Today I received a text from my dad, who's on business in Arkansas. He was letting us know that he had driven by the house we grew up in and how rough it looked, and that the big barn was gone. All at once a huge wave of pain and sadness overwhelmed me. As I sat there starting to recall some of the memories of my childhood, more texts from my mom and sister started to come in. Not only was our barn gone, the barn where I spent 90% of my childhood, but so was the Oak Grove Store where my granny used to work.
My granny has been gone for over 10 years now, but the memories I have of visiting her at that store will always be my favorite. We'd take a trip to town in the old pickup, almost always sitting in the very back. You could do that back then. Life was simpler. We would spend so much time searching for what we wanted, looking over every item; always settling on the same exact thing. Ashley, my sister, would always pick out a Pepsi and a Carmelo. I would always pick a pack of candy cigarettes and a pack of beef jerky that came in a tobacco shaped can. (I told mom today that surely that was a sign of the rebellion that was to come?) I can't recall what Levi, my brother, got. He was so little when we lived there. We would take it up to the front and granny would ring it up. I don't know if we got it for free because she worked there or if she or my dad paid for it. So many times we would sit behind the counter and help her. We would take money from the customers and pop the tops off the sodas for them using the bottle opener behind the counter. How many kids can say they did that?
While I have been blessed beyond measure with my husband and three children, the memories of my childhood and living on a farm just can't be compared. I can put on a dress, curl my hair, and rock some smoke eye make up with the best of them, but at my core you will find a country girl. That will never change. There are no city lights, no street noise and no traffic jams where I come from. There's just miles of hills, dirt roads and creeks. Creeks where we caught crawdads and pastures where we played in cow patties. But more than anything, my best memories were from views off the ground and on the back of a horse. I can't even put into words the joy that fills my heart and the smile that covers my face when I think about riding horses on our farm.
I would've traded in every friend I had for one of my horses. And that's saying something because I was just as social then as I am now! There's just a peace about a horse. There's a knowing that they have. They sense your fear. They sense your love and your joy. My favorite horse was named JoDee; after JoDee Messina. Only a country girl would name her horse after a country music singer.
While I ride around in an SUV instead of on the back of a sorrow quarter horse these days, I'm proud to say we still have a Ford pickup parked in the drive. We own land that will be the site of our future home. It will be where we teach our children how to shoot a gun, ride a horse, cast a line, and catch crawdads. More importantly than anything, it will be their Oak Grove. It will be the place they can recall one day with the, hopefully, the same smile when they think of the memories that they made there. And Lord willing, they can drive by it one day and never see it without rose colored glasses.
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