Page 74 - barefoot-in-the-sand-remembering-the-waning-days-of-the-hopewell-community-(1998)-bruce-c-gragg

Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 70/123

THE JOYS OF SUMMER AND FRIENDS

Besides, our playing in the oak tree and sand with the Walker
children, we did other things with them. For a couple of years Jimmy
(Gussie’s middle child) was on crutches for a hip problem. But, the
crutches didn’t slow him down for long. He had a shoulder harness
with a couple of straps down to a single strap with a snap hook that
connected to a D-ring on a leg band. Mrs. Mills house in front was
about six steps high, he would jump from the porch to the ground land
on his crutches and keep going faster than we could run. He had the
handicap but we were trying to keep up with him. We couldn't outrun
him, we soon quit trying, it was never a close race. On one of the
trips to Jacksonville to take Jimmy, Gussie invited us (Mama, Vera
and me) to go with them. When we went to the restaurant to have
lunch, I worried that there would not be enough money to pay for our
eating. That was a needless worry. Our family was always tight and
hard up for cash but they made up for it with a wealth of love and
security, we never lacked for LOVE.

Several times after we bought an ice cream freezer, we would go to
the Mills house and make ice cream. It was always pineapple, Burnette
liked pineapple, so that is what we always had. We turned the crank,
(it was hand powered-NO ELECTRICITY) until it was impossible to turn
anymore, we removed the dasher, packed it down played for a while got
good-n-hot and sweaty, then we consumed a churn of cream in a hurry.
Late in the summer the grapes would be getting ripe and Mrs. Mills
had two vines on one big arbor. The big one was Concords (black
grapes) and the smaller one was Scuppernongs. The arbor for the black
grapes was a little more sturdy, we would get on top and sit and eat
until we couldn’t eat any more. The vines died some time ago. There
were five Walker children, four boys and one girl. We spent a lot of
time with them during the summer days when work permitted it. After
Gussie separated in the late forties one summer Emory Carter hired
the three older boys to do a lot of work around his fishing camp on
the river. They cleared underbrush and cut some trees approaching the
camp. I don’t know how much was really accomplished but it did keep
them busy for the summer. When Uncle Carroll came home from college,
we would go over and play around Mrs. Mills’ house or they would come
to our house and play in our front yard. We had about a twenty year
spread of ages but that didn't matter, we just had fun.

It was a long half mile from our house to the Mills’ house, at the
curve in the road was a couple of ponds, one either side of the road
with a wooden bridge some four or five feet across the little branch
draining one pond to the other. At that time this pond had water all
the time, we could always see some ducks, Indian Turkeys or an egret
or other water foul whenever we were going that way.

www.LakeCityHistory.com LCH-UUID: B98DC69E-ADC1-4EE7-8817-CA941114D897