A Story

So, my nephew is 6 and his favorite thing in the world is to ask me, "Tell me a story from when you were a little girl." He's done it often enough now that when the Husband is bored he looks at me and says in his best imitation of JV "Tell me a story from when you were a little girl."

We were driving up to see my parents (who am I kidding? We were chauffeuring the Boy up to see his grandparents and were happily rewarded with yummy dinner and some awesome fleecy pajamas for the Boy) and the Husband turns to me and says, "Tell me a story from when you were a little girl."

So this is what I told him.

When I was a little girl we lived in Tennessee. And my grandpa lived in a tiny town about an hour or so away from the other town where we lived. I remember (vaguely, I was really little) that we would get in the car to drive out to visit my grandpa. East Tennessee is really hilly so there are lots of hills that my dad would race up and then we would drop down over the top so that our tummies plummeted a bit. Anyway, we would turn on to this country road and then onto a little dirt lane that went up hill a bit. We would tumble out of the car and up to the porch and into our grandpa's house that smelled of old fashioned peppermint and tobacco smoke, up into his lap for the hugs and kisses and the quarter he would give us to buy a Brown Cow down at the Piggly Wiggly.


And then us kids would sort of scatter...for my part I usually ended up out in the barn or on the back porch and here is why. My grandpa always kept cats for keeping mice out of the barn so as a child it always seemed like there were kittens. No matter the time of year, there were always kittens. And further more there were lots of kittens. As an adult I look back and know that there were probably only 6 or so kittens at a time, but as a child it seemed like hordes of kittens. And they were small and sweet and so friendly (usually because I had snatched some milk to give to them) and I would sit out there and chase and hold and pet kittens for hours. (Never mind that they were probably flea ridden and wormy and half feral, I was a child and it was positively wonderful!)

I suppose it's the fall weather that brought this to my mind this past weekend. The leaves have all turned here and are starting to fall industriously to the ground. It is my favorite time of year. Aside from longing to be back in school again, it's just full of wonderful things. The leaves turning red and orange and gold and then that wonderful crunch crunch crunch under foot and think of the lovely smell; the cool crisp air, the crunchy apples and the short days which make for wonderful evenings reading.

Which reminds me, I have the last fifty pages of my book to finish and Bed Sweet Bed is calling.

So tell me, what's your favorite part about fall?