All of us who are adults can look back to some point in our lives when have made a mistake. Some mistakes can be rectified; some cannot. As I look back over the past 50 years, I believe one of the greatest mistakes I ever made was selling my father's farm. It wasn't a big farm, just 80 acres, but it had been owned by four generations of my family and was the place where, as the saying goes, "I was born and raised."
People form attachments to certain places because of events that took place there, because of the people who lived there, and because of the memories generated there. My father inherited this place from his uncle, lost it during the Great Depression, and through the generosity of his sisters, was able to buy the place back from the Federal Land Bank, the institution from which he had borrowed money and put the place up as collateral.
This place was interesting because of several events connected with it. When the depot in our community, a flag stop on the Southern Railway, was closed in 1920, my father bought the depot, moved it about a quarter of a mile to our place, built sheds around it, and used it for the next 50 years as a barn with stables for mules.
A pecan grove was spread out behind the house. Papa had planted the trees in 1917 before he went away to Europe as a soldier in World War I. He liked to tell the story of how someone asked him why he was planting these trees and he said, "I am planting them so that when I marry and have children they will be able to play in the shade."
Well, he returned from the War, married my mother, a girl from across the creek, and in due time sat on the back porch and watched Sister and me play in the shade of those very pecan trees. We climbed in them, attached swings to their limbs, and in the fall of each year played a game called "Who can pick up the most pecans in 20 minutes?" Papa invited this game, and we were not smart enough to realize it was a way to get us to pick up pecans without complaining.
The house sat on brick pillars about three feet off the ground. Our chickens were what today are called "free range." In other words, the chickens were free to wander the place, including going under the house. From time to time, an old hen would steal a nest up next to the foundation of the chimney, and we would have to crawl under the house to collect her and her eggs and transfer them to a hen nest in the chicken house.
On cold winter nights, the dogs slept under the house along with any strays that might wander by. Papa was a great lover of dogs. When a stray dog appeared looking hungry, he always saw to it that the dog was fed. Yes, you guessed it-the strays became a part of the family.
My father was a cotton farmer, and cotton pickers spread their sheets under the pecan trees. At quitting time, each person's sheet of cotton was tied up and weighed. Papa recorded each day's amount in a book and paid the pickers on Friday afternoon or Saturday at dinner. The children of those picking played under the pecan trees and looked after a baby or two who slept on quilts in the shade.
From this place I caught the school bus each morning to ride the four miles to the high school where I graduated. When time came to go away to college, my mother helped me pack my bag, and the family waved to me from the front porch as I caught the bus to begin a four-year stint away from home. When Uncle Sam pointed a finger in my direction and said, "I need you," I left this house to serve two years with the Army during the Korean Conflict.
As time went by, Sister and I married and brought our families to the home place. She came from North Georgia, and I came from Mississippi whenever we could, especially during the Christmas holidays. Our children rode bicycles on the same roads we had traveled when we were children. They climbed in the barn loft, looked at their reflections in the well, bought candy from the rolling store, and waved at the train, just as we did when we were children.
When our parents were no longer living, Sister and I sat down and admitted that we would never plant a row of cotton or corn, nor would we ever live in the house where we had spent our childhood. So, we decided to sell the place.
I did not realize that I was so emotionally attached to the house and the place until I was there with my son recently. The people who bought the place had built a new home. The old house had for several years stood vacant and had deteriorated greatly. My childhood home had been demolished, but instead of tearing the house down, they bulldozed it to the ground.
I will go back there again because my parents are buried about a mile away in the cemetery where we went to church. As long as the house stood, I could envision my folks being there. This would no longer be true. I should never have sold the place, even though it is 400 miles from my home in Mississippi. Doing so was a great mistake.
