Do they still have country roads?

I remember when I was a little kid running the country roads back home.  We would start out early and decide to "go some place."  There was Vincent's Sand Pit.  Old and abandoned and I do not know how far from the house, but that did not matter.  I was always barefoot.  We got shoes in the fall when school started and we better not wear them out, lose them, or grow out of them or we finished the year barefooted.  That was fine by me, but the kids in town did rather turn their noses up at this litle ragamuffin.  But, I get the last laugh.  I am still setting here barefooted and damn glad of it.
Mama always went off early to clean some lady's house in town so we were pretty much on our own.  Course the really little kids were babysat by the lady up the street who charged 50 cents a day.  But us "big kids" were pretty much on our own.  Now that I think back, I do not remember eating.  I am sure we must have , but who knows what!  I am still here so I am sure we did eat.  Wish mama was here and I could ask her.

So there was my brother and I, the two Reinke girls, Jimmy Davis from in town, Margaret Ayers and her brother Hibbly.  That seems right.  Oh, and my older sister who was supposed to be the one with the brains.  Now, at the time it was great fun.  Running down a dusty, sandy road in the hot noon day sun to get to a muddy pond of water that we were not allowed to cross the fence to get near.  Besides that there were big, very mean cows in there guarding it.  Then we could turn around and run back home.

Home was fun.  One day Jake and I decided to dig us an underground hide out.  We dug and dug and finally had us a suitable tunnel about 10 feet long, two feet wide and three feet deep. We then placed the boards across it and piled the dirt back on top.  Oh, that was great when we crawled in there.  It was all cool and dark.  Dark.  I got my young self right back out of there because I am scared of the dark.

Near the tunnel and across the fence the neighbors had a big tree and under it was our "cemetary".  In the country there are a lot of natural deaths of birds and rabbits and as a tender hearted  young girl these deaths needed to be attended and a proper burial was always in order.  Hence the cemetary.  Now these same neighbors raised pigs.  Really big pigs.  Very mean pigs.  The house where the pig lives is called a sty.  A sty is a short house, like a peaked roof that sets on the ground.  And as normal kids we liked to play a game called "I dare you!"  Now Jake knew I was scared to death of those pigs but he liked to dare me to jump from one sty to the next all the way across the pig pens.  It was probably a 3-4 foot leap, which was not far at all, but there was always that chance of slipping and falling into the pig pen where I would be eaten by the pigs.  As I look back, that was not the best game to play.

When it was dark we could play "Kick the Can."  Seems like I was always "It."  I had to cover my eyes and count to 50 while they all went and hid.  Then I had to go find them.  If I did find one I took that person back to the "base" and put them in a make believe "jail".  Some one would run in when my back was turned and kick the can and there went my prisoner, in the event I had actually found someone hiding. 

Another favorite game was "clod fights" which is exactly what the name implied.  Some one would plow the field, usually dad, and leave it "turned over" before a "harrow" was drug across it.  At any given point in the whole process, the dirt would dry, leaving clods.  And the longer they laid there the harder they got.  Getting the picture?  We would throw the clods at each other.  The most fun always seemed to be getting hit in the eye with a clod.  That way mama gave full attention to the injured party and the one who did it was really going to get a "licking."  Remember when our parents could give us a licking and not get slapped with child abuse charges? 

Ah, the "good old days!"  I remember going to school, but I do not ever remember studying.  I remember going to church and the most wonderful part was having a birthday, because then we got that many pennies to drop in the "Birthday Can" while everyone counted and then sang "Happy Birthday" to me.

Why is it as we get older, the past looks so much better?  I could spend all my time back in those carefree days.  We ate Bacon and used cream that was so thick it stood in peaks.  We ate what ever landed on the table and had no idea what a calorie or fat grams or sodium or any of that stuff was.  And I never weighed over 100 pounds until I was pregnant with my first baby.

I miss my mama.