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I was sitting here today just watching the Nextel race and they were talking about the origins of NASCAR. Back in teh days when the Monnshine Runners would bring their Hot Rod shine runner cars down to Darlington of Daytona and race them on weekends. Junior Johnson and Lee Petty and the Allisons and FireBall Roberts to name a few. Well that started me thinking about my younger years but not about racing. About life in general. I grew up to age 17 in a small town about 30 miles west of Chicago, Illinois. Population 5000. The highlight of each year of my childhood was the Weekend of the 4th of July. We got to spend it down in Tennessee. My father would plan our vacation every year at that time and we would come down and spend two weeks with my grandfather on my Mother side of the family. Well he owned a big farm in Cheatham County Tennessee out in the country with no town for 25 miles in any direction. Just one general store about two miles from the farm. I use to get up every morning before daylight so I could help GrandPaw slop the hogs. Now that was fun...... Then we would walk down the road to the lower pasture and Grandpaw would talk to his cows and walk up and rub them on the head but they would not let me near them. They would just walk away from me........ After the long walk we would get back up on the hill to teh farm house and sit down on the front porch and Grandpaw would take a chew and just rock in the chair waitng on breakfast which was a full course breakfast every day. Country Ham, eggs , Fried Potatoes, Red Eye and Sawmill Gravies, Homemade Biscuits all made in a wood burning stove. If you needed water you sent the long tube bucket down a pipe right behind the house and then cranked it back up full of fresh cold water. Yep you guessed it. Another great event was teh trips the the small house out behind the big house. One was a smoke house and the other was well ya'll know what the other one was........
There was always family and friends stopping by to visit or come for dinner and so many fun things to do. I would go fishing in the River that ran through the farm that was chok full of catfish and if the family was coming for a fish fry GrandPaw would go down to the river and drag out one of his basket nets and take out about 10 of 15 big cats to clean for supper and the whole family sometimes 30 people would come over both family and friends and all the women would prepare this huge supper. Grandpaw grew his own tobacco and made his own what he called Petway Spring Water and he kept it in fruit jars for when company came by..... Petway was the name of that community the farm was located in and the farm Grandpaw owned was call the Petway Farm cause it was settled by the Petway Family back in the 1860's. The folks that settled that farm are buried in a cemetery on the farm. Grandpaws house was made of Logs and was on the highest hill in the Petway valley and you could see everywhere around the house from the porch that run all the way around it. In the evening just beore dark you could see the deer begin moving out into the pastures all around the house from them porches. I asked Granpaw one time why when we was driving to the general store that he waved his hand at everyone we passed and he said it was just being neighborly is all. I thought that folks should all do that. Man was I wrong cause when I got back home and did it people got mad and said ugly things so I had to stop doing it up Norf as JOJO calls it. Well, I have given alot of thought to those days of vacations down here and when we moved down here the south had not changed in 1967. It was still pretty much the same and each Fall the folks got together for a day of Hog killing in November after the cooler weather came. Thee of four neighbors families got together and they brought their Hogs along and all of the men and boys pitched in to do the other side work which was the things you do when you begin slaughtering hogs with the shooting and guting and scalding and scraping and the big cuts and then the meat went inside to the women and they all pitched in and did the fine cutting and wrapping and the parts going to be smoked went to smoke houses and were packed in the salt for beginning of the aging process. There was a huge black pot with a fire built around it. My job the whole day was to keep that fire burning and that pot hot and that is where the lard was rendered off and the cracklins came from. Hog killing was a tradition just like waving to folks you passed on the highways or sitting on porches when you drove by. Having family dinners with large groups of folks gathering was a part of life. Family Reunions took place every year and you got to meet kin you didn't know you had........ neighbors helping neighbors was a way of life in the south, waving to a stranger was part of the south, sipping good shine was part of the south when you stepped up on a friends porch and took a seat. It has been a long time since I have seen any of that happen and I know this may sound dumb but I miss those days......... I still have all of those great memories but I miss seeing folks wave and I miss the good dinners that folks use to have and Family Reunions. Don't families exist any longer? Are we strangers even within our own families? I hear people pass things off or place the blame for things ending because of Progress. Well I think when Progress comes between family or neighbors and friends it is not progress. It is Ignorance. Well that is my writings for today. Probably should have wrote something politically motivated but just wanted to know if other folks ever think about the good days back when the south was still the southern traditions were morally correct and not all full of Progress?

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Life Jackets and Kill switch's save lives! Soft baits catch fish softer baits catch more fish!
I carry a gun cause a cop is to heavy and when seconds count the police are only minutes away!!

Well said I wasn't going to post over here in this section, but had to with this one GREAT POST.

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Joey

Keep It Wet! Take One Make One! Hooked On Fishing Not On Drugs! In God We Trust! Happy Trails To You Until we Meet Again!

I thought I would add a few more things to this because as I read it I thought of a few more things that my childhood offered up that I miss. On the 4th of July every year we had our family reunion and folks came from everywhere to my Grand paws house one year and the next year they came to my Uncles House. My Uncle was my grandpaws brother and he always claimed to be the pretty one of the family and I never quit understood that when I was young cause I didn't see nothing pretty about him. He only had about 5 teeth and was very tall and skinny worn Bibb top overalls year round and had this big wart right on the tip of his noise but he was was a great man also and folks would drive by his home and wave to us all on his porch too. I think everyone had a big porch back then full of chairs for friends to set in. Uncle also had a big farm on the other side of the county and that same river ran through his place so I got to fish in the river there too. Now 4th of July was always fun because of the Bar-B-Que. Someone would always put up a hog special for the 4th. The men would all get together and prep the hog for the pit and I got the most important job again. It was my job to keep that fire going up on the hill near the hog laying on the pit. Yep that whole hog was spread out on the steel pit screen about 2 foot about the ground. No fire was ever put under the hog. Just hot coals from that fire I maintained. The hog hit the pit about noon the day before and it cooked all night long and into the late morning of the next day and folks would stop by and visit all day and all night and pull up a seat in one of the chairs up by the pit or on one of the benches there and swap stories and my Uncle had some fruit jars too from his private stock from GrandPaws Petway Spring water. I listened intensely to the stories of the past or just what happend to this one or that one that day. I don't think anyone was stranger to anyone back then. There was always the Grand Old Opry on the radio playing while the hog was cooking and stories was being told. Sometimes I would stay over night at my Uncles house and get up and work the critters with him too. He had names for all his hogs and he would talk to them like Grandpaw talked to his cows. I bet I killed a gazillion flys on those trips down cause when sitting on the porchs just resting as my grandpaw called it we all had fly swatters to protect ourselves from the flies. I remember one year that was really special. About 3 days before we came down that year one of Grandpaws neighbors house caught fire and burned to the ground and a man and his wife and 5 kids lost everything they owned. When we got down here Grandpaw and a bunch of other neighbors was busy on the back section of the farm cutting trees and dragging them out with mule teams where they were being loaded on logging trucks to go to the mill for the milling. There was other farmers and folks waiting at the mill for the wood and loading it onto a flat bed farm trucks and headed to where that house burned cause everyone in the Petway community was fixin to build a new house for them folks that lost their house. Just about anyone that was not a farmer around there worked in construction of some kind so experienced help was not hard to find. All the folks put something into it and folks brought clothes and home furnishings to put in the house when it was done. In a weeks time that family had a house to live in and when it was completed everyone gather around and said a prayer in the front yard of the new house and the payment the man and his family made for all of the building and work the folks did was a hand shake and a thank you and he and his family along with everyone involved in the house building was invited to Grandpaws Bar-B-que and that year two hogs were put on the pits and it was held on Grandpaws farm right up the road from the house that the community built. Grand Paw and I got time to talk a few nights later and I asked him about that house we built and he said that is what neighbors is for son. Neighbors help neighbors and many times we make new friends and new good friends is more important than money. There was a few people there that most folks didn't know that was bringing stuff to the house building. Things that would need to be bought such as wiring, plugs and light switches, light bulbs, and other hardware items like nails and some Roofing Tin and insulation and that stuff was being donated buy a few stores from the bigger towns around the area and they was free also. Them folks was invited to the Dinner also but I didn't see any of them there. Mr.Earl Halls general store gave a new wood Cook stove to them and Browns Hardware in White Bluff gave a new wood heat stove and flue piping. Well I guess I will close another time in my life that I can remember was an important part of my heritage of who my family was. I learned alot about life from my GrandPaw and even though he died a poor old farmer he was the wealthiest man in the Petway Valley because he was loved by everyone that knew him and respected by those that just knew of him. The farm has since been long sold to a contractor by my mother that inherited it when he passed and my fathers health was such that he could no longer keep it up. MY mother wa smart enough to put provisions in the sale though. She made contracts read that there will not be subdivisions built on that farm. Everyone must purchase a 20 acre track of land and there can only be one house and one Barn and one small outbuilding on each 20 acres. There cannot be any multi family dwellings built on the property as long as any of this family is alive.. I live about 60 miles from the farm , but I drive down there quite often since my oldest Son is buried in that family cemetery. I drive passed that house that friends and neighbors built on my trip and memories always come back when I see it. When my mother was preparing to sell the farm she asked each of us if we wanted anything from the farm and I said yes. I want 1.5 acres of land deeded to me right in front of the old cemetery that lay on a high bluff overlooking Petway Valley and the Harpeth River. My son was buried in that new section of the Petway Cemetery and I will be laid to rest beside him when I die. The gravel road that is used to drive back on the propery is named after my GrandPaw. It is called Lee Greer Road and yea Bubba Lee, My grandfather is also buried in the old section of the petway Cemetery. I think when my Grandfather passed and my Uncle passed is when the world lost two of the finest men that ever walked upon this earth. No they were not Presidents nor Governors but they were farmers. They were good men that had to many friends to mention and yea they were poor in money but very wealthy in life. To me that is far more important then the almighty dollar that people will kill for today. Give me good friends and family everytime because to me that is true wealth. Well, that is just another part of my life which I thought was kind of boring till I sat back and thought about it. Life is not boring when it brings you good memories.

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Life Jackets and Kill switch's save lives! Soft baits catch fish softer baits catch more fish!
I carry a gun cause a cop is to heavy and when seconds count the police are only minutes away!!

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