Gulf Shores Vacation

Good evening and it is good for we have just had a nice rain shower which we needed greatly. Our area is heavily agricultural and rain in a dry spell is most welcome. Our poor yard and pond are drying up and I hope the fishes last through this dry period.

I know I haven't written in a while but I have been going through a brain dead, writer's block, plumb worn out time period and have not wanted to write anything. This is most unusual for me since I usually have something to say about everything so after the rest, I am ready to go again.

As you can tell from the pictures, we have been to the beach - Gulf Shores, AL. This is the beach we went to as children and we paid for it with selling the peaches our daddy raised. We also carried out children there when we could and our grandchildren have also been there. It is a special place for us to visit and we have great memories of our childhood there.

Daddy used to love driving the bumper cars with a great big cigar clamped in his mouth and bumping into everyone. We would try to outrun him with no luck and he would be having a ball and laughing hilariously as he bumped us. Most of the time I would wait until he had his fun and had bumped and jostled my brothers before I would get in a car. I can see that big cigar and grin now as he raced around the floor. Mama would just shake her head and say, "Ott, quit acting like a child" but he was having too much fun. It was not often we saw our daddy just relax and have fun so those days at Gulf Shores were special.

Last summer while we were in Texas visiting our families, I suggested to my niece that it would be fun to meet somewhere for a family vacation and she planned a trip to our favorite beach and we invited all the family to meet us there. It was impossible for some to come due to other responsibilities but those who could come had a great time.

This is Katelyn, our oldest great niece and we had a great time together. She is a very good softball player and loves the water. She is growing up so quickly and is becoming quite a young lady.

Morgan, the middle sister and second great niece is a loving, early riser. She was usually the first one to greet us each morning as we drank our coffee with a great big smile and hug. I totally enjoyed the loving and sweet smile.


Taylor is the baby girl but is no longer a "baby." A sweet, quiet, little girl with a wonderful personality who loves her Me Maw more than anyone except her mama. She was like a little sprite flitting around the house full of fun and giggles.


This is me with 2 of our nieces on the beach. We had fun collecting shells, driftwood, making bracelets, drawing and just chilling out. I sure wish we lived closer together so I could see them every day but I am afraid I would spoil them rotten for I enjoy them so much.

The couple at the beginning are the parents of these lovely children and they are doing a great job in raising these girls. Greg brought fresh boudin sausage from Louisiana and made the best sausage and scrambled eggs I ever eaten. He is a great cook and we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast every morning along with the waffle and pancakes from Beth. We ate well every day and weight was gained by all.

Listening to Greg play the guitar and sing out on the porch, talking with Beth, Martha and Lane, playing with the girls, visiting with a friend from long ago and sitting with my sweet husband on the porch made a wonderful vacation. New memories were made and old ones remembered. We really missed those who could not come but maybe next year more of us can be together for we plan to meet somewhere on the Gulf Coast next year.

It's good to talk to you again and tomorrow I will share a good recipe I used last week - quick, easy and delicious and best of all chocolate.

Ya'll take care.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach

CHILDREN AT PLAY

FAMILY

Good evening. Ya'll come on in out of the rain and have a cup of coffee for I am about to make a fresh pot. It's rainy and with the air conditioning it's cool enough to drink coffee. We are so glad to see the rain for we needed it to keep our grass alive for it was rather dry. Thank goodness we have a deep well so that we can water our yard and it not cost us an arm and a leg.

I read an article recently which set me to thinking about children and summertime. This was the "bestest" time of the year for us when we were growing up out in the country. We would ride bikes, play in the dirt under the house, climb trees, picnic down at the creek or just run and chase each other. We didn't have any close neighbors, one car which daddy drove to work, and mama didn't make "play dates" for us but we were busy as little bees from morning to night. Come to think of it, I don't think "play dates" had been invented at this time.

We also didn't have TV, gameboys, telephone, cell phones or any other electronic gadgets. We did have bikes, trikes, dolls, little cars and trucks, tea sets, playhouse behind the hedges, paperdolls, paper and crayons, dogs, unlimited space to roam and a mother who fixed picnic lunches for us. Days were not long enough to do all we wanted to do so after dark we caught fireflies and put them in quart jars and played in the dark. Grumbling would be fierce when mama and daddy made us come in and get ready for bed. Don't worry for mama always made us turn the fireflies out before we came in although we wanted to keep them and see if we could see by their light in the dark.

When night did come, what did we do without all the electronic stuff of today? I always had books I had checked out from the library and the boys had an erector set, Lincoln logs, little cars, and we played board games. We actually talked to each other and occasionally would make up plays and present them to our parents. It was not a huge problem for we would be so tired from playing hard all day we would go to sleep rather early so we would be ready to play the next day.

The article I read talked about how the children have disappeared. When you drive through the average residential neighborhood how many children do you see playing outside? Occasionally you can see one riding a bike, trike or scooter but not many. Where are they? Has the "Pied Piper taken them away?

I began to think about this and take note of this strange occurrence. Guess where they are - in the house or at daycare. They are sitting in front of TVs watching cartoons or worse, playing with their gameboys, x-boxes and so forth, eating junk food and vegetating. Some have to stay in the house and not answer the door for both parents are working or they just don't see the need to run and play outside. Many live in apartments and can't go outside to play unless a parent takes them to the playground or park. How sad.

Recently we visited kin folk in Texas and some of them have children. I was pleased that the parents limit TV and other electronic mind grabbers and the children play outside. They are taken to the park to have additional room and play equipment and each afternoon after supper several couples gather outside and the children play in the yards and the parents watch, supervise and talk. They practice softball, play chase, ride bikes and scooters and interact with each other and actually have conversations. Like us when it is time to go inside they are not "happy campers."

During the day when it is so hot they are still busy as little beavers. Morgan likes to teach and her little sister, Taylor, is her pupil. They use the computer to play educational games which teach language, math and hand and eye coordination. They write, play with their toys and sometimes help mama. Katelyn likes to sing and dance and play with the little kiddos.

Do they get bored and fight and fuss? Of course they do for they are siblings and you are supposed to fuss and fight but overall they are quite satisfied. We thought it was outstanding that they played outside, could carry on a conversation and didn't require an electronic device to entertain them.

Many of our children do not know how to play. My niece was telling me that some schools are hiring teachers to teach children how to play and interact with each other for they don't know how. Take away the "mind grabbers" and they are lost and cannot function. They don't know how to talk to each other, how to share or how to play with others. This is heart breaking to even think about and what kind of parents will they be? They are selfish and self-centered and think the whole world revolves around them. This is so sad.

So if you have children, take them outside for goodness sakes. Run with them, play with them, and talk with them. They have amazing ideas to teach us. Did you know they can tell you about the differences in butterflies and moths and how many legs each have? They know the best ice cream flavors and where the best parks are. They are just filled with valuable information we all need to know.

I like to sit and watch them play for you can see their little bodies soaking in the sun, splash in the water, run, jump, swing and chase the dog. I hope I never loose the joy of childhood for life will be very boring if I do. If you don't have any children in your life borrow one from the frazzled mother down the street who needs a break for she will surely appreciate it and you will gain a little friend(s) who you can enjoy. Have some fun.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach

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Summer Vacations at Gulf Shores

Polk Summer Vacations

Good evening. Hope ya'll have had a good day even though if you live in the South, you were hot. Another day I have stayed in the house to stay cool and drank lots of cold coke and tea. It has been a lazy day for me – haven't accomplished a whole lot. But that's alright, for at my age I have earned the right to be lazy if I want to.
Not sure why, but I thought about our childhood summer vacations today. Now some of our friends would go to Gulf Shores, AL, some to Panama City, FL, some to the mountains and you get the picture. Until I was a teenager, our summer vacations were to Mississippi to visit our grandparents. This was a given since it was free except for gas money and daddy always went to help granddaddy on the farm.
About this time of the summer or a little later, after mama had canned and frozen most everything in the garden, we would begin our preparation for the trip to Mississippi. It would be for a week and we would leave on Friday afternoon when daddy got home from work most of the time. Mama would have everything packed; daddy would load the car and off the 5 of us would go. Sometimes we would wait until Saturday morning or daddy would take Friday off and we would travel during the day but not often.
I now think we traveled at night so the 3 of us children would sleep most of the way and not bother daddy while he drove. Anyway, it took a lot of preparation for us to get ready. Mama would sew for weeks making us new shorts, shirts, halters, and sun suits. She and I would always have new dresses to wear to church to impress all the kinfolks and show them how well we were doing. Not sure why this mattered, but it was a big deal to mama and grandmamma. She would also cook cakes, cookies, carry fresh everything from the garden and gifts for the grandparents. That car would be loaded to the roof with all the stuff we needed, or mama thought we needed.
Now daddy's idea of taking a trip was to go from point A to point B with no detours, no food stops, and no restroom stops unless you were bursting or he needed to go. Because we were traveling most of the way through the country, there were not many places to stop so we had to be inventive. With daddy and the boys, restroom stops were no big deal for any tree by the side of the road would be sufficient, but mama and I, being ladies, were a bit handicapped. We had to have a restroom with toilet paper unless it was impossibility. We have made do behind a BIG tree with tissue but it was not our druthers, as mama would say. We would hold it until our eyeballs were floating and we came to a service station. As I said, these were few and far between so our eyeballs floated a lot.
The food was no big deal. Mama had taken care of that before we left home by packing tomato sandwiches, homemade cookies or slices of cake, fruit and iced tea in a thermos. Daddy would stop and get us cold drinks as a special treat. Sometimes we would stop and picnic by the side of the road, but most of the time we ate as we went merrily down the road to grandmother's house. We always had plenty of food for mama was the best cook in the world and made sure there was always something to eat as we traveled. There were no rest stops but we could always find a little store along the way or a nice place by the side of the road to picnic, but remember, daddy was always in a hurry to get there so it would be a "brief" stop.
If we traveled at night, it was better for it would be cooler. In the "olden days" we didn't have air conditioned cars except to roll the windows down. I do mean "roll" for you had a handle with a knob which you hand-rolled down the glass in the window. Automatic anything had not been invented. You rolled down all the windows, let your hair blow and tried to stay cool. We would lay a quilt down in the floor in the back and one of us would sleep there. One would sleep on the seat, and the "littlest" one would crawl up behind the back seat under the back windshield and sleep. Remember, seat belts had not been invented except for the arm mama would fling across your chest if you stopped suddenly.
Now this was not accomplished without much fussing and arguing about who got what spot, but eventually we would wear ourselves out arguing or daddy would quietly say, "Do I have to take my belt off?" Now we knew that meant the car would be stopped, the belt came off and we 3 got a spanking along with a sermon from mama about our behavior. There was none of this counting to three, telling us multiple times stop, time out or time in, just that quiet voice asking if the belt needed to come off. Needless to say we settled that argument quickly and quietly.
It took us hours and hours and hours plus some more hours to get to Bassfield and then another hour or so to get to granddaddy Sam's house. Not really, but as children is seemed that long. We would ask the proverbial question, "How much longer?" many times and daddy's standard answer was, "Bout that long" as he measured about an inch with his finger. We would sigh and say, "Aw daddy, how much longer, really?" and we would get the same answer as he looked at mama and grinned. They seemed to get a big kick out of teasing us children, but that's OK for they loved us and we knew it.
Now daddy had one bad habit on trips which would drive us crazy. He only smoked cigars when we traveled and they would be BIG cigars. After we pulled out of our driveway and got on the way to Mississippi, he would pull that big cigar out of his shirt pocket, bite of the end, spit it out the window and light up. Now you talking about smelly, that thing took the cake. He would puff on that thing and smell up the whole car even with the windows down. I can't remember what brand they were, but knowing my daddy's thriftiness, they weren't the expensive kind. When he finished with one, he would get another one. Not sure why he did this on trips but years later, he apologized to us for smoking those things. We would arrive at our grandparents stinking like a cheap cigar every time. They didn't care, but I can remember not liking it one little bit.
I didn't realize I had so many memories about these trips so I will just have to make a series of vacation tales. There are other tales about swimming in the creek, fishing in the ponds, playing and many other exciting adventures so I will write about these later.
Needless to say, these trips to our grandparents are treasured memories that we take out, talk about and remember with fondness and I hope you have some of same, sweet memories.
Nuff said,
The Georgia Peach
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