When I was a kid, for about 7 years or so, we lived across the road from my mother's parents. My grandfather was a farmer and sawmill man and grandma did the housewife things and also helped out in the fields. Since our mother worked and our father was who knows where, we pretty much had the run of the farm. We knew the best trees for climbing, the best pear, plum, or mulberry trees for a snack, and knew the location of every wild blackberry, dewberry thicket, and muscadine vine in a 5 mile radius. Hog Tusk Creek divided the farm and we spent many good times in the woods by the creek swinging on vines and building forts. I can't remember spending much time indoors cause there was always so many things to do out in the woods or fields to waste too much time being cooped in by walls.
The best times were the summers when our city cousins used to visit. Those boys had no clue about country life for a while there. Of course it didn't take them too killin long to find out in self defense. By the end of one 2 week visit with us, I sported a wound between thumb and index finger of my left hand from being delegated hole puncher for a jar lid to hold our frog collection. (Grandpa sure kept Grandma's butcher knife honed up fine). My youngest sister had a shovel-shaped gash in the top of her foot from our worm digging expedition (we had planned to go fishing that day). And the middle cousin was slightly traumatized after we put a bubble bee down his pants one day during a game of hide & seek (we didn't tell him that it was dead until later).
In August of 2001 my two sisters and I were able to get together with those three cousins for the first time in about 27 years and we had a wonderful time remembering all the "back whens". You know, I'm surprised they ever forgave us (grin).
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