My Little Stories

Fairbanks Alaska

Pa made a wrong turn coming back from Bee Branch and was headed to Fairbanks, Arkansas by mistake. He was telling about it and said he knew it was taking a long time and that's when he looked up and saw a sign that said he was going to "Fairbanks Alaska"! It was always a funny story to hear him tell it.

Barber Shop

I used to go with Pa to the barber shop in Heber and loved to watch him get his hair cut. I was just his tag along. The same guy cut his hair for over 30 years and cut it the same every time.

Horn In The Butt

My grandparents let me keep a “heifer” out of the cows and they would take care of it. Finally my heifer got old enough to have a calf of her own, and it turned out to be a bull. My boss, Ken, who I used to work for at Michael’s, would get out the paper and help me check cattle prices every week to decide when the best time was to sell it.

Because she was a new mother, when she had her calf, she wouldn’t let him feed, so my grandparents put her up in the barn of an evening with the calf so they could feed her and let him feed while she ate. My heifer had grown horns and one day she got mad at my grandpa while he was in the barn with her and pinned him up against the wall. He was trying to climb the fenced wall to get over to the other side when she came up under him with her horns and horned him in the behind. The horn went through his jeans and underwear and into his skin. He had to go the doctor and have the puncture wound cleaned out and take antibiotics and have a home health nurse come out and clean it and dress it, because my grandma couldn’t do it, until it healed up. After that, we sold the heifer. They went through a lot of grief for me. They were always so good to me letting me learn and teaching me about cows and giving me one to raise and sell. They always made me feel like I had the whole world.

Scratching

When I stayed all night at their house or when he visited mine, Pa used to scratch on my door real slow with his fingernails to get me up of a morning. He didn’t say anything…he would just scratch. It was always a fun thing to me and I never got mad at him for waking me up that way and I always knew who it was that was doing it.

Lectric Shave

Pa used “Lectric Shave” for as long as I can remember. I saw all the different “bottle changes” throughout their company’s years and little things like that stick in my head. I would watch him slap it on his face after he shaved and make this noise like he was so refreshed when he done it.

Big Pines

Pa took me to the creek in the fall of 2007 to show me the three big pine trees on the property. They were not very far apart from each other and in a triangular shaped pattern apart. Each tree was so big you couldn’t wrap your arms around it and touch. We stood by them and talked about each one and took pictures of them and my grandpa by them. He wanted me to know where they were in case something happened to him and told me that they had been there ever since him and my great grandpa, Paw Paw Hipp had bought the property back in the 1950’s. It was fun to do that with him and I still have the pictures. I used to keep on in my locker at work.

McCain Mall

When I was very young my grandparents took me to McCain Mall in North Little Rock to see Minnie and Mickey Mouse. I got my picture made with them and got to see Goofy (who I really liked better than the mice!). They were always going places with me and doing fun things. They went with me and my parents on a weekend vacation when I was a kid to Magic Springs. Me and Pa rode the bumper cars. He couldn’t ride anything that went around because he got sick easy, but he was always standing there watching with my grandma and waiting for me to get off.

BirdCall

My grandpa taught me to do this noise that you make with your hands when you cup them together and blow down in the hole created where your thumbs come together at the top and it sounds a lot like the noise a rain crow makes. For those of you that don’t know what a rain crow is, it is a bird that when it sings makes a loud “whoop” and follows it with three mournful cries. It is said that when you hear a rain crow “hollering” it will rain that day or the next. Anyway, this noise can be quite loud, if done properly, and when I would go to my grandparents house and my grandpa was out somewhere out in the field that my grandma wasn’t sure where, I would stand on the back porch and make this call as loud as I could. He could hear that noise better than if you hollered. It wouldn’t be but just a few seconds before he would answer you back. We’d call back and forth to each other two or three times and I’d know where he was. Finally, he would come walking in sight from the field and into the back yard.

Mom's Birthday

I remember one time that it was my mothers birthday. She had gotten a job at a bank in Heber Springs and I wanted to get her a birthday present and didn’t know what to get her and didn’t have a lot of money. My grandpa took me to town, I think it was Batesville, at Walmart and I saw a jewelry box. We talked about it. It was on sale because it had a little damage to one side and he thought we could polish it and make it look okay. I bought it and gave it to her. She still has it today.

Old Bully

There was an old red Hereford bull that my grandparents used to have. He was my favorite out of all the bulls they ever raised. I named him “Bully” and many games were played with him being the point of interest. After they sold him they started buying Charloais, and then Black Angus, and probably some other breeds I have forgotten, but that old white faced red Hereford was my favorite.

Saved By Pa

I remember fishing at Dick Hunts creek place with my grandpa one time. We had gone without my grandma and the shoal was rough. We had waded out into the middle of it and had gotten on some rocks that stuck up out of the water. You had to jump to get to each one. He and I were about a yard apart, me being upsteam from him. I wanted to get to where he was and I had to either jump or go all the way back around from where we first came, or wade to do it and the water was too swift right there to wade. I built up my courage and leapt from my rock to his. One foot made it and the other slipped off. I grabbed onto Pa’s jeans and he grabbed the back of my t-shirt and hauled me up. I don’t have to say what a relief it was to know that my grandpa snatched me up from something that was potentially dangerous.

The Wagon

I remember Pa made a small wagon out of plywood and wooden wheels out of sawed off logs that I asked him to make for me because he had told me how he made a wagon when he was a kid and I just had to have one. I felt so guilty after I saw the amount of time and hard work he had to put into it. He worked on it for almost two days and way into the night, cutting, measuring, and sawing. It was great and it actually rolled. My grandma ended up using it to haul her heavy flower pots with her flowers in.

Firestarter

I remember Pa making a fire starter like the Indians did with a stick and string. Naturally, I had seen it somewhere growing up and just wondered if it would actually work, and I just knew Pa could make one. We sat out back at the base of the porch steps under the old peach tree growing by the breezeway. He got some kind of flexible limb from a tree that was about a foot long and peeled the bark off of it. He cut notches in each end and attached the string to it. The string was loose enough to slip it around another stick that stood vertically while you turned the device sideways. He had a small board or stick of wood with some wood shavings and sat the vertical stick down on that and let me “saw” it back and forth while holding something on top of the stick to keep it still. Soon, smoke started coming up from the wood shavings. He added more shavings to it, and a smoke started to rise up from the shavings, before long, a \ small fire started. It made my day.

Games They Played

Learning all the neat games my grandparents grew up playing like: kick the can, stinkpot, hully gully, poor old Tom, blind man’s bluff. Many times my whole family would participate in them. I especially remember blind man’s bluff because my grandpa would usually be the one blind folded in the middle of the living room. Everyone would take their places hiding in a corner or behind a chair. Someone would spin Pa around in a circle and then he would take off. You couldn’t move and if he found you and touched you, you were it. He would go with his arms stretched out making all kinds of sounds as we giggled, trying to be quiet. He would get so funny his feet across the floor that my grandma would usually make a noise, or anyway he seemed to always find her first. He would go after her sputtering and grabbing, shuffling his feet. She would get tickled and call him “Silly!” making a big deal that he had found her.

Stinkpot needed a lot of people, that we didn’t have. You would divide up into two teams. Each would have a base. One player from a team would be caught in the middle and have to be rescued by his team by them being fast enough to run to him, touch his hand and get back to base before someone from the opposing team could catch him.

Hully Gully was a guessing game of cupping your hands together with a bunch of marbles in them and rattling them around so someone could try to guess how many marbles there were. The closest guesser would win

Calf Pulling

Helping my uncle and grandpa hold a cow roped around a tree and pull a calf. It was 2007 at the end of April. My uncle had a cow that was really big and she was having her calf in a field up at Mommom Dollars place. She was standing in the woods where the spring ran close and it was watery and muddy. She had been trying to have it for hours and couldn’t. Me and my uncle and Pa went down there armed with one old pair of leather gloves, a rope, and some nose tongs. My uncle kept trying to hold her with the tongs and the rope on them finally broke so he tried holding her nose with his fingers so we could get her to stay in one spot (at one point, I was trying to hold her nose with my fingers…that didn‘t go well.) We finally got a rope around her neck instead and had it looped around a tree a couple of times. Pa was holding it with the leather gloves on. He finally got too tired and so I took over while my uncle tried to attach a rope around the calf’s feet and pull it out. He couldn’t stand up in the mud and kept sliding down. My aunt had gone back to the house to see if she could call anyone for help. Some of my uncle’s friends came and helped us. The calf was too big for the cow to have. It couldn’t stand and only lived for a little while, then died. Two days after that, Pa had to go to the hospital with pneumonia and MRSA in his lung.

Dirt Dauber Nests

Me and Pa busted open dirt dauber nests to see what was inside. We would go to the old red barn and get a big load of them and bring them to the carport. We would bust them open and find spiders of all kinds, worms, and different stages of daubers before they hatched. It took a long time and occupied me for a while. He would talk about the different shapes and colors. I can just hear his voice. We would have a giant mess on the porch when we got done and have to clean it off. Out in the country without a close town to go to or anything to do, it may be looked at as strange in today's world of technology, but it was a wonderful way to occupy a child and teach them.

Diggin Up Bones

We played “digging up bones” in the carpet and “bully in the pen” and licked up fruit flavored powder candy off of the hardwood floor. For the digging up bones, we would twist little pieces of paper up and “bury” them in the plush shag carpeting that was several different shades of red and orange and yellow that my grandma hated. One person was the “bone burrier” and the other person was the dog that had to find all of the bones. For bully in the pen, me and my grandparents played this in the end of the hallway. He was the old mad bull and would lay across the hallway and you had to jump over him (which represented the fence) before the bull would get you (which was him reaching out and grabbing your leg while snorting and bellering like an old mad bull). This usually netted in my grandma calling him “silly” again and getting mad at him for being too rough. They used to have a hardwood floor in the hallway and living room before they got the orange carpet and I would have the powdered candy that came in all different flavors and containers of the fruit it tasted like. There was grape, strawberry, and banana. Pa would pour out a little pile on the hardwood floor (I’m sure due to my begging) and let me lick it up like a cow licking feed out of the trough. Most of my earliest memories were of farm life and that’s the kind of games we created. I loved animals of all kinds and wanted to make believe I was a cow, or cat or dog. We played the “bird guessing game in which you would whistle like a bird and the others would try to figure out what kind of bird you were by the whistle. All of these games created hours of fun…and they were free. All you had to use was your imagination.

The Well

I remember dropping little rocks down the well in their back yard and the one out by the barn just to hear them splash.  And sitting in the breezeway in lawnchairs with my grandparents when it was hot and all you had to do was talk.

My Cars

Pa co-signed for me a loan to buy my first car which was a used Z24Chevrolet Cavalier, 1988. I was still in highschool. I paid for that car and drove it until there was so much wrong with it that I decided to trade it off. I got $1,500 and then went and put a down payment on a new 1996 Ford Mustang, which Pa cosigned for also. I paid that car off and am still driving it 13 years later with the property taxes still addressed to me or him.

Cat Catcher

I remember the time we made a “cat catcher” from an old chicken coop in which we tied a string around a stick and propped the door up with it. They had so many stray cats at one time that would come up to the porch and eat all the food that we wanted to trap them to see how many there were. We baited the coop and waited. About dark we peeped out the patio door and saw some in there. We had left the door open a crack with our string inside the house. We grabbed it and yanked on it. The coop door fell and we ran outside. I think the most we caught was five, and they were mad.

Upper Pond

I remember going fishing in the old pond in the upper field and sitting on the little island where the old tree hangs over the water and catching catfish. It seemed like it took forever to get "rigged up" to go.  We would either go out in the woods behind the old red barn to dig worms or use “Charlie stink bait” and we had a stringer made of metal loops that fit into each fishes mouth. Sometimes Pa and I used to go out in the back yard with a coffee can or mayonnaise jar and catch grasshoppers to go cat fishing. He was always better than I was. He would sneak up on them with his hand cupped and pounce on top of them covering them with it. It was so much fun to catch the really big ones and we’d talk about how a big old catfish would really like that one for supper and how we were going to catch a lot of fish.

Christmas In July

I loved stringing Christmas lights up all over the house in July at my grandparents. I loved lights and I loved Christmas. I got a kick out of this for some reason and my grandpa was always right in the middle of it with me. They kept them in the top of the workroom closet in a brown paper sack. My grandma always hated it when I did this.

Blanket In The Backyard

I enjoyed lying out in the backyard on a blanket with my grandparents at night listening to all the bugs hollering and watching air plane lights blinking in the sky until ten or eleven o’clock, then we would go inside and go to bed.

Bugs

I loved hunting dry fly shells with Pa and collecting them in jars. The best place was on the Old “Strawberry Tree” or wild cherry tree. When we would find a katy-did, Pa would tell me about how they have a knife in their tail and would cut you with it. I was always scared of them.

Sonic Memories

My grandparents used to take me to Sonic all the time. When I was a kid they used to give you a little clear plastic animal with your meal. There were monkeys, bulls, giraffes, and other animals to collect. Also, they still have the colorful toothpicks and I loved those when I was a kid. Pa would always have one in his mouth after we ate. He would enpty a whole package of salt onto every burger he ate. We didn't know it then, but that was the cause of his high blood pressure begining.

Cutting Wood

I remember taking Pulp Wood off to the mill. We would go to the woods early in the morning in the hot summer, sometimes they would take me with them to the “new ground” a patch of land they were clearing at the back of the pasture. They would cut a load of pine trees with the chainsaw and load them on the back of a truck with the tractor. It was actually dangerous. I remember how loud the chainsaw was and remember the trees falling and Pa cutting them up into sections to fit on the truck. I was usually on a Palet in the woods far enough away not to get hurt but for them to see me. One time I found a box turtle or terrapin and took it home with me and painted his shell yellow and blue and painted the name “Toby” on him. I let him go after that.

Eating Blackberries

Little things I remember that were so much fun were: Finding blackberries on a bush on the old road that went to the upper field and sitting in the middle of the road on the ground with my grandparents eating them.

Roads Forgotten

Having my grandparents tell me about all the old roads that ran out in the woods that used to be roads they used to go to town on.

Muscadines

Hunting for muscadines or checking the vine at my grandparents house by the road.

Flying Kites

Flying kites in the field with my grandparents. They finally quit doing it after a herd of cows they had got spooked by the kites and almost ran through the fence.

Digging To Memphis

Digging to Memphis out in the back yard with the red handled hammer of Pa‘s. I was fascinated by Elvis, who had already died when I was a kid and thought that I could dig my way to Graceland with Pa’s hammer. He would sit back and watch me talking about how close I was getting.

Stunts

Swinging in the old rope and board swing over a fire that Pa built like Evil Kenivle and jumping out of the swing over it. My grandma would get so mad at him for contributing to my craziness telling him; “Lee, you think of the worst”.

Scooping Feed

Putting out chicken feed in the old chicken houses with a scoop and watching mice come running out of the feed bin onto the ground and watching Wolf chase them with a broom.

3 Little Pigs

Playing the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs with my grandma, who has been called "Wolf" affectionately ever since.

Jerry Clower

Remembering Pa acting like Jerry Clower because I liked to hear him so much. There was a show that came on every week called the “Jim Ed Brown” show that had Jim Ed Brown, Jerry Clower, and Helen Cornelius. Jerry Clower, the comedian, would always start his part with a big holler…”Haaawwwww”. I loved to hear him and my grandpa could sound ,to me, just like him. He would have to do that sound for me all the time.

Hunting Mistletoe

Going mistletoe hunting in the field below their house with Pa, and shooting it off of the tree with the .22

Carving Initials

Walking down the old Clevengers road with Pa in 1991 and carving our initials with his pocketknife on a beech tree after I graduated high school. He had congestive heart failure then and I remember him wheezing as we walked out of the hollow. I was worried about him and we had to go slow.

Bicycle Riding

The first time I rode my bicycle all the way to my grandparents house. I felt like I had really done something.

My First Phone Call

The first time I climbed upon a dividing wall between our kitchen and living room and dialed my grandparents phone number and talked to them and told them I had called them by myself.

Cow Feed

Dipping the feed out of a sack with a little yellow pan with the handle broke off, and the hole cut out in the bottom of the door so the cats could go in and out and the hand-made wooden latch that swiveled. There were feed sack sitting just inside the door with either "all grain" or "sweet feed" on them or salt. Pa used to let me taste of them. We would both have a little in our hands and lick it out like and old cow. We would feed the cows on the big rock in the lot.

Arrowhead

I remember going to the creek on the 4-wheeler with Pa in 2007 and finding a big black arrowhead in the road just before you get to the creek. It was after a big flood had washed it up. I pointed at it and said; "Wow...look!" Pa looked down and then looked up at me with this wild look on his face as if we had just found a treasure box of gold. I reached down and picked it up turning it over and over just looking at it. He said; "Wow" too and we started talking about how it got there and how neat it was to find it just lying there for us to find. I keep it on my computer desk right in front of me.

Weather Balloon

I remember the time Ma and Pa and myself went to the upper field (a hay/cow field) and saw a silver balloon with a box tied looking like a radio attached to it and bringing it home to look at on their carport. It was a weather balloon and had a phone number on it, I think. I guess Pa called it and the recording said anytime you found one you could just mail it back to an address that was listed on it. It was like finding something from outer-space.

Leaf Boat

I remember when me and Pa was at the pond in the field below their house. It was down in a hollow by the edge of the woods. The trail walking down to it was almost a magical place where mushrooms and little wild flowers grew. There was a big old tree that was easy to climb that had a hole in its trunk and occasionally you would find dead creatures bones or feathers in it where something had been living in the hole and had eaten its meal there, safe from the coyotes and dogs. There were springs that trickled out of the ground that fed the pond and a cross-cut saw imbedded in another tree from unknown hands who had left it there years ago. There were all different kinds of trees around the edge of the pond bank that Pa taught me to recognize. I was never good at the oaks, but I still remember the others today, my favorite being the sweet gum. On the far side of the pond was a spill-way that let excess water run out and keep the pond at an even level. One time there was a little cedar tree that sprouted high on the bank. Me and Pa would water it every time we went down there, and I remember a big sycamore tree close to the spill-way. One day, Pa reached up and plucked one of its leaves and in mnutes had taken a small stick pinning up the sides of the leaf until he made a boat with the leaf and let me set it down in the water and we watched it float out onto the water.

Stink Bait

I remember Ma and Pa taking me fishing in the upper field pond and catching big catfish with "Charlie stink bait" and using one of the old metal stringers with metal loops to put them on.

Upper Field Pond

I remember when the upper field pond was built, I stood in the very bottom of it before it ever rained and wondered how it would ever fill up with enough water but it did.

Reagan Got Shot

I remember when President Reagan got shot. As a kid he was one of the people I admired, even if I didn't understand everything about politics, in my 7 or 8 year old mind, I felt that he stood for the very things I believed in. For a few years, I attended a private Christian school in Prim and my grandpa or grandma would pick me up and take me to their house after school. On the day Reagan got shot it was all over the tv when I got home and turned it on. It showed in detail over and over him getting shot and then thrown to the ground by his body guards. This really impacted me, so much so that I wrote him a get-well letter. I had heard that he always kept a jar of jelly beans on his desk so I included some in the envelope as well and addressed it to the "President of the United States", Washington D.C. I had made the mistake of telling my grandma what I was doing and she saw me put it in the mailbox. She thought it was silly and she was embarrassed at me so when the mail truck went up the road, she ran out to the mailbox and jerked out my letter. I was so upset. I told Pa about it and he told me to write another one, so the next day I did. I asked him about the address and he said he figured that would be okay. The next day when the mail lady ran, I waited until she had already went up the road and then I ran out to the mailbox and stuck the envelope in (minus the jellybeans). My grandma saw me at the last minute and ran out to get it, but the mail lady had already gotten to the mailbox. I could see them talking. She told my grandma that it was okay and that she would make sure it got the right address on it. About a month went by and one day my mom called out to me that I had gotten a letter in my mailbox at home. It was addressed from the "White House". I was so excited. It was a letter from Ronald Reagan saying how much he appreciated my get well letter and that with all the young people rooting for him that it wouldn't be long before he would be feeling much better. I couldn't believe that he had taken the time to respond. He will always be my favorite president.

Bicycle Cleaning

Pa used to help me "clean" my bicycle. Which consisted of me taking a toothbrush with a bowl of soap and water and cleaning between each spolk on the tired and between each gear and the chain and then using his oil and squirt can and re-oiling it. I remember the day when he took my training wheels off my first bicycle and taught me to ride without them. There was a rock in their driveway that was perfect to pop wheelies on.

Sick Days

I always had a nervous stomach at school when I was in K-7th and Ma and Pa used to come and get me from school. I would get deathly ill and be in the bathroom more than I was in class. I missed 26 days one year and believe it or not, I still graduated high school with about a "B" average! I wore a Snoopy watch and remember watching the hands on it from the time the school nurse called until they could get there, which was usually about 20 minutes. I was so glad to see them.

Toy Parachute

I remember we were going to Heber Springs once and Ma and Pa had bought me some little toy parachute men and I was playing with them in the truck and accidentally shot one out the window. We were stopped in traffic at a light and Pa opened the truck door and reached out and got it and gave it back to me. I know I drove them crazy.

Orange Boots

I remember Pa's yellow/orange cowboy boots that sat in the closet. He would only wear them to town. I always wanted to wear them and would put them on and walk around in them.

Iron Skillet

Mom, Dad, myself and my grandparents would sometimes go on a vacation together. When I was a teenager, my cousin Cheryl would usually be with us. One time, we went to Dallas Texas and stayed in a Howard Johnson. I'll never forget that because Pa thought they were a "real fancy" chain of hotels. We ate at what we considered then, a really awesome restaurant, the Iron Skillet. We didn't have any of thise in Arkansas and we would get a smothered steak and eat salads out of a mini iron skillet you could pick right up out of a freezer, then for dessert you could choose from an assortment of pies that were stored in a rotating glass cabinet a slice from a pie that was about four six inches thick. I always got coconut cream. A funny thing that happened one morning was that my grandma had put on a skirt that had terrible wrinkles in it and her or my mother had brought an iron. I remember Pa ironing her skirt with her in it and her calling him "silly". We laughed and laughed.

Old Country

Just a few months before Pa died, I had bought him a DVD set of some old country music awards from years past. We all watched them together. He commented about how good of a singer he thought Marty Robbins was and we listened to him sing on a couple of the shows and really enjoyed it.

Presidential Debates

Pa and I watched the presidential debate of McCain and Obama the night that Joe Biden and Sarah Palin was on for the second debate. It was hard to tell who won that night if anyone did. Neither one of them done very good, in my opinion, but it was funny because Palin made a comment to Biden and said; "Heck, Joe!...." Pa laughed at her and then repeated whatever it was she had said. It was funny to hear Pa say that since he never was in the habit of saying "heck" or anything like that. I was laying in the floor and laughing at him. He was about to go in the kitchen and take his medicines for the night.

Dead Rooster

I remember one time when I was a kid there was this rooster that pretty much became a "free range" chicken after not getting caught when they sold chickens every so often. It would strut around in the yard and had gotten quite big. One day, he was strutting around and I was standing on the back porch eyeballing him and staring him down, turning my head this way and that just irritating him. He was watching me and making noises at me when all of a sudden he fell over and started kicking. I walked over and to my surprise, he had died! I felt bad about it and ran in to tell my grandparents. They laughed.

Silver Balloon

I gotten a silver helium filled balloon and was riding in the orange truck with Pa. We had gone to my aunts trailor and had just pulled up in the driveway. Pa got out and I started to get out when the balloon floated out the window. Pa jumped for it trying to grab the string and couldn't get it. I cried and cried. I wasn't mad at Pa, but just at losing the balloon. Seems like I remember that I had gotten stung by a wasp and was having a really bad day. I just remember in my mind and can still see it, how hard he jumped for that balloon.

Yellow Jackets

I remember when Pa was bush-hogging on the creek and got stung over 40 times because he bush-hogged over a yellow jacket's nest. He was hurting all over and his face was red. He was in his 60's then.

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Peach Tree & Wisteria

There used to be a really big peach tree in my grandparents back yard, close to the corner of the little red smokehouse they had and the big rock sticking up out of the ground that they raked out food to the dogs and cats on. The peach tree had a large trunk and grew somewhat crooked, leaning way over into the yard almost hanging over the back porch. One of the beautiful things about it was that it had a wisteria vine growing up in it that was just beautiful. The whole tree looked more like a solid wisteria bush than it did a peachtree with its thick vines encircling the tree trunk and it's tendrils curling into the air. It's purple, fragrant blooms hanging in clumps everywhere with bumblebees flying all around. It had an archway underneath it that covered the trail we had made from walking under it on the way to the cattle lot gate and during one time in my life I remember a birds nest right in the uppermost curve of the arch. I was fascinated. I would beg Pa to lift me up high enough so I could see. He would pick me up underneath my arms talking to me the whole time I was looking. Never tiring of my curiosity. I had to look in it all the time and see the eggs and watch them until they hatched into baby birds and then got old enough to fly away.   The tree finally got old and died with a disease trees get and had to be cut down...the wisteria vine along with it. I was sad to see it go. If everything has a time and a purpose, then I guess that tree was one of those things that stood out to me, because that peach tree was never any good for growing peaches, but it fed a lot of bumblebees, grew a few little birds, and a lot of memories.

Unconditional

Pa always made me feel like I was everything. No matter what I messed up on, or how poorly I did in school, he never tore me down but always built me up. Not that he never scolded me if I was doing something wrong or that would get anyone or myself hurt, but it was in the way he did it. He would talk out any problem there was and he never yelled no matter how mad he was. He reasoned. He was slow to answer because he took his time in thinking it through. I remember him trying to help me in math with my fractions. Math was my worst subject and it didn't matter who tried to teach me, it never clicked...ever. But he was so slow and patient and with him I never felt like he though I was dumb or not trying.

Little Town

I was very small when I started recognizing places we would go, and this one will always have a special place in my heart. It is a little town in between Heber Springs and Prim, where we would be coming from, called Drasco, Arkansas. We would come to it first on our way to town and I always liked seeing the lights, which in this instance were two gas stations on either side of the road. I exclaimed; "We're at the "little town"!" , and Pa laughed telling me it was Drasco, but after that we always called it the "little town". Silly at the little things you will remember, but they mean so much.

Cow Horns

When you are a little kid, some things just stick in your mind...like the cattle horns above the living room door that you know came off of a Texas Longhorn, but there they sit in your grandparents house. I thought they were cool and didn't want them thrown away, but somehow, my grandma managed to toss them. She also tossed the serene picture that used to hang on the wall in the kitchen of a beautiful lake with trees all around it before I could catch her. Me and Pa made a big deal of it possibly being a rare painting that could have been worth millions of dollars and my grandma took it out and burned it!

Stars

I think my first knowledge of anything that had to do with the constellation had to do with my grandparents. We would sit out in the back yard at night or lie on a quilt in the yard looking up at the stars and I remember my grandpa always showing us the "Big and Little Dipper". He didn't know really anything else about them but what he did know, when I think back about it was surprising for their education level. He only went to school through the 9th grade. I know that reading, writing, and math were essentials, but I'm surprised he knew about the stars.

Cool Car Stuff

The first car that I had, the Z24 Chevy Cavalier, was so cool to me. Pa co-signed for it and we were always fixing stuff up on it. I was on a volunteer fire department and one of my friends installed a CB radio in my car and I had a "motorola bag phone" one of the first things they came out with before the cell phones got so small. The bag phone had an external antenna and I got one to mount on my car that was really neat along with one for my radio that had all kinds of twists and curves in it. Pa helped me with it. He helped me put an "airbrushed" plate with my name on it on the front of my car, but the coolest thing though was a license plate cover that had rotating red lights in it. Pa helped me install it through the trunk of my car and drill a hole for the wire. We worked on it forever and it looked really neat for a teenager.

Arkansas Rock

My family has always loved flowers and making flower gardens. We have always looked for neat things to go in them like driftwood or rocks. I spent forever hauling neat looking rocks that my aunt helped me pick out in the trunk of my car little by little from our creek place to Little Rock to make a boarder for a large flower bed in my back yard. Each rock means something to me. My grandpa knew that I loved rocks and had found one that he wanted to give to me to go in my flower bed. Itis shaped just like the state of Arkansas. It means so much to me now and looks so good next to our peonies and azaleas.

Putting Up The Christmas Tree

When I was growing up my grandparents would always let me help put up the Christmas tree. It was always so much fun to me. I loved the lights and all the ornaments, in fact I loved them so much that occasionally I would get them out in the middle of summer and string them all over the living room! There was a star that was made of red white and blue plastic with silver glitter all over it and one light bulb in the middle that my grandpa would put at the top of the tree. I'll never forget what it looked like or him putting it up there.

Hot Shot

My whole life, my grandparents always had cows. They worked them constantly. Fed them, had to get them up to move them to and back from the creek or to the sale barn, and got them up to vaccinate outside the barn in a chute. When I was really young they used to have a "hot shot" stick. It was about three feet long and silver with a black handle.  It was battery operated and had two prongs at the end of it and a button to push over into a locking slot so that when you stuck it to the cow it sent a small electric current that shocked them if you needed them to move a certain way. Pa used to keep it on his gun rack in their bedroom. I remember being in there with him and my grandma and him reaching up and getting the "hot shot" and sticking it to her butt like he was going to shock her, (which of course he wouldn't have) making a buzzing noise. She instinctively jumped and yelled as we laughed uncontrollably. It made her mad afterwards to which she looked at my grandpa and called him "silly". That was so much fun.

Washing Hair

I remember Pa washing his head in the bathroom sink by sticking it down in there and splashing water on his head and using Tegrin shampoo. It was in a white bottle with a green label on it and the shampoo was a clear green that smelled funny. I thought because Pa used it, I had to use it too cause anything he did, I would have to do. He would also wash his face in the sink with his hands and run his hands all over his face blowing air out his nose and mouth all at the same time making a funny noise. I would get tickled at his hair sticking up everywhere when he dried it with the towel.

Hot Shaving Cream

I remember the time we got Pa the electric shaving cream warmer for Christmas. We ended up getting another one a short time later because it quit working. You would plug it up and when the little orange light went off it was ready, then put it on the nozzle of your shaving cream can and press down on it and hot foam would squirt out. Cool invention for back then.

Big Bad Wolf & The 3 Little Pigs

Wolf (the name I have used affectionately for my grandma ever since I can remember because she used to play "The Big Bad Wolf and Three Little Pigs" with me) and Pa got up every morning and cooked biscuits and gravy and bacon for breakfast with coffee and sometimes an egg. When I was five years old I wanted to drink coffee like they did. I actually liked it and still drink it today and appreciate a good cup of it. They used to make it really strong and had these orange shiney cups they drank out of. They always used a cup and saucer and would pour the coffee into the saucer to let it cool and then sip it out of the saucer instead of the cup. This fascinated me. I still never see or hear of anyone doing this anymore.

Crest White Strips

About three years ago I told Pa his teeth were getting dark and he needed to buy some Crest White Strips so, to my surprise… he did! I bought some too and we were both putting them on! I would call up there every night to see what they were doing and he would have his on and couldn't talk. It was funny to my grandma because he couldn't talk and you have to have them in your mouth for thirty minutes and all you want to do is spit. She would laugh at him and he would get mad. They really made his teeth look good, but not mine.

Gold Dollar

I remember either showing or giving Pa one of the new 2005 Buffalo Nickels and he gave me a 2000 Sacajawea Gold Dollar I still have.

Wolf Bayou

I remember going to Batesville (by the Wolf Bayou sign) that on the right side of the road there are two pine trees that are grown together, and one time Pa was taking a bull to the sale barn and the bull jumped out of the truck, even with the black side rails on.  Ray (my great uncle) came along and they roped him and wound the rope around that tree and got him back in the truck somehow and got him to the salebarn.

Driving From The "Y"

I was about 5 when I started learning to drive. Prim is a small town and we lived on a dirt road and I remember my dad letting me drive our red Pontiac at night up the road and from then on I drove ever chance I got. The road I lived on “V” off and one end went to the highway. Every day that I rode the bus home Pa would meet me in the “Y” of the road in the orange Ford Explorer that had a back glass screen of horses running across the desert (they only had a few styles to choose from and I remember him telling me that he had decided to pick that one because it matched the truck better) and let me drive it the rest of the way home. He would tell me the story about how he learned to drive sitting on a box of fruit jars when he was a boy.

Sitting On My Bed

Pa always used to come in and sit next to me on the bed before I got up of a morning. I miss it.

Putting On Lotion

Ma and Pa never were ones to use lotion or face cream even though we begged them to. They would work outside in the hot weather or the freezing cold wind and their skin would get so dry and their faces. Pa used to keep me company while I fixed my hair or put on my makeup and I would get him to let me put my face cream on his face. He let me put it all over and rub it in and then tell me how much better it felt after I put it on, but he would never do it himself. I miss the way his face looked and the expressions he made. I know every line and contour of it and the look in his eyes. I can still feel his personality and love like it is still here, so familiar.

Patching Tires

I remember Pa working in the carport on a tire. Changing the inner tube. Not many tires have tubes today, but back then, when you got a hole in the inner tube you had to take the outside rubber off of the rim with this flat piece of iron (that probably has a name I’m ignorant of) and then take the inner tube out and air it up and find the hole that was leaking air. I watched Pa while he did this and after he’d find the hole, he would go in his “shop room” and get a wire brush. He’d brush all around the hole, back and forth and diagonal until the rubber was rough. Then he would get a rubber patch that you would clamp over the hole with a metal ring around it that housed the rubber and a flammable material that you would strike a match to light it, it would burn off the material, and at the same time get the rubber patch hot enough to stick to the tire to patch the hole. He would let it cool off and then air up the tire again. This first time that I was paying particular attention to it, I saw him spit on the rubber patch and smear it around with his finger. I asked him why he done that and he said to check for air leaks. Simple, but to a young mind like mine (probably 5-6yrs old) it was really neat.

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Making Games

Again, sometimes you had to create games to keep from getting bored. I remember something we did that was probably spawned off of the “Coke and Pepsi” challenge where you had to be blindfolded and guess which soft drink you were drinking (which was a no-brainer to me which was Coke and which was Pepsi) but me and my cousin Cheryl would take it a step further and blindfold Wolf and Pa in the kitchen and set up an array of things for them to “taste test” and guess what it was. We would have mustard, molasses, vinegar, and even some “mixed up” stuff. What was funniest was when Pa would give the taste test to Wolf for us. They were so good and so funny. We played for hours with stuff like this and had so much fun and laughed so hard.

Go Cart Track

It was in my grandparent’s 60’s that the new “Go Cart track had opened up at Heber. Cheryl and I would beg to go and they usually didn’t mide. It was a clean and safe environment where families could go. There were arcade games as well and maybe a pool table. You usually had to wait in line behind children and adults before you could even get your car. My grandparents didn’t ride the go carts, but would stand back to the side and watch us. The track was pretty large and had lots of curves that you could slide around and I believe I remember them saying that the cars would go up to 22mph which was pretty fast. We drove as rough as two fourteen year old girls could drive. It was a lot of fun and a good memory.

Sam & Rusty

When I was very young, my grandparents had a dog named Sam that was a German Shepherd. He was really big and pretty. There was another dog that wasn’t even their’s that would show up named Rusty and we loved him as much as we did Sam. He was a mixed mutt with short wirey hair, that was colored just exactly like his name, rusty, and a lot of times he had ear mites that would make his left ear swell up like a balloon. I always felt sorry for him. He would come up to me and let let me pet his head and stare at me with those amber eyes. I don’t know what happened to Rusty. I’m sure he got old and died and went to heaven like all good dogs do, but Sam did die of the mange. It was years before my grandparents had any dogs after that.

Last Car Wash

Just a few days before Pa died, he and I were out in the backyard washing our cars. He hadn’t felt good because of a cold and would sit down in a lawn chair while I scrubbed with the car washing brush. When I’d get done with a section, he would spray it off with the water hose. We were using the water hose that was hooked up to the “well water” pump behind the house. It would spray real slow until, as Pa explained, that when the pump would kick on, it would spray hard. And it would. Almost knock you off your feet, but it was short lived. If you wanted to spray anything off, you’d better do it in a hurry! I had washed my car at a drive thru car wash recently and part of the brushes got hooked underneath my key hole and a little curl of purple brush was still stick there and sticking out. I asked Pa if he could take his knife and cut it off for me, knowing in the back of my mind that that image would be there forever. It was the last thing he “helped me with” using that knife. We had a good time washing the cars. He said that they looked like new and was glad I had washed his by hand. I parked it over under the Sycamore tree and washed each window inside with soap and water and dried them and cleaned the dash and leather seats with cleaner. I sprayed his tires with Armor All until they shined. He really liked that. I had a bad feeling the whole time I was doing it, like it would be the last time. I’d had that feeling all week. What do you do with something like that? Brush it off or demand a change in plans? I brushed it off.

Test Driving The Mustang

When I was shopping for my new car, after I had to get rid of the Z24 Chevrolet Cavalier, me and Pa went everywhere driving Ford Mustangs. We ended up in Batesville in a 5.0 white Mustang. I took it for a drive with Pa in the passenger seat. We headed out of town and stopped somewhere to turn around. I knew it was powerful, but hadn’t really tested it out because I didn’t feel the need to (plus I didn’t want a speeding ticket). We had pulled into some parking lot and I was about to pull back out onto the highway when a vehicle popped over the hill just as I was pulling out. I had to give it more gas a little quicker than I had planned and when I did it scratched and threw gravel! Wide eyed, I looked over at Pa with smiles on both our faces. I decided then that I didn’t need a 5.0, but it sure was fun to drive!

Peppermint

When I was younger, it was hard for a young child to get their grandparents something that you knew they wanted, but there was one thing Pa wanted every year… A large peppermint stick and a box of crackers! He liked to eat the sweet and the salty together. He got one from me for years until he got high blood pressure and quit eating saltine crackers and after that, he didn’t want the peppermint stick anymore.

Orange Beach

One year my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, along with my mom and I went to Orange Beach Alabama. It was a little quicker than going all the way to Panama City Beach. It still has the same white beaches and the Gulf of Mexico that my grandpa loved to stand out on the balcony and look at. We took their old blue Oldsmobile ‘88, which I called the “hoopty” car because it bounced and swayed everywhere it went. It had two speeds; slow and fast. You could have your foot on the gas and it would hardly go, but any tiny amount more pressure on the gas peddle would send it rocketing ahead. We all wanted to take a drive along the beach one evening. So, with a full tank of gas with myself driving, with my mom and grandpa sitting up front with me, and my grandma, aunt, and uncle in the back, we drove from Orange Beach to Perdido Key and right to the edge of Pensacola Florida when we turned around to come back. Pa and Ma kept saying how far it was and how far away from our motel we were getting and how much gas we were burning while I complained about how “hoopty” the car was and my aunt and mom laughed at the big deal they were making worrying about running out of gas. Somewhere on the way back, my grandma was thinking out loud in a very serious voice; “Oh what a big old ocean…..the waves just come and go and never stop. Wonder what makes the waves do that?” I answered her question; “The moon.” She looked at me with a puzzled look and in a frustrated, puzzled voice said; “The moon!?” We were all laughing. Especially Pa, knowing she would never figure that one out. I explained further. “Yes, the pull of the moons gravity causes the tides on the earth. That’s all I can tell you, but it’s the moon that causes the tides.” We talked about other stuff and a few miles down the road I asked her again; “Ma, what causes the ocean’s waves?” “The moon!” she would say loudly as we all laughed. She has never forgotten it to this day.

Fake Rocks

My aunt and uncle sold their chicken farm in 2007 and started building a new log cabin house in one of the hay fields on my grandparent’s farm. It is beautiful with a large chimney sticking up in the back, middle part of the house. There was going to be a lot of rocking done on it and on the hearth inside and would take a lot of rocks. My uncle decided to use “fake” rocks because they were lighter and would stick to the cement and hold them to the wall better. He had ordered large boxes of them that were stacked out in the field next to the house. I rode over on the back of my grandpa’s 4 wheeler with him to look at the house. He said; “Let me show the “fake” rocks uncle ordered.” and he drove me over to one of the boxes and leaned over and picked one up. There was a smooth side that looked like a rock and a rough side to stick in the cement. We picked up several different kinds marveling at how real they looked. It’s just one of the last memories I have of us on the 4 wheeler together doing something fun.

Home Perms

I can remember going to my grandparents almost every day. Sometimes I’d go there and my grandma would have straight hair one day and then the next day it would be frizzy like she stuck her finger in a light socket. My grandpa would give her home perms and they would usually leave the perm in too long. It was fun to watch though. He was known for doing that and even trimming her hair. He had many talents. He could cook quite well, though he rarely did it, he could iron clothes, he could fix a sewing machine and he could also sew. He would fix torn up shoes, he re-threaded my Dexters about a month before he died and I can’t stand to wear them now. He helped my grandma can fruits and vegetables, he could build or make just about anything. He could draw. He would help wrap Christmas presents and “make boxes” by cutting one down or piecing one together if they didn’t have one to fit. Again, to me, he was superman. To me, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.

"I've Fallen And Can't Get Up!"

Sometimes, my grandpa had a mean streak. Although my grandma is independent, she sometimes gets herself in a “tight” as he called it, and would need help. One day while they had been out feeding some calves they had up in the lot, it was very muddy and my grandma fell. Try as she might, she couldn’t get up. When she looked around to see where my grandpa was to help her, he was just standing there leaning against the fence watching her kick and struggle to get up, laughing at her. She was pretty mad. I’m not entirely sure he helped her up or if she got mad enough to get up on her own after she saw him laughing at her, but that’s one of the times he definitely did a “gotcha” on her. He apparently wasn’t worried about her or he would have helped her in the first place and must’ve gotten a good laugh out of watching her.

Wildflowers

When I was in the 7^th grade, our science teacher, Mr. Babb gave us a science project to go out into the woods and collect as many wildflowers, in a certain time limit, as we could and then check out some books and try to identify them and label them with their proper scientific names and with the names that we called them by. Me and Pa went down in the pasture by the old pond and collected several and went down to the creek and got more. It was funny how what we called them wasn’t even close to what their real names were. That was something that always interested me. We also collected leaves and did the same thing with them. My grandma was very good with knowing the different oaks and she still can name them better than me. Her favorite is the white oak.

Parafin Cokes

Me and Pa had several things that were “special” to us. Just he and I would get the little wax coke bottles filled with the syrupy flavored liquid and take them home and drink them. I was very young when we started doing that. I don’t know what our exact dialog was but there was much discussion while we sipped and savored every drop. We even chewed the wax and looked at our tooth prints. This is a very special memory to me.

Citrus Grilled Shrimp

For Pa’s 79^th Birthday, the last one I got to celebrate with him and give him something special before he died we had citrus grilled shrimp. He had just started liking seafood and we had gone to Mimi’s Café back during the summer and had eaten this dish there. I just knew I could cook it myself and I had gotten the recipe off of the internet about what to marinate the shrimp in. A day or two before his birthday my aunt and my grandma went with me to Heber Springs to Lonnies Meat Market (one of the best meat markets I have ever gone to) and bought some crab legs and then down to Walmart and got large pink shrimp, lettuce, straw betties, and fresh asparagus. I had brought up some Jose Quervo to marinate the shrimp in along with minced garlic, lime juice, and cilantro. We marinated it for two hours and fired up the grill. We boiled the crab legs, made a salad from the lettuce and strawberries and poured Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing on it and grilled the asparagus. We served it to my grandpa who said that it was just as good or better than Mimi’s and my uncle couldn’t stop eating. It was a very good birthday dinner and I’m so glad he got to enjoy something different.

Blue Bulbs

Just a thing out of the blue (literally) that I remember is the blue light bulbs that were used in the chicken houses. They were a low 25watt light bulb that was usually blue or green with a thick opaque glass used for when it was chicken catching time. It put off just enough light for the chicken catchers but not enough for the chickens to see who was sneaking up on them. You could see them all along the chicken house mounted on wooden poles left in for the next time. I loved the color blue and those silly light bulbs were just cool.

Chicken Hospital

When I was little, I wanted to be a veterinarian. So, naturally one of the first animals I “doctored” on were my grandparent’s sick chickens. There were always an abundance of them in every bunch and they usually died from something that I couldn’t have cured no matter what. But, I tried. I would build them a “chicken hospital” out of firewood logs so the other chickens couldn’t trample them and I would put some feed and water in it. Occasionally I would find a “drowned” chicken in the water bowl, but amazingly, sometimes I would actually help some of them to get well. Silly as it was, I did learn a lot from them and I guess this started part of my medical background.

Squirrel Hunting

Me and Pa used to go squirrel hunting. I remember going with him and Snoby and Toby (his two dogs) out in the woods behind the old red barn. I was holding his single shot .22 rifle with shells in my pocket running through the woods trying to keep up with the squirrels that were jumping from tree to tree. I would shoot one and try to get to it before the dogs did. I know I got at least three or four one day and we skinned them and intended on eating them. One of them must have been the granddaddy because he was old and tough. So much so that we couldn’t eat him, so the dogs got him. The others we ate. My grandma had to cook them for us, with my grandpa’s help and from what I remember, they were good.

Horse Teeth

When I was little my grandpa’s teeth seemed so big! He told me that they were big like a horses teeth and from then on, I called them horse teeth. Not very flattering when you really think about it, but he and I always joked that he had horse teeth.

Dairy Queen At Batesville

There used to be a Dairy Queen in Batesville at the bottom of a little hill on the main road. After a long day of shopping we’d stop there sometimes before we came home. I remember one time in particular. I was probably anywhere from 5 - 9 years old. It was close to Christmas time and it was cold outside. We had stopped there and had ordered cheeseburgers and fries and onion rings and were waiting in the parking lot for our order. Seems like we were in my grandparents Orange Ford truck, but I’m not sure. There were some Christmas Carolers singing back behind the truck. One of the songs was Silver Bells, I know because it was one of my favorites and I could picture every word in it. I remember thinking how beautiful they sang and how wonderful it was to be there with everyone and be out Christmas shopping. Even at that young age, I remember my mind began to wonder and I knew that there was such a thing as death and I knew that it was probably a long time in coming to any of my family, but I began to worry even then and wonder just how could I stand it if they weren’t there anymore. I loved them so much, just what would I do. I pondered this for a very short time that night, but from that night on, I think that I never stopped worrying about it and now just one of my family is gone and there are no words to describe the pain.

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Tailgating With Ma

We used to have to check the cows often and the field where they lived when I was little was sloped at different ends and had pretty high terraces in some spots. Pa used to drive the truck and me and my grandma would sit on the tail gate swinging our legs off. He would go really slow (that was the only way he ever drove was slow!) and it was easy to hold on. After he’d made sure that all the cows were accounted for and we were driving back to the house he’d get to a spot where we’d just be about to go over a terrace and he’d “goose” it just a little bit! I would die laughing and hold on harder and my grandama would laugh and hold on too. After a couple of times, though she’d start to get irritated and give him some dirty looks and he’d quit! It was so much fun.

Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer

Back in the 80’s there was a funny Christmas song that came out called “Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer” with very funny lyrics to it. Everybody loved it and it was the popular going thing to sing at Christmas for years. My grandpa and I loved it, but my grandma hated it. We’d sing it and laugh and then look at her and she didn’t have a very funny look on her face. We’d ask her why she wasn’t laughing and she told us that she didn’t think it was “very nice”. It made us laugh even harder. Finally we got tired of making her mad and quit singing it. It was catchy though!

Gobblers Knob

We all used to like to go fishing at “Dick’s” (Mr.Dick Hunt’s Creekplace). It was best to go on a 4-wheeler and it took awhile to get there. There were ditches and gates and ravines washed out by the rain. There was one place in particular I remember. First there was usually a big mudhole with an old wild rose bush with bright pink roses on it to the right. After you went through the mudhole, you’d go up a small hill that leveled out at the top. One time my and my grandpa had gone riding to the creek without anyone else and he stopped on top of this leveled off spot and turned the 4-wheeler off. He asked me if I knew what this place was called and told me that it was “Gobblers Knob” because you always used to see turkey here. He told me that somewhere off in the woods to the right where the biggest, tallest pine trees grew were some graves. He didn’t know whose they were but they were there and he had ran on to them years ago turkey or deer hunting. Naturally I was fascinated. We talked about that for a few minutes and I’m not sure if it was this particular trip or another time, but we actually went down in the woods and we found those graves. I don’t remember myself too well, but there were 3 or 4 of them. I don’t remember exactly how they were placed but they were made out of just piled up rocks. The ground had sunk in and they weren’t rounded over any more, but there were definite headstones with nothing on them, also made out of rock. We stood around talking about them and wondering who they were, or how they died. He said it was probably a family and they may have died from natural causes or he said it might have been soldiers back in the civil war days or even cowboys. We stood there and imagined for a good twenty minutes before we walked back to the 4-wheelers. That was one of the best adventures me and my grandpa ever had together.

Flowers In The Commode

My grandparents used to have, what I considered a neat color for bathroom fixtures. The tub, commode, and bathroom sink were almost a robin’s egg blue or an ocean green. I guess that color came out in the 50’s and by the time I was old enough to appreciate it, they were sick of it. At least my grandma was. She didn’t get rid of the tub, but she did get a new bathroom sink and commode that were bone white. I was in a preponderance of what neat thing you could do with an old blue commode. My grandpa and I was sitting at the kitchen table where we sat while my grandma, my aunt, and my mom were fixing lunch. We were casually coming up with ideas and ever so slightly raising our voices just loud enough to be heard in between the silence of the chefs in the kitchen. It went something to this effect;

Me: “Yeah, I think that it would look great with flowers in it.”

Pa: “It would.”

Pa: “You could plant all kinds in it.”

Me:“Yeah…”

My grandma heard part of this and stopped what she was doing and said; “Plant flowers in what?”

Pa: “You could leave the seat down with the lid raised….

Me: “Yeah, and put it in the front yard!”

Pa: “And everybody that drove by would see it and look. There wouldn’t be another one like it. They might just go home and make one for theirselves after they saw ours, it would look so pretty.”

Ma: “What would?”

Pa: “We were talking about you could plant flowers in your old commode and set it in the front yard so everybody could see!”

Naturally, my grandma would get mad, and really get mad at my grandpa and scold him for teaching me “the worst things”…..she’d say; “Lee, you think of the worst. And you know she’ll do it if you come up with it!”

We did tease her an awful lot, but we’d have never done half the stuff we came up with.

Hazelnuts

My grandpa’s favorite nuts to eat around Christmas were hazelnuts. They also happened to by my favorite of course but they were so hard that my little hands couldn’t crack them with the nut crackers. I had to have Pa do it for me. We’d sit at the kitchen table and eat them for a long time. I still like them and think of him when I see them in the grocery store.

Arkansas Rock

I love collecting rocks for my flowerbeds. My family has always had a knack for doing this and have collected some really neat ones over the years. Since we lived so close to a creek place and a mountainous area there are many different kinds. I have carried many home in the trunk of my car from weekend visits to their house and going to the creek on the 4-wheeler or my aunt and uncles Ranger and hauling them back out. One time in the last few years before my grandpa died he found me a rock that he thought I’d like to put in my flower bed. It was the perfect shape of Arkansas…only flipped around backwards. It has all kinds of rippled markings on it and it is now proudly displayed in my front flowerbed by the beautiful peony’s handed down from my gread grandmother, who was my grandpa’s mother.

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Easter Eggs

I always enjoyed coloring Easter eggs, even after I got too old to. I still like to color them today and I don’t even have any kids. It’s just something about getting that perfect color. I remember one year that I had read a book at the school library titled “Miles Dibble”. I fell in love with that book and the characters in it. I decided that my theme that year for my “ prize egg” would be Miles Dibble, so I painted my egg with finger paints a smoky country blue and all across it, in my childhood handwriting, scrawled Miles Dibble in pale yellow paint. Don’t know what possessed me, but I kept the egg way longer than anyone would keep and Easter egg. Mainly because the paint had hardened and it didn’t stink! In fact, I kept it for years and had forgotten about it until one day I found it, naturally hidden away in a drawer of junk and it had cracked and was so old the inside of it was practically empty. Strange things you remember. What did my grandpa have to do with it….it was hidden away in their house and he, because of my wishes, wouldn’t let my grandma throw it away.

Magic Rocks

I remember my grandparents buying me a little “Magic Rocks” tank with the little colored rocks you drop down into the chemicals that make them grow in the tank like stalagmites and stalactites in a cave. I loved to experiment with stuff and they were always right there with me. Every day was fun.

Swing Like Tarzan

Nothing I ever did as a kid was simple. It was always complex. I couldn’t just be content to play dolls or barbies or fix my hair or ride my bike. If I had a rope, it would be tied to a tree limb (the farthest one up I could climb to without my hands getting sweaty and my knees getting weak from being afraid of heights) in the walnut tree in my grandparents back yard. It didn’t even have to be a rope. One time there were some trial run water hoses that were used in the chicken house that were made of a thin clear tubing, and when those were discarded they made great ropes for swinging in the tree like Tarzan. We (my friends and I) tied hay string up in the barn rafters and would swing from hay bale to hay bale all throughout the summer and one night we all slept in the barn. If I rode my bike it was never just a simple riding it in circles in the driveway, it was popping wheelies on a rock out by the barn or building a ramp and seeing how much air I could clear across the driveway. My friends and I survived it all and have lived to tell about it. Again, through all of this my grandpa (and sometimes my grandma) was usually standing there watching the show. They were really making sure we didn’t kill ourselves, but it always seemed that my grandpa was having a blast.

Toothbrush

I moved to Little Rock with my parents in 1986. I would come almost every weekend and most of the summer to visit my grandparents. I kept a spare toothbrush at their house for when I was there. One of the most thoughtful things Pa did for me was that he told me he would wash my toothbrush every week so that it would be clean for the next time I used it. A simple thing that meant so much.

Pa's Houseshoes

My grandpa had more than one pair of house shoes over the years, but each one looked the same for about the last ten years or so. He almost always had an ingrown toenail, and if you’ve ever had one you know how touchy they can be. It was right on his right big toe. He’d had the doctor cut the nail off before, he himself had “operated” on it with his pocket knife, but nothing would keep it from growing back except to completely remove the nail and he said that the needles to deaden it hurt so bad the first time the doc had done it that he believed he’d just keep the sore toe. Well, because of this, every pair of house shoes had a hole cut out in the right shoe where the end of his big toe could stick up and not hurt. The last pair of house shoes he wore for so long are still at my grandma’s house in the closet where some of his clothes still hang that we just couldn‘t bear to part with. In a way they are a comfort to see them still there like nothing has changed and in another way it hurts to see them. The imprints of his feet are still in the bottom of them just as strongly as the imprints of his memories are in my heart.

Going To Texas (repeat)

When I was growing up, there was nothing better than knowing we were going on a trip. I guess I was 14 or 15 years old when my parents were going to take me and my cousin Cheryl to Dallas Texas on a weekend vacation and my grandparents were going with us. We were so excited that we probably didn’t sleep over two hours. She stayed all night at my grandparents with me and we were up planning and talking until after midnight. We got up around 5am to get ready and fix our hair. I remember standing out on the carport looking up at the moon that was still shining and thinking that life couldn’t get any better than it was right then. I had my best friend and my grandparents that I dearly loved and my parents were taking us on a trip. Life was good. It was the eighties and there was some great new music busting the rock and country charts and we loved it all. I went back in the house and Cheryl and I started making our blueberry pancakes that we had already planned ,days ago, to make that morning. At 6am my grandparents got up to eat breakfast with us and to get ready to go. We had blueberries and blueberry syrup and tons of butter. We finally got in the car and had the radio on and it seemed that our favorite music came on all the way. There was some new funky keyboard stuff that didn’t even have a name that I can recall and appropriately enough, a song by Restless Heart called “The Bluest Eyes In Texas” came on. We met my parents in Little Rock and we all rode together down to Dallas. We stayed in a new Howard Johnson and ate at an Iron Skillet restaurant that had the best smothered steak and coconut pie about four inches thick. It was that weekend that my grandma’s wrinkled skirt got ironed by my grandpa with her still in it and we drove all over Texas and went to Six Flags, drove through a drive thru zoo, the House of Wax, and saw the houses of the night-time soap “Dallas”. That was one of the most fun times of my life.

Goosing Pa

It was fun to “goose” Pa in the ribs from behind. He was very ticklish and made all kinds of sputtering noises. He didn’t just laugh and make a little natural startled noise, it was always a greatly exaggerated noise with lots of fuss and carrying on which made it all the more fun to do.

Our Knots

I know that birthmarks can be hereditary and other dermatological things like moles and warts and such, but one day I discovered a little tiny knot on the palm of my left hand where the creases of your palm and thumb intersect. I can’t explain it in “reading palms language” because I think that is completely a scan, but it is there in those lines. For a long time I thought it was just one of my “little weirdnesses”, but then one day I noticed that my grandpa had the same thing on his hand! Of everyone in my family (after that I checked) he was the only one that had that. I thought it was neat after that. We told everybody that only privileged people had that!

Colored Popcorn

We used to make popcorn a lot at my grandparents and there used to be only one kind of popcorn, the plain kind that you popped in a popcorn popper or in a skillet on the stove. Then someone came out with the colored popcorn that had red, green, blue and I can’t even remember if it had any other colors of kernels, but my and my grandpa had to get that one for a long time. Again, just one of those silly little things you remember….

Superheros

During the time I was a small child, Batman was on tv. Pa always played like he was superman and I was either Batman or the Joker. I thought they were cool. Wonderwoman got on my nerves. My grandma would find us some safety pins and pin a towel on my as a cape and Pa would take a sheet on the bed and make a giant air bubble that was supposed to be “Gotham City” and it was being attacked by Me, the Joker, in which I’d jump right in the middle of the bubble. I don’t know what he done as Superman but I sure had fun jumping in that bubble. He would take a watercolor paint set that my mom and aunt had when they were kids and paint my face up like the joker with a white face and big red lips and we’d go outside and play.

B.O.

Everyone has their own “smell”. Be it their perfume, lotion, cologne, or “BO”, but we all have a smell that is as distinct as our personality and appearance. I still remember my grandpa’s smell. It still even lingers on some of the furniture in the house where he sat the most with his head leaned back against the recliner or on the couch. The V05 hair grease stains in the material and on the inside of his Bass Pro cap. Every once in a while for just a split second, while I’m not even thinking about it, I catch a whiff that instantly flashes his image in my head and wonder if it’s possible that his spirit is near or if my mind is playing tricks on me. Still it’s nice.

Green Acres

There was a show made back in the 50’s and 60’s called Green Acres. Sometimes there are reruns of it on still today. It was a crazy show with some crazy characters, but the main story of the show was a man and his high-falutin wife had moved from the city to the country where he could enjoy living the farm life and fresh air and his wife hated it and missed the city. The poor husband, Oliver was forever having things go wrong and his wife Lisa couldn’t clean house or cook to saver her life. They argued all the time but loved each other dearly. She had a funny way of saying his name, as she spoke in a Hungarian accent and my grandpa was always going around mocking her and laughing and talking about how bad she cooked. We really got a kick out of that show.

Pokey's Armadillo

My grandparents had a big garden. It was surrounded by a fence on two sides and trees and a thicket on the side that faced the highway. Armadillos are plentiful in that area and one had built it’s home in the thicket next to the garden. My dog, Pokey discovered it one night as it was coming back from its nightly foraging while we were sitting on the front porch in the swing. Pokey took off running after it and ran it right into the culvert pipe that ran across under the driveway. The armadillo was smart, however and ran out the other end of the pipe across the rest of the yard and into the thicket. Pa ran to get the .22 rifle and the flashlight. When we got out to the garden with it, Pokey was throwing a fit. We could hear it running back and forth and making noises that armadillos make that sound almost like a pig. We never did get a good enough shot at it and finally we found the hole in the ground that it lived in. We repeated this same scenario more than once over about four years and somewhere in that time we had decided not to ever kill the armadillo because Pokey wouldn’t have the fun of chasing him if we did. As far as I know, it still lives there in the thicket. I miss me and Pa and Pokey running out there at night with the flashlight. I miss sitting on the front porch swing talking…in fact, I never sit out there anymore.

New Pockets

I used to have a favorite pair of jeans that were just getting “good” when they were getting faded, but the pockets had big holes in them and I kept losing stuff. My grandpa donated a pair of his oldest jeans to me and my grandma cut the pockets out and they sat down together and measured them for me and matched them to my pockets and sewed them in place on the sewing machine. Boy oh, boy….I had some new pockets! They were a little deeper than the ones that came out of my jeans, but they didn’t have holes in them!

Tight Places

I vaguely remember having a fascination with the clothes dryer when I was a kid or just getting into tight places. I remember one time when Pa let me get into the dryer, just to see if I could, and shutting the door on me….I also wanted to see if the dryer light actually went off if they door was closed. It does!

Shopping After Dark

Sometime in the late 1990’s my mom, grandpa and grandma, and my aunt and uncle would make a trip to Branson about twice a year. Sometimes the “men folk” would go and sometimes they stayed home depending on what job needed doing and in the latter years, my grandpa didn’t always feel like shopping or making a trip that long with us doing so much When it was just us “womenfolk” going we would call him different times during the day while we were shopping to see if he was okay or see what he was doing and let him know what we bought. It was so much fun to tell someone who wanted to listen and who was interested in what you bought or what you saw or did. He always made you feel special no matter what. Like nothing else in the world mattered to him but what you were telling him. One of his big things when he or my uncle wasn’t with us was to warn us to be careful and he thought we should be in our rooms and not out shopping after dark! We laughed and would call him from some strip mall or some restaurant at 9pm and tell him where we were! He’d gripe at us and tell us to go back to our room, but he wasn’t ever mad at us.


				*Life Is A Vapor* *My Little Stories*



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