Beneath the Peter Pan tree and other tales...

We used to spend the night with MaMa & PaPa when our parents went out to eat on the weekends. Grant and I would spend the days out in the pines or riding the golf cart with PaPa to pick up trash along the side of the road. At night, we'd usually have an orange with a circle cut out of the top because we liked to suck out the juice and maybe some chocolate ice cream.
In the summer time, we'd sit out underneath the Peter Pan tree in the backyard and swing.
Being the lanky, skinny type I'd usually put my feet up on the swing and hug my legs while eating a pomegranate that Polly would bring over. I'd get those little indentions on the bottom of my feet from the holes in the swing. (The kind I get now on the back of my thighs...ugh...the joys of getting older.) If there wasn't a breeze, MaMa would get us to stay real still and keep quiet.
Then we'd listen for the distant hum of the mill's big air conditioner to come on...then we'd count as soon as it went off and wait for it to come on again.
Now that the mill is silent, and slowly being torn apart, piece by piece--all I can hear on a quiet, clear night is the muted sound of the train over on the other side of the river...and after it passes the three intersections, the soft rumble of the engine.
When we lived in the brown house, it would always lull me to sleep--the sounds of the country. The only loud noise was the train passing by late at night.

I guess we were the only kids who'd sit on the front stoop at dusk dark, while the cement was still warm on our bottoms and wait for the next car to ride by and play, "What color's the next one going to be?" (How creative!) Or, to gallop around the front yard in front of MaMa and Polly while pretending to be on horseback and ride up to the steps and "climb" off to sit a spell and chat. And at night, to sit in the backyard swing with nothing more than a stiff paper towel holding an orange with juice running down our hands and arms...listening for the mill's air conditioner to come on.
Mama tells us now, that sometimes when she was younger, she would also sit out back and listen--but back then you could hear the racetrack on Saturday nights.

Life in the country--the BACK country, rather.

Try this film if you're looking for something a little different:
Maria, Full of Grace

Oh me o my-o, look at Miss Ohio...she's a runnin around with her rag top down!