Just a Country Girl

The summer of 1956 I was 4 years old. My grandparents, Mama and Daddy Bond, had moved from Orange to a little east Texas town called Buna. Getting there was like driving back in time to another era that existed long before I was born. Entering town we’d drive past the first stoplight to the house with blue spots and turn left. Proceeding about a mile or so more on the dusty road to the two little pink houses, we’d again make a left turn. Then, we’d drive just a piece up the dirt road wedged between tall grass and weeds, past the cow pastures to my grandparent’s house. Tucked way back into the piney woods, their house was the first on the curve of the cul-de-sac where four other occupants lived.

Visits to my grandparents’ small farmhouse in the country are quite memorable. Daddy Bond, my uncle and dad had to convert the back porch into a bathroom because the house came without indoor plumbing. My grandma would place a round metal tub on the floor of the kitchen and fill it up with water she’d warmed up on the stovetop for me to bathe. Before the plumbing was installed, we’d have to go outside to the outhouse to use the bathroom. At night Mama Bond would put a chamber pot under my bed just in case nature called.

As I think back to those barefoot walks on the warm sand road in front of their house I close my eyes and smile. I can still recall the pleasant sensation of soft smooth sand and how my toes sank into the tan granules. I would gather a coffee can full of the sand from the road and take it to the backyard where Mama Bond had moved a table under a tree for me to play. There I’d use perfect amounts of sand and water to mix up a delectable mud pie. My grandmother’s old dishes that had cracks and chips made excellent dishes for mud pies.

Everything about life in the country was slower. We’d wake up most mornings with nowhere to go. Mama Bond and I would wash clothes and hang them on the line in the backyard to dry. In the autumn we’d rake and burn leaves. I’d watch the day lilies hoping to see them close up by day’s end, but never did. Sometimes we’d drive into town with Daddy Bond so we could go grocery shopping and he could buy Lucky Strikes. Then we’d go back home and sit in the back yard hulling purple peas or shucking ears of corn.

As a little girl, I loved my visits to Buna because there was always something to do. I got to feed chickens and pigs, gather eggs, fish in a pond and help my grandmother churn butter. Late afternoons we’d sit out on the front porch after supper to watch the sunset and whistle back to the Bobwhites perched somewhere in the tall trees.

The day the photograph with this post was made, my mother picked me up early. (Sorry, you'll have to click link, no picture b/c of Blogger problems.) Mom had forgotten about the photo sitting and didn’t get to “fix me up” the way she wanted to. She braided my hair in a hurry when she picked me up and threw the yellow dress on me before packing me back in the car. I believe I remember her saying something like I looked like I’d just come in from playing outside. She was right. I’d just come back from playing in the country like a little country girl.

Many good times were spent at my grandparent’s house in the country. May they live forever in my memory.