I think about the years I have lived and by God's grace, I am 74! Time seems to be more complicated today than years ago.  I remember how I loved to stay at my grandparents house when I was a child.  I would sleep upstairs on a feather bed mattress that folded up around me.  I felt so warm and secure.  In those early years they only had an outside toilet with a Sears & Roebuck catalogue in a convenient place.  My grandmother always cooked biscuits for breakfast with all the fixins.  We always had molasses mixed with butter for dessert.

My grandfather, who I called GranGran, taught me many things about life.  Often we would go fishing with a cane pole he harvested from the creek bank.  We always used worms for bait.  We got the worms from under boards lying in the chicken yard.  We spent many hours together on the creek bank or lake bank.

I had chores to do.  I fed the chickens and sloped the hogs.  I never got into milking the cows because they were very particular about who did the squirting into the milk bucket.

I learned from Gran Gran many things.  I learned tolerance and kindness.  I learned to love nature and all the wonderful things that are a part of it.  Sometime we sat out in the yard late in the afternoon and watched the bull bats fly higher and higher, then dive toward the earth only to swoop up again with a noise from their wings.  GranGran liked to fox hunt and I remember sitting on the top of a straw stack listening to the hounds as they would chase the fox out of our hearing, then back again.

I have so many memories that I could fill many pages with.  Those days are gone, and sometimes I wish I could go back to those simple times.  I can only do this in my mind.

All the years have passed so fast, and in the afternoon of my life, I want to make sure that I continue to make good memories even though my days are more complex and the times more critical.  I wish for you good days and pleasant memories.