Whats UP down South

It's been a nice day today. I've had a mostly quiet day at home alone and I was able to chat for awhile on IM with Katrina who always manages to make me laugh on my worst days. We did plenty of nattering back and forth and she made me recall an event that she suggested I share in my blog today.

I was an airforce brat, lived all over for the first 6 years of my life, but from age 6 to age 14 I lived in a little spot in the country on a farm near Moro, Arkansas. My grandparents (mom's parents) lived across the dirt lane from us. Our little houses out in the country didn't have indoor plumbing other than cold water in the kitchen and this meant that our toilet was a good 75 yds or so from the house. Kat called it a privy but we called it the outhouse and I hated that dreadful thing. But that's another story,,,,

My chores this day included burning the trash which we did in a barrel out across the dirt lane (we lived at the end). My mother told me to keep a close watch on the fire since it was very dry and windy (which it normally is in Arkansas in late August). To save time I decided to contain the blaze by placing a box on top of the barrel. My 11 year old brain did not conceive of this being a bad idea,,,at that time. Well when that box blew off, all afire of course, it set the tall, dry grass on fire in the pasture adjoining our yard. This happened to be where the barn and the dreaded outhouse were located. About 2 hours later, after fighting to keep the fire away from the house (luckily the wind was blowing out of the northeast that day) it took the barn and the outhouse and about 50 acres of a rice field that had been harvested already (thank goodness or I'd not be alive telling this today.) We fought that fire with a tiny water hose and mops and brooms and my youngest sister (who was 7 at the time) screamed and cried the entire time..I sure was glad that she distracted my mother so much. She got the whipping for making all that racket and she was too tired to whip me for burning down the outhouse.