As I write this, it is the first day of fall. It seems we had a short summer, though it was quite hot at times. The months pass so swiftly, I can't seem to grasp time's meaning.
    As the old song goes, "I was wishing today I could just run away out where the west wind calls." Oh, just to be young again and be able to go to my old home ... how I'd love to sit and swing in the handmade hammock or just lie on the grass, watching the fleecy clouds and making images of mountains, people and animals from them. And listen to the birds singing and at night hear the hoot owls. They seem to say, "Who, who, who are you?" I'd even enjoy hearing the doves' mournful sound.
    How well I remember the sounds of the farm during my childhood. The roosters crowing, cows mooing, pigs squealing and, in the spring, the frogs hollering. My dad told us they were saying, "Come over, come over, knee deep, no deeper. Go around or you'll drown." Once, when I was about five years old, my mother had gone to my grandma's. It was getting dark and she wasn't home yet. Papa said, "If she doesn't hurry, the frogs will get her!" That statement made quite an impression on me and whenever I hear the spring peepers, I think of it and remember how happy I was when mother got home safely.
    Remembering grandma, I'd like once again to go to her house. She had large apple and peach orchids. I especially remember the apples as she had Shockley and Twenty Ounce apples. I don't hear of those kind anymore. We also used to have Arkansas Blacks and Ben Davis.
    My grandma would can and dry apples most of the fall. She had a kiln where the apples would dry quickly. She baked apples, too, and her apple cobblers were something to long remember. I think of those times at her house and it makes me sad.
    I love to think about my girlhood. I never knew a care. We had a happy Christian home and attended church and Sunday School. My school years were happy times. But as the Bible says there is a time for everything ... a time to be born and a time to die. All this and more is in the past, never to return. How nice that we can relive it in our memories.
    Have a happy fall, everyone. And keep smiling! Give a big grin once in awhile, too ... it makes people wonder what you are up to!

Mellie Smith
undated