Returning To My Roots

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Do you ever think about returning to your roots? Stepping out of your current life and putting one foot back in your old one?

Even if you went back to the town you grew up in, things would not be the same. The people you grew up with would have grown up too.

And the house out in the sticks would have been sold many times over or maybe added onto. Because I recall one bedroom for three people being the norm at my house.

Life seemed so much simpler back then.

When I Was A Little Girl:

When I was a little girl we lived out away from town and had no car to get us there. So we walked everywhere we went. Back then it was a world of difference when there was no vehicle in the family.

You took the bus if you wished to go to the next town over. And you walked a good bit to visit neighbors. Which might be across the street or a few miles away. Or so it seemed to me back then.

If it started raining, which I always loved, I’d get wet and that was half of the fun of it in the summertime. It cooled you off, and you could open your mouth and let translucent raindrops drip down your throat.

I yearned to be a kid driven to school in a simple white Chevrolet or Ford by a mother who wore lipstick and pants. (My granny never wore makeup or dressed in pants)

That mother would have had a cute haircut while at the hair salon, such as it was. (My granny never cut her hair. Ever.)

I had a great-aunt who wore men’s pants. It was scandalous to my granny I think, though I don’t recall her speaking of it.

I loved that Aunt Lilly dared to be different, even though her husband was the town treasurer. Aunt Lilly drove around town in her white sedan with her dogs and I recall that she went fishing a lot. She didn’t seem to give two hoots what anyone thought of her.

Such An Old-Fashioned Life:

Everything was so old-fashioned at our house. And I hated it back then, as children often do.

But oh, the food was good! Fresh vegetables and fruit from the garden, which seemed huge to me back then. But looking back it might have been the size of a postage stamp because I was looking through a child’s eyes.

Granny with her apron on making fruit cobblers and pies. Chicken and dumplings. (One of the chickens would get their neck wrung for that meal). It seems that we ate more vegetables than meat. And to this day I prefer a plate of vegetables over one with meat.

I look back now and sometimes yearn for that time. It was so simple. So ordinary and uncomplicated.

I didn’t appreciate the plain life we lived. Because I wanted to be like other kids, and other kids were not like me. And that’s all you want when you’re a youngster. To be like everyone else and blend in.

I wish I’d realized back then that growing up in that way would shape me into who I am now. A simple woman who has now stopped going to the hair salon herself. (At least for now)

I don’t wear lipstick or drive around in a white Chevrolet or Ford. I have an 18 year old SUV I’ll probably drive till either I’m dead or the car peters out. (Do you ever hear anyone say the word “peter out” any more? When I think back to those times, words like that come to mind.)

Returning To My Roots:

Now I’m in that world where I can do all those things I couldn’t do back then.

And what have I done? Pretty much returned to my roots. If you’d told me that this would happen I would have thought you were joshing me.

I would have emphatically said: “There’s no way.”

I wish I could taste those sliced tomatoes and corn on the cob with butter and blackberries straight from the garden again. I’d carry a simple galvanized bucket out to the garden and pick blackberries for my granny to make cobbler. It would cool on the counter and delightful smells would fill the house.

There are many modern things I don’t think I could do without in this day and age. How would I communicate with all of you without the internet? Where would I get food if I couldn’t order online and have groceries delivered to my door?

With modern technology I don’t have to go into crowded stores or stand in line to pay a cashier. These aren’t simple times, but my life is certainly more simple because of this technology.

So there’s that.

Technology Versus Simplicity:

Way back then I wrote my words on a simple Royal typewriter. There was no delete button or a way to copy and paste. You wrote words and if it wasn’t to your liking or you messed up, you wadded up the paper and started over.

How many more thoughts could I have captured had I been more astute and forward thinking? Maybe I would have saved some of those pieces of paper for when I was grown up, and could look back with longing for my childhood thoughts.

I’ve always had a deep love for the written word. It has been my life blood for many years.

I’ve managed to make money with my thoughts and ideas. Not a lot, but a somewhat decent amount. Which I would never have dreamed of happening all those years ago. In college and afterward, I wrote freelance articles. But those didn’t make a lot of money. Maybe a hundred dollars each.

I won four awards for the second article I freelanced for the college newspaper.

And a professor sent it in to four different regional and national contests, unbeknownst to me. And when I won, I was proud, yet deeply embarrassed and ill at ease.

Because when you won things like that there were always ceremonies. And standing in front of a crowd of people and speaking is not my thing. Never was; never will be. I’d rather wrestle a wild animal and bathe it than open my mouth in front of strangers.

My Little Newspaper:

I went around the neighborhood door to door and gathered information for my little newspaper. Someone’s cat would just have had kittens. Or they were fixing to have company and were busy cooking up a storm.

I’d scribble down what they told me and carry it home with me, ideas swirling in my head.

I’d type up all this neighborhood news on my typewriter. The only thing about this typewriter that is the same is the QWERTY keyboard layout.

Did you know that this keyboard system was developed for typewriters in the 1870s? And it remains the de facto standard for English-language computer keyboards?

Then I’d go door to door handing out my little newsletter of unimportant information. Carrying news about one neighbor to another was a fun endeavor for me at the time.

I’ve always liked things tied up with a period at the end, and that kind of mindset means I’m tidy about other things as well.

My Beloved Dictionary:

If I wasn’t working on my newspaper, I was copying words from the dictionary. I’d lie on the bed on my stomach and run my finger up and down the pages.

When I saw a word that looked interesting, I’d write it down along with its meaning or interpretation.

Other children were running around playing tag or some sort of sports. Not me. I preferred my company to be the Oxford English dictionary.

Walking home from school or visiting people for my newspaper stories, I might smell fried chicken cooking as I neared home. It would occasionally be carried along on the breeze from the open kitchen window.

Then when I went next to gather the eggs, I’d count one less chicken among the bunch.

Pinto beans and fried potatoes would be on the menu. And cornbread with sliced vegetables in the summer months.

We never ate out. I think I walked to a little cafe/truck stop and ordered a burger a time or two. My big treat when we went to town was a chocolate ice cream cone at the drugstore. I seem to remember it cost 10 cents.

Closer to home, penny candy filled a large display case in a store made of different colored stones. The store was in a very old building and looked like it was made up of mismatched puzzle pieces.

With 5 or 10 cents I could fill my sweet tooth and take some home for later. I can almost taste the flavors now when I focus on it. Like Tootsie Rolls and Sweet Tarts.

Simple Times:

Such a simple life it was then.

No social media where people could cut you to the core over something you wrote. The way to the outside world was through the small newspaper or the black and white TV. Or maybe through the neighborhood grapevine that didn’t travel all that fast.

World events sometimes filtered through. But a whole lot went on that we never even suspected back then. And maybe that was for the best.

I recall that President Kennedy was assassinated in the fall of my first grade year. You could feel all the emotion and shock waves in the air at the elementary school. Hushed whispers between the teachers.

I don’t recall how I felt really. Just a little scared I guess because of the atmosphere I found myself in until the bell rang and I walked home. I don’t recall that much was said about it there. It was like we were contained in a bubble that shut the rest of the world out.

Nowadays someone would have taken a photo of the terrible event with their cell phone. The news would have been carried out to the world almost instantaneously through social media.

Of course there are positives and negatives to this modernization. State-of-the-art technology versus living simply and receiving information days or weeks later.

I’d Have Chickens & A Rooster:

There are days when I’d trade places for that life I lived back then. I’d have a big chicken yard with chickens, and a rooster that woke me every morning, rousting me out of bed.

What I’d do with that plot of land that was turned over by the man with his mules now! It would be tilled for planting a garden. And I’d form long almost completely straight rows. Then plant seeds like my Granny did in fairly equal amounts to the end of the row.

The food we ate came from those tiny little seeds. Those seeds came up through the earth and flourished and produced vegetables and fruit for canning.

There will never again be 10 cent cones of ice cream. Penny candy behind display glass with row upon row of sweet treats is long gone.

There will never again be a life so simple that what you didn’t know probably wouldn’t hurt you.