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Ok, here goes ! As you already know, I grew up in a coal mine camp in the heart of the Appalachians, Floyd County, Kentucky. Right about this time of year, I start remembering going “green picking” with mommy and friends. I learned to identify many plants in these spring sojourns. Now, I can tell you the difference in “sour dock” and “speckled dick” in a heartbeat ! “Plantain”, “creesy greens” (I imagine this was water cress), and “poke salet” were definitely on the supper menu when we got home. Our brown paper “poke” was always full of these delicious wonders from nature. What did we do for fun you ask ? Well, you have not lived until you have slid down a hillside covered with “sage grass” on a “pasteboard” box ! Or swung out over the Big Sandy River on a rope tied to a tree...or caught crawdads out of the creek.. or played “round town”...or shot the lid off a baking powder can, when you spit on the carbide you had put inside it.. Favorite toys ?..well, have you ever played with a “jing-whizzer” ? This was a fun toy that daddy made with string and a large button. You looped the two ends over each forefinger and drew it back and forth (sorta like you were playing an accordian), and the button would whiz around and sing ! And you were in some major trouble if someone got it close to your long hair.... The “tops” were wonderful ! They were made from a thread spool, with a match stem whittled down to fit in the hole.. Folks, this could turn into a three-pager, so I will try to leave room for others “precious memories”. Berry picking, hollyhocks, feed sack dresses, honeysuckle, cutting a Christmas tree from the hill and decorating it with sycamore balls covered with foil, bean “stringings” on the front porch, shuck beans, sleeping in a bed with a corn shuck mattress, making crepe paper flowers, going to the two room school, papaws, persimmons & wahoo trees will have to stay here in my head, til I write again....... |
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Memory submitted by Judy: Runing bare-foot in the Licking River, after a sucker-fish. Magoffin Co Ky. Using a cardboard box , sliding down a hill under pines, on pine needles, just hold on.! Tieing too June bugs together, and putting them down in your sister's shirt, that was great. Boy I'm still running. And the one I didnt like, was running from my sister who had a sweet corn worm in her hand!! |
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