| In My Backyard - I used to help my mom and dad plant the garden. It was tough then - I remember dad would plow the rows with that old hand-held plow and we were made to go along behind and plant the seed. We used to use a metal contraption that you would put seed into and stick it down into the soil and shoot the seed into the ground. I remember sometimes dad would get a friend over with a horse and plow to do the rows. Tilling the garden wasn't too bad for us boys but boy did we hate it when we had to weed it. That was the worst part about planting a garden - doing the hard work of keeping the weeds out. But after it was all done, it was nice to reap the benefits of fresh corn, potatoes, peas, tomatoes, onions and other vegetables all during the winter that mom would freeze for us. |
| In My Backyard - My mom had the unpleasant job of getting meat on the table. Of course, like a lot of other families during that era, we kept chickens in the backyard. Grandma Heavner would come over every so often and her and mom would do the necessary for chicken dinner. I know when I mention this to my kids now it makes them sick. But mom and grandma would go out in the backyard, grab a chicken or two, and ring their necks. I remember watching them do this - and it wasn't a pretty sight! But we had to have food on the table and this was a cheap way to get it. We didn't have roosters, just regular chickens. That's why most of the time we would get our eggs from Mr and Mrs Hutchinson - neighbors that lived down the street from us. They had the chicken houses and screened in pens. |
| In My Backyard - We also had another way we got our food. We raised hogs. We had a hogpen back across the little swamp area behind the house - far enough away so the smell would't get too close. You've heard the phrase "slopping the hogs" - well, I did it. Many times. Those old hogs would just love to lay around in the mud in those pens. We used to take feed to them and mix it with water and they loved it. Of course, we had to feed them good in order to get plenty of sausage and bacon later. I never had to do it, but dad and some of his buddies would go out when they were good and fat and slaughter them. I don't think I would have the will to do that today. But it had to be done. When they got the hog dressed out, they would take the meat up to the Rockingham Locker Plant for freezing. That way, we had fresh sausage or bacon whenever we needed it. |
| In My Backyard - Picking blackberries. This was one of my favorite desserts. We had blackberry bushes at the bottom of our backyard and many times we would pick them clean. You would have to be careful because there were thorns on the bushes that would really hurt if they stuck you. But it was worth it to get some homebade blackberry cobbler that mom would make. Plums. This was another fruit we enjoyed. The best plum bushes were found behind the Jenkins house. Most of the time we would just eat them right off the vine but also we would get our moms to make jelly with them. Boy, that was some good stuff! Grapes. Another good fruit we would pick behind our homes. But it seems we liked to make grape wine out of those more than anything. We would put them in mason jars, bury them in the ground in the woods, and go back a few weeks later and have some great wine. |
| In My Backyard - I remember one year my dad decided to buy us a pony. But we had to have somewhere to put him. Dad and some of his friends fenced in the woods behind our house with barbed wire. He also built a little barn for the pony. I don't remember what he paid for it but he also bought a buggy at the same time. The pony's name was Trigger and he was a mean little cuss. Whenever we rode him, he would try to scrape us off by brushing up against anything he could find. Sometimes when we rode him he would run as fast as he could and then stop - trying his best to throw us off. But we loved riding him - especially when we used the buggy. Our favorite place to take the buggy was behind the Jenkins house. But once you got moving pretty good in that buggy, Trigger would take a curve too fast and turn it over and throw us out. And he kept going. It would take a good while to chase him down. But the whole neighborhood enjoyed that pony. |
| In My Backyard - When I was a kid, there used to be a an empty lot full of pine trees between my house and the Brigmans - I believe Charles Freeman's family lives there now. I remember many times walking through that lot going to see Mr and Mrs Brigman. Mr Brigman was a carpenter and had two sons and two daughters, Jimmy and Walter, and Glenne and Helen. He was always building something and we loved to watch. One memory still stays with me. Glenne married a guy named Roy Landry. They had a son named Shoeford. Roy was a tough guy and was very muscular. So, naturally he wanted his boy to follow in his footsteps. Little Shoeford had to be tough - and he was. I remember quite a few times he would be playing on the front porch with his dad and would fall off onto the ground - and come up laughing. Nothing hurt that kid. I'm sure his dad was happy with the way his son was a tough guy just like him. |
| In My Backyard - We did some pretty stupid things when I was a kid....as is written in other sections of My Memories. Referring to the pine tree lot above, all the boys in the neighborhood loved to meet there. And, everyone would bring their BB guns. The Jenkins boys, the Hewitt boys, the Comer boys, to name a few. One of our favorite pastimes was playing cops and robbers. Everyone would put their big coats on backwards so you would get more protection from the front. That way when you got shot with a BB gun, it wouldn't hurt as bad. One particular incident I remember involved my friend Murphy Comer. We had finished our round of cops and robbers and everybody was setting around talking. I assumed I had used all my BBs in my gun. I remember Murphy was sitting on an old swing we had there and I made a bet that my gun was empty. Well, to prove how sure I was of it being empty, I pointed it right at Murphy's face and pulled the trigger! Next thing I knew, blood was flowing pretty fast from between his eyes where the BB had landed. It scared us all to death! We rushed him back to his house and his mom took him to the hospital. He and I were very lucky the BB had not hit him in the eye. But that taught me a lesson I would never forget. Never point a gun where you don't want to shoot! My dad made sure I remembered that lesson from then on - with a belt! |
| So, as the Train of Life keeps chugging along, another page written of my Childhood Memories of.... Rockingham Remembered. |
| My BackYard Memories |
| See if you experienced any of these BackYard memories of your own.... |
|
|