Country Life

When I was younger I lived in a smidgen of a town called Buhl, Idaho. We, in the town, were not famous for anything but the traditional potatoes. I was a wee lass who lived on a large orchard of apples and raised , for a time, sheep. My journal of that young 14 year old lass has pages upon pages of oozing over the ever so quiet Brett! Who was an older man, by a year. I speak of how we would pile into his friends pick up like grasshoppers stuck in a band aide box. (We did that at age 7, I am afraid to admit.) And cruise main street during lunch. How he was to shy to do anything but hold my hand with his sweaty nervous hands and occasionally lean in for a hug. I was high drama and even recounted stories in my own handwriting (can't dispute) about how I would try to get his goat by being typical teen age drama girl......with two of my own teenagers, I now feel sorry for the boy! No wonder he was nervous, if I was anything like my spawn! I recall the stories to my children when I want to be a martyr of having to walk at 2:oo a.m. back into the orchard to the "Lambing Shed." Mom would turn on the light and say go check the Ewes. I would go out into the dark starry night with visions of axe killers lurking in the trees waiting just for me. I ran fast. I checked the Ewes to see if any babies had arrived and when satisfied all was fine I took off back to the house with nearly a backward glance. I also have to share the stories of staying up past midnight on school nights making apple cider from the press. Standing out in the garage (September if memory serves) with cold, sticky apple cider soaked into my coat and jeans. My brothers and Dad working hard along with me. The only reward I thought was when the local newspaper did a story on us. I since realize there was more I got then a picture in the newspaper. I recall the day I was traumatized for life. We had to behead chickens and I didn't know this but you hang them upside down on a clothesline , then boil them , and finally you can finish the chicken to bag for eating later...............no I never would eat them............once a beheaded chicken chased me! I screamed and cried and said that was it. I was relegated to the kitchen for the remainder of the day never to set back into the "killing fields." But there were my friends Andy Knoodle, Tracy Atkinson, Tracy Lynch, Sean Burrutia. The names come to a mind that doesn't remember anything. I remember local football games where anyone and EVERYone came. The sounds of the roar, the sense that you know everyone, the lights reflecting off the field. The original of any movie scene! The small town, the dragging main, the gathering at 7-11. School street dances. Teachers who made differences. Old, old school buildings with so much history. I recently caught up with the sweaty hand boy. He is successful non-Idaho grown up man. But I still remember him as the boy I held hands with in the school movie theatre. I may not have been a country girl for many years of my life but as they say.......you can take the girl out of the country but even years later,  you can't take the country out of me.