summer memories

I love summer and have such good memories from childhood. Some of my most vivid are the ones made at my grandparent's farm in northern Kentucky. There's an old picture of me at about age 2 sitting in an old washtub in front of their farmhouse which burned down, I believe, on an Easter Sunday soon after.

I remember the smell of raw milk and tobacco and being chased by a mean old bull in a big field. I'm not athletic but I recall catapulting over that fence at a high speed! I really enjoyed riding the tractors. My Uncle Jim would take me and my cousins out to a secret fort in a far field which I later tried to find as an adult and couldn't. I remember all the cats running around in the barns and being bitten by mice in the corncrib. Am not sure what I was doing crawling around in a corn crib.

My Grandma Feagan whom I called Mamaw had very long hair she wore in a bun. I loved to be with her as she was so sweet and good - all the time. Never a cross word. She had so many children starting with my father. I wish now I'd asked her why she named them all "J" names. Jack, Judy, Joy, Jaynee, Janice, Janelle, Jim, JR, Jerry, and Jill but not in that order. My Dad tried to carry on this tradition by naming me J. Laura Louise Feagan but it didn't stick for some reason.

I hope my boys have good summer memories when they've grown up. Our summers are so short here they won't have the usual pool and sunburn and popsicle and catching lightning bugs in a jar memories.

Summer wouldn't be summer without a trip home to Kentucky. I'm almost counting the days. Cracker Barrel here I come! I fly into Lexington and go straight to Berea the middle of August. It will be my first time home without my Granny there waiting on the porch for me. But it will always be home to me. Till heaven, anyway.