Mississippi Memories

This is a photo of me, my mom, sisters, cousins and my grandmother standing in the background.  Every summer we would go visit my dad's family.  I remember traveling late at night.  Everyone in the car would be sound asleep and I'd open my eyes and watch my dad driving.  It would be hot and muggy.  Cars in the 1950's had no AC so we would have all our windows rolled down and it was miserably hot.  After several hours of traveling dad would stop the car at the gate. He'd have to get out, drive the car through, stop, and go back and shut the gate.  Then we would bump along down the long, dirt road to my grandfather and grandmother's house.  Everyone would be awake by now.  Our grandparents would come out to greet us and show us to our big feather beds.  I always loved them because they reminded me of big, white, fluffy clouds.  We'd fall into them and soon be fast asleep.  In the morning we would awake to the smell of bacon frying, biscuits baking and coffee perking.  It was time to enjoy grandma's cat head biscuits (this is what my dad always called them).  Hot out of the oven, we'd cut one open and put in a big glob of creamy, yellow, home churned, cow's butter.  My mouth is watering now!  After breakfast it was outside to play with my cousins who lived on up the dirt road.  They had cows, chickens, horses, peacocks, goats, pigs, dogs and kittens.  It was fun playing with our cousins. There was as many of them as it was of us, which was a lot! They would show us the new litter of pigs and the little runt, trying to root it's way in for some much needed nourishment.  We might take a ride in the red goat cart, or look at the fish swimming in my aunt's little pond she had made from an old rubber tire placed in the ground.  We would make mud pies or chase chickens around the yard.  Later that evening we would catch fireflies until it was time to go inside.  Then grandma would tell stories with her slow, southern, Mississippi drawl.  Sometimes my dad or uncles might tell a ghost story or two.  As we sat around the living room listening to the adults talking I was busy watching my Uncle Arthur making his homemade cigarettes.  It was almost like an art and I was always fascinated by this.  Soon it was late and time for bed.  My cousins would go home and we'd all fall into our fluffy, white marshmallow beds and sleep soundly (unless there was a tornado) and then it was a mad dash for the storm cellar!