A picture brings a flood of yesteryear: a house, barn, fields and outbuildings now gone, having given way to 'progress' and an airport. Yet, vivid still are memories of a home filled w/love, a close-knit family, and of..

  • The barn and buggy shed, above, in Barren County, Kentucky at great-grandparents Pa and Granny's farm, belonging first to Pa's father

  • Accompanying my beloved g'mother on coaches (where g'daddy worked and we rode for free) from Louisville to Glasgow junction; the spurline to Oil City

  • Pa meeting his Louisville family at the Oil City depot; transportion provided by him thru the years including wagon and team, horse and buggy, Models T and A

  • Loving, loud, happy family gatherings and fellowship; G'mother's excitement and glee being w/her family

  • Hay bales, feed sacks, farm implements; the huge corn field surrounding the barn

  • Pa's horses; the smell and feel of old, still-soft leather

  • Good eatin'.. veggies fresh from the garden, salty pork, platters piled high w/fried chicken, biscuits; mashed potatoes & gravy to die for

  • White sheets spread between meals over a table still laden w/food; jam jars, stoneware

  • Unfinished, worn-to-gray ladderback chairs w/cane bottoms

  • The inviting smell of a wood cook stove w/hot water tank; Granny's ever-present long APRON; heat in the kitchen and wondering how Granny stood it

  • Icy spring water slowly dripping from a single kitchen faucet into the overflowing bucket, draining back to its origin on the bluff below; a battered graniteware dipper. (For quite awhile this natural and mighty little spring remained nemesis for airport construction, continuing to erode and overflow excavation and fill work.)

  • Nighttime in front of the house, chairs brought into a family circle one-by-one as we drifted outside

  • A canopy of trees in the front yard; a white-washed picket fence

  • Men folk gathering at the barn or in livingroom; divinely aromatic cherry blend pipe tobacco

  • Listening to my precious great-aunt *storyteller Extraordinaire* .. how she was blinded in a nursing accident, then having a little concession stand in the county courthouse; my wondering at her making correct change, but aware of all loving her, making sure she didn't under-charge or over-change

  • The rapport between my g'mother and her many sisters, brothers, cousins.. no judging or hautiness

  • Honest-to-goodness relaxation; days spent in slow-motion; Laughter

  • Rain on the tin roof

  • Linoleum rugs

  • Genuine and loving interest in each other's lives and families

  • Droning 'tick-tock' and chimes of the mantle clock

  • The heavenly cool of the deep fruit cellar above the cave spring at back of house; lead tops on canning jars

  • Night sounds of crickets, tree frogs, owls, bull frogs on the pond

  • Sleeping w/my g'mother on a tall feather bed in the front bedroom; the all-important vessel beneath

  • Single bare light bulbs hanging from ceilings

  • Legends of area caves

  • The wash house above the fruit cellar

  • Cousins trail-traipsing thru the woods

  • Stair steps made of stones

  • Mud daubers in the outhouse

  • Fox calls; g'mother teasing g'aunt w/tales of cave coyotes

  • Hot coals banked overnight in the old wood stove

  • Chickens and split wood out back

  • A gravel county road to the house, off Tabor Road, being more of dirt than gravel

  • Chuckles at the re-telling of Pa's joy in coming to the top of the hill and, w/a twinkle in his eye, flooring the Model T, racing down to the house... poor Granny hanging on



I choose nostalgia to be a warm revisitation of heritage;
a glance back to a place and time of joy and meaning,
becoming fonder and ever dearer.







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