Things My Children Haven’t Done…Boy, Have They Missed a Lot!

1. In the middle of a warm summer night chased the dozen baby pigs the size of footballs that escaped from the pigpen. Piglets are hard to catch…not fur, no neck, no handles.
2. Swung across a rock strewn ravine on a grapevine deep in the Applachian mountains of Virginia. My hillbilly cousins thought it fun to scare their flatland cousin (me) to death.
3. Slept on Grandma’s feather bed under handmade quilts…Sun Bonnet Sue fashioned from a variety of old colorful feed sacks.
4. Milked Grandma’s cow.
5. Churned butter from unpasteurized milk in a wooden churn.
6. Caught crawdads in an ice cold creek all day long using Grandma’s lard bucket to hold them.
7. Rode Cousin Delmar’s plow mule from end of Convict Holler to the other at a furious pace without falling off, no thanks to that damned English saddle.
8. Walked with the cousins in the mountains on a cold, clear night listening to the crunch of frozen earth beneath our feet, just because we wanted something to do.
9. Slopped the hogs every morning before school & every evening after dinner.
10. Butchered venison, fried up the tenderloin & made biscuits from scratch for dinner.
11. Plucked chickens so we could have fried chicken on Sunday.
12. Drank moonshine from a mason jar straight from the moonshiner’s Mercury loaded with quarts & half-gallons of Christmas shine and brandy.
13. Experience “hog killin” time in the cold mornings of November & December.
14. Canned bushels of peaches, tomatoes, corn & greenbeans to feed the family through the winter.
15. Made jellies, jams and relishes from fresh summer fruits, then sit back appreciating the sight of all those jars listening to the seals pop.
16. Made their own clothes.
17. Create a hand-sewn quilt.
18. Crochet a doily.
19. Raised an herb garden.
20. Caught fish on a fly rod, cleaned them, fried them up with cornbread baked in an iron skillet.
21. Celebrated Christmas up in the Left-Hand Fork of Bull Creek.