MORE MISSISSIPPI MEMORIES

BJ reminded me of an event that happened to us as children when we were visiting our relatives in Mississippi. As I’ve said before, every summer we would stay a few weeks with our grandparents out in a rural part of the state and live a very primitive existence --- which we loved.

MA always stayed with our cousins in the one horse town of Toccopola about three miles away, so we usually didn’t see much of her once we got down there. Mother, BJ, and I bedded down in the tiny bedroom of the very small house that belonged to our grandparents.

I wonder sometimes what our relatives thought of us. When we visited them we always wore shorts and T shirts or tops except on Sundays. Our female cousins, on the other hand, wore only dresses all the time. Also, we were very ignorant of “country” ways.

One time we rode into Toccopola to pick up something at the general store, and I distinctly remember walking down the wooden sidewalk past the usual contingent of old men in overalls sitting around. One of the men said, “Hello, boys.” We didn’t even look at them as we kept walking, but I said, “Girls” in a pleasant voice as we passed them. They must have thought that we were pretty snobby, and I guess we were, but even now I’m glad that I wasn’t embarrassed by their comment.

But that’s not the incident I was going to relate. Our grandparents’ tiny shack sat on my Uncle Howard’s property out behind his barn, but the property was adjacent to another’s uncle’s farm also. We could see their rickety old house across the pasture where Aunt Mary and Uncle Sidney lived with numerous children and grandchildren.

BJ and I loved to roam the land down behind the little house out of sight of the adults playing all kinds of games. One time when we were about seven and ten, we were exploring and came across a big haystack. For some reason we thought it was perfectly all right to climb on top of it and slide down, which we did --- over and over again. We really had a ball.

That night after supper when it was still light, we were playing out on a huge tree stump in front of the little house while the grown ups sat on the front porch. Our cousin James who was much older than we were came riding across the pasture on his horse. He was going down into the back pasture, he said, to check things out. Pretty soon he came back and said, “Well, it looks like the cows got into my haystack today. I guess I’ll have to put up a better fence.” BJ and I looked at each other and never said a word. I really believe that was the first inkling we had that we had made a mistake in assuming the haystack was for anything other than our pleasure.

As I said, I wonder what they thought of us city children who were so different from them. Some of them must have dreaded our coming and were glad to see us leave.