With a Little Help From My Friends

I'm happy to say that I'm lucky enough to have a lot of friends.  I can't remember when I didn't have a friend.  I guess since I'm an only child I felt the need to seek out someone who would be there for me and that I could tell all my thoughts and troubles to.  I hated school when I started in 1963.  I cried a lot which must have been a sign of things to come. Anyhow, sometime during that year, I found out that I really liked everyone in my class, even the boys.  Even though I cried, I was really worried about another little girl who cried too.  I guess I was drawn to certain people because I remember that I made a couple special friends that year that I'm still friends with today.
Of course friends really became special in the seventh grade.  That's when you need someone to hang out with.  Back then we had a theater in Mt. Vernon.  Momma allowed me to go almost every Saturday.  I usually took a friend and my cousins along.  Mom dropped us off and came back for us.  I don't think Mom's are comfortable doing that today, but this was the early 70's.  Whatever happened at the movies, my girl friends and I talked about all week.  Also, that's when having a phone was a must even if it was a party line.  My dad was still around then and he monitored my phone time.  He didn't want the neighbors hearing me on the phone all the time because they would actually listen in and then tell my grannie and grandpa about what I said when they came to their grocery store.  I started high school at Brodhead High with the same friends I'd been around everyday since first grade.  I didn't realize until my sophomore year, when the schools were consolidated, what a bond I had formed with my Brodhead class.  Going to Rockcastle Co. High School was fun for me.  The little girl who cried at school became the older girl who loved school.  I had one special friend all through high school.  I still talk to her from time to time.  I met a lot of new people and formed another bond. I have a lot of those friends on Facebook.  It seems anytime I mention being sad, sick or worried, I get a post from those old friends telling me to hang in there or that they are praying for me.  I do the same for them.  High school graduation was a sad time.  You sit there beside your friends, realizing you may never see some of them ever again.  I graduated in May 1975 and July of that same year, we lost a classmate in an automobile accident.  In 1979, I lost one of my friends from the first grade to the twelfth in yet another car wreck.  I think about her to this day. 
After graduation from high school, most of my friends went on to college.  That was my intentions also, but a boy from Mt. Vernon stole my heart and I got married instead.  His family was huge.  I went from being an only child with a single parent to being part of a family of eleven, not counting the nieces and nephews.  I loved being a part of this big family, they became my friends. We were together every Friday through Sunday.  I loved my mother in law and a part of me died when she passed in 1997.  She was the glue that held us together.  She wanted more than anything to have children remain close to each other.  If there was a spat among us, and there were several, she talked to us and made sure we settled things.  Her children were all close and still are.  She didn't approve of any drama among them either.  When the preacher was talking about her at her funeral, he mentioned how much she loved her family and how she wouldn't allow any discord among us.  I've been in this family for almost 38 years.  I've had a bunch of sister in laws come and go. I miss the old ones, but welcomed the new ones.  The family members changed, but the love and respect remained.  Only two sister in laws have been in the family longer than myself.  There were nine children in the family, seven boys and two girls.  We recently lost two of the boys and we grieve for them everyday.   I worked several different jobs during this time and attended Cosmotology school.  I made new friends once again.  I met a special friend in school.  She lived in Corbin and we have kept up with each other on Facebook. I also had and still have a friend that has been beside me since we meet in 1986.  I owned my own hair salon for awhile.  It was called Headquarters for Hair Design and it's still located in Mt. Vernon.  While I worked there, I had the pleasure of meeting Koula Carloftis Collinsworth and her daughter Koula Verda.  Koula V. was a year older than my son, Kyle.  They usually came to the shop with us on Saturdays.  Koula and I had such a good times together.  She told great stories about her interesting family. Sometimes if the day was slow, she would say, "Let's just lock up and go to Lexington." There wasn't anything she couldn't do.  One day we decided we would take the kids to Lake Cumberland swimming.  She had access to a pontoon.  I remember saying, "Are you sure you can drive and back-up that big thing?"  She said, "I don't know, but I'm going to try."  She did an awesome job and looked like a model while she did it.  She always looked great.  She could wear a Wal-Mart bag and look great.  She decided to go to college and become a teacher.  I missed her a lot.  A few years later, after she had moved to Laurel Co., I heard that she had breast cancer.  I didn't see her again.  She was tough just as I expected.  I am friends with her daughter Koula Verda who looks and acts so much like her mamma.  She's a mother herself.  Koula would be so proud of her granddaughter. When Koula left, I worked with two more ladies.  One I already knew from church.  The other was a younger version of myself.  She was from Berea and full of life.  Mike and I hit it off with her and her husband.  We did something every weekend with them.  Nancy loved to fish more than any one I knew.  She still does my hair.  She's been a good friend since the late 1980's.  She's special to me.  She's an excellent hairdresser and loves to have fun.  She's loves to camp, fish, travel, shop, ride motorcycles. You name it, she's up for it. She just told me last week that good friends are hard to find these days.  We talked about how lucky we were to still enjoy each other's company and still exchange Christmas gifts every year. 
 Mike had two wonderful ladies that he worked with in Laurel Co.  They were sisters and part of a big family also. I fell in love with those two immediately.  We would have cookouts, parties, and get-togethers all the time.  I feel like I'm part of that family too.  Some of my happiest times were spent with Pansy and Jewell.  They had a way of making you feel loved and they still do.  There is a lot of laughter when they are around.  We don't see them as much as we would like to, but we know how to reach each other when need be.  

Sue Rowe

Kaye Rigsby, MaryAnn Childress, Me, and Becky Saylor

In 1990, I got a job as an Instructional Assistant at Rockcastle County High School.  I would be working in the classroom with an English teacher, her name was Janice Miller.  I went to school before classes started to be introduced to Miss Miller and have her explain what I would be doing.  The school had funds from a government program called JTPA, Job Training Partnership Act.  Miss Miller taught only Seniors that were struggling to graduate.  It was a great program and I remember those students so well.  The classes were small, only ten or so, and the classroom was small.  The day I first met Miss Miller was to be a day I will forever be grateful for.  I was shown to her classroom by the Principal.  He knocked on her door and she opened it with a big smile.  I remember that she was barefoot.  We were introduced and began one of the greatest friendships in my life. 
I loved working at RCHS and with Miss Miller.  I had so many friends there and still talk with some of them often.  I started a lasting friendship with the girls in the office, Becky and Sondra.  They remain my close friends.  Becky and I have been on several vacations together.  I've watched her children grow up to become successful adults.  I also inserted myself into her family who live in Monticello.  I've grieved with her when she's lost several family members and I've laughed way too much with her.  When we're together it usually means trouble.  

Me and Janice Providence, RI

I was in the classroom with Janice from 1990 until 1994 thereabouts. We moved into the new high school building, Janice became the Guidance Counselor, and I started working in the office.  We still saw each other everyday.  Our boys, we each have two, have grown up, gone to college, married and became parents while Janice and I have been friends.  It's hard to believe time has passed so quickly.  I left the high school for a job at the Central Office in 1996 where I once again made a lot of good friends.  My office mate, Sue Rowe was one friend I will never forget.  I was with Sue more than my own family.  We got along 
so well.  We were in a pretty small space, the work was hard and stressful, but we still managed to find humor in it.  We invented our own way of talking to each other.  We quoted people and each other and no one else had a clue what we were talking about.  Sue was a fine, christian woman.  She was tested several times while I knew her.  Her husband died unexpectedly, her mother passed away, she suffered a heart attack and then was hit with Cancer and all that treatment entails. Those things were all horrible, but the worst, in my opinion, was the loss of her son.  He was a manager at a pizza place in Laurel Co.  A late order came in and he was kind hearted like his mother and offered to deliver the pizza himself.  When he knocked on the door, a woman answered and a man appeared out of  the darkness and beat him to death with a iron pipe.  I often  compared Sue to Job in the bible.  She, just like Job, was given so much to bear, but their faith never dwindled.  The last time I saw Sue alive, she was in the hospital.  She smiled and spoke my name.  After that she wasn't lucid.  I do believe she knew I was there.  She passed away less than a week after my visit.  I find myself thinking, I believe I will go visit Sue, but then I remember she's not at home anymore so I go visit her at the cemetery. 

After I left the high school and went to the Central Office, I still talked to Janice several times a week.  It was hard for her to get away because her children were small, but we did manage to go to the movies and out to eat often.  I took my first plane ride sitting beside Janice.  She was scared to death and I was fascinated. 
God gave me Janice.  I am certain of that.  We never would have even met if He hadn't had a hand in it.  We are alike but yet different.  She is very, very intelligent and schooled.  I am dingy and just have a little college under my belt.  I feel smarter when I'm with her though.  She has the gift of knowing what to say when I'm upset or mad.  She's even gone with me to the Dr. where she actually told the Dr. things he needed to know about me.  She's dropped everything and came to rescue me when I was at my lowest times. I think she's the sister I never had.  I know people think we are an odd couple, but hey, it works.  I have embarrassed her to death on more than one occasion.  Especially when we first met.  We have never had a disagreement because I agree with whatever she says.  She has been in my life everyday for almost 23 years.  I think God for sending her to me.  I would have never made it through my dark life without her.  She says I'm good for her also.  If she gets grouchy, yes, she does get grouchy, her family tells her that she needs to spend some time with me.  Her sister has told her she wishes she had a "Myrna" in her life too. 
This past week has been particularly hard for me.  I am outspoken and you would think most people know that by now.  Sometimes, since my mother in law is not here to keep the peace, I say the wrong things.  For the life of me I can't keep my mouth shut.  All my nieces and nephews, and there are too many to count, are like my own children to me.  I am always concerned about them. I worry about them and I'm always glad to see them and spend time with them.  The last couple years, there has been an evil monster moving among the family.  We have had more disagreements and hurt each other than all the years combined.  I've been told all this trouble we've been having is my fault.  I tend to think they are right.  It's my fault for caring.  I'm like Ted Kennedy said about his brother Bobby at his funeral, "I see wrong and try to right it."  That's impossible to do.  I can't fix everything. I usually don't get angry.  I get my feelings hurt, or I get annoyed at someone, but to get "fighting mad," I've only got that mad 3 times in my life. So mad that my mind moves faster than my mouth, I scream, my heart races and I don't even recognize my own voice. I was once told that anger was a good thing.  It was the opposite of depression.  I'll admit when I'm that angry, I sure am not depressed.   I have to distance myself from negative things in my life.  I may have lost the love and respect of some family members, but thank God I still have Janice. 
Also this week, I had to have a breast biopsy.  That was not on my schedule.  It was benign, thank God.  But the experience just added to my horrible week.  
I consider myself blessed beyond what I deserve.  My sweet little Momma is still alive and there for me.  I have a great and caring husband, two wonderful sons, two beautiful daughter in laws, and four amazing grandchildren.  I have my blood family and my married into family.  Plus, I have a lot of friends.  Just when I was convinced I was the bad one and that I only thought about myself, everyone came together to tell me they loved me.  Even those friends from the first grade and especially those from the class of 1975.  My plan is to take things one day at a time.  A lot of changes lie ahead, but I can manage.  Change is good.  I am taking a trip to Las Vegas this week with three cousins from Ohio.  Our mothers are first cousins and grew up together.  We had lost touch for 30 years at least.  We recently re-connected via Facebook and e-mail.  I am looking so forward to spending time with these three.  I keep repeating this over and over in my head, "If your lucky enough to have one true friend, then your lucky enough."

Jewell Buckles, Mike, and Pansy Harris

Get a Round Tuit

There is a television commercial that says, "We repair what your husband fixed."  I can relate to this statement because I am married to the original Mr. Fix-It.   When Mike and I first got married in 1975, he had me convinced that he was like my grandpa, my dad and my cousin Glen, and could fix anything.  I was used to their abilities to repair anything.  We never called a repair man when I was growing up.  The only professional I can remember being at my house was the two gentlemen who installed our furnace and a man who sprayed my grandparent's store for termites.  My dad was always working on something.  I remember one winter it got too cold working in his shed, so he brought a car motor in the house and worked on it on the kitchen table.  Daddy was always working on car, boat, or lawn mower motors.  He was born with no fingers on his left hand, but there wasn't anything he couldn't do. My grandpa, Tom Frith, was a handyman too.  He wasn't quiet as good as daddy, but he was good enough.  His speciality was in carpentry.  He thought a man couldn't get too many little out buildings.  Our go to person was my cousin, Glen Rigsby.  Glen could fix anything and he wouldn't quit until he did it right.  He was grandpa's nephew and daddy's best friend.  He had been working on his family farm with his father and uncle since he was a child.  He could drive when his feet didn't touch the gas pedal.  I imagine it was his idea to put a heavy board on the gas pedal and brake so he could get the job done.  He was a farmer who worked daylight until dark and still managed to find time to come and help us out.  I grew up with these three know-it-alls and a whole farming community of men just like them who ate their lunch everyday at my grandparent's little grocery store and talked about the tractor they had to fix before they could plow. 
 
Mike, actually, was a really good Mr. Fix- It until he decided that he didn't want to fix anything anymore.  At first he took a lot of time with his projects, seeming to care that they were done just right and that he finish what he started.  Then he started sliding into the "just make do" way of thinking.  That involved a lot of used parts, duct tape and unfinished work.  Once, when our clothes dryer quit, Mike said he'd find us one.  I rolled my eyes because I knew it meant I was going to be without a dryer for awhile .  He came home that Saturday afternoon with a used dryer.  So used that it still had a load of clothes inside.  Then there was the time that the washing machine bit the dust.  It was the only new appliance we had when we got married.  My grandmother bought it for us and it lasted longer that it should have. I really wanted a new washer, but Mike said he could fix it.  After a month went by and I was still going to my mom's, my friend's or the laundry mat and he hadn't fixed the dryer,  I was getting short tempered.  He had moved the washer onto the back porch where it looked real good.  I guess he got tired of hearing me so he found a pump that had been part of a car engine and installed it inside my auburn (I know you remember the colors auburn and avacado) washer and believe it or not it worked.  Five years ago, I got tired of always having someone else's stuff, so I bought a new washer and dryer all by myself.  I didn't tell Mike I was going shopping nor did I tell him I had bought them.  I just had them delivered and sat back and watched the expression on his face when he first saw them.  I also paid for them with my own money.  That, my friends, is the way to do it.

I will never forget the summer when our septic lines clogged.  What a disaster!  Four of us living together in a house with the plumbing getting worse by the day.  Mike was actually trying to fix our latest  life threatening situation.  He dug and augered every night after work.  He rented a high tech auger from Cox's Hardware in Mt. Vernon.  This one ran on electric and looked really impressive.  Mike had already opened up the septic tank lid in the back yard.  This night was so hot and we didn't have air conditioning.  You know that if you get hot it only makes your problems worse?  That's what I've noticed anyhow.  So, Mike had our son, Neil and me stationed in the yard guarding the septic tank while he was in the bathroom with the auger.  He yelled out the bathroom window telling us to get down on our hands and knees, stick our heads as far into the septic tank hole as we could, and let him know when we saw the auger coming out of the pipe.  There we were, Neil and I, patiently waiting for the "snake" to make it's appearance because that would mean the clog was gone, but we waited and waited and the auger never showed.  All this time we were aware of a whirling sound.  I thought it was the auger's motor, but Neil didn't think so.  We both looked toward the house at the same time, just in time, to see that auger whirling on the roof of our house like the blades on a helicopter.  Every so often, the auger would bang into the gutters and make a rather disturbing noise.  The look on Neil's face was priceless.  He was probably about fifteen years old and in all that time I had never seen him laugh so hard and haven't seen him laugh that hard to this day.  Of course I too thought this was the funniest thing I had ever saw.  We stood there laughing forgetting we were supposed to be helping.  I had to run over to the bathroom window to get Mike's attention over all the noise.  I yelled, "Mike, wrong hole."  His response, "Huh?"  This conversation went on several times before Mike finally pulled the plug.  I explained to him that the auger was coming out a pipe on the roof instead of going through the plumbing pipes.  Mike didn't think it was too funny, but to this day Neil and I still laugh about the whirling bird on the roof.  Mike ended up taking out the commode, digging up more lines, and after he finally found the correct place for the auger, he got things flowing again. 

My friends at work were amazed at Mike's remedy for fixing the starter in my car.  We would take turns driving to lunch.  One day I had four co-workers crammed into my little GEO Prism all talking at the same time.  Suddenly when I started the car, everyone stopped talking and all wore looks of surprise.  At first I thought, "what's up with everybody?" then I realized they had never witnessed anyone start a car like I just had.  See, Mike "hot-wired" the car so I had to start it by touching two wires together.  I had grown accustomed to starting my car like that for months so it was no big deal for me.  It was almost a year before Mike fixed that car.  He only fixed it then so we could trade it in. 
At this writing,  part of my bathroom floor is gone.  We've had a leak around the shower for years and I've been nagging him about it for years.  It got so bad, mushrooms were growing.  Something finally hit him a couple weeks ago and he decided he needed to fix the floor.  So he took all the tiles up and that was it.  I thought maybe he was on strike, so I asked when was he going to finish the bathroom floor.  He says he's just letting it dry out.  I'm thinking it's never going to dry out because he hasn't found the leak yet.  I sure wish he would finally get that "round tuit" he's been talking about.

There's more stories just like the ones I've shared, but no one has time for all that.  In Mike's defense, back when he wanted to, he was a really good handy man.  One good thing that has came out of 37 years of repairs like these, is that our sons have dedicated themselves to not being the kind of fix-it man that their dad is.  

 

 

Just Country Girls

I babysit two of my four grandchildren every day.  Jack is in pre-school, so he is only here a little while each day.  He is almost five and full of energy.  Yesterday was a sunny day here in the bluegrass state, which has been rare this year. As a matter of fact, I’m still waiting on spring.  Anyhow, Jack was literally bouncing off the walls.  He was playing something that required running fast through the house, then run head on into a wall, talk to himself in a language I didn’t understand and then get up and start all over again.  Halfway through the day, I was getting short tempered with his playtime.  I suggested he go outside too play.  I told him he needed to run off some of that energy.  He should ride his bike, throw a ball, play with the dogs, and play in the dirt just anything to get him outside.  His excuse was he didn’t want to go out unless I did and of course I couldn’t without taking Layla and it was a little cool for her.  I thought about Jack and his day long after he went home.  I began thinking about my own childhood  and how much fun I had.  I came to the conclusion that Jack needs a cousin to play with, which he has, and hopefully I can drag him outside this summer because he’s missing some good times.

I am an only child.  Growing up, I spent most days with my cousins, Kaye who is 9 months older than me and Anna Lee who is 2 years younger than me.  They too are only children and lived about a mile away from me.  We all grew up in the country with tobacco, corn and cattle being a big part of our lives.  Our parents were all close to each other and visited my parents several times a week.  My grandparents ran a country store which was a great gathering place for the neighbors every night when the work was done.  No one had to tell us to go outside and play because we were ready to get out of range of the adults talking about farming, UK basketball and the good old days.  We played outside morning, noon and night.  We played in the cold and in the scorching heat and never complained.  

For three girls, we managed to get into a lot of trouble.  Several times our stunts ended up with at least one of us in the hospital. Kaye broke her arm, Anna Lee ran into a tree and had a concussion, and I fell off the tailgate of a truck and needed 5 stitches just to name a few.  Kaye and Anna Lee’s grandfather, Purr Rigsby, was in his 90’s and lived with his son and grandson in the family farmhouse that’s been standing for years.  He walked with a cane and couldn’t see too well.  We girls found a pair of roller skates in the basement.  We couldn’t skate, so I wore one skate and Anna Lee wore the other.  We skated through the house one whole day non-stop.  Our route took us past Purr’s sitting spot which was in his room in a straight backed chair.  He told us several times to stop skating around him, but we didn’t pay him any mind.  So he began adding a new gauntlet for us, his cane.  When we skated around him, he would try to whack us with his cane.  He never did make contact though and we knew he wouldn’t hurt us anyhow

Another game we played a lot was Doctor.  The Rigsby farmhouse at one time had the kitchen upstairs, so it still had a water pipe going up the wall in Anna Lee’s bedroom.  One session of Doctor had me playing the doctor, Anna Lee the nurse and Kaye the patient.  That day I had diagnosed Kaye as having a broken leg.  Nurse Anna Lee tied her leg to the old pipe with a jump rope and there laid Kaye apparently in traction. Anna Lee and I snuck out of our “hospital” and went to the kitchen to have lunch.  Before too long, we heard Kaye yelling in the other room where we left her.  Seems she had figured out we were eating and she wanted to eat too, but we had tied her so tight she couldn’t get loose.  The adults took over and untied Kaye.  After she ate, she was still mad and went home.

One summer we took possession of an old lawn mower body.  Anna Lee’s dad, Glen, modified it for us and made it somewhat of a go-cart.  It didn’t have pedals; we had to drive it like Fred Flintstone, with foot power.  It was heavy and was more trouble than fun.  Anna Lee’s house sat on pretty level ground and we needed a hill to ride the go-cart down.  Just so happened that there was the perfect place just on the other side of the fence.  It is very and I mean very steep with trees and huge boulders dotting the landscape.  At the foot of the hill was a farm pond.  Out of the 3 of us, Kaye would be the least likely to take the maiden ride on the go-cart, but she did.  Anna Lee and I gave her a push and away she went straight into another” girl” made disaster.  Anna Lee and I thought it was hilarious.  Kaye was flying, bouncing off a pine tree, side swiping a huge rock and bumping over dried cow patties and pebbles all the while screaming bloody murder.  The ride, thank God, was a short one.  She managed to hit a tree head on which stopped her suddenly.  When the force pushed her forward, she hit her chest on the front of the cart knocking the breath out of her and bruising her chest.  After she quit crying, and we decided she was going to live but maybe we better not ride down that hill again.  Kaye went home, told her mom and the go cart suddenly disappeared from our lives.

When Kaye and I were about 9 and Anna Lee 7, we decided it was time for us to smoke cigarettes.  We were at my house playing in the tool shed.  It was decided that I would steal the cigarettes from my Grandparent’s store.  I did this with no problem.  I even stole matches.  We went to the shed to have our cigarettes.  I remember being very disappointed with the smoking experience.  We never got sick, but didn’t enjoy it much either.  We dug holes in the dirt floor of the shed and buried our cigarette butts.  Then we hid our pack of cigarettes in the drawer of an old cabinet.  We took several smoke breaks over the course of a month or so.  One day we went to smoke and our cigarettes were gone.  Seems my dad’s old bird dog had been digging in the cool dirt of the shed and had dug up our butts.  When my grandpa saw this, he knew right away what we were up too.  He looked around for our cigarettes and found them in the drawer where we left them.  As I remember, we didn’t get punished at all for smoking and me for stealing.  Grandpa didn’t tell anyone and since we didn’t like smoking anyhow, we left that addiction alone.  Well, Kaye and I did.  Years later and Anna Lee still smokes.  I guess two outta three ain’t bad.

At one point we formed a band.  We didn’t play any instruments, but we danced to our own choreography to Stevie Wonder’s song, “Superstition.”  One winter, during hog killing time, the men gave us each a pair of pig’s eyes to carry around in a can.  That was cool, but we weren’t allowed to take them to school.  Almost every night at dusk, we caught at least 50,000 lightening bugs and placed them in a Pepsi bottle.  Of course the bottle was glass and one of us had it with us while we were running over uneven ground.  Thank goodness, it never broke. 

We always had pets.  I had cats, Kaye and Anna Lee had dogs, Jack and John.  They followed us where ever we went.  Anna Lee’s old “mamma” cat we called her,  always had a litter of kittens hid away somewhere for us to find.  Once we found them, they then became little dolls.  We dressed them up in outfits, caps, shoes, and blankets.  We rode them around in doll strollers turning the curves too fast and losing our cargo several times a day.  I’m happy to report that the kittens all survived.  Once we hiked up the big hill across from my house that we called “the knob.”  It had once been mined for his rock and a gravel pit was left.  It was such a wonderful place to do some rock climbing which we were told over and over not to do.  My mom could see us from my house and would scream to the top of her lungs, “Get off that cliff.”  With that activity omitted, we decided to catch lizards.  We must have caught over 100 and put them in an old cooler we had taken with us.  We took them home to show everyone.  My mom wasn’t as thrilled with the lizards as we were.  She made us take them back up the hill and set them free.  When it looked like a day was going to be wasted, we just went fishing.  For girls, we were pretty good.  We weren’t afraid to bait our own hooks or take our fish off the line.  We always threw the fish back in the pond.  We decided to leave the big time fishing to our dads who took fishing very seriously. 

Our very favorite thing to play was Barbies.  We were lucky enough to have mothers who were great seamstresses and had made us tons of Barbie clothes.  In the summer we played in the corn patch behind my house.  We didn’t have a Barbie Dream House, but we had a Barbie jungle.  We dug holes, put Reynolds wrap in them and made Barbie a pool.  I had a Barbie car that we shared.  The back wheels were gone, I have no idea what happened to them.  We tied a string on the front of the car, placed Barbie and Ken inside and pulled them to exciting places.  Barbie and Ken were speed demons and had several roll overs, but in Barbie Land, no injuries were allowed.

When we got a little older we were allowed to ride our bikes to each other’s homes.  This makes me cringe when I think about doing that today.  Sometimes we walked.  This was a good time to talk about boys and stuff we had heard about but didn’t understand.  None of us were very athletic.  We played some kick ball, but that was about it for ball games. We liked Brodhead Tiger basketball.  We went with our parents to every home game.  This is the only thing I can remember doing with my dad who passed away when I was 13.  He loved basketball and fishing. 

I don’t remember us ever sitting down and watching TV.  We didn’t play board games because we couldn’t sit still that long.  We each had a record collection, mostly 45’s because they only cost .79 cents to buy.  We sang and danced to those records until they were too damaged to play.  A big treat for us was going to Renfro Valley to the drive-in.  While our dad’s were at Lake Herrington or Lake Cumberland fishing, our moms took us to the movies.  We mostly talked, giggled and ran back and forth to the concession stand.  I don’t think we ever watched a movie. 

As I write this, I thank God for letting me grow up in the country.  I’m sure someone that grew up in Chicago or NYC can also write about what a wonderful life they had growing up in the city, but it’s hard for me to imagine.  Jack, Camden, Gray and Layla will also have a wonderful time growing up, I will see to it.  I hope they will prefer the outdoors to the indoors.  Making up games instead of playing Playstation for 12 hours a day.  I hope they will walk, run or bounce a ball over to see their friends, not call or text them.  I hope Camden and Gray, who live in Georgetown will come to NaNa’s house every summer and hang out with Jack and Layla.  I hope they go fishing, catch lizards, and all the stuff I did as a girl.  Layla can play Barbies, the boys can play baseball, but they won’t be allowed on the highway with their bikes. Increase in traffic and crazy drivers have taken over these days. 

Everyone thinks those were the good ole days and to us they are, but right now belongs to our children and grandchildren.  Let’s work to make it what they will someday call their good ole days.