MEMORIES

I hope I didn't already tell this story, but having my Mom here brought back a lot of old memories.

My cousin Judy (the tattle-tale and adult ass kisser) was with us for the summer. My cousin Tom walked down to spend the day. My folks decided to go somewhere for the day and us four were left home alone (ages 10 to 12). Of course, my Grandma lived next door in case of emergency.

Anyway, my ass-kissing cousin told my folks that she and I would clean the house while they were gone. The boys kind of laughed at us, grabbed the wagon and headed on off. They were on their way to scour the roadside for bottles and walk three miles into town to trade them in for candy. This was our favorite summer pasttime and about the only candy we got. By the time they came back, we'd changed the beds, swept, and were starting on a huge sink of dishes.

They had taken some blankets to make a tent on the lawn so I had to sneak out to see how large the spoils were. They'd had a good day. There was about a gosh damn peck of penny candy. Even the ass kisser wanted some of that. We sneaked back to the tent and the fight was on. I don't mean argument-I mean fistfight. When any of us would complain to my mother that so and so hurt us she would say "Shut the hell up and fight it out". We became very tough.
Anyway, after about 45 minutes or so, we wound up with our fair share and headed back to the house.

One of us had left the water in the sink running. Now my Dad was a cheapskate and we were nagged every day about wasting hot water. Also, the house had hardwood floors and there was about an inch of standing water through the whole house. Our asses were grass and our folks were going to mow it when they came home.

I went to get the boys. You understand that the fist fighting was kind of a normal thing with no hard feelings. The boys knew they owed us the candy. They just wanted us to work for it. They came in, took one look, grabbed a broom and went and borrowed Grammie's broom and extra mop and pail. They were sweeping the water out the door and my cousin and I mopped behind them. My Grandmas was wise and never walked over to see what we were doing.

Well, we got it all done and the floor was dry when my parents got home. You never heard so much praise for how nice the house looked and for the fact that every floor was so clean. This was one time I truly felt bad for the ass kisser because our present for cleaning was a new book for all of us (I never figured out why the boys always got a present because they didn't usually clean) and she didn't much like to read.

That was one thing my folks did right. My whole family loves to read. My folks also never censored what we read. I read Mandingo when I was thirteen. When we were old enough to choose, we chose not to read smut, but everything was our choice.

Anyway, that's a story for today.