TRAVEL TRACKS

As a child living in the hills of Arkansas, I always got carsick.  Therefore, I did not like traveling much farther than the next town.  Back then there were just two lane roads, some not paved, and they were crooked as a dog's hind leg.

I grew up in a small town nestled in the valley with a creek running through it.  "Town" was centered around the county courthouse.  My aunt had a cafe' on one corner of the square and her husband had a garage adjoining it.  My uncle had a shoe repair shop on another corner.  My dad was trying to practice law during the depression and often took his fee in such items as chickens or vegetables or even a bottle of whiskey, and he did not even drink.

Right after WWII started, my brother was born and Dad became postmaster.  Before the war was over, the school board approached Mother and pleaded for her to teach school as there was such a shortage of teachers at that time.  She had taught until I was born but then stayed home with me until I was in the 6th grade.

They helped her find a young woman with a child near my brother's age, who would come live with us and take care of him and do the cooking and housekeeping.  At night I could hear her praying in her room upstairs and crying to bring her husband home safely from the war.

We lived in my aunt's big house on the hill with a few acres behind us.  We had a cow, chickens, goats, pigs and my cousin's horse.  My job was to keep the watering trough filled and feed the chickens.  I also churned butter.  And it was my responsibility to mow the huge yard with a push reel mower and bring in the firewood for the pot-bellied stove in the front hall.

In the summer I loved to sit out on the front porch and swing and dream about what I would like to do.  We kids would go to the creek on the south edge of town to do our swimming.  When I was 12 years old I finally got a used bicycle and enjoyed riding with my friends.  Our street was not paved and when it hit the pavement down the hill, it was on a curve with loose gravel.  It was so rough riding downhill that I could not keep my feet on the pedals.  When I hit the bottom , my bike skidded across the pavement into the sidewalk embankment.  I still have the scar on my knee for that one.

The courthouse burned one night and from our house on the hill, you could see the blaze lighting up the sky.  It was days before the vault was cool enough for them to open it.  My uncle designed the new courthouse that stands today.

During my 12 years of going to school there (all in the same two-story building), I only remember two lengthy trips that my family took.  When I was six years old we went to Connecticut to visit my mother's brother and family.  I remember several things about the visit but not much of anything about the trip.

Then the year I graduated from high school, we took a trip to California to get my grandparents who were visiting out there.  I enjoyed that trip.  Daddy bought an old camping trailer.  It had a stove top and I think a refrigerator (not sure), a dinette that made a bed in the front and a sofa in the back that made a bed.  No bathroom.  I had just learned to drive and Daddy actually let me drive and pull the trailer a few times on the trip.

But it was not until later in life that the "travel bug" bit me.  Now I just want to see as much of this beautiful world God made as I can before I die.  If you have dreamed of traveling, stay tuned and I'll share with you come of my thrilling adventures.