by Jeannie Travis
I think folks used any excuse to have a party back in the days before TV and other easy to come by entertainment, and I wish we could get back to that. In Mama’s day they had what was called “Play Parties , and they’d meet at someones house and play music and have a good old time. One time Mama won a pearl necklace for her guitar playing and singing, and another time a pair of nylons, back in the day when things like that were precious. We used to love it when she told us stories about the things that went on.
Our favorite was the time they went to a play party and stayed later than usual. Daddy took Mama home in the buggy then drove back to their farm. He was putting the horse in the barn when the sun came up. Papa didn’t raise no sissies. Daddy went to the field as usual but the horse got the day off. Papa had more sons than he did horses.
Mom’s blue eyes would sparkle and she’d laugh when she told how one neighbor ‘boy’ played the fiddle, but everything sounded like “Soldiers Joy”. As tales are won’t to do she went on to tell us how he got to thinking seriously about getting married, but was afraid he couldn’t afford it…So one month anytime he ate something he put a like amount in a barrel to see how much this mythical wife would cost him. He was unmarried till the day he died. an old man when first I saw him…Geez..he must have been 30 years old !
Yes, he WAS a mite pixilated. Decided he liked the name Sherman Carson, so just changed his name. Lived alone in an old house stuck way back in the woods, no way to get to it but an old woods/farm road. We used to walk by there going to the one room country school..especially on days when the road was muddy, as walking through the woods and along the edge of the fields was easier.