Virginia summers are really, really hot. When I was three or four years old, I remember more than once slipping around the corner of our house to take my clothes off and run around naked outside. I'd stay this way until one of my older sisters would catch me and make me get dressed only to do it all over again.
(Come to think of it I was still running around naked well into my 20’s; however it wasn't my siblings chasing me then... :)
One of the three places we lived in Virginia was by a big peanut farm and after the harvest we were allowed to go into the field and pick up the peanuts left on the ground. We would roast these and I could eat them by the pound. I loved roasted peanuts then ...and still do!
I have one odd memory involving 4-year old me and my 6-year old sister, "C" (I am the youngest of six; 4 girls and 2 boys). C and I were both playing outside and were called back into the house by my mother (or oldest sister – my memories at that age are fuzzy and I often get them confused). Mama wanted to know who left a bunch of peanut shells and marbles on the floor in the hall. I told the truth and said I didn't, but C, who had been playing some kind of game with them, lied and said she didn't either. Well, we were both threatened with a spanking if one of us didn't own up to it. And, not seeing the need for both of us to be spanked, I lied and admitted to the mess. What was I thinking??? Anyway, I took the spanking for her ...and she let me!?
I remember arguing occasionally with an Esso gas station attendant (I'll call him Frank) about the existence of Santa Claus and other fictitious characters. Here’s how one of them went:
Frank: Did you tell Santa what you want for Christmas?
3 year old me: No...There is no Santa.
Frank: What!!! Of course there is a Santa.
Me: No there isn't. My mama and daddy say he is make-believe.
Frank: No he's not.
Me: Yes he is.
This yes/no segment usually went on for a minute or so, then...
Frank: Ok, do you get presents”
Me: Yes
Frank (acting confused): Well, if Santa isn't real, then why do you get presents?
Me: Because it's Jesus’ birthday Silly.
Frank: How come you get presents if it is Jesus’ birthday?
Me: Because the wise men brought presents for Jesus and since he's in heaven now, I get presents instead.
Frank: Hmmm…well, I still think there's a Santa.
Me: No there isn't!
Frank: Yes there is…
And so it went with me and Frank until I moved away.
I remember rain that would unexpectedly pour down in the middle of a clear, blue sky day. We would know it was coming only a few minutes beforehand and would run into the house and try to put on bathing suits before it stopped five or ten minutes later. We played in the mud puddles afterward.
I remember walking to a swimming hole near one of the places we lived and while my siblings were swimming (I could only wade) I had to watch out for water moccasins which looked like black ripples on top of the water. Oh, and there were leeches. I was walking home with my sisters one day and wanted to show them the "caterpillar" on my foot. "C", two years older, told me it wasn't a caterpillar, but a leech. I ran screaming all the way home and refused to change out of my wet suit until my mother put salt on the thing to dry it out and get it off. It was suctioned across two of my toes and when she pulled it off my toes bled. I still have the scars.
I remember a game of "freeze" our parents taught to us to make us stay still whenever a poisonous critter was spotted nearby. It probably saved my life the day I was in the garden with my mother and a copperhead was less than two feet from me. She got my attention and said very calmly to freeze and then yelled for my dad, who distracted it and killed it with a hoe.
Living in the south, being from Maine, had its downsides mainly for my older siblings back then. My family was “color-blind”. We made friends of everyone, regardless of color, and attended a “colored” church from time to time. One of my best friends was a little brown-skinned boy named Roland who was my own age. I really loved going to that church because the people were so genuine and nice, unlike the “fake-nice” I observed from many of the folk at the “white” churches. They’d be all syrupy sweet to our faces and nasty-mean behind our backs. Although some of them were even nasty to our face.
I vaguely recall my family being called “damn yankees”, "nigger-lovers" and “white trash”. My elder siblings who attended schools in Virginia remember it pretty well. My oldest sister says she remembers a teacher who wouldn’t use her name, but only called her “Damn Yankee” when he called upon her. It wasn’t until she explained that my dad's father was from North Carolina that he stopped.
The significance of living in the south in the mid-1960s didn’t occur to me until I was fully grown. None of my history classes ever covered that period. They stopped at the end of the civil war and began again with current (1970s) government.
In 1966, my oldest sister eventually moved back to Maine to live with my grandparents and my next three eldest siblings were sent to a private school in East Lempster, NH. My parents, C and I followed them up the next year. C went directly to the “Big School” (I’ll explain this later) to live and I got to stay with my parents for the next year.
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