the good old days when times were bad

a good story, enjoyed it.

I love reading these stories! Thank you very much! I hope you and others will post more!!

Same here. Very enjoyable.

Keep writing!

we had 114 acres of Land, about half of it was in trees so we would raise corn and cotton, we would make about 15 bales of Cotton and the corn was for us to have meal for cornbread and to feed the cows and mules in the winter, there was a Gristmill about 2 miles from our House and just about every saturday morning we had to go to the crib and shuck and shell a Bushel of corn and then we would take it to the Gristmill and have it ground into Cornmeal, it would have been bad shelling that much corn but we had a cornsheller and it didn't take a long time, anyway the man at the Gristmill would take about three scoops of Meal for Grinding it and back then you had to have a Sifter or Sieve whichever you want to call it, where you could get the Bran out of it, if you will take a grain of corn and look at it, right where it fastens to the corncob it has a little flaky thing and you don't want that in your bread, we lived just like the Amish does, the only difference is the Amish has Money and nobody had any back then, my dad had a mill to make sorgham molasses, he could make the best that you ever tasted, everybody brought their sugarcane to him to make into syrup and again, he took so many gallon buckets for making it, we had syrup everywhere, it would finally turn to Sugar when it got so old, it would get Crystals that looked just like Ice cream salt,

my dad would let us go to the Gin at Leighton with him to gin a Bale of Cotton when we would get one picked, the wagons had those wooden wheels with the steel ring around it so we would pull the Wagon into a hole of water the evenng before we were going to the Gin the next morning, that made the wooden wheel swell and make it tight so the steel casing wouldn't come off going down the road and leave you in a mess

me and one of my Sisters went with him one time and I was probably 5 and she was about 9yrs old and he gave us a dime apiece and we went down town and there was a store there that was operated by two deaf mute people and they would sell you a cigarette for a penny so we both bought us 5 each and would walk up and down the sidewalk smoking them,we thought we were something. later

I always loved Airplanes, there where we lived there would be one pass over every morning about 9:15, and I would hear it coming and I would tear that door up getting outside to watch that Plane fly by, it was one of these old DC-3 two engined things and it was made out of Aluminum and it was shiny and I thought that was the prettiest thing I had ever seen, we called it the Mail Plane, whether that was what it was I don't know, that was before the two way radios so the Government built a line of Beacon lights from muscle shoals to Birmingham and there was one close enough for us to see it and it was just a light that would turn around and around that shined a lightbeam up into the sky and at night the pilots could see them and he would follow the beacon lights and that way they could find their way at Night. along about that time the Second world war got into full swing and the Government built an air base at Courtland and they trained pilots to fly those big Bombers, I think they were B-26's anyhow you couldn't ever go outside unless you could hear one or see one, sometimes you could see four or five in the area at the same time, it was useless to put me out there to hoe Cotton with all that going on.

the war was everybodys business, we would find scrap Iron and every so often a truck would come by and want to know if you had any scrap iron, we even saved Razor Blades, they melted it down and made weapons, I remember they would paint these Slogans on Buildings, I remember seeing the one that said "Loose Lips sinks Ships" they didn't want you talking about the war, now we have people hoping that we loose.

i really like these articles. kids were not bored back then. i can remember trucks coming around to pick up folks to pick cotton. also remember we carried our water in glass jug with newspaper around it to the field with us. worked hard but sleep well also. love this stuff.

I have a question. You were smoking when you were 5?

I remember the days in hot East Texas when word got round that Lemore had killed a beef. He drove around in his pick-up and sliced off the cut and weight of meat you wanted. I did not die. I am sure the icebox did not stay at 42 degrees or below. I did not die. I often think of this as I sterilize, freeze, and refrigerate immediately. I do realize that the meat or poulty was "Ours" and not raised on a feed lot or slaughtered in a commercial slaughter house. My grandmother kept her eggs in a cereal box on her kitchen work space (I thought my more affluent friends who had kitchen counters were living in a type of luxury. I did not die from the raw egg or the raw milk in my afternnon milkshake treat. I do not advise any of this. I am just remembering. I would not drink raw milk if the cow slept in her own bedroom in my house! LOL!

Thanks friends. If us younger people do not listen to your stories then we have nothing as far as I am concerned.
Please tell more.

Unclegus, You ain't that young! LOL!

I was raised in the 70's 80's and to tell you the truth i'm living in my good ole days now watchingmy children grow up is better than anything I experienced as a child

we were slipping around smoking trying to be big
smoked 14 yrs once and just decided I would quit and did quit, that was the way of my family I could smoke 2 packs and quit and smoke again anytime I wanted, I got to where I would smoke about 2 cigarettes a day in my later years because I liked them but havent smoked one in 5 or 6 yrs now.

we had a mule named Ater and she was a good mule to plow the garden with and she was never at Home, somebody else always had her borrowed, and if we needed her my daddy would tell me to go to so and so house and get old ater, I was going to get her once and this man had a Watermellon Patch and there was a Corn Patch right by it and I slipped down them Corn rows and stole me a Watermellon and eat it right there, it was hot laying out there in that sun and he would have give me all I wanted but it was better because i stole it.

there was a man that lived up from us and the road used to stop at our house it was just a dirt road and everybody that come by would stop
and talk, nobody has time for that now, or if you stop at somebodys house they will see you and say "wonder what he wants"? anyhow there was this fellow that he would get drunk and when he would pass our house drunk he would want to stop and argue with my daddy about the Bible, never stopped unless he was drunk,by the way while I am thinking of "drunk" have I ever mentioned that once the Sheriff here in Franklin County come up on a man sitting on a Still watching it while it cooked reading the Bible? I have lived here for 46 years and have heard that story three times, once they were talking about it in the Franklin Times newspaper.

well they finally built a road around through there and it is called Waldreps Loop, right where the east end hooks onto hwy 48, that is the hwy from Russellville to Leighton, there was a Cinder Block store, it was about 1/4th mile from our house, and many times my mama would tell me to take these two eggs out to the Store and get me a popsicle and I would go out there and put them 2 eggs on the counter and get my popsicle and go back home, I always got banana or chocolate covered, I was about 4 years old then when I was swapping eggs for popsickles, ya'll that have mamas better tell them how much you love them because one day they will not be there.

I went to La Grange School through the ninth Grade and in about the 4th grade I had a Teacher that she was an artist with a Paddle, I believe I got a whipping about every day and at least every other day, she didn't mess around when she Paddled, when she got through you knew that you had been paddled. one day it had rained and there was holes of water around the school yard and I caught two Girls standing just in the right place and I ran and jumped in the hole of water and got muddy water on their Dresses and they made a line for the Teacher, well she took me in the Cloak room, it had a window and made me show her the mudhole I jumped in and then she lit up my world, I still remember how that felt.

in the ninth grade we had a Principal that didn't care if you learned anything or not, he was the ninth grade teacher and we had a basketball team that nobody in colbert county could beat us, nobody beat us that year and we won the county Tournament, I remember being in class and getting tired of listening to him talk and getting up and going in the Cloak room and getting the Basketball and going out and shooting Basketball until I got tired of it and then going back in the school and take up from there, it didn't help me in my grades because all five that played Basketball went to Colbert County the next year and every one of us didn't pass, so the other four quit and I decided to try it another year and I finally Graduated by the skin of my teeth.

now I want to tell you why we were so good in Basketball, there was a school right over in Lawrence County named C.C.Smith, and we would go over there and play them twice a week, they had some boys that could run like Deer and was good too, we hardly ever beat them but it was good practice, and we had a Bus Driver and an unmarried Teacher who loved to take us over there, come to think about it we would get to playing Ball and they would dissapear, nowhere to be found, but they always showed up before the game was over.

I guess that will be enough, I just sit here nothing to do but mess with this computer watch TV and wait. People will tell me "I tried to call and it was busy, I guess you were on the Computer" you can sit here a week off the Computer and they will never call so I figure they can try again later.

Hahaha, I love these stories!!! Write more!!!