Memories of a Wonderful Place
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By John Brasse
More than half a century and a fragrant honeysuckle memory away in a hilly county in north Mississippi on a dusty country road, four miles south of Coffeeville, I’m going home to a place that shines in my heart like a lighted window on a dark night. That is the place I learned right from wrong, Mama was a great cook, fishing was fun, Daddy was a great carpenter, homemade ice cream with fresh peaches was the best thing ever, and a little shaggy dog named Butch would kill a snake to protect me and would live on in my heart forever. That’s the place where my sister Patsy would study by a kerosine lamp and read to me from Grim’s Fairy Tales and teach me to pick blackberries and muscadines. It was there that she taught me that poor kids could decorate beautiful Christmas trees and enjoy simple gifts. It was there that I dreamed of being a brave soldier like the brother that I never knew until after we had electricity and I was almost school age. His name was Wm. Earl but Patsy called him “Wig”. When he came home on leave, he built me a little toy truck out of wooden blocks with wheels made from thin slices of an old broom handle. It became my most prized possession as I drove it around a dirt road he constructed with a hoe and lined with a fence made of match sticks and string. If for only a few days my dream had come true, to have a real big brother who knew what little boys liked to do, not the brother in my sister’s memories. I pouted when he went back to the Army, but that little wooden truck was never replaced by store bought toys.
It was quite a place in an innocent time where a shy blonde haired country boy spent hours alone with his dreams and imagination. A place where simple things like the rocks on a gravel road and a piece of one by four board provided a miniature version of a major league baseball game played by only one. It was a place where the only friends I needed were my dog and my colleagues that humans would never see. They were in my mind, but I think Butch knew they were there.
It was the place where we had a big vegetable garden and Mama and Daddy shared with less fortunate friends and neighbors. It was the place where I caught a yellow school bus daily to go to a school where I learned from some of the best teachers imaginable. I was blessed to have a wonderful class where I met many lifelong friends. They all still live in my mind. I occasionally play with them in my dreams, mostly in games of sports. Hubert Jr., Carnes, Alan, Barry and Wesley are always there. Dreams are fun but life sucks, only Barry and I remain, and I never see him. But, after a night of dreams with the boys of my youth I woke up with a smile. Yes, they are over a half century in the past but only a sweet, fragrant honey suckle, memory away.
