First Home

Sometimes I feel completely at odds with myself, I just can't seem to get my thoughts to go along with the way I feel.

I want to do something outside, or I want to be completely alone in the house.  I feel very reminiscent about some of my childhood experiences, so maybe I will write some of them down on paper and that will help me to see why I feel so very lonesome and blue.

I remember one day in the heat of a very hot August in the hills of West Virginia where we lived when I was a child.  Our house was always either on the very top of a mountain or at the head of a dark and green holler.  My Father was a farmer when I was very small, but when I started to school, he left the farm and went away to work on the C & O railroad.  This left Mommie and six or seven of us kids at home to do what work that needed to be done.

One holler I remember well was also after you climbed up a very steep hill, then you had to go around the side of the mountain and then almost hold onto the tree trunks to keep from falling into the creek.

This house was very small, almost like Snuffy Smith's in the comic strips.  There was the kitchen where we cooked, ate and sat around the table to talk, do our homework and whatever else we did.  We couldn't see to do much because we never had good lamps.  I can't remember whether it was the wicks, dirty chimneys or bad kerosene.  All I can remember is that I couldn't do much homework or sew, so mostly I just went to bed and lay there dreaming that some day I would have a nice house and bright lights and a couch or davenport to sit on.  There would have to be bedrooms for everybody.  I think that one of the hardest times for me to live with was that I never could have things for me or have anyone come home with me to play or eat.  We would always have a new baby or my Mama was sick.

This memory is just there in my mind. I can't put it in the proper place. Please excuse this lapse of memory.