My mother helped us plant the initial flower gardens in front of the Dollhouse. We had many flower bulbs and annuals that she’d given us from the bigger garden. Our spring ritual was to loosen all the dirt and replant the annuals that didn’t survive the winter. Winters were tricky for plant growth in the south with lots of freezing rain and sleet. It is a hugely different climate than Colorado. Annuals don’t survive here. They are delegated to pots that are planted every year.

My grandparents taught our parents how to save seeds. My dad taught us how to keep the seeds in old baby food jars. We learned how to clean the seeds and store them on a special shelf he had built for us in the barn. He made cutouts in the wood, nailed the tops of the jars in place, and we screwed the jars into the lids. They were off the floor so the critters couldn’t get to them, and we were able to keep the seeds dry and cool until spring planting. Cross-pollination brought about some interesting new colors. Each year, the spring rains brought us a beautiful display of color. We plucked wildflowers and dandelions from the flowerbed and the yard, creating bouquets for our little tables in the Dollhouse.

We kept the inside of the Dollhouse swept out and mopped clean. We learned that lesson from my mother who assigned us our daily chores in her house. Both places were spotless.

Within these make-believe family walls, I was the director of my own play. The doll families were the players. They were a pioneer family traveling across America to Colorado. Outside the Dollhouse, they were cowboys and indians chasing each other on horseback (the propane tank in the yard), and the woods were the Big Woods, aptly named after the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, that I repeatedly read.

We bought all the dolls from the five-and-dime in the big city (Athens), or they were handmade by my grandmothers. My powerful imagination took them to places I would someday visit and live.

On the extremely hot and sweaty summer days, we ventured to the woods behind the Dollhouse. This was our open playground. It was a place my mother allowed us to be wild and free but only so far. She wanted us to be in her range so she could holler at us when it was time to come home. Our favorite place was one of mystery, an area my mother uncovered in her incessant cleaning and taming of the woods. (We believed that it was her British ancestry that made her want to tame the woods, creating sculptured scenery, not the Indian wild woods that we had.)

The mysterious area was just past the food gardens that my father diligently planted each year. The bumps or Hills, as we called them, were located close to the woods that eventually led up to the dirt road we lived on. My mother told me they were Indian mounds left by the Cherokee. We don’t really know if they were burial mounds. They looked too small. They didn’t look like the ones we saw in the mountains of Georgia, so we didn’t think much about it. Perhaps they were ceremonial places. So, we each claimed our own mound. We had vines that we swung down and landed on top of them (until she chopped them down because she deemed them unsafe of course). Years later, my mother told me my grandfather bulldozed the bigger ones flat, which was now under our garden. He didn’t like it that those folks from the University (of Georgia) came snooping around looking for Indian artifacts. Later, I was sad to think about that. I wanted to know about the people that came before us. Were we descendants of these people? Did we just kick them off their land? It was too much to ponder for such a young girl.

There were tall poplar trees located by the Indian mounds. We knew that they were old. We would join hands and try to clasp around them. They were wider than all three of us put together. Years later, they were toppled over by hurricane force winds from one of the worst tornadoes that I remember.

I remember practicing my clarinet under the shade of those trees. My mother made me get out of the house because she didn’t want to hear all that squeaking noise. I thought about that later in life and realized she was not much of a music enthusiast. Today, I passed on my love of music to my son, and I let him practice inside the house. He played the trumpet. Every year I thank my Uncle Eddie who gave me my first clarinet and encouraged me every step of the way. He was such a believer in the arts and a colorful character who never fit into the deep south attitudes. He has his own story I’ll save for a later date. He was such an inspiration for the arts, and I learned a lot from him.

We had so many chores around the house and farm, but we were always given time to play. I believe my mother would have wanted us to be more sophisticated, more like the town kids, but we loved the country. We took off our shoes when we ended the school year and went barefoot all summer.

We made up our own tales which were supplemented from the boxes of books brought to us by the Athens Bookmobile. Once a month, we would hear the pneumatic brakes and run up the long, dirt driveway to the road where they parked. We crawled up into the truck, excited to see what was there. It seemed cavernous when we were young. We spent hours in that hot truck, poring over the new releases. We each walked away with boxes of our favorite reads.

We didn’t have a lot of money, were country bumpkins to the town kids, but we loved our small piece of paradise.

We eventually grew out of all our imaginative play. Teen drama would ensue, and we all went our separate ways. We went off to college and although it was only thirty-five minutes away, we would never recapture those carefree times. Life made us grow up and move on. I will always have fond memories of those early joyful and imaginative adventures that allowed me to create a mental picture of how the world should be. My sisters stayed in Georgia, but I moved to Colorado, trekking across America in a packed 1972 Toyota Corolla. And that is an adventure for next time.

I would love to hear your beautiful stories that you remember about your childhood. Keep up the holiday spirit and remember: Colorado Gives day is December 10^th. Please give what you can to those in need. Love and Hugs to all!

More Bad Puns to Enjoy:

Ladies, if he can’t appreciate your fruit jokes, you need to let that mango.

Geology rocks but Geography is where it’s at!

What was Forrest Gump’s email password? 1forrest1

Did you hear about the restaurant on the moon? I heard the food was good, but it had no atmosphere.

Can February March? No, but April May.

I was wondering why the ball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

(Loud groans are okay.)