Growing Up in Jefferson City- Part II

Hi, there, well, here I am again as a guest blogger (Grammy's husband, W.B. also known as Dub) writing some more about my early growing up years in Jefferson City.

Up the creek we went possum hunting and had a place up that way where there was a pond we called the "round pond" and we also skated on that pond when it froze over in the winter. It was not very deep, but probably deep enough to drown in. The terrapins made big round circles in the water.

We gathered walnuts and hickory nuts up at the head of Mossy Creek in fields that were unoccupied. Walking back through fields to go home, we came through Shel Emert's field where he kept his cows. He had a Jersey bull that made us drop our sacks and scoot across the foot log that crossed the creek and the bull started butting the walnut sack. We went back later and got the sack of walnuts. We also picked blackberries and wild grapes and chestnuts along the creek.

I found a nest of turtles in the creek and got all of them out of the hole and ran a piece of wire through their legs, put them on a pole and carried them home. I cleaned them and fried them. Nearly every one of us got sick.

Up at the head of the creek, there was a place we called the "blue hole". It was a round deep hole of water. We never knew where it came from or why it was there. It was very deep and the water was very blue looking. We went fishing in it and caught one. It was a surprise to us that we caught it.

There was a spring down from our house in which we cooled watermelons, milk and butter. It also had water cress growing in it, which are very good to eat. One time Howard was standing near the water and was looking up. He said, "Look at the little yellow bird", and was not watching where he stepped and he fell into the water.
After that we called him little yellow bird. He didn't care too much for that.

We hunted for arrow heads in the land around us around Mossy Creek and found several. It was on Shel Emert's land that we found them.

There were some near drownings and deaths from swimming in the mine hole. there were two mine holes for swimming. One was for the white kids (boys) and one for the black kids (boys). The mine holes were said to be 90 feet deep, and we were constantly warned about swimming in them; but we didn't pay a lot of attention to the warnings. There was a lot of diving and jumping into them. My brother, Howard, had jumped off in all of them. The highest rock was called "Cake" because it had layered stones that looked like cake layers.

When the mine hole went dry because of mines working around it drew the water out of it, we found out the hole wasn't as deep as they said it was. They just said it was that deep to keep us from going over there.

Right down below Cake there was a piece of machinery that had an axle sticking straight up out of it, that could have killed any of us if we had landed on it just right. When the area dried up enough, we could go from one mine hole to the other under the ground. The whole area was honeycombed with caves.

A thought for the day: From Psalm 86:11 - "Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name."

Well, this is Blabbin' Grammy again. I trust you will each have a good night's rest and think on how God has blessed you. Bye until tomorrow, when Dub (Gramps) will take over the post for me again.