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Easter Memories
After winter played with spring its tug of war
and flowers stuck their heads up through the snow,
came the season for renewal of all life
and the holiday to celebrate new life through Jesus Christ.
So we would walk to church in our Sunday clothes
to celebrate the fact that he arose.
Then with great anticipation we would wait
while in our yard mom and dad hid colored Easter eggs
to find among the yellow daffodils,
in the grass and on the windowsills,
as on our skin we felt the warm sunshine
and the breeze that blew fluffy clouds across the deep blue sky.
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Memories from Another Time
Daddy cut a place out in the woods and built a little house the best he could. But Mommy made that little house a home. Her love made us feel so safe and warm.
It just had four rooms, no closet or bathroom, a wood stove in the front room and a tin roof. Where the rain tapped out a soothing melody and the raindrops on the roof at night would play us to sleep.
Daddy dug a hole out back of the house. And over that hole he built us an outhouse. Inside was a seat to sit down, with a hole in it that went to the hole in the ground. When nature called we walked the well worn path to rest a while in the old out-house out back.
Daddy dug a basement under the house. It had a floor and walls of clay that he dug out. It’s ceiling was the floor under our feet; a cool place to store the food that we would eat.
The wood stove kept the front room warm as toast. But the bedroom where we slept was always cold. We were warm and snug under the covers that were so heavy it was hard for us to turn over. Come morning we ran barefoot to the stove across the icy floor to put on our clothes.
After winter played with spring its tug of war, and flowers stuck their heads up through the snow, came the season for renewal of all life; and a holiday to celebrate new life through Jesus Christ. So we would walk to church in our Sunday clothes to celebrate the fact that he arose.
Then with great anticipation we would wait, while in our yard Mom and Dad hid colored Easter eggs, to find among the yellow daffodils, in the grass and on the window sills; as on our skin we felt the warm sunshine and the breeze that blew fluffy clouds across the deep blue sky.
In the springtime Daddy plowed and disked the earth. Then they planted plants and seeds in the dirt. They hoed and watered them the summer long, then when harvest came they brought their harvest home. Then they put up the food for us to eat, cooked and sealed in mason jars so it would keep.
I recall the stove where Mom would cook our food. The cast Iron eyes lifted out to put in the wood. Our house got hot when Mom was cooking her cat head biscuits, chicken and gravy and banana pudding. I can still taste the food that she would cook. I just can’t cook the way my mommy could.
Mom washed our clothes in her wringer washer. Then she ran them through the wringers to get out all the water. The wringer’s rollers turned round and round while pressing hard together to wring the water out. After rinsing them in her washing tub, she wrung them out again and hung them up on the clothesline under the trees outside in the summer sun and breeze to dry.
We bathed in mommy’s old washing tub in water pumped from the cistern that she heated up. Then she walked us to the church up on the hill and taught us about Jesus and the love he has to give. We prayed to Jesus at an early age and accepted his amazing grace.
This was a gentle, much more innocent time, a time of unlocked doors and nursery rhymes. When Mommy’s didn’t work and with no TV, we would play outside under the trees.
Little girls love to play house. So we used and old broom to sweep it out. The walls of our playhouse were the trees. Our roof was made of rustling leaves. An old mossy log became our couch. And with our baby dolls, we played house. Little girls have such imagination. So to us, our playhouse was a mansion. And the chipped plates and cups we used when we played house were brand new.
We would walk a faded path to its end or find a flower filled shady glen. Then pick wildflowers and put some in our hair, or open lacy flowers to find the June bugs hidden there. Sometimes at the end of the day, we would pick our mommy a bouquet. And carry it home so delighted because she was always so delighted. Then she would put them in a jar, there on the kitchen table to admire.
Once my brothers built a tree house from old boards and nails they had found. Then sat high up on their lofty perch, and looked down from there upon the earth. It wasn’t much to look at in that tree. But they had built it themselves and they were as proud as they could be. They roamed in the woods all around and carried home wild creatures they had found. We had a squirrel named Shorty and a crow named Joe. If my brothers could catch it they would bring it home.
Then in the cool darkness of the night, as we played under a star filled sky, it looked like the stars were floating down and landing on the ground all around. So we would pick up those twinkling stars and put them in a mason jar. Then open it up and they would fly back up into the starry night sky.
Today Mom and Dad are both gone. But their memory often brings me home. Then I walk those lonely wooded hills once more. The way I did so many years before. There are no little children playing there. No children’s laughter echoes in the air. Then coming back brings back old memories and we play once again under the trees. (Phyllis Stout
Grindstaff)
(This was written in memory of our precious Mom & Dad
who we miss so very much.)
In the Woods
The limbs of the Redbud trees were covered with tiny redbuds. The black
locust was beautiful with its' fragrant white pea like flowers. The snowy limbs of
the low growing dogwood trees bowed down to the ground.
I walked over the hills and through the dense undergrowth of the woods,
tripping over vines. I stepped around the small bushes, trees, and the rocks
that were scattered everywhere. The briars pulled at my clothes and it hurt
when they pricked my skin.
The sunshine filtered through the moving leaves overhead, and danced on
the ground. I felt its warmth on my skin, and smelled the freshness of the cool
breeze in my face. But sometimes I could smell the decay from the thick carpet
of dead leaves and branches that lay on the ground. I felt the soft crunch under
my bare feet.
Wild flowers grew up through the debris of the woods floor. I saw yellow
lady slipper orchids, white may apples, wild purple violets, bloodroot, solo-
mon's seal, yellow daffodils and many others. I smelled their sweet perfume.
Colorful butterflies and yellow striped honey bees floated from flower to flower.
A Mockingbird was singing in a maple tree above me. I listened as it sang the
songs of many different birds.
Wild Strawberries grew everywhere. I picked some and enjoyed their deli-
cious juicy sweetness.
A gray cottontail Rabbit ran across my path.
A Robin flew to her nest in a maple tree with a wriggling brown earthworm in
her beak. I heard chirps and saw orange beaks opened wide over the edge of
the nest.
Above my head I saw a shiny black snake curled around a poplar limb,
staring down at me.
I ran down a hill and into a spider web and felt it’s stickiness against my face. I shuddered as I brushed the web from my skin. Then I found the shiny yellow
spider in its web, and relieved, I admired the beautiful web glistening in the sun-
light.
I picked some sour grass and chewed on the tangy leaves.
"Rat a tat tat, rat a tat tat." A magnificent black and white bird with a red crest
was drilling holes in a dead stump. The Ivory billed Woodpecker was hunting the
beetle larvae in the dead wood. I watched in awe until the splendid bird flew
away.
My arms itched. Scratching the bites, I noticed the swarm of mosquitoes all
around me.
I stopped to pick a wild pink rose from its' bush and stuck myself with a thorn,
and it hurt. Then I smelled the roses' sweetness and forgot about the hurt.
A Gray Squirrel ran up an old oak tree. I laughed as it watched me from the
safety of a limb, shaking its' bushy tail and chattering nervously.
I heard my mom calling me to supper. I started back home, and on the way
I picked her some yellow daffodils.
God's Creation
God our Creator has always been. He has no beginning, he has no end. Everything’s a part of his great plan. He created all life and holds it in his hands. God created the Universe and in the beginning he created Earth. He made it a perfect paradise. Then made man he in his likeness. He picked some dust up in his hands and with that dust created man. God breathed into him an eternal soul. He called him Adam and loved him so.
God brought the birds and animals to him and he gave names to all of them. When God saw Adam was lonely he put him into a deep sleep. It wasn't God's plan for man to be alone, so made him a mate from his rib bone. Adam called her woman and named her Eve. Now God's perfect plan was complete God said "be fruitful, and the earth multiply" and they were naked but didn't realize.
God gave them dominion over the Earth and wanted their love in return. In the evening God would descend and he would walk and talk with them. God placed them in a beautiful garden, gave them their choice of fruit trees to eat from. God wanted their love to be freely given so the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was with them. God warned, "eat this fruit and you will die", but the serpent told Eve it was a lie. He said "you will not die, for God knows when you eat, like him you'll be wise. Then you'll know the difference between evil and good". So when Eve saw it was good for food, she ate and gave Adam the forbidden fruit.
Then their eyes were opened, and when they realized they were naked they tried their nakedness to hide. They sewed fig leaves to hide their shame from the eyes of their Creator before he came. In the cool of the evening God descended and called to them, but they were hidden. Then Adam answered, "I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid away". God asked Adam, "who told you that you were naked?" "Did you eat of the fruit I forbade you to eat?" He said "The woman you put herewith me gave me some fruit, and I did eat". God asked Eve, "What have you done?" Eve said, "the serpent deceived me Holy One". Then God had compassion for their condition, and knew something innocent would have to die for them. Its blood was shed to cover their sin. God covered their shame with its skin. This was a picture of the time to come, when God would send his only son. Jesus died and shed his innocent blood to redeem us back to our Father above.
(Barbara Phyllis Stout
Grindstaff 2003)
(I shall look on his face in righteousness and be satisfied when I
awake with his likeness. Amen!!)
Granny
On Sunday there wasn’t much to do so sometimes after Sunday school; we would walk across the wooded hills to the old house where granny lived.
We were little girls, not old at all and she was the oldest person we ever saw, our great-grandma in her wheel-chair, frail and small with her gray hair pulled back in a knot on the back of her head. I can see her plainly yet. And I can still see that old house sitting back on a hill all by itself, with a rocky, dirt road leading up to it. No I could never forget. For when we stepped inside, we stepped back in time, the memories etched in my mind of that old house time had forgotten and Granny in her dress of cotton sitting there in her wheel-chair with her old memories everywhere.
There were faded pictures on the wall and musty albums filled with all our dead relatives of long ago she showed us but we didn’t know. Then she would tell us those old tales that she’d been told and remembered so well. Stories about haints and boogers, and when she did it would give us shivers. Those stories were a legacy of superstition and memory from mountain people down through the years, a product of their imaginings and fears.
Then in the evening we would go to the one room church just down the road, where the people there would shout and yell while the preacher told a devil’s tale. After church we had to walk back home in the dark through the wooded hills alone, remembering those scary tales that granny and the preacher had told so well. Our hearts beat fast and we could see boogers behind every tree, that were put there by a child’s imagination, a preacher’s angry indignation, and granny’s scary tales of long ago and we were so glad to get back home.
At Home with Jesus
Mom, dad tried his best to carry on, but he was so lonely with
you gone. He wandered through the empty rooms he shared for
sixty years with you, so broken-hearted and alone in the house that
used to be a home.
We tried our best to fill the space you left when you went away,
but we just couldn't take your place, and dad grieved for you every-
day.
But he's happy now and satisfied, for once again he's by your side,
and living on a higher plane far above this grief and pain, with Jesus
in God's Heavenly Realm, in peace and love at home with them.
So though we grieve and miss you both, it's a comfort for us to
know that where you are someday we'll be, no more to part eternally.
(Barbara Phyllis Stout
Grindstaff 2004)
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Autumn's Golden Memories
Autumn brings me golden memories when it brings the gold back to the leaves of golden days of play under the trees. I hear again the soft rustling of gold leaves, feel them crunch underneath my feet, as we played under a canopy of trees while sunlight’s dappled patterns covered me.
For overnight the leaves have turned to gold and what a glorious sight to behold. There was gold above our heads and on the ground and leaves of gold floating all around. Sometimes these golden leaves would reach our knees and we would wade as in water through the trees or play hide and seek underneath the many multi-layered golden leaves.
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Email Me!
bpgrindstaff@tennessee-art.com
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