I remember the smell of the honeysuckle in the early morning as I awakened. I grew up in the country and all the fences were lined with it. It was especially fragrant this time of day with the dew on it.
I remember spring rains when my parents would let me strip to my underwear and play outside with it coming down and falling all around me. I remember laughing as I played.
I remember my sixth birthday party, when my grandmother sent five gallons of ice cream and we ate it all. She had to send it to me by train from 70 miles away.
I remember bobbing for apples in a washtub at a Halloween party. When the party was over, we went home to find all the tires on my father's automobile had been deflated. And I remember him going and getting the boy who did it and making him put air in all of them with an old hand pump, while my father watched…Needless to say, this was the last time this boy ever played a Halloween prank on my father.
I remember one Christmas finding a red ball hidden in a drawer and thinking this was all I would get for Christmas, only to find later that it was a present for the cook's child.
I remember how my grandmother smelled with the perfume she wore. When I think of it, I am still able momentarily to smell the fragrance. Years later I bought me some of it but it just didn't smell the same.
I remember our washwoman coming to wash the clothes on Monday with an old washtub and scrub board. And how good the smoke smelled from the fire under the iron pot that she used to boil them. I also remember how she played with me and how I loved her.
I remember summers under a shade tree just watching the clouds and making faces out of them and day dreaming.
I remember Christmas parties at our country church and a big Christmas tree that we all helped to decorate. We beat up soapsuds to make the snow and used the angel hair for decorations. One of the local men always played Santa Claus. One Christmas I had to make a recitation and I was afraid, but I did it anyway and didn't make any mistakes.
Remembering all of this makes me wonder if growing up is really that wonderful. I wanted to grow up so I could do fun things, but looking back, it seems these were the fun things.
