My Appalachian Summers

My favorite season has always been summer.  Most people from mountain areas usually say that fall is their favorite season because the trees take on a variety of colors following the first frost.  Everyone seems to want to see this annual transformation take place. For me, fall is the time of dying and death; the end of luscious green growth, and the hibernation of most plant life.  

But summer is the peak of all things green, growing, and alive. Life flows through every blade of grass, every flower, and each garden. It's the time when the earth is most alive no matter which part of our planet you happen to be on. Not only was our small farm alive with vegetation, the animals were birthing and breeding, and our house was bursting with things to do, relatives, neighbors, and activities.  It was these things that made daily life so special for me in the summer.  There was constant change and transition in daily activities.  I was never bored because every farm activity was another adventure; rarely were two days the same.

I often think of our house like Grand Central Station.  People came, went, stayed, worked, talked, napped, broke beans, and shucked corn, while telling stories under the big oak tree in our front yard. It was under this tree that I learned where I came from, who my relatives were, and all the local gossip.  We waved at people who passed in their cars and walked along the road.  Our house was "home" to all of Mama's and Daddy's relatives.

There was always work to be done but it rarely interfered with socializing.  It was in all these daily summer activities that I was groomed in storytelling, not that it was planned for Patsy to learn this skill, but it was just there to be absorbed like the temperature, and the culture around me. 

Recently my husband and I completed our book of memoirs.  This process took us both back in time and place.  We shared so many of the stories we knew from our childhood and our lives. This memoir was a visit back to people, places, events, and stories we felt we had to share with those who would come after us.  Our grandchildren are now quite young or unborn and may never know who we were, or get to hear our voices or stories, but perhaps this book and the stories contained within it will give them a picture of our lives, our values, and their link to us.  Oh, how I have wished I had known my grandparents personally and what their life was like and what their stories were.