TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Wrapping Up Christmas

Since this is the last installment of  my TALES FROM THE BAYOU series, I thought I would give everyone a hodge podge mixture of different Christmas traditions and memories I have growing up in the swamps of southern Louisiana.

Soon after Thanksgiving Mother would shift the living room furniture around to make way for the annual trip to our ancestral lands to bring home a fresh cut Christmas tree. The entire family would hike deep into the woods until my father would select the perfect tree and proceed to chop it down. Back home Mother would hammer the metal base onto the bottom and then let us kids loose to decorate.

There was no money for fancy tree finery but we still managed to fill the tree with old glass and felt ornaments, colored paper chains, strands of silver tinsel, and garland made from popcorn and cranberries. I can remember sitting on our living room floor just waiting with needle and thread while Mother popped mounds of popcorn and someone else collected the cranberries from the bush outside our house.

Next came the canned snow Mother would frost the windows with which really got me into the spirit of Christmas. While the temperatures in southern Louisiana could get occasionally into the teens, very rarely did it snow that far south. Even the pretense of the powdery stuff would send my Christmas spirits soaring.

In one corner stood a rather large Santa and Rudolph which I loved to play with, despite the heavy vinyl smell emanating from the pair.  The wind up church had an honored spot near the television but one of my favorite holiday items Mother made each year was the Christmas scene she made out of tiny plastic trees and poinsettias pushed into a styrofoam base. I thought that scene so creative I continued the tradition for many years even after I had moved out of my parent's house.

Then came the baking. By the time I was an early teenager, my older brother and sister were both in the Navy and Mother would faithfully stuff a care package for each of them with Christmas cookies covered in royal icing, chocolate and peanut butter fudge, homemade fruitcake and some divinity that was never my favorite.  Janet and I were lucky to get to nibble on the "mistakes" of Mother's baking because only the best was good enough for family members serving their country.

Oh how the memories come flooding back when I think about those Christmases long ago. Flashes to last a life time like the year I got a five pound peppermint stick along with a hammer to chip pieces off to eat; my first bicycle I wrecked on Christmas Day; the first toy I ever remember receiving when I was 2 1/2 years old (a toy frog that would jump whenever you pumped the long yellow bulb handle); the year my brother waited until my parents were asleep and then proceeded to unwrap all our presents so we could know what we got before carefully rewrapping them; my father threatening to shoot Santa Claus with his old shotgun he kept in the closet; ribbon candy & Whitman Samplers; knowing I would always be able to find an apple, orange, and a handful of nuts in my stocking; singing Christmas carols with my sister; getting to open one present on Christmas Eve and praying my choice wasn't socks or underwear. 

The list could go on and on. Each memory is so sharp in my mind that all I have to do is close my eyes. I can almost imagine myself back in time to that house on McMurtry Street when life was hard but memories sweet growing up on the bayou...

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Bringing In The Holidays

I'm not one of those people who eagerly overlook Thanksgiving in my rush to charge headlong into Christmas. But there will only be two more installments of my TALES FROM THE BAYOU series and I would be remiss not to include my Christmas celebrations when I was growing up.

Every Christmas for as long as I can remember the church pictured above was part of the holiday scenery. At one time you could wind up the music box and as Christmas music would play the doors would slowly open to reveal the lighted scene inside.

I was absolutely fascinated with that church and every night before I went to bed I would wind it up over and over again for as long as Mother would allow me to play it. My nose was almost pressed against the doors in anticipation of the beauty I would find inside and once the doors closed at the end of the song, I would eagerly await for the magic to begin all over again.

I also never claimed to be a fabulous singer but I can hold a bit of a tune and growing up I could always find a spot in my church's Christmas pageant. While my mother wasn't particularly religious, she did believe in God and encouraged us to attend church each Sunday even while she remained home. But she always attended the holiday festivities to watch her children perform in the pageants. I'm sure she will correct me if my memory is fuzzy but I seem to remember Janet attended the sheep in the Nativity but I don't remember what my other siblings might have been. For myself, one year I was the heavenly angel shining down on the child in the manager. I remember thinking the wings they put on me were pretty uncomfortable to wear but even worse was the fact I had to stretch out my arms above my head in a circle and was expected to hold them in that position for the entire play.

Needless to say, my six year old arms weren't strong enough to do that and every time I would drop my arms there was a pair of unforgiving eyes staring at me from beyond the curtains, reminding me "angels" lifted their arms in joyous praise and I'd better do the same!

But there was one song for me that heralded the Christmas season. I would walk around all day long constantly singing "Away In The Manager" until my family couldn't stand it any more and told me to be quiet. One Christmas when I was fighting my usual bout of laryngitis the doctor told my mother that I wasn't allowed to try and talk as my vocal chords were inflamed. My mother took that to heart and forbade me to do ANY singing until I was well. What she never found out was the fact whenever she was out of the room and I lay in my bed sick, I continued to whisper-sing the words to that song. There was just something about the vision of anyone loving me so much they would watch over me long after they were gone that brought comfort to a shy six year old and NO ONE was going to stop me from singing that song!

I got well, despite the additional strain on my vocal chords, and I can still wind up that little church to hear those melodies from my childhood. Those Christmases in the swamps of southern Louisiana will always hold a special place in my heart this time of year...



TALES FROM THE BAYOU: A Taste Of Thanksgiving

I understand now that my mother must have pinched pennies for months when I was growing up in order to create the banquet she did on every Thanksgiving Day. I don't know the different jobs my father did over the years, but the last job he held was as a cook for an offshore rig. Although he spent many a day away from his family, I don't think he was compensated enough for it by the looks of what passed for food in our house most days.

While others ate steak and pork chops, my siblings and I could look forward to things like fish head soup, rooster comb and chicken feet to dine upon. You think I exaggerate but I kid you not. When I say I came from a poor childhood, it isn't to garner sympathy but to seek admiration for what my mother managed to conjure up for us to feast upon during the holidays. 

I would go to sleep on Thanksgiving Eve with the knowledge that sometime the following day our dining room table would be groaning under the weight of more food than I would usually see in a week. While the bird stuffed with cornbread dressing slowly roasted in the oven, Mother would set the ingredients for mashed potatoes and corn on the cob to boil. Deviled eggs chilled in the refrigerator along with the pumpkin pie and sometimes a Jello mold of some type. There was a white, shallow-divided bowl holding the green peas and carrots while sweet tea simmered in a silver pitcher. Homemade rolls covered with homemade butter and dirty rice (a Cajun dish where you cooked rice before adding chicken livers, gizzards, hearts, and sometimes crumbled sausage to the mix which darkened the rice and gave it its name) waited on the table to greet us.

Despite my parents problems, holidays were usually a family affair and my father would sit down at the head of the table where he and I would then argue every year over which one of us would get to eat the turkey's tail. I would usually win and thought it a grand conquest to have bested my father out of my favorite part of the bird. After the leftovers were eventually put away and the dishes washed, I would retreat to my bedroom where I would lie around reading while waiting for the aches of an overly stuffed stomach to go away.

Neither of my parents were deeply religious people and there weren't prayers of thanks heard at our table like in other families, but despite my life I still had much to be thankful for while I was growing up in that place I called home. 

I had a good companion in my older sister, Janet, who managed to put up with a nagging little sister four years younger without killing her in the process. I had my dog, Penny, who tolerated many games of dress up and my sad attempts to teach her tricks without so much as biting me once. And I had my books. One of the few things my mother approved of, my childhood was filled with wonderful, glorious books of every kind to sometimes act as a buffer between the reality of my life and the worlds of my imagination.

My life growing up might have been challenging but on Thanksgiving Day each year all it boiled down to was a tasty meal and a good story...

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: There's A Strong Wind Blowing

In honor of the Fall...my favorite time of the year...I thought I would list my ten favorite things about this season when I was growing up.

Living in the swamps of southern Louisiana was very different from where I live now in the hills of Tennessee. It's almost like living in two different worlds but I can remember some traditions carried over from my younger days that still make me smile today when I think of them...

DONNA'S FALL FAVORITES

1. Cloudy days...Being allergic to the sun, bright Summer days in the muggy south weren't exactly my idea of fun. Give me the overcast, grey days any time and I was a happy camper. That hasn't changed now I'm grown up.
2. Halloween...One of my favorite holidays smack dab in the middle of my favorite season. What more can a kid ask for? Guaranteed candy I almost never indulged in the rest of the year and a chance to get away from the house to prowl the streets for treats. My kind of childhood fantasy when I was a kid.
3. Rain Puddles...There is something hypnotic about the sound of rain on a tin roof that I like. Being in southern Louisiana there was plenty of rainfall during the Fall and that produced plenty of rain puddles to splash in, float leaf boats in, and just have a good time.
4. Umbrellas...I've always loved umbrellas. When I was a kid, I could open an umbrella on a rainy day and imagine it was an invisible cloak to hide me from the monsters who lurked behind trees as I walked to school. It fascinated me that something as simple as some vinyl stretched over some metal bars could keep me dry in most any storm.
5. Warm towels...I tended to get tonsillitis and bronchitis a lot when I was a child so if I had to walk home on a rainy day in the Fall, I could almost guarantee that there would be a warm towel heated from an old space heater waiting for me when I got home. Mother would make me take off my wet socks and shoes at the door. Then she would wrap me in a warm towel and tell me to go stand by the heater until the chill was gone and I was dry.
6. Hot Cocoa...This and Mother's bread was probably THE favorite things of Fall. If there were warm towels waiting for me when I got home from school, there was always a cup of homemade hot cocoa to warm my insides. The first day she made a batch of hot cocoa I was allowed to drink as much as I wanted in one sitting and then it was rationed out to one cup a day until it was gone. It was so good I almost wished for more rainy days than we had each year!
7. Fresh Bread...A close second to the hot cocoa was Mother's fresh bread. If I timed it right, I could walk in the door after school to the smell of freshly baked bread being pulled from the oven. Back then bread at the grocery store was something like twenty cents a loaf and even that was too expensive for our family of six so Mother would bake the bread. Nothing is better than a slice or two of homemade bread (with homemade butter on it) and a mug of homemade hot cocoa. It's one of the best memories I have of my childhood.
8. School...Yes, I was one of those nerdy kids who loved, loved, LOVED school. With home not being a place I enjoyed much and never being allowed to have friends, I sought the company of books and learning. I excelled in my studies and maintained near perfect grades all the way through high school. I even graduated second in my class and had to do a commencement speech at my graduation. Even without the ability to connect with my classmates because of my Mother's rules of social behavior, when it came time to vote for Senior Favorites, I was voted Most Like To Succeed which astounded  me because I never realized the people at my school even knew who I was because I was so incredibly shy as a kid.
9. Thanksgiving...With all the various and unusual things that crossed my plate over the years growing up, the holidays usually meant Mother had saved up enough money to make the Thanksgiving meal special. It was one of the rare times of the year when not only was there more than enough to eat...you also actually wanted to eat it!
10. Hallmark...Who doesn't remember the wonderful, magical Hallmark holiday movies of their childhood? I would get giddy with excitement when the holidays approached because I knew there would be a number of Hallmark movies that Mother would let me watch. Even more special than the movies, though, were those Hallmark commercials. Special moments frozen in time where I could just imagine one day someone would give me my very own Hallmark card. Funny what becomes important to a young mind and even now when the holidays roll around you can find me standing in some card aisle, just reading the various sentiments waiting inside to be shared with someone special.

The holidays are what we make of them and even during the most challenging of years growing up, Mother always managed to make our holidays special.  Knowing now what I didn't know then makes me realize she was much more special herself than I ever gave her credit for. I can only hope wherever she is now, she can hear me when I say...

Thanks, Mom.

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Trick Or Treat, Smell My Feet...

Give me something good to eat.

Christmas is my favorite time of the year, yet Halloween will always hold a special place in my heart. For the child I was, this time of the year reminds me poverty doesn't keep children from being able to participate in the age old tradition of running around the neighborhood in costumes begging for treats. Poverty doesn't prevent youngsters from being able to sit on their beds amongst a mountain of candy as they try to stop their head from swiveling off their shoulders, gazing in wonder at their good fortune.

And poverty won't make the sweet goodies disappear the next morning as the kiddies wake up from sugar induced dreams of just how, if they try really hard, they will make that stash last at least until next Easter if they're lucky.

My costumes were usually homemade and my "bucket" merely a pillowcase but there was such freedom to prowl the streets of my hometown with my siblings, knocking on doors and giggling to see my bounty grow by leaps and bounds. To sneak a piece here and there, to savor what I could not hope to have again for another year.

So I welcome the coming of fall with it's swirling array of multi-colored leaves crispy crackling under my feet as I count down to today.

My candyfest.

My savorfest.

My Halloween!

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: A Little Book Loving

I don't exactly remember what age I was when I began to read on my own...probably around 5 years old or so...but books have always held a special fascination for me. I started out with simple comic books like Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang. Even though I didn't know all the words, the illustrations filled in the gaps and flavored the story in just the right way to carry me along to the next one.

It was my drug of choice and my parents never had to wonder where I would be when I was out of their sight.  Follow the trail of books and there you would find me like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I read a lot of different genres but for a short time I thought I would grow up to own a thoroughbred horse ranch out west. I lived for the idea I would raise horses and as a child I had an extensive collection of toy horses of all shapes and breeds. One of the most thrilling moments of my childhood was when I won an essay contest at my hometown library and received a copy of Marguerite Henry's MISTY OF CHINCOTEAGUE as my prize.  Oh, how I loved that book. I read it so many times I could almost feel the ocean's spray in my own face as in my mind I raced with those wild Spanish horses whose hooves pounded the sand as they made Chincoteague Island their new home. That book burned an impression on my mind that stays with me still to this day.

Now, years later when I've returned to my writing, I have a wish and a prayer for some day to write such a story for some other child maybe yet to be. To write a tale to touch the heart of an innocent and set them on a life long path of book loving. 

Maybe my picture book, THE STORY CATCHER, will be such a story for someone. My publisher, Anaiah Press, is doing a cover reveal today on their blog (http://anaiahpress.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/cover-reveal-the-story-catcher-by-donna-l-martin/).

I'd been sworn to secrecy for the past few weeks but now I can share the cover with you. I think my illustrator, Alyson Peterson, did a lovely job of capturing little Addie and the rest of her family.

I'd love to know what you think so please leave a comment below...;~)

Blurb: 

Addie comes from a long line of readers, or "story catchers," as her family likes to call themselves. Every time Addie tries to catch a story on her own, though, the words play tricks on her. Addie tries everything she can think of to corral those wiggly letters, but it will take a little faith to become the next STORY CATCHER.

My book is scheduled for release January 20, 2015. Kids can sign up now to become a member of my STORY CATCHER FAN CLUB by clicking on the tab in the sidebar. New members will receive a welcome packet full of goodies including membership certificate, coloring pages, mazes, puzzles, a STORY CATCHER reading log, and a short story starring THEM! They will also receive newsletters throughout the year with the latest Story Catcher events details!

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Hiding From The Fashion Police

My mother, God love her, was a woman who struggled with the burden of poverty while trying to provide for her four children. While I was growing up in that poverty, I didn't quite understand the scope and depth of that struggle. I was a teenager in a small town with small minded people...where there was a very distinct line between the "haves" and the "have nots". There was one family in particular who had the cream of the crop when it came to talented, beautiful children who was raised to seek out the finest clothing, the best cars, and the grandest foods at any given moment in time.

All the kids in my family went through school with one of THOSE kids which made the depths of our limited means all the more prominent. But even without money available to her, my poor mother still attempted to at least try to dress her children in the latest fashion trends. Unfortunately, she didn't always understand exactly what those trends were and the Fashion Police had a field day with my wardrobe during middle and high school.

First there was the cut down, redesigned dresses she bought from the estate sale of some elderly woman who was recently deceased and no longer in need of her Sunday-go-to-meeting gowns that still smelled of mothballs. It was pretty hard to disguise the fact those hand me down dresses probably shouldn't be worn by a twelve year old.

Then there was Mother's attempt to help her youngest daughter to fit in with the popular kids by buying me a new pair of jeans. For the longest time the elementary school policy was females weren't allowed to wear pants of any kind to school. By the time I was in middle school, that outdated fashion statement was overturned and every girl in my class was sporting a brand new pair of blue jeans. I don't remember if I asked for a pair of my own or if Mother just realized what was different between me and the other girls in my class, but one day my mother gave me a pair of blue jeans of my own. The only problem with her generous gift which probably put her back a penny or two? At the very bottom of those very straight-legged jeans was this HUGE plaid cuff that was at least four inches tall. I didn't know what to say because my mother thought I should be grateful for the sacrifices made in the purchase of those blue jeans but in all honesty, all I could think of is that I would be a walking dorky duckling in the midsts of all the other beautiful swans wearing bell-bottomed, NORMAL blue jeans. I didn't wear them often, but I wore them enough to make my mother happy and spent those days hiding from the Fashion Police.

But it was when Mother decided to buy my sister and I matching dresses made purely out of paper that I thought she had finally hit on a fashion trend I could get behind.  They were made to look like you were walking around in a bright yellow rolled up newspaper with all the latest headlines swirling all over your body. In truth, I loved that dress and held my head a bit higher whenever I wore it to school.

There's one thing though no one thought to warn me about wearing a paper dress out in public.

Don't ever get caught out in the rain without an umbrella...

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Fall Is For Festivals

Fall is finally here and Halloween just a few weeks away. It's supposed to be down in the 40's by the weekend and the leaves are starting to turn colors. All this does is remind me of Fall back in Gueydan when I was growing up.

I was raised in the Methodist church...not so much because my mother was a devout Christian or anything like that. More I think because my father was Catholic and she definitely was not going to send her children in that direction. But there was one occasion every Fall when mother would send us off to the local Catholic church with a smile.

Fall Festival.

I really didn't know what went on behind those stone walls during the rest of the year and even looked at the kids who went to the Catholic school like someone visiting from another planet. But when October rolled around I was giddy with excitement because every year the Catholic church put on the largest church festival I'd ever seen.

It was also one of the few times Mother had a bit of extra money saved up. She would give each of us a few dollars and we could spend it however we liked. I would make a beeline to the cotton candy machine and wait anxiously in line. Would they run out of that sugary sweetness before I could get one?

Clutching my purchase, I would then wander through the different food stalls, drinking in all the wonderful festival smells, until my fingers were sticky from the melted sugar and my tongue changed colors. So much to see, so much to do, and just a few coins left in my pocket. I knew where I wanted to spend it.

Bingo.

Even at a young age I thought it strange to see what I considered gambling to happen at CHURCH but who was I to argue with them? Every year I would walk into the dining hall of the church and sit down to row after row of people playing bingo. Some, like myself, with one lone card while others gazed at stacks of lucky cards in front of them. Everyone hoping for a chance at the cash prizes but I would have been happy to go home with anything.

And I was.

All those years, all those bingo games and only once do I remember winning anything. Boy, was I thrilled when I got the chance to yell BINGO and run up to the front of the church to claim my prize. It was a robin egg blue, ceramic boot shaped bottle of perfume with for some strange reason, a rounded red velvet cushioned top like you used to see on fancy pin cushions.

I didn't care what it looked like. It could have been the leg lamp from The Christmas Story and I couldn't have been more thrilled because I HAD WON A PRIZE!! I saved that bottle long after the perfume was gone and returned to play many a bingo game over the years with the eternal hope of repeating my good fortune.

Now, when the leaves start to paint the ground and the hint of winter floats in on the morning breeze, I dream of those fall festivals of my youth and wonder if hidden somewhere in these hills I now call home there isn't a bingo game still calling my name...

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: The Adventures Of Billy

Every kid needs a sidekick when they are young. Somebody to be the buffer between them and the world. Someone to tell their secrets to.  My sidekick was Billy.  I don't know at what age Billy came into my life...maybe when I was three or four years old...but he remained a steadfast confidant to all my hopes and dreams until I was well into my teenage years.

I can remember one Fall when I was about six or so when every day my mother would go into her bedroom and all you could hear was the whirring sound of her old treadle sewing machine. Sometimes I was allowed to watch her as she put together my new school clothes. But when that door was closed, it mean secrets were happening in that room and no amount of begging would get my mother to tell me what she was doing.

It wasn't until Christmas that year when I found out. She found a small citrus crate and covered it with the old sticky contact paper people used to line their pantry shelves with. It was white with small flowers on it and magically changed that old wooden crate into a lovely baby's bed. Then she spent hours sewing and stuffing the mattress, pillow, and sheets to go with it. She must have spirited Billy away from me in my sleep so she could measure him because that Christmas he also had a new wardrobe of baby clothes. I spent many a happy hour putting that doll to sleep and reading him stories.

But life for Billy wasn't all fun and games. Even the life of a baby doll can be harsh. One day while I was playing with him outside, the neighbor's dog took an instant liking to Billy and wanted him for himself. A tug-o-war ensued with one of poor Billy's jointed legs being torn from his body. Taking his prize, the neighbor's dog ran off while I sat on the porch steps crying over the loss of a plastic limb. Then I did the only logical thing a six year old could do. I didn't want my poor friend to go through life with only one leg so I promptly pulled off the other leg!

For the rest of Billy's existence in my life he seemed quite content to get around by bouncing on his butt. You see, it didn't matter to me that Billy was "handicapped". He still knew how to keep my secrets and that meant the world to me.

Years later, I returned to my old home after both my parents died and I was named executor of their small estate. Tucked away in the back corner of the attic was a box and inside, wrapped in an old blanket was Billy. I was amazed my mother had kept him but then I'm sure she realized how much he'd meant to me all those years ago. Maybe it was just her way of keeping HER "baby" close to her long after I had left home...



TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Step By Step

It's mornings like today that remind me of walking to school when I was a kid. We only had one car in the family and my mother didn't drive...not because she didn't want to but I think because that was one more responsibility she didn't want to add to her overloaded plate. 

So I walked. Everywhere.

I'd like to say the walk to school was at least a mile from my house and maybe it just seemed that long to a little kid toting a backpack full of books, but every morning I would head out and make my way through town to the elementary school. I never minded the walk because I LOVED to learn and it got me away from the house for a few hours. Despite the fact that I was incredibly shy, had no friends, and was constantly teased because I always managed to become the "teacher's pet", school was a sanctuary for me in those days.

Gueydan is an extremely tiny town, population around 1500...numbers which might actually include residents of the local cemetery...and nothing exciting ever seem to happen there. Except during the fifth grade when my elementary school burned to the ground.

I remember walking with my sister to school that day. Everything seemed normal until we got a couple of blocks away and we heard the siren from the firetruck. We were both shocked to finally get to the school to see smoke billowing out of the building as they tried to put the fire out that actually began in MY homeroom. The entire building was destroyed and we spent the rest of the school year attending classes on half days. Our high school building was located next door so I ended up going to school from 7:30 until around 11:30 each day and then Janet, being in ninth grade at the time, would have her classes from 11:30 until 3:30. It was a challenging school year until the new elementary building was completed but somehow we made it work.

Walking home the same way every day could become boring so I liked to change it up whenever I could. Mother expected me to get home quickly. If I took the longer route that cut through the park so I could sneak in a couple of twirls on the merry go round, I had to make up for it by running the rest of the way home.  Sometimes I would even start running straight from school to the park because that was where the library was and if I was lucky, I could sneak in and visit the books.

Even then books held a spell over me. I would dash in just to say hi to the librarian and maybe take a quick look at the newest arrivals so I could start dreaming of which book would I check out next. Then it was a mad dash to get home before Mother suspected I hadn't walked straight home like she expected me to.

I wonder what the kids I went to school with would think about me now that I am a children's book author? So many steps taken from those old school days to where I am now and yet I find all those steps STILL lead me to the one thing I've always loved more than anything else...books.

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Summer Time Jobs

There are some kids who do nothing all summer long but hang out with their friends, chug glasses of coke or iced tea, and watch the days drag by. Hot sunny days stacking up on top of each other, one by one, until it's time to head back to school.

I was never one of those kids. I loved to read and spent every waking second pouring through books whenever Mother let me.  Thankfully she was a voracious reader as well but her tastes ran mainly to westerns written by Zane Grey while I was into everything else.

But it was the variety of jobs done around the house as well as offered around the neighborhood for pocket change which occupied the bulk of my summer days.

One of the first jobs I can remember doing...and it was probably just to help my brother out...was rolling up tons of newspapers and putting rubber bands around them before stuffing all of it into his carrier. I think my sister, Janet, went on some of his routes with him but I definitely remember my blackened hands from all that ink and a few sore fingers from broken rubber bands.

We also used to cut a few of the neighborhood yards and I can remember actually cutting the grass but don't remember being able to keep much of the money afterwards. Unfortunately my mother had a rather large cigarette habit and I have a feeling a good portion of the yard money was used on tobacco products.

Jobs around the house included literally scrubbing all the walls down in each room, shucking corn that sometimes nearly reached the ceiling of our enclosed porch, climbing mulberry trees at our neighbors to have canned or frozen berries during the winter, pulling weeds from the vegetable garden or harvesting the crops, cutting back the bamboo that grew between our house and our next door neighbor's (THAT job earned me five massive hornet stings on my head and more over my body when Mother unexpectedly stirred up their nest), and babysitting my next door neighbor's young son. 

As I got a little bit older I had the chance to work at the local cafe but that only lasted a short while because the owner quickly realized my sister and I made a better team than their own children. We were way more popular with their customers and they couldn't have that so I was let go and my sister quit shortly afterwards.

All those summer time jobs taught me a number of things...

1) The important things in life usually come with a price whether it's actually dollars or sweat equity.
2) A hard day's work never killed anybody but sometimes it really FELT like I was gonna die.
3) Cherish the down time because you never know when someone's gonna yell at you to get back to work.
4) Don't put off to tomorrow what you can do today cuz Mother still has more plans for you tomorrow!
5) Do the job you hate the most first. That way the rest of the work will seem like fun.
6) Even the most demanding job will eventually come to an end and when it does, there is always iced tea and a good book to read!

My summers these days are crammed full of work and kiddies and not as much reading as I've done in my youth but at least I'm not running from hornets any more and I still get the chance to sneak in a book or two when my boss isn't looking...;~)

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Before The Age Of Technology

Before Xbox and IPads...before smartphones and even smarter televisions there was a time to live a simpler life where neighbors actually knew each other's name and children could play outside without supervision while doors were left unlocked at night.

I grew up in an age before technology. When I started to think about it there was a long list of things my own son had access to during his childhood that either wasn't even invented when I was a kid or only families far wealthier than ours could afford it.

Color TV...not only were all the shows in black and white at our house, there was no such thing as Cable TV and aluminum foil wrapped around the rabbit ears of the antennae sitting on top of that small TV helped bring in better reception. Oh yeah, TV shows didn't run all night long either so if I was lucky enough to be allowed to stay up later then I could watch my favorite channel (only about 4 or 5 to choose from) go off the air while playing "Look Away Dixieland" or some upbeat song I wished I could remember as a horse and buggy trotted off into the sunset.

Refrigerator...there was no such thing as a refrigerator at my house when I was little. We had an icebox where you literally had to place a 50 pound block of ice in the top compartment so things in the bottom compartment could stay cool. Once a week we would ride in the back of an old black truck to the ice plant where a man with huge ice picks would throw that block of ice onto a blanket laid out in the back of the truck and we would rush home to get it in the icebox before it started to melt in the muggy hot summer sun.

Washer & Dryer...nothing electronic there. My poor mother's hands were rubbed raw as she used an old washtub with scrubbing board for years where she had to squeeze the water out of the clothes herself. We finally graduated to a wringer washing machine. Mother still used the scrubbing board to wash the clothes but she could now push the clothes through the two rollers while I turned the crank and out the clothes came flat as a pancake and ready to hang outside on the clothesline.

Air Conditioner...I never even knew what an air conditioner was growing up. We had one window fan to try and cool the entire house and we had open windows at night to hopefully catch a breeze. I would go to sleep on a muggy summer night fanning myself with a piece of cardboard or a homemade paper fan until either I was too tired to fan myself any more or I finally fell asleep.

Cell Phones...these things weren't even invented yet when I was little. Every house that could afford a telephone had one large, hard-wired black monstrosity that has a ring on it loud enough to wake the dead. Black was the only color and the handle was so heavy you probably could kill somebody with it if you hit them hard enough. You were out of luck if you were away from home and wanted to call somebody if there wasn't somebody willing to let you use theirs.

FM Radio...the only stations available was AM because FM wasn't even invented yet. And just like TV, the stations would sign off around midnight and come back on around six the next morning. Song choices were monitored in my house and for the longest time I thought the only singers out there were Buck Owens, Minnie Pearl, Roy Clark, The Oak Ridge Boys, Conway Twitty, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, and Loretta Lynn. In other words, the Grand Ol' Opry and western music was basically the ONLY music allowed in the house when I was a child. We didn't even have access to a portable radio until I was in high school when my father brought a small boombox home just so we could hear Charlie Pride on the radio. Oh yeah, eight tracks were the thing to buy and reel to reel tape players...no such thing as CDs back then...they weren't invented yet!

Computers...those were things that filled up a room at large college universities or government offices. You would never find one in a private home. Laptops and wireless connections weren't even invented yet. Nether was the internet so if you wanted to look something up you could grab the Encyclopedia Britannica if you were lucky enough to have a set at your house (we had a really old set) or get yourself down to the local library and ask the librarian to help you out!

Online Games...there was no Atari, no Nintendo, no Xbox, no Playstation, no Gameboy, or any other gaming systems. I was an older teenager before even the simplest games like Pacman or Joust was even invented and the only place you could find them was in a larger city at an arcade usually near the movie theater. Games were actually played outdoors with the other kids in the neighborhood or was a product of one's imagination. No batteries required.

Kindle...Tablets and Ereaders like the Kindle or Nook hadn't been invented yet. Libraries were the place to discover a good book and to a voracious reader like myself, I would blow through at least 100 books every summer beginning at age 5 and quite literally counted the days until the annual summer reading program at my local library. I can't imagine fostering such a love for the written word without being able to touch, smell, and almost taste a good book held in one's hands.

Those are just some of the things I did without growing up before the age of technology. I didn't feel I missed out not having those things around and quite honestly I KNOW my own son didn't have nearly the strong memories of his own childhood as I have. Without technology I was forced to actively be a part of the world around me instead of passively sitting back and watching the world come to you. I was the master of my own destiny instead of being at the mercy of a battery held device. And I became a better, stronger me because of it.

What things did YOU do without when you were growing up? Share your non-technology stories in the comments...



TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Crawfish Boils & Mudbug Races

Anyone who tells you crawfish taste like lobster is wrong. Crawfish tastes better and if you ever lived in the bayou areas of southern Louisiana you would probably agree with me.

Outsiders to life in the swamps might look at this picture and think, "I would never eat that!" But if you come from a poor family and wonder a lot where you next meal is gonna come from, that plate represents some tasty times in the Lavergne family while I was growing up.

There was a small creek cutting through the back yard of a house I lived in as a child and after a heavy rain, I would run out back with my siblings to check for crawfish holes. Those crafty mudbugs would bury themselves deep into the wet ground and there were only two ways to get them out. One was by tying something like a small piece of bread to the end of a string before lowering it into the crawdad hole. If you were lucky, a crawfish would clamp down on the bread with one of it's claws and you could pull them out of the hole. Crawfish are ornery critters and almost always refuse to let go once they've latched onto something.

The other way (one I NEVER chose to join in on) was to walk barefoot through that creek and hope a crawfish would find one of your toes appealing enough to clamp onto it! I use to watch my brother and sisters walk the creek trying to catch crawfish but was never foolish enough to try it myself!

Every so often my father would bring home huge bags of crawfish for the family. I'm not sure if he bought them, trapped them himself, or if they were a gift from someone taking pity on us. No matter...it was three hundred pounds of instant fun for us.

For racing, I would pick whichever one seemed to be crawling around the fastest and then pit it against my siblings' choices. For fighting, the champion would be the one with the largest pinchers. Either way, they all eventually ended up in a large caldron of boiling water flavored with crawfish boil seasonings, new potatoes and corn on the cob.

Then there would be a mad dash to cover our dining room table with multiple layers of newspapers as Mother began dumping pan after pan of delicious crawfish onto the papers and everyone could eat their fill. Tails were pulled from whatever was left over and put in the freezer for later. Many a night Mother would watch her TV shows while cracking open the shells until her fingers bled just so her children could have food for another day.

I didn't realize the sacrifices my mother made back then but I do now. There aren't many crawfish holes around the hills of Tennessee but whenever I do get the chance to enjoy some crawfish, I always remember the wonderful crawfish boils made possible by a parent doing everything she could to keep her children fed.

Thanks, Mom.



TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Sweets For My Sweet

Growing up in a poor family didn't give me many chances to cater to my sweet tooth. I am a chocoholic from early childhood when I drank mug after mug of hot cocoa on a cold rainy school day while drying off in front of a fire.

Occasionally my mother would scrap enough change together to give each of her children a nickel and we would walk down to the corner grocery store to fill a bag with our choices for the day. As much as I loved chocolate, I knew even at 4 or 5 years old that sweet tarts and bubble gum at 3 or 4 pieces for 1 penny would last longer than 1 Hershey's kiss for that same penny.

But those candy trips didn't happen often so my sweet tooth had to be satisfied with whatever my parents could cook up at home.

My father spent many years as a cook for offshore oil drilling rigs and he was better suited for preparing meals for 100 people instead of the 6 in his family. But occasionally he would decide to make homemade lollipops for us kids.  If I think about it now, it probably wasn't too hard a task to mix the few ingredients together and pour it onto sticks lying on sheets of wax paper but to me, it was like someone had dropped me smack dab in the middle of Willy Wonka's factory.  Oh the anticipation of waiting to be told I was able to grab my own sucker. To finally clutch that lollipop and be able to bite into that crunchy sweetness was well worth the wait.

But it is my mother's donuts that I remember most growing up. Mother's attempt to provide a special treat for her children came with good intentions but it was the execution that always seemed to be lacking.  Preparing the dough didn't take long but when it came to the actual frying of the donuts, Mother had to use the only thing available to her. That was usually old bacon grease or old oil used to fry chicken or fish and then stored in a metal can on top of the stove. Let's just say those donuts came out of the pan with an unusual flavor added to what should have been a sweet treat and not even a hearty dunking in sugar afterwards could quite mask the aftertaste.

There was no complaining allowed in our house where food was concerned since it tended to be a rare commodity so I always said thank you and made the most of a sticky situation. But you can bet to this day if I'm going to indulge my sweet tooth by buying a donut, it WON'T be the fried kind!

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Yay Vacation!

The summer has been long and busy and hot, but now that the kiddies are back in school I can actually take a moment to relax...a little...and think about getting away for a long weekend.

When I was growing up in the swamps of Louisiana, my mother created a summer time routine that never varied until I was in my late teens. Every year mid summer she would get an urge to visit her brother and his wife in Oklahoma. Aunt Betty and Uncle Elmo owned what I would call a farmer's market/souvenir shop on the outskirts of the Cherokee Reservation.

I can remember her coming into my bedroom in the middle of the night to wake me up just so I could wedge myself between my parents in the front seat of our old car and go back to sleep while my siblings crammed themselves into the back seat. My father drove all night and most of the following day while my mother read the maps and dangled her feet out the window. There was always fried chicken and bologna sandwiches to munch on so the long trek from the Louisiana swamps to the hills of Oklahoma was never interrupted by sightseeing detours. Our destination was our relatives' house and since my father wasn't fond of driving all that way in the first place, he wanted to arrive in the shortest amount of time possible.

Once there, I knew I would get the chance to see some real, live Native Americans as they frequented my uncle's store almost daily. To a young kid from the swamps, it was like seeing aliens dropped down from the Mother Ship and I would hide behind the counter and then peek out to see what they would buy. Eventually, as I got older, I would help weigh the fruits and vegetables on an old timey set of scales before bagging the produce for them. My uncle treated everyone the same...all were welcome at his store...and this was during a time when others might not have treated their neighbors from the reservation so kindly.

There are many holes in my memories of those trips but there is one memory so vivid all I have to do is close my eyes and I can summon both the sight and the smell of it. On every return trip our trunk would be loaded down with fresh apples and oranges as well as other produce to help supplement a poor man's dinner table. My favorite part about those apples was the fact they were packed in cardboard boxes with slits in the tops and on the sides. If you lifted the top lid and quickly pushed it back down while holding your nose really close to the top slit, you could drink in the delicious aroma of crispy sweet Red Delicious apples picked fresh from the orchard just a few days before. To me that was one of the most heavenly smells on earth and if I had the chance to smell it again today I know it would bring back flashes of those lovely summer vacations with my Oklahoma kin.

I think it might be time to go grab me an apple and reminisce ...

TALES FROM THE BAYOU: Take A Ride On The Soul Train

I discovered early on that I was born to love music. I don't mean I'm able to tolerate it or that I simply enjoy listening to songs. I LOVE MUSIC! 

I was born to a mother who was part Native American and Cherokees sure do love their music. Then there was my father who was part Cajun and most people have heard of the Zydeco thing. Add to that the fact my maternal grandfather was a composer who built his own violin and my father would play the accordion for me growing up, I had no choice but to learn to appreciate the beauty of listening to great sounds...everything from the Grand Ol' Opry to Doug Kershaw.

I didn't know there was any other kind o music until my middle teens when I was allowed to start watching shows...like American Bandstand to Soul Train and The Midnight Special.

There's something about music, no matter the style, that connects with me and lifts my spirit. Even when it was time to grow up and leave my hometown I made sure my records traveled with me...a lifeline during hard times and a way to light up my future. Even today...years later...you can still find me rocking out to a good tune in my car and remembering some of the good musical moments from my childhood down on the bayou...