Wonderful fun in the days of innocence.........

Good evening everyone. I'm happy to say that I've made it through another Monday. A real plus is, I have the same number of body parts that I did last Monday. A small accomplishment to some but something that looms large considering my track record. ( :-D ) I have what I consider a real treat with this post. At least I'll enjoy writing it. It's about a lad of about 6 years old (give or take a bit). This lad is blonde with big brown eyes and has a thin frame. He's maybe three feet ten inches to four feet tall and weighs( if soaking wet) maybe seventy pounds or so. This young lad lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and has most of his life. Once a year his family takes a 'vacation' to see family in and around Jasper, Alabama. This is the highlight of his year. It's where he gets most all of his "show and tell" material for school. His favorite place in the whole world is out in the country at his paternal grandparents home. At this magical place there is no limit of things to see and do. Not far down a dirt road there is what's left of an old sawmill. The equipment is gone but left behind are three HUGE piles of sawdust. These must have been sixty feet high. There were days that this young lad, along with several cousins about his age or a bit older maybe, spent the entire day playing. At the end of the day, or more precisely, at dinner time when called in by adults we'd troop back to the house. There would be a line of us with sawdust on and in every crack, crevice or orfice in our little bodies. My grandparents didn't have running water at that time, so before allowed in the house for dinner we had to clean up. The ususal procedure was for all of us to strip down to our birthday suits, or more literally said, naked and have an adult draw water from the well and pour on us slowly till we were reasonably clean, or at least somewhat free of sawdust. He still remembers well how frigid the water from the well was. At that point they all put on bed clothes and weren't allowed out, except for going in the large yard to catch lightening bugs. The next day He was up early and pondering what to do on that day. If it was winter he'd lie in bed covered by so many quilts he could barely move under the weight of them. After counting to three numerous times to get started he'd finally crawl out from under the quilts, grab his clothes that were laid out for him, and run for the kitchen. Upon arrival there he'd run behind the wood stove that his grandmother was cooking breakfast on and get dressed. Oh yeah, one of the wonderful things that would happen, his grandfather would say"Hi Mikey". Oh, the wonderful smell of bacon early in morning of a day that was fully looked forward to. One went to bed wishing that morning would come quickly so the days adventures could commence. The days adventures would include waiting for the steam train that hauled coal from the mine to the steel mills in fairfield. The train would head toward the mine about mid-morning to load up and would come back loaded with coal about mid-afternoon. On it's way back it would most always stop at the huge water tank beside their house to take on water. As the fireman and engineer would water the boiler we'd stand as close as the adults would allow us and wait for the steam to vent. We knew it was going to happen but it never failed to scare us. We were transfixed by the whole experience. After the train finished taking on water and departed we'd "sneak" off down the tracks in the direction of the "big" trussle that spanned the creek that ran behind their house. Sometime we'd be able to get out of sight of the adults before we were called back. Upon accomplishing that, we'd turn and run for the trussle because we knew the train would not come back till the next day. When arriving at the trussle we'd begin working at getting courage enough to acutally walk out onto it. Between every crosstie one could see the water below. It wasn't actually a very high trussle but to a young lad it seemed like a long way down. Most of us before we grew up finally did begin to walk across and back. Well, I've run out of time and space on this particular post, so I'll keep the rest to tell another day. Besides, you wouldn't want everything at once, would you? So, leaving more for another day I'll say goodnight for now, but don't worry, there is more to come. .......and so it went.......