm still here”, I want to shout at that dad' burned mirror. Stop lying to me, come on now, that aint me.
It don't have to be me that I see there in the mirror. I can be that girl again anytime I want to if I keep her alive. Sure nuff can. So there you ol' mirror. I don't have to listen to you. That girl was lively, no aches and pains, no worries either. Well by golly I'm 69 and I've earned the right to be a girl again. I can certainly do it as long as I don't lose the desire. I love taking a trip down memory lane once in a while. It is so refreshing and I often need to be refreshed.