Old Writings # 3

This is the last post of old writings from times past.  I have posts for the new year up my sleeve, but I need to go ahead and finish this retro-series.  This is the beginning of a writing that I started a while ago.  It's about early memories in my home town.  I love that place.  These memories go back to before I started school. I had to be like 4 years old at this point.  It's brief, but then I'll add some thoughts to finish it out.  I just saw this the other day and felt like it deserved to be dusted off. 

                My first memories are from Airport Road.  We had a little white house with two bedrooms, a field with a horse, and a hickory tree in the front yard.  Mr. Robicheaux paid me in coins to pick up pecans for him.  I thought I was rich. There’s something cool about being a little bitty kid in a small town.  You feel really safe and a little bit invincible.  I have three older sisters, so it was always exciting to look out the front windows, past the front porch and onto Airport Road to see the bus come to a stop.  They were home! 
One of my first memories is when it snowed. I think it was like 1987.  I was 3 or 4 when it happened, anyway.  My mom stayed at home with me and she also babysat my little friend.  In this little house, I remember watching Full House.  I remember taking a nap to the sounds of Roger Whittaker singing Christmas songs.  We had that on tape and I loved those songs.  I remember birthday parties and once when my dad was thrown off of the horse and broke his arm. My mom fell during this incident and was poked in the brow with a stick.  We were glad it missed her eye.  I remember Melissa standing on the playhouse with her friend and telling me they were leaving to fly off to heaven.  They would flap their wings and I cried.  Once we thought mom had been bitten by a black widow spider.  I can remember seeing my Dad pray for my Mom.  She made it through and I suppose it wasn't a deadly spider bite after all.  I can remember Shawn and Jay sitting on the front porch with the light on and Melissa flickering the lights to tell Shawn to come in.  I remember one Christmas where I got boots and someone got chocolate covered cherries.  I remember hiding to eat Crisco.  Strange.  I don't think I ate much of that.  It just looked so pretty and like it would be candy. It wasn't.  I remember we had a ficus tree in the dining room.  We had kittens while we lived in this house.  We had a little brown playhouse outside; I think my Daddy built it.  I think that times were hard in this house; I was too little to know some of the details of how things were.  All I really remember is that it was warm with the relationship of a family that loved and continues to love each other very much.  Good, good memories. 

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