Tucker Hollow

I’m from Tucker Hollow. I look back at my childhood with a yearning for that simpler life. Summertime was the season of freedom. We lived with no schedule, no shoes, and no cares. The sunshine was our alarm clock. All our daily adventures took place outside. The slamming of the screen door was music to the ears of our mother of six. However, her repeated chorus, “In or out!” usually fell on deaf ears.
The music of our sweet lives was composed with giggles, the wind in our hair, and the smells of living in the country. Our toys were imagination, adventure, and a simple phrase, “Let’s play like.” Nothing was impossible. We climbed trees, swung in a tree tire swing, and rolled in plastic barrels down the steep, grassy hill on which our home stood. We played hide and seek. We built invisible houses in the woods behind our home, sweeping the dirt away to create a hard ground floor. The walls were imaginary, but everyone knew if you walked through a wall instead of using the door. If you got hungry before the next mealtime, there were plenty of options for satisfying that need without slamming the screen door. We had plum and cherry trees, blackberry bushes, a vegetable garden and the water spicket on the side of the house. By afternoon, the heat demanded a cooler adventure. Swimming was a relative term. In good years, we had a kiddie pool about 2 feet deep. One year our dad brought home a big rubber tub from an old machine at the plant he worked at. It was about four feet deep, and we placed it under a tree and jumped into it from one of the higher limbs. If we had no “pool”, a water hose took care of cooling us off.


The smell of cornbread and pinto beans was our call to supper. We knew to grab some lettuce, onions and tomatoes from the vegetable garden on our way in. All of our meals were at the table – together as a family.
Our days happily fused into the nights. Those evenings were lit by the light on the post in the corner of the property. We used mason jars with holes in the lid to catch lightening bugs. The dew-moistened grass was cool to our summer-worn feet. The evening breeze prepared our tired little bodies for rest. With that many kids you had to share your bath and your bed. But best of all, with that many siblings, you could also share your hopes and dreams. Our bedtime story was orchestrated by giggle-covered whispers, cool air and moonlight breezing through the open windows, and the music of crickets and bullfrogs. It was a sweet melody indeed that filled our young lives in our small southern town.