I talked to my dad for the first time in what seems like forever yesterday! It was so awesome to hear his voice. I have missed him so very much.
My childhood may not have been typical or even close to it, however, it made me who I am and I wouldn’t change a thing! The things I listed above are just some of the good memories that I have to help me not think about all of the not so good memories. I guess what made me share these memories was to remind others that just because you may not have a lot of money or material things doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. When I was growing up we were pretty poor…but we had more fun than I can even contemplate.
Since I was little my daddy has always had a special place in my heart, even though I didn’t see him very much. I can remember so many crazy details from the trips to his house! Today for my post I decided that I wanted to write down some of my favorite memories as a sort of pre-father’s day thing.
We had a routine for our trip. Every single time we went by the movie rental place and got Forest Gump (which I can now recite word for word) and several cans of boiled peanuts. We would then spend the first night cuddled up watching the movie eating peanuts and catching up on the things that had happened since we had last saw one another. After that … well the best way to explain it would be utter chaos!
1. Indoor water fight: yes to all of you freaking at the thought, we really had an all out water fight inside my dad’s trailer. We used cups, buckets, the water hose…anything we could get our hands on! When we were done there was about an inch or two of standing water through out the house! It was crazy and yet the most fun I have ever had! My dad didn’t live in a nice place so he did’t care…heck he started it!
2. The Rock: wow, who wouldn’t want to go swimming at a place that it takes a ten minute hike through the woods to get to?!? Once you got there, you had to either go around The Rock or jump off into the water (which us kids always did) to swim across to the beach area. This place was in the middle of no where and was the most amazing place ever! We spent a lot of time here with nothing but the noise we made and the sound of nature to accompany us. I even wrote a paper about this place in school once…hmmm…wonder if I can find it.
3. Riding pigs: yes you read that right! When I was little my dads family raised hogs. It was an amazing thing to see as a kid, even if it did smell horrible! Well apparently, and I have pictures somewhere to prove it, if you are country enough and get bored a fun thing to try is hog riding! We ended up covered in what I am sure was mud (haha) and laughing our tails off! Gosh, I can’t believe we really did that!
4. Messy Bessy: my dad often got stray animals that needed to be rehabilitated due to the loss of their mom. Over the years we had many, many animals; deer, opossum, squirrels, raccoon, turtles, and even a pair of alligators we called Ally and Olly. Needless to say there was never a dull moment around that house! Messy Bessy was a raccoon that refused to be let loose. Every time we tried she would come back home. She was the sweetest little thing but caused quite a bit of chaos! Her favorite thing to do was play in trashcans or ashtrays, so you can imagine the messes she caused!
5. Bon fires: what country girl’s childhood would be complete without quite a few bon fires?!? I can remember numerous nights where tons of people came and we sat around the fire talking, singing, and having a good ole time. Although these memories are a little blurred together I know I wouldn’t be who I am without them.
6. Playing tricks on Uncle Mike: don’t get me wrong when you read this, I love my uncle and wouldn’t trade him for the world, however, he made some bad choices along the way. Here are just a few of the memories that stand out.
*My dad helping us take apart two beer cans so that we could carefully glue them back together using only the bottoms. We then used a needle to fill it up with water so it felt right and placed it back in the beer box. Once he had had a few he ran across our “special” can! The look on his face as he continuously flipped it over and over trying to find the top was priceless.
*The first time I took my husband to meet my family, scary moment lol, we drove his truck. He was on the rescue squad and had a light bar on the top. When we pulled into the yard all I saw was the back door open and Uncle Mike running for the woods. It was interesting to explain to Daniel why he did it. I honestly just burst out laughing and said “that is Mike, he will come back when he realizes we aren’t the cops”.
*Quite possibly my favorite memory has nothing to do with me. In order for you to understand this one I have to explain that my uncle was constantly in trouble for something. They had a police scanner and when our last name would come over it it was literally a “what has that boy done now” type moment. Well, needless to say he never had a drivers license. He would drive and get caught and in trouble….get out and do it all over again. I’m not sure how old he was when he finally started to make better decisions in his life, but he eventually did and was able to get his license. Well, for some reason now that he was legally driving he couldn’t seem to get pulled over to prove it. He was really upset about this so he decided to go to a gas station where a cop was, get out and tell him that he needed to be pulled over for driving. The cop thought he was crazy but pulled him the minute he drove out of the gas station. My uncle proceeded to pull out his license, smile at the cop and drive away!
7. The tree house: My dad actually cut down entire trees and used them to build us a massive tree house. It was amazing!! Although he never got around to completing it, the majority of it was done. There was a huge inside area to hang out in, which we often camped out in, a way that we could climb onto the roof and look at the stars. I have so many memories that involve this tree house. We used to have wars and toss things at people on the ground, we would spend hours upon hours in there looking at the stars, coming up with things we probably shouldn’t have done but we were kids so you know how that goes, and just having a overall great time being kids! The swing part of the tree house was AWESOME!! He took a wheel barrel and turned it into bucket type swing. It was always fun to see how high and how fast you could be pushed in it. Because it was so deep you could get slung pretty darn high!
8. Creating things: My dad was and is all about reusing things and living off of the land. He made the most incredible metal trees (pictured above) that I have ever seen. While I have never been able to do that, he did teach my sister and I how to do a lot of other things that were just as awesome. We used a Drimel to etch onto glass. I wish that I still had even one of these, some of them got quite intricate. We often put flags or other pictures behind the glass and traced them, but a few we did all on our own. It was one of my favorite things do. We also did some wood carving, wood burning/etching, along with quite a few other things.
9. Hunting/Fishing: We often went hunting or fishing while with my dad. I remember the first time I actually shot something when we were hunting…I was scared, happy, anxious, excited…gosh so many things all at once. Then we got back home, he strung it up and taught me how to gut and clean my kill. I can honestly say it was the most disgusting thing I have ever done, however, I fully understood where my food came from and what it took to get it. It was a very educational experience.
10. Frogging: I only remember doing this once, however, I believe we did it a decent amount more. I remember going out at night with our sticks and nets and doing our very best to catch a dang frog! It was nearly impossible as a kid! However, it was awesome! I even ate a few afterwards when the adults were done cooking them. Not sure if I would eat them as an adult, but as a kid I thought they were pretty cool.
There are so many more things that we did that stand out in my mind. However, I just don’t have time to put them all down in today’s post. Maybe I will share some more things about my childhood as time goes by. There are some things that are good and some that are bad, however, each and every memory helped to make me into the parent that I am. I used my experiences to decide how I wanted to raise my children and what types of experiences I was willing to allow them to have and the things that I knew I would never let me children have to deal with. I hope you enjoyed my short trip down memory lane 🙂