All I Know I Learned From ME

Growing up in the 40's led to a strange childhood. My Dad left to go to war and i hardly ever saw him until i was 7 .He was the person in the middle of the night that came in , wearing olive drab clothing, and caused me to be moved from my Mamas bed to my own..We children of that time, wore dog tags to school with our name, blood type and our Dads name and rank on them, learned about blackouts, ducking into a hallway in case an atom bomb was dropped(?)and doing without some staples because they were needed for the war. So we played war in the neighborhood, tramped through woods and creeks..seriously, we stayed outside all the time. From early to dark and ran across everything you can imagine from snakes, spiders, poision ivy, anything and everything that moved or didn't move we learned about. We climbed trees, carved our names into tree trunks with little knives (yep, real ones) played in the dirt with our cars, made roads, had mudball fights (you were out if you put a rock in the middle of your mudball) and pine cone fights..those hurt....hide and seek, tag, free for all(in this a huge pile of kids just jumped on each other and I was always on the bottom) and King of the red mud Hill...(ha, our parents didn't like this one because no one had washing machines back then)we owned animals, found animals, brought home animals and always wondered where our prizes of turtles, frogs, and lizzards went. I was such a tom boy and life was so simple. My mother wondered if I would ever get sissified, she even asked my Daddy sdoctor(back then they came to the house for you) asked, in front of me because I was hanging by my knees from a tree in the front yard..he told her not to worry I would change in time enough..sure enough when i became a "woman" in the 7th grade, I changed..I loved reading, drawing, and horses..had a boyfriend who walked me home, carrying my books and we rode bikes together all over the neighborhood..you could ride back then everywhere and still be safe, caught fireflies at night, went to the neighborhood swimming pool and walked , Yes, In the woods.... Still , changes had to come, tv came to our house, black and white and a roundish screen, and we got to watch Bonanza and Ed Sullivan. My parents expected me to do good in school..it was a given, you do good all a's ..no questions..they didn't praise me..teachers did and other people..but they just expected it. I visited my aunts and uncles and grandmother in the summers..stayed most all summer. My grandmother lived in Springfield, SC and it was a big ol wood house with tin roof..she had the best stuff to play with, an old upright piano, pigs, chickens, cow, mule, huntin dogs, a windmill and a puddle of cold water always under the windmill...broken pottery and maypops, toothpicks, sticks, corn dolls and even a stick doll my friend made me. She had black women that helped her put up vegetables and peaches and they were my best friends. "Duck" taught me how to fish, "ol essie" made me the stick doll and I got a pickled pigs foot to have as a treat....there were NO all day suckers, so I was probably about 5 or 6 and carried the pig foot all day long, just puttin it down on the back steps long enough to eat dinner(lunch now) and didn't even question anything they gave me to eat. If we had "brains and eggs" for breakfast, I ate and didn't even ask.."whose brains?" Man, I can remember one Christmas at her house, it was soo cold and the only heat was from little fireplaces in each room..so we all ran to the kitchen to dress in the mornings where the wood stove was...freezin my feet off....we had a cut out of the woods cedar tree and I made a paper chain for the tree..it was War Time and people did what they could. my grandmother had one son left at home and he was at war as was my daddy and other uncles..so all the women came home and helped out. When the war was over and my Daddy home for good, we got more things and even got a new 1950 car. Never lost my love of drawing, reading or horses . Times got more complicated and harder and i always wondered why it didn't get easier as you got older. But my Aunt, when she was 84, told me "You got to get tough" otherwise you won't make it.

Who the hell wants to get tougher and tougher just to make it...by that time you just feel forgotten, unloved, alone, and distanced from all that use to matter..Life Sucks