The Sounds of Baseball

This is the house my great grandparents lived in.  The area is called Rattlesnake Hollow.  In fact, that is what I used to put on the envelope when I wrote letters to Greatgranny.  The windows on the right side of the picture are the bedroom windows where Greatgrandaddy slept.  They didn't sleep in the same room.  Greatgranny slept in the freezer room, called that because it was where the freezer was kept.  It was a very tiny room with the most comfortable bed in the house, a feather bed.  It later became the bathroom!  Yeah, I know how she ranked in the male dominated household.

Here they are by the door leading to his room, actually a porch room.  It was a room that was pretty much off limits to all of us kiddos and we only went into the room with Greatgranny when she wanted to show us something.  The walls were covered with old pictures that caused us to ask a multitude of questions.  Greatgranny also kept her bug and butterfly collections in there.  I became a collector in junior high but it didn't last long.  The room was Greatgrandaddy's sanctuary and when he passed it became Greatgranny's room, then Aunt Marie's.  Where they are standing and the truck is where they would pull out a mattress and put in the back of the pickup that was next to the living room windows (to the left) and we could sleep there at night.

This tree in the front yard is where they entertained guests most of the time, weather permitting.  Here my Sis and I are listening to the "men" talk stuff.  I think I had lost a tooth or something.  Looks like I'm holding a cloth to my face.  My great uncle, Big Dan (yes that was what he was called) is the one sitting on the ground in his overhauls and most definitely barefoot.  He never, ever wore shoes.  This is also the place where we made homemade ice cream and listened to the cicadas sing their summer song as the heat would set in.  Air conditioning was not happening in that house.  When it got too hot we would pile into the back of the pickup and head off to the creek to swim and probably take our baths.  The indoor bathroom didn't happen until I was a senior in high school.  Winter was a bath in a wash tub in the middle of the kitchen.

We also would sit here and wait for Greatgranny as she would sneak into Greatgrandaddy's room while he was napping and listening to the baseball game on the radio.  She was sneaking into his dresser drawers to snatch a 3 Muskateers or Snickers candy bar for all the kids hanging around.  There could be 1,3 or 8...kiddos waiting for that yummy candy bar.  How ever many were around that is how many pieces the candy bar was cut up for.  Each so delicious you can't imagine.  While we sat under that tree eating ice cream or the candy bar you could hear the baseball game sounds.  I think it was the St. Louis Cardinals (my favorite) on the radio.  Since no A/C the windows were open and you could hear the whack of the bat when it connected to the baseball and the announce,r Harry Carey as he called out the plays.  These sounds and memories are some of the reasons I love baseball.  I've been to one live game, The St. Louis Cardinals when they played the Chicago Cubs.  The Cardinals won the pennant that year!  It was AWESOME!  The Hubby took me for my 50th birthday, one of the things off of my bucket list (wait need to put that on the list.)