Our Memories

****Are They Fact or Fiction***

There are times when I think God gave me a very prolific memory. I remember the color of the dress I wore to the eighth grade pepster "dance" at Prescott...shh, don't tell anyone it was a DANCE. Some of you remember the one, it was white with a sheer green over skirt. I wore it when I won the twist contest with Vic Polito....shh, don't tell that either, my dad might get upset, and my mom (who didn't know we were a "date") would lecture me about what nice girls do and don't do. Dancing of course was not a nice thing.

I remember climbing the magnolia tree in Myra's front yard, along with her help, and breaking off the lowest branch and then hiding it under the front of the house. Well hidden there, what, two or three feet off the ground? I think I remember wishing we had hauled it off and put it under someone else's house, maybe blocks away. And then I sorta, kinda, remember blaming it on Cathy, ...uh surely not.

You know there seems to be a vague memory of a game we played at night (when my parents didn't realize it was dark outside) called sardines. Not one person hiding their eyes while everyone found their own place to hide. No, everyone ran off in different directions to hide and when one found another, they hid together, then number two came along and hid there as well. Soon you had every one in the same space, like on the ditch bank behind my house waiting for the last one to find us all.

Baseball with the tin can and big stick in the street under the street lights.......Until someone had to go to the bathroom, then the parents started looking for us all and made us come in.

Oh, the best memories I have are of holidays. The ones that involved food. Funny, huh, they all did.

Back then we could go for miles on trick-or-treat and bring home grocery bags of candy and eat it right on the side of the street. No trips to the ER to have it all x-rayed.

I loved that Thanksgiving came just five weeks before Christmas. Aunt Marion started making all those yummy desserts and stored them on the hutch in the dinning room. My eyes were always sneaking peeks to what was new.

Then the Christmas tree went up on December 15th and presents started going under it, without names. Sam, remember the time we shook every package and put them back not knowing mom had placed everyone's in a certain place. I was so upset because I got boys socks and you looked really funny when you had to model "step outs". On Christmas eve we all went to grandma Abbott's and everyone got a present).

Then New Years Eve came and the holidays started over for another year. Those were the best years.

Myra, Sam, Jerry, Valmond, Wayne, do y'all remember when it became our turns to take over doing the celebrations? Planning the menus, buying the presents, cleaning before and after the party, somehow some of the magic was gone. Of course, I still love that time of year.

I have a memory of Nannie just beating the tar out of Myra and Cathy with a baby bed slat. Of course the slat was made for a doll bed and was not more than 1/4 of an inch thick and made of balsa wood or something like it. Needless to say, I tried never to "get caught" doing what Myra was doing.

I remember Unc making me stand behind one door and Sam another because we were laughing (of all things) and maybe screaming and calling each other names, or even running in the house, but this is my blog so I get to remember it the way it happened, in MY happy dreams. I really do think it was Sam's fault.

I remember an out of town Istrouma football game we went to on the bus to Bogalousa (SP) I do think we were all on that bus. Myra, June, Me, Sam, the Dantoni and Polito boys, as my dad called them (at least that's what we'll say he called them). I do believe that was the only time I deliberately lied to my dad. I think he paid Sam's way to the game so he would check up on us.

I wish I had pictures for this blog, but I don't. If anyone does, please figure out a way to post them. Everyone of you are precious to me and the memories are so fun.

Thanks for being my partners in a beautiful life.