Kentucky Bound Wake up sleepyheads! I can remember Mommy waking us up around 2 or 3 oclock in the morning. Its time to head south shed say. We already had everything ready to take with us. The car was already packed so all we had to do is brush our teeth and grab our blanket and pillow and get in the car and get comfortable because we knew it was going to be a long ride. We had a red and white 1958 Oldsmobile. Brother Wayne was just a baby and he slept up in the front seat in a wicker clothes basket on a pillow. while the rest of us slept in the back. We didnt have seatbelts back then. Two of us slept on the seat and then the other 2 slept on each side of the hump in the floor. We werent very big kids so it seemed like we had plenty of room. We didnt eat breakfast because we knew that aunt Dora would have breakfast ready for us when we got there. And we didnt have air conditioning either so some of our trips got a little warm. Not to bad because we traveled at night. Daddy said it was so much nicer for us travel at night because we kids slept most of the way and there wasnt much traffic. Mommy always had things for us to snack on the trip and she always had water for us. We didnt get sodas to drink. On Friday night is when we got to drink sods. Mommy would buy Double Cola in the bottles and then when Daddy would go with his friends and play music we would pop popcorn and have snacks and watch TV. So by the time we got to aunt Doras house we could smell the fried sausage or the fried chicken and potatoes and gravy & biscuits cooking. and she always fried eggs and biscuits and with fried apples. That long trip was worth it to get to sit down and eat a great meal! After breakfast all of us kids got to go outside and play till it was lunch time. Aunt Dora & Uncle Taylor had a big tire attached to the end of their house and we all would take turns swinging on it. Their house sat at the edge of a big huge hill and as we swung out we went over the big hill. It was fun and scary at the same time. Their house was up on Town Hill road there in Jackson. they had a long driveway. Aunt Dora always had a big barrel there beside the house that she collected rain water. She wouldnt be able to collect rainwater today! I remember one time that me and my cousin Ernie gave their little dog moonshine in a cup to drink. It wasnt much but that dog lapped it up so fast. We didnt know that the dog would get drunk. I thought that we had killed that poor thing. Needless to say that Ernie and I both got a hard whipping. Just to let everyone know the doggie was ok. I felt so bad after we had done it. One of the things that we all liked to do was tell ghost stories. so off wed go to the basement. My cousins Cleve and Clarence and Ernie were some really good ghost story tellers. and then right when the story that one of them was telling our cousin Cleve would flip the lights on and of! Of course us girls were scared to death and we would scream. There at Aunt Doras house they had an outhouse and it never failed that I would have to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night. I remember one night about 2 AM I woke my Mommy up to go to the bathroom. My Mommy learned to just keep a bucket out on the back porch that way we didnt have to walk quite a ways to the outhouse. I wouldnt go out there because I was o afraid of snakes! Anyway one night that I really had to go so bad that I couldnt wait till daylight I knocked the bucket over which in turn scared the cat which got the dogs to barking and they woke everyone. I was so embarrassed because they all knew what had happened. Aunt Doras house sat at the bottom of a big hill and to the right of the house and on top of that hill was a Cemetery. My cousin Ernie wanted us to go up there and sit in the Cemetery and tell ghost stories. NO way were we going to go up there. We always had to go and visit Grandpa Jimmy for awhile. They didnt have much room so we always stayed at Aunt Doras house and then we visited other relatives. When we went to visit Grandpa Jimmy we had to park our cars at the cutoff as they called it and walk up a hill and up out on the railroad tracks. We had to walk a short piece to their house. When the train would pass by Grandpas house I thought for sure that house would fall down. The train vibrated the ground that much. And that train was so loud and when the whistle was blown it hurt my ears so much! Grandpa Jimmy always wore the white handkerchief around his head with it doused with acholol to help with his headaches. We always gave him a hug but we didnt talk much to him. We were always interested in the horses and the other kids that were there! Grandma Bertha made the most delicious biscuits. I think everyone back then in Kentucky were great cooks on those stoves that you had to put wood in. I never understood how they didnt burn the food. I loved homemade biscuits and apple butter with homemade butter that was churned. I loved it when my Grandpa Dewey Clemons & Granny Stella Clemons lived in Jackson and we visited them too. They lived over by the river in Jackson and when we visited them I would sit and talk to Grandpa Dewey. I really loved that man almost as much as I loved my Daddy. He was always so kind to me and he always took up for me when Granny Stella would get onto me which seemed like it was most of the time. Grandpa Dewey and Granny Stella came to live with us at different times in Indianapolis and I treasured those times. When Grandpa died at the age of 71 ( the same age as my Daddy was when he died) it broke my heart! I had never seen someone that had died and when I went to his Funeral I was 22 years old. I remember asking Daddy to go up with me to see Grandpa in the casket. It was so hard. I was with Daddy & Mommy and Grandpa when he took his last breath in the hospital. We went on alot of vacations back to Kentucky. We always went on Decoration Day and put flowers on the graves up at the Hightop Cemetery where my baby sister is buried. I didnt like the actual trip because of the old curvy roads. I used to get car sick every time we would travel until my Granny Stella told Mommy to bring dill pickles and raw potatoes along. So every time I felt like I was going to get sick I would eat a dill pickle or a raw potato and they kept me from getting sick. Daddy and Mommy always said they were going to retire and move back to Kentucky or home as they called it. So in 1972 they moved back to Kentucky. they bought a house that was falling down in Campton, Kentucky in Wolfe County. They remodeled it and it looked so nice. I loved that place. Daddy built a wrap around porch and it had a back to back fireplace in it from the living room through to their bedroom. They had an outhouse for awhile but Daddy built an inside bathroom pretty quick. My brothers had a German Shepherd dog called Rex and he stayed on the front porch. It was so funny because my husband did not like German Shepherd dogs and one time when we were down there he had to go out to the outhouse in the middle of the night so he went to go out the back door. WELL he didnt get out there because Rex was there growling at him so Tom went to the front door and you guessed it there was Rex showing his teeth and growling so Tom came and woke me up and said come and get that dog right now!! so I had to hold Rex back so Tom go out to the outhouse. Tom never thought it was funny but I did. So both of us had an experiences with the out houses. Daddy and Mommy were so happy to be back home in Kentucky. Daddy and Mommy are both buried in the Resthaven Cemetery in Stanton, Kentucky. They ended up living in Clay City, Kentucky in Powell County when they died. I loved going back to visit them. Me and Daddy and Mommy would play and sing songs with our Guitars. Daddy had taught me how to play the guitar and 2 weeks before Daddy died from cancer he gave me his Martin guitar that Mommy had bought for him back in 1968. The Sunday morning 2 weeks before he died as we were walking out of the house he sat down his guitar and hugged me and said Carolyn when we come home from church I want you to carry this guitar back into the house because it will be yours I told him Daddy I cant do that. He said my time is almost over and so it will yours now. that was a very hard day for me. I still love to play and sing with HIS guitar. I feel his hands guiding me each time I play. I miss those trips that we took as a family. With Daddy and Mommy and Brother Wayne gone it just isnt home anymore. All 3 of them made their final trip home to Heaven. Written by Carolyn Robinson Green July 26, 2014
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 22:10:48 +0000