A Simpler Time…

I’m transported back to my youth, well some of my youth any way. A slower pace of living. Time spent in a safe space, my Uncle Floyd and Aunt Becky’s place. A place set in the hills of Tennessee, where my brothers and cousins and I roamed free. The barn, ohhh the stories that old barn could tell…long gone is the barn but the memories linger on.

I remember sloppin the hogs, gathering eggs, tending the cows and my brothers having to go work the ‘baccer: fields (that’s tobacco and trust me it’s not fun). The stories we still laugh at today…whispers of seedy, sordid tales – moonshine running, backwoods stills, and other misundry.

Some, if not most, of my favorite tales are recalled with laughter…”Patti remember that time you went out and fed the baby calf?” Well to let y’all in on the family laughter, I have a passion for all animals and decided to feed the calf in the barn. That sweet little baby was being bottle fed…so I bottle fed a bit and then decide to let that calf suck on my chin…and then I proceeded into the house, my job all done. As soon as I walked through the doors, everyone and I do mean everyone was laughing as hard as they could. I was clueless (yes a natural towheaded blonde). I finally meander through the crowd (there’s a bunch of us Cases) and make it to the bathroom. I look in the mirror and much to my surprise I am sporting a big ole calf slobber of a chin hickey. Ohhh yes we still laugh to this day.

Another time in the barn, my cuz (who’s really like my sister) and I were spying on my oldest brother (for everyone’s sake I’ll leave out the sordid details-I value my life lol). So at any rate, spying we are and a big ole fart sounds an alarm…I swear it was Connie and she swears it was me…we still blame each other to this day. Tears of joy are rolling down my face as I type. Oh yeah my brother really came after us and we had to high tail it to the house.

The last tale for now is a church going. See my Aunt Becky brought us up right and we always went to church. She and my uncle really taught us about prayer and being good people (for which I am forever and eternally grateful). So here we all go, off to Wednesday night church. We are probably filling up half the pews in a small country church that still stands today – like I said there’s a lot of us Cases. It’s time for some praise and singing. The preacher calls for anyone who would like to praise the Lord to come on down. Well this older lady (mind you we were about 10 or 12 so she was “old”) goes down to the front and asks the preacher to sing with her and he politely declined. She starts singing and the “old man” she “likes” comments that she can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Mind you Connie and I are sitting right there in front of him and we get tickled and start giggling while she is singing, then my cousins in front of us start giggling, then the next row of cousins and my brothers start giggling and before you know it pert near the whole church is giggling. Well Aunt Becky “shushed” us and gave us that look…you know the look, the one mother’s give when they’re about to have you meet Jesus in person. When she got us all home there was heck to pay but truth be know she giggled a little too. Yes, we were wrong but it was funny and we still laugh to this day – we laugh at how much trouble we got in because we knew we deserved it.

Oh to go back to a simpler time and breath in that sacred peace! Peace, joy, love, and happiness always wraps me up like a warm blanket when I am home in the hills of Tennessee.