HOT DAYS OF SUMMER

7-11-08...HOT DAYS OF SUMMER

It is so hot today it is about to frazzle me like an old prune. I just got to thinking about those wonderful summers when I was growing up and heat did not bother me in the least. I remember one scorching day when Brenda and I were trying to decide just what we could do to make things more exciting. We got in to several things that day, one being mashing poke berries into Aunt Georgias chickens water and making it a beautiful purple color. We waded around in it for a while till our feet were purple. That purple was over the black from the shale that covered our roads in that area. We took a sip of it (you know down on our knees with our mouth's just the way the chickend drank it) Well that was sure gunky tasting. How could anything so pretty taste so bad? Aunt Georgia came out and chased us out of it and told us we would probably get sick from drinking that nasty water. She pointed out the stuff floating around in there. And I'll let you decide what it was. Kinda shiny and green. Well that adventure didn't last long so "WHAT DO YOU WANNA DO NOW" We strolled down the lane to my back yard and spotted the black walnuts under the tree. As they fell off the tree Daddy spread them out for drying so the hulls would come off and the walnuts could be cracked for nuts for the winter. I said, "Brenda why dont we help My Daddy and start taking the hulls off these walnuts" OK, Thats a good Idea she said. Well the walnuts were green. I don't know if any of you have ever experienced what happens when you bust the green off a walnut. If not, let me tell you. The juice from the green hull turns everything in comes in contact with a dirty, black, kinda' pukey color. And it does not come off of your skin or out of your clothes for a very very very long time. Get the picture? We had purple and black feet, pukey black every where else. We had even sat in both colors. But Hey we were having lots of fun!!! When we got tired of that we strolled back out the lane to Brenda's back yard again. There we spotted that big old persimmon tree just loaded down with green persimmons. Now we had ate a lot of ripe persimmons, had persimmon cookies and cakes. Those were yummy. But we had never tasted green persimmons. Well, Wasn't it time we did? HUH? Sure it was. Those green persimmons were as hard to open as the walnuts and there was more of that juice inside and it was sticky and gooey. Something sticky and gooey had to be yummy, RIGHT? WRONG!! If you have ever tasted a green persimmon you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't,,, DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT!!! Our mouths puckered up something awful. There is just no way to explain what a green persimmon does to your mouth my lips are curling up just thinking about it.
" Well Brenda,that didn't come out very well." We ran back to the chickens water and got down and tried to wash out our mouth's but that didn't work so NOW WHAT! We spied the fruit orchard and figured we'd eat some fruit to get that awful taste out of our puckered up mouth. We were told to stay out of that orchard. And just a few days ago My aunt had told us, "THAT FRUIT IS NOT RIPE GIRLS. YOU CAN"T EAT IT NOW. STAY OUT OF THERE" OK, We Won't eat any. But surely she wouldn't care since we just had to have something besides green persimmon in our mouth. Surely we didn't need to ask her. NAW. IT"LL BE OK. We picked apples and ate a few. They didn't taste good either but much better than the persimmons. But why is my mouth still puckering up? I guess My Mama and Brenda's Mama spotted us at the same time eatin' apples because they showed up at the same time. There we stood in all our glory. I guess we looked like a dirty rainbow or something."WHAT IN THIS WORLD HAVE YOU TWO DONE NOW" "IT WAS BRENDA"S IDEA" I SAID. "Oh no it was not my idea it was Clydene's idea" Brenda said> " Well it makes no difference whose idea it was" Mama and Auntie said. Since you are in the orchard you can each break off one of those little limbs right there from that peach tree. I guess you know what happened next. HUH? We got spankings then not time outs. I was never so miserable in my life right then. Well, So I thought!! I think Brenda and I probably got sick about midnight and I mean sick!!! GREEN APPLE, GREEN PERSIMMON, PURPLE WATER sick. Oh my gosh Mama You didn't have to spank me to teach me that lesson. NO SIREE!! NEITHER OF US HAS EVER FORGOTTEN IT!!! And it has been 58, FIFTY EIGHT YEARS AGO. My stomach is gettin' queasy just thinking about it. You know, Back then the things we got into were small things like that. Our Parents in time would laugh about them. But the lessons we learned were not small at all. I forget things that happened last week, but I will never forget those sweet growing up years way down at the end of a dead in road amoung the trees. Makes me homesick and brings tears to my eyes as I sit here. GOD BLESS THOSE SWEET PEOPLE WHO RAISED US UP. THEY DID A GOOD JOB I THINK.