Grandma's Mailbox

 

GRANDMA'S MAILBOX





I remember the trip to Grandma Wilson's mailbox as clearly as if it were yesterday instead of roughly 65 years ago. For some reason, I always remember it in the heat of summer. I guess this is because that's when we were there most often.


The image I conjure is of the skinny little Keith, shirtless, often shoeless, some other cousin, or more, dressed as frugally as I was opening the rusty front gate and walking down that dusty old road, past the cabin, around the curve to the beckoning, cool waters of the creek. We watched the path the whole way intent on saving the soles of our feet from the rocky protuberances that, once met, resulted in painful yet comical one-footed jigs until the pain subsided.

I looked forward to crossing the creek, enraptured by the cacophony of courting frogs and birds and the gurgling of the gentle flow of Reece's Creek over the rocks and gravel of the stream bed. I always paused to stare in hopes of seeing some fishy denizen bigger than the little minnows, suckers, and perch that were the everyday regulars of the creek.

The gentle rise of the road, once the creek was left behind, led to the gravel road that, when crossed, was home to the little mailboxes of grandma and a couple of neighbors. Behind the mailboxes was a field that often contained a few head of cattle and one particular bull that I often teased and with whom I usually exchanged pleasantries from behind the weeds and barbed wire of a secure position.

I always thought the mail boxes looked like lonely sentinels on the infrequently traveled road that paralleled the creek in the Ozark countryside. For some reason they stand out in absolute clarity when I recall the days of childhood innocence on grandma's tiny subsistence farm. They mark a simpler time. A time I miss immensely as my days become fewer. The world I live in today bears no resemblance to it. I miss it all.....in our beginning.

Keith Wayne Ragan
01/20/21


Copyright by the author, Keith Wayne Ragan 01/19/21.

Comments

  1. Ken RaganJanuary 21, 2021 at 3:19 PM

    Yep, I made many a trip down past the walnut trees and across the creek to fetch the mail. GM usually had it pretty well timed and would often keep a sharp ear out for when a car crossed the wooden bridge about a quarter of a mile back up the gravel road.

    ReplyDelete

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