We walked two miles to school at Oak Grove. When I was in fourth grade, the bus started picking us up. We had to walk 1/2 mile up the road to the mail box. When we walked to Oak Grove, we had two creeks to cross, and Goetz’s and Otto’s cows to worry about. We were so scared of them. We would walk miles out of our way if the cows were anywhere near our path. For some reason, they always chased us if they saw us. Our lives were never dull! If it rained and the creeks were up, we had to walk upstream about a mile before we could cross. We ate rabbit grass in the spring on the way home from school, and possum grapes, black hulls, persimmons and huckberries in the fall. Cleo and I were janitors at Oak Grove. We got_paid 10-15 dollars a month. We had to sweep the floors, clean blackboards and carry in fresh water each day. We would run all the way home then so we could listen to our soap opera “Just Plain Bill”. It came on the radio at 4:15 PM.
cows
Aunt Lolly’s Story (part 8)
One of the dumbest things I ever wanted to do was milk a cow. I would follow Mother and Daddy out to the barn and beg them to let me try to milk. When I was 12, they finally let me milk. I sat by the cow for an hour trying to get some milk out of her. Finally, she got tired of my efforts and just laid down with me sitting there. After that, I had to milk every day. Boy was I sorry I wanted so bad to learn.
Aunt Naomi’s Story (Part 30)
We raised calves when I was about eight. We purchased a powered or granular feed for them that was mixed with water. This came in a 5-gallon bucket and it was called KAFFA. I asked Mahlon what KAFFA meant. He said, “It stands for “Keep All Filthy Farts Away.” I was always amazed and intrigued at the mischief he could come up with. Once he bet me 25-cents I would not bite a large green caterpillar in half. Well, I did it and proceeded to spit a lot and wash my mouth out with water. I don’t remember if he ever paid me or not! (He paid me in 2009 J)
I had a little black lamb when I was probably six or so. It was given to me because it was a runt, I guess. It followed me around all the time. I bottle fed it but it got sick and died. Mahlon took it down over the hill and told me he put it in a certain big stump. I don’t know what he really did with it, but I always felt good knowing it was in that stump.
Photo Friday
Photo Friday
Who’s that on the left?
UPDATE: I scanned these at the Family Reunion from Aunt Naomi’s scrap book. We were trying to get a lot of scanning done, so the quality of the scan isn’t as high as you can get if you spend more time. Then before putting them on the website I try to do a little “restoration work” on the pictures. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Here are the originals:
Here’s a slightly different take on restoring them. I don’t know if you’ll find it any better for seeing the details. Keep in mind that I’m not very good at this. Someone who knew what they were doing could do better. Remember that you can click on most of the images to see a larger size, and that in a lot of cases you can click on them a second time to see an even bigger image.
