the little girl up the road

My Mama came from a salt of the earth farm family. There were seven of the Dunaway children, 4 boys and 3 girls. They grew up on a modest farm of probably 100 or so acres, but every inch of the land was used to provide food and fun for the family. My mom called her dad Pap and he was a part-time rural mail carrier but most of all a farmer. They were a community minded family, social with their neighbors and church was their life. The kids went to play parties and there were always tons of cousins around. They might have been thought poor by some standards. Their lunch buckets where filled with leftover biscuit and tenderloin sandwiches while their more uppity school mates came to school with the high priced store bought bologna. Today one would think my mama's brothers and sisters had the more gourmet school lunches. Of the seven only one of the children became a farmer, a dairy farmer but he,also, was a county magistrate which is pretty close to digging in the dirt. I did have one uncle that lived in the big city of Louisville. He was kind of a farmer, he grew beautiful roses. About every 6 months my Mom, aunt and I would go visit because it was permanent time and Aunt Sally was the best permanent rod twirler around. I didn't like the stinky smell so I would wander outside. I was always fascinated by the over turned quart jars that my Uncle Rogers had placed to protect the tender rose cuttings. I never in a million years understood how those little twigs became rose bushes. But they did . That little girl up the road didn't know her destiny and that young man in the bib overalls didn't know his.