You know what? I'm going to cheat again today. Here's another submission from my Storylane page. The topic is "Where did you grow up?" My answer was: I grew up in the sticks!
My earliest memories are from the tiny town of Arcola, Mississippi. Not long after I was aware of that fact we moved to the "country"- a dozen or 15 miles from the nearest town. I grew up walking and riding a bike, and later a small mini-bike with a 3.5 horsepower lawnmower motor, to my neighbors' houses. My nearest neighbor, a kid about my age, lived maybe 400-500 yards away. My favorite neighbor (the babysitter who was my first crush) lived about a mile away- I could see her house across the bean field that separated our homes.
I grew up fishing with a cane pole in a small, muddy creek that probably never produced a fish bigger than my hand. I grew up shooting a .22 rifle at snakes and turtles and cans and bottles. I grew up playing hitchhiker with the neighbor girls in the abandoned car behind our tool shed; let your imagination roam. Yeah, I grew up with a junk car on blocks in the backyard.
I grew up floating in a raft tied to the front porch during the monumental Mississippi River flood of 1973. I grew up camping close enough to the house that I could run an extension cord to the 12" black and white tv in my tent.
Inside our house we had 19" black and white tv connected to an outside antennae. We received 3 channels and I had to go outside and turn the antennae with a pipe-wrench whenever we changed channels. I grew up peeing off the back steps as much as I did into the toilet. Yes, we did have indoor plumbing.
I grew up in a place....maybe in a time...that I'm not sure exists anymore. More's the pity.
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