A Rich Life: Where did I go on vacation as a child?

From my youngest days, we went to visit family in the summer for two weeks then again just after Christmas through just after New Year’s.

Usually, we would first go and visit my Mom’s parents in the hills of West Virginia, Bomont, up a mountain with a creek running through the property. My Uncle Leo and Aunt Nina lived in the house by the road and then there was a short wooden bridge across the creek to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. 

The house was old, like them, and we loved it, and them more. There was a front porch with chairs and an outhouse behind the house. It was quite a good fortune for us all when they got an indoor bathroom and bathtub put in during probably my late childhood/early teen years.

The house inside was a delight, like a cottage really with a great kitchen where Grandma would make the best food, especially breakfast. I can still picture Grandpa at night sitting in the living room peeling potatoes for the next morning’s breakfast and I remember he had on white socks. Then in the morning, Grandma would fry up those potatoes and also fry eggs and bacon and sausage, and I’m pretty sure there were grits as well or some kind of rice. All I know is it was white. Breakfast was wonderful! We ate and ate and ate. Talk about a country breakfast!

My brother and I would play outside all day long, sometimes in the creek and even swim in it, and pretty often we would walk down with my sister to Opal’s Store. Opal was the local Post Mistress and she sold goodies besides and I think had a gas pump too. I remember always enjoying Honey Buns, a sweet treat that I can still almost taste and enjoy from time to time. But then they were such a treat for my childhood snack at Opal’s. Seeing a Honey Bun now in a store, a kind of cinnamon roll with icing still takes me back.

My grandparents had chickens in a chicken coop behind their house from which they got fresh eggs for breakfast and of course, fresh chicken when we had fried chicken, which I especially remember my Aunt Nina making. The chickens were clucking and making noise and I didn’t want to go in there. I’m not sure if I ever did but they were a sight for sure.

The beds were so good to sleep in. Probably the only time in my life that I got to sink into a real feather bed. It was so soft and I would sink down into it and sleep the night away. 

Lots of adventures at Grandma and Grandpa’s place but after about a week we would get anxious to go to my Dad’s family because there were cousins there about our age to play with.  

So we would say goodbye to Mom’s family in the hills and go into the city of St. Albans and see Dad’s Mom and Stepdad who we called Mamaw and Papaw.  Mamaw had a big boarding house and she would serve them breakfast as well. So we got to stay in it and eat there for breakfast. She ran a diner for a while also. She was fun to be around and was also quite the businesswoman, though I didn’t realize that when I was a child. Papaw was always old it seemed and was very kind and tall and thin and quiet.

When we went to St. Albans we also got to see my Uncle Ivan and Aunt Lillie. They were a great couple and we enjoyed seeing them and they always made us feel special.

The big thing as a child was that we got to play with our cousins, Greg, Connie, and Sherry. They were pretty much the same age as me, David, and Rosalyn and we had lots of good times. They were the children of Aunt Ruby and Uncle Jack who were very fun to be around. Aunt Ruby was so fun-loving and liked to trick people. She made great fried chicken too and always made us treats.

When we grew up together as cousins we would do shows for our parents and grandparents in St. Albans at Aunt Ruby and Uncle Jack’s house. We would dress up, sing, perform, and laugh and there was always much appreciation from the audience who loved to see us having such fun and performing for them. So many good times putting our shows together.

Christmas vacation was a lot the same except shorter. We would head to the mountains and then to the city. The big thing in the city was New Year’s Eve when we had a big party that lasted into the new year and we ate shrimp. Aunt Ruby and Uncle Jack hosted everyone and always had shrimp and lots of it. More shows of course by the cousins and we had lots of fun.

Our summer and Christmas vacations as a child were great times with family. I am so glad for those memories and those people.

The Bench

So each day, well most days anyway, I take a walk early, except for the times when it is too cold or I just don’t feel like walking early because I didn’t sleep well last night, which rarely happens to me because even though there are plenty of things that I am not great at sleep is one of the things that I am great at, yes I am a great sleeper and glad for it because I know how important it is to get a good night of sleep in order to do your best or even average that day so I try to get seven to eight hours of sleep every night and now I am finding that to get that amount of sleep it is not what time I get up at that matters it is what time I go to bed that makes all of the difference so for me at this point in life I know that I need to get to bed before midnight, or at least not a long time afterwards, if I am going to get the seven to eight hours of sleep that I want to get and even then there is no guarantee that I will get that much and yes it is possible and sometimes it happens that I go to sleep after one a.m. and I still get my needed rest but that happens less and less so as I get up well rested I am able to get out of my front door with my earbuds connected to my phone and listening to a book as I go for a morning walk and if it does happen to be cold I can put on a light jacket or if it is colder I can wear a heavier one and sometimes, just sometimes mind you, when it is really, really, cold, I put on a winter coat, one that I brought from where I used to live in Pennsylvania where it is much colder than where I live now in South Carolina, and sometimes, especially if I recently had a haircut from a salon not real far from our condo where we moved to and enjoy living in now, my ears feel very cold and I wear not only a winter coat but a hat, not the kind with a brim but the kind made out of cloth that is snug on my head and covers up my ears, and of course if I need a hat, and sometimes even when I don’t, I wrap a scarf around my neck and it keeps me warmer and I know I must look a sight when I am out walking and some people are running in running pants or shorts that are tight on them and I suppose keep them warm as well and they have a tight kind of jacket that must warm them up as well and I walk by them all bundled up like Nanook of the North if there is such a person in the South and in particular South Carolina perhaps instead of Nanook of the North I look like Kook of the South but in any case that is only in the winter but in days like in this picture of leaves on the tree and sunlight shining down I don’t need a coat at all or a scarf or a hat for sure but rather I wear shorts and a shirt and shoes and socks and I walk past this bench, and the one that is not seen here but is right across from it, and sometimes I sit on this bench, or the other one depending on which one is cleaner and which one does not have sun in my eyes which is more likely the one pictured here in terms of not having the sun in my eyes and I take a rest there after walking twenty minutes or so from my home and before I continue along my walk for a while after the rest but really I have not sat there a lot yet because during the pandemic which lasted over a year, well of course it actually still continues but at least I am vaccinated now, fully, and I am willing to sit on this bench without having to go home and immediately change clothes, so now I can sit if I wish for rest and especially when I have walked by this area the first time and then walked on for another half hour to forty minutes before arriving back at this bench and by then I am very glad for a place to sit and relax for several minutes and this is great to do and I really wanted to sit here many times the last year but Covid-19 and thoughts of it kept me from sitting down even though looking back there was a very miniscule chance that I could ever have gotten the coronavirus from sitting on this bench so I could have been resting on it all this time but I did not but still I am Okay with that since it is better to be safe than sorry but in this case I am both because I was probably over safe and now I am sorry that I did not sit down on it for all of that time but in reality I made a good choice because it was the one I made and it didn’t matter that I could have sat on it for a year now and in any case now I appreciate it even more that sometimes I rest on this bench on the way which is, as I have said only twenty minutes or so from my house, and I don’t really need to sit on it yet but I do because it is just pleasant to do so and I know that I can still sit as well on the return voyage also on The Bench.