These Voices of Heritage installments take me back to places that are no longer there. To faces and smells that are long gone. To times that were simpler and easier in many ways. Hard work made the simple pleasures of life more valuable.
I’ve seen pictures of my grandparents when they were young people. Granny used to pat me down when I’d leave her house because I was prone to “taking” pictures for my photo books. It was a family joke that if she missed a photo, she’d say, “Well, we know where it is. Rhonda Lynn has it.”
I love how their memories come to life as they think about those days and share them with their great-grandsons.
Listen to The Engagement Story
Granny: We had a good time play playin’ deer and the dog didn’t we?
Papa: You remember that time we was comin’ in from church and had to get over that style you know fence over the fence ya know had the boards nailed to walk over?
We was walkin along there and I jumped over the fence first and you come up on it and a I held you, I grabbed ya and take ya down off the fence and first time I ever kissed ya and I kissed ya. When I took ya down off the fence, I kissed you.
Granny: Did I slap you?
Papa: You didn’t do nothin’
Both laugh
Granny: Ooo weee that was good sugar wadn’t it?
Papa: You liked that.
Granny: That was the onliest time though we kissed before we married.
Papa. Yea the onliest time we kissed before we married. And I walked along with ya a lot of times and put my are around you. Just around you waist ya know?
Granny: We’d be barefooted most of the time wouldn’t we?
Papa: Yea
Granny: Where would we have our shoes?
Papa: I’d have I’d have a your shoes in the bib of my overhauls and my shoes in my back pocket.
Granny: We didn’t wanna get ‘em muddy.
Papa: yea we didn’t wanna get ‘em muddy.
Granny: What did you wear? Overalls nearly all the time.
Papa: Overhauls. Sure did. Played ole French harp all the time. I had my French harp in my (G:bib pocket) bib pocket of my overhauls. Oh, we just had a big time.
Granny: We did. We didn’t have all the ole televisions and the theaters and things, but we had a good time.
Papa: I remember when you told me that you’d marry me. I asked you to marry me goin down through the field in a mata patch, you remember?
Granny: Oh yea, that was, you asked me about three or four times before I ever answered you.
Papa: But that time you told me you’d, you’d let me know. So, we was sittin’ over ‘ere at Uncle Pete’s I was at Uncle Pete’s house in that, under that sweet gum tree, sittin’ on the ground nere under that sweet gum tree talkin’ and you said “You know what you asked me?”
I said, “Yea.” You said, “Well, I’ll marry you. When you get ready, I’ll”
Granny: O, What did you think? That hateful girl.
Papa: I said a, “Whenever you get, you just set the time. When you get ready, we’ll get married.”
An then you said “October the 10th.”
Granny: 19 and 36
Papa: Was that 1936?
Granny: 19 and 36
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