The summers were long, hot and endless. We went barefoot all summer, and the young boys went shirtless and carefree. There were endless paths and trails to follow in search of adventure and sweet blackberry bushes and wild plums. Children in those days were never seen or heard. We were too busy searching for bird’s nests and uncovering secrets that only mother and father could teach us. Mother and father could tell you what vicinity of the woods or forest we were in, but they never knew for sure, but they were always certain we were safe and secure because crime was non-existent in those bygone innocent years.
After a carefree dinner of skillet corn and fresh butterbeans, sliced tomatoes and fried chicken with buttermilk biscuits, we retired to the long, wrap-around front porch where a gently, cool afternoon breeze was stirring.
Time seemed to freeze as we could almost hear and feel our heartbeats attuned to the warm streaks of sunshine filtering through the old oak tree, shading out front yard. There were several watermelons that we rolled around with our dusty bare feet, while the old birddog occasionally raised his head and quickly lowered it back without a care in the world. In times like these, we thought our sweet, carefree summers would never end because going back to school never crossed our minds.
Little Jimmy Dickens sang about how we got our education out behind the barn and without a doubt, those song lyrics rang true for us.
Sugar momma told us eager to know children that babies came from the extra, big bumps on the bottom of the sycamore trees. We had to take her word for it because parent never told us the truth about the birds and the bees. To say we were seen but never heard was the absolute truth. Country folks believed that keeping food on the table was their main responsibility, while the intimate facts of life would be revealed later.
The preacher came to dinner on the third Sunday of each month. It has been said that preachers love the Lord and fried chicken, but I’m not quite sure they fall in exactly that order. I had named every chicken on the yard, and I hated to sacrifice even one to the preacher’s appetite for fried chicken. “Lord, why weren’t some preachers vegetarians back then?” I now ask myself.
Eventually, my endless summer came to an end. The old home place no longer exists, while everything else had “Gone with the Wind”.
