’Til Next Time — Odd which memories remain

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

This week I laughed so hard I had a side ache. I guess I needed to. There were two days of spring break gone. A class I wanted to attend was already filled up. The weather turned chilly and then came the news of Audra Pratt’s funeral. Two days in a row we walked creek banks, but on this day we decided to take a short cut. We clawed our way up a steep bank by grabbing branches. The dogs made it look so easy. As I was belly crawling through the barbed wire fence, I became seriously hung up.

The longer we worked at it, the worse it got and we got tickled. There was no way to get it right and we had to just stop, lay on the bottom wire and laugh ’til we got over it. Then back out and go around. I needed that.

I no longer have thestrength in my arm for rock skipping, but my grandson is pretty good at it. He ought to be, as many as he has skipped in eight years.

He gets fives and sixes and last summer he even got eight.

We were amazed at the amount of baby frogs we saw. All of them thumbnail size. I saw a couple of snakes move off ahead of us, but I didn’t mention it.

I did bring home two ticks, so had to call and remind his mother to check him over. We both had on good shoes we couldn’t get wet, so we didn’t do any craw daddying.

I hope 20 years from now the memory isn’t of me getting hung in the fence.

Do you remember how often your memories weren’t what others remembered? My mother was disappointed years ago because I didn’t remember a certain place. They had driven there specially for me to see it. What I remembered of that trip was my dad got a leg cramp.

He and I walked a mile on down the road to relieve it and Mom picked us up. I remember the heat off the black top, the feel of the air, the rocks on the ground, and his smell beside me. He smoked a pipe. Now why would one memory burn itself into my memory and not the other?

One time, my sister and Mom, Lucy Ferguson, Shorty Pearson’s wife, and I, were sitting on a back porch snapping bushels and bushels of green beans. When my sister reachedover to slide a big box closer she tipped over the bucket she was sitting on and spilled a whole lap full of snapped beans. She has no memory of it. Why are all those beans burnt into my memory? Because I knew we wouldn’t be going home until they were done. I remember the women’s sitting stance, the atmosphere of women enjoying each others company, and that was 65 years ago.

It’s too bad, but true, that funerals are where we renew a lot of friendships.

I’m always amazed, when I get out in a crowd, how many people I don’t know.

Seems like I’m going to a lot of funerals lately.

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Editors note: Edith Lammey has been a resident of the area for nearly 40 years.

She can be contacted through The Times at 451-1196 or [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 3 on 03/30/2011