By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
During my Thanksgiving musings about gratitude last week, my mind wandered back to my childhood, recalling a whole host of things that — though relatively small — seemed so special then. Perhaps you can connect some of these to your own life.
Call them “remembrances,” the “little things that meant a lot,” or… “lasting blessings.”
A few weeks before Christmas, Mom, Dad, my brother Mike, and I always took a drive to see the Christmas lights, usually in the Campbell County area where we lived. That usually meant going to at least one or two subdivisions. There, we figured monied people lived and could afford an impressive show of bright and colorful lights, often with some sort of Christmas scene such as a manger with the Three Wise Men, or a giant blowup Santa or maybe a smiling snowman.
We “oohed” and “aahed” about what we saw, and each of us liked to lobby for our favorite display. The one we all liked best was in the tiny community of Peach Grove, in northeastern Pendleton County, about ten miles from Alexandria. A local farmer had a tractor and “manure spreader” farm implement adorned with bright Christmas lights out in a field, easily seen from Kentucky Route #10. Living on a farm ourselves, we liked the display a lot and I wonder today if the tradition has continued, perhaps with the grown children continuing the annual ritual. For my family, it was a unique experience and something hard to replicate. The fact that I recall it today, five decades ago, should tell you something about the impression it made.
Not all of those special childhood times were related to holidays. On trips driving through Cynthiana in the 1960s, our family stopped at Dairy Queen for what we called “creamy whip” ice cream cones. For me, that particular DQ seemed to be one of the few existing at the time. Maybe the most special thing about that ice cream treat was this. Dad’s full-time job, along with tending our family’s small tobacco farm, was as a wholesale ice cream salesman for Clover Leaf Dairy. Dad regularly brought his brand of ice cream home for us to enjoy, but it was the hard kind, tasty but not the same as those from DQ… those special ones that were easier to lick and sometimes even tasted better.
Here are more magical moments from my childhood:
• Playing in the creek (sometimes while I was supposed to be working in the field).
• Walking up the road to Schack’s General Store to buy a Mallo Cup (candy) or a pack of baseball cards for a nickel.
• Skipping rocks on ponds in the area, thinking that I had discovered the practice.
• Throwing maple tree seeds into the air and watching them “fly” to the ground like a helicopter (also something I thought I discovered).
• Selling earthworms on the roadside by our house and fattening them by adding sewer sludge to their bedding. Note the disclaimer that the sludge they ingested also diminished their wiggling ability.
• Catching “lightnin’ bugs” on a summer evening, putting them in a glass jar with a hole-punched lid on top. Made a nice lamp at night for Stevie’s dark bedroom.
• Swinging on a grape vine (or so I called it) across a dry creek bed in the woods.
• Melting crayons onto a piece of paper on an old-time heat register inside a classroom at Grant’s Lick Elementary. My friend Jim Palm can verify this.
• Making “Coke floats” with vanilla ice cream and the soft drink poured over it.
• Playing a mini-horseshoe game using a washer (the kind one puts on a metal bolt) and tossing it about ten feet into an opened can sunk into the ground. It was much safer than using a heavy horseshoe.
There are many more to tell if I spent more time thinking about it and could muster the courage to share. Indeed, I’m showing my age, but I’m not sure kids today receive the same kinds of creativity opportunities that the baby boomers did. Time zone colleagues, send your childhood fun items that you’ve never forgotten to me at sflairty2001@yahoo.com.
If you’re looking for a different kind of religious book that is both deep and light-hearted, check out God Hires Gardeners: Modern Works of Flash Fiction. William McCann, of Winchester, has a passion for teaching the Bible in a way that connects with modern readers. The author, who also shows his natural creativity by writing poetry and plays, offers a thirty-five-page chapbook that tells scriptural stories as if the narratives were happening in modern times.
It’s a satiric, almost absurd collection of parables set in Kentucky that might particularly appeal to those young at heart yet show enough promise that mature readers with open hearts can benefit—and possibly in a powerful way.
The main title comes from the first of twenty-one stories, a scene where Adam and Eve are shown bickering over a “tired” God’s directives to them. Another one is “The Good Samaritan,” where an often-disdained person rescues a person in distress alongside the Mountain Parkway. “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” deals with a fourth grader who may be kicked out of school for bad behavior.
McCann’s book is unique, and for many, could be quite refreshing. We Kentuckians like to be unique and refreshing, don’t we?
Thank goodness for the pig in the War of 1812. He led me to your writing. Happy Holidays