baby new year

One of my fondest memories of New Year's day is when we all piled up at Gaga's place to eat and I got artsy and dressed my little brother up like that baby.  He was probably 2 or 3 at the time...too little to fight back.  Millette had a dixie cup on her head as some sort of crown I believe.  That was the work of my KY cousin and me when bored with the adults.  There was usually never a dull moment around Gaga because she liked to party and play and enjoy the finer things.  Girl couldn't cook to save her life except for goulash and oatmeal krispy cookies.  She was raised in a family that had "help" like so many others in 1930s America.  While the rest of the country was getting out there with equality, we Southerners clung to old traditions that kept an entire race in servitude.  That doesn't make me the least bit proud or nostalgic.  

This farm is surrounded by the Forked Deer river and ownership is split about three ways down the road to where it dead ends at the river proper behind Danny's house and past the Carter family cemetery.   In sixty years we've seen a lot of water come and go and until the Corp did work during the 60s it was a common thing to "move to town" so we could get to school and work.  And I've done it several more times in the past 20 years!  The time that stands out in my  mind is a week in May when KK was gone somewhere ( probably the beach ) and BG and I stayed at her place dubbed by one of the kids as "the garden of eden."  For days on end we got  hammered with tornadoes and heavy rain.  I left home when the electricity went out and there was no help in sight for it and stayed at another friend's house the first couple of days.  The electricity finally came back on and I was headed that way to clean up the mess when the freaking ROAD collapsed in front of the dairy barn.  Back to town we went.  Tommy and Yvette were running a business from the to die for house and we got in and out through the field in their Jeep and Daddy's truck.  Of course the phone was out too and I didn't have a device at the time.  Thanks to the wonders of modern technology I can now know the water is coming days ahead of time and prepare.  The neighbor asked me to give her a head's up when it's time to be worried because they're all new to it.  As long as it's not on Samaria Bend, we're in good shape.  Mozella can pretty much fish from her back yard right now, though.  

The dogs went nuts over something this morning that turned out to be four little white tails prancing through the field right next to where the hunters stay.  Gotta' love it.  They've been blowing the ducks up this week, by the way.  I thought about my Daddy again and about all the deer sightings recently and I knew in my heart it was a promise.  

Serenity ~