No one else in my family remembers this. Over twenty years ago, I told my mother and my sister this story from my childhood. They were both there when it happened. The story didn’t sound familiar to them. Maybe I just dreamed it, but I don’t think so. It feels much more like a memory than a dream. But I’m the only one who remembers Itty Bitty, the calico kitty.
Read MoreThe Little Boy And The Big Fish
For a five-year-old sharecropper’s son, every season is like a new life. The passage of time does not seem to register. All I knew was that the weather started warming up and Daddy started plowing the fields and planting the cotton. The bare-limbed trees in the forest that surrounded our house began to turn green. The grass in the front yard started growing again. Soon Daddy would be out there on Saturday mornings with a sling blade, mumbling words I was not supposed to repeat. The tall weeds and bushes on the side of the house, out past the clothesline, sometimes produced baby bunnies that would sleepily sun themselves, just this side of the tall weeds … until I tried to run and catch one.
Read MoreThat Old Abandoned House
When it is the 1950s and you are five years old, the son of a sharecropper, when you are an adventurous little kid, when the occasional whack of a hickory stick against your behind does not deter you from ignoring your mother’s instructions … sometimes you might take things a little too far.
I was that five-year-old kid.
Read MoreCornbread
before baby sister came along and spoiled everything
it was just me and mama and daddy around the supper table
mama would cook up some beans
daddy would work the cotton fields
don’t tell nobody
but I’d probably be out exploring the forest down behind the barn
The Young Man and the Lake
“Well, look at that. I ain’t been here since I wuz a boy, myself. It ain’t changed much. My daddy used to bring me here.”
They parked on the little hill under some trees, grabbed their poles, and headed down to the lake.
“There’s gotta be some big fish in there.” Daniel stood on the bank, looking into the water.
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