Fond Memories

#1 - Virginia

Taking a break from the unsettling world, Ken shares a fond memory...



Grandma Lillian and Ken

I think I am about five or six. Tobacco hanging from the rafters or beams in a barn or something like a barn -  with an indescribable smell - one that you relish. You have smelled nothing like it since. The sap is running in a tree you are climbing. How did you manage to get it all in your hair? It was hard to remove… Two ticks on the hunting dog - they look like tiny balloons - the pigs will eat the big weeds you throw into the pen. You did not know how dangerous they were. They will eat you and your boots too, but you had no thoughts of going down in the pen - which was dug down into the earth with a wooden fence around it. Down the orange clay road there is a certain smell and the peach from that tree at the end (if you recall correctly) of the driveway - is the best one you will eat in your entire life. The field hands throw tobacco into a big wooden box with heavy wooden skids - you are sitting on the front of the box with your older brother and it is pulled by a blue-grey tractor. Upstairs at night the quilt feels perfect and Grandma Lillian tucks you in - there are dead wasps in the windowsill but you feel safe. In the morning at breakfast Grandpa Isaac teases you a little and you don’t know if he is being mean or friendly, you figure it’s both and keep on eating…

 

 

 

 

Fond Memories - number one in series of memories, maybe not all sweet but subtly interesting...