Summer

Sparklers, bottle rockets, firecrakers, cherry bombs...... oh the sound of summer fun! This being the 4th of July weekend brought memories.

Fireworks still make me feel like a child. I can remember the Greenwood Christmas parade ending with fireworks on the river. I remember by daddy shooting bottle rockets from coke bottles in the driveway. How much fun we had with our Roman Candles and sparklers. We were such a big deal! Ha!

Another summer memory was after the flood of 1972. Crawfish were everywhere. The roads would look alive when they came out at night. At one point we strapped a 2x4 to a hoe and used it as a crawfish rake.

My daddy would just stick his and into the holes and drag them out. My sister and I felt to brave when faced with these irate critters! We would pluck them right up and drop them in the bucket.  

There was one weekend that included a slight mishap which would lead to CPS being called today.  My daddy took my friend and I out to an old gravel farm road. There we could scoop all the crayfish we wanted. While standing on the back truck bumper and holding on the tailgate we could see into the ditches and yell for daddy to stop.

After one such stop, we remounted and started off down the road. The truck couldn't have been going over 5 miles and hour, but the tailgate hadn't shut properly and soon she and I were on the ground being drug behind the truck. Screaming at the top of our lungs, but NOT letting go! My poor daddy. We let go, he stopped, we're all crying, she and I bleeding, the crayfish are snapping - It was a CIRCUS! 

Daddy checked our injuries, loaded us in the front of the truck and off we went home. I had scratched up knees. My friend had somehow flipped over and had scratched on her back! We never did figure out how she did that. We have more dirt and rocks than injuries. A little soap & water, peroxide and iodine and we were ready to go again!

I will say those were probably the best tasting crawfish ever eaten.