As my world turns

I can remember a soap opera show on the radio called "As The World Turns." I can remember my mama listening to it every chance she got.

I call this "As My World Turns."

Nothing ever stays the same; it is always changing. There have been times in my life that I loved and wished that it would never change, but try as I might I couldn't stop time. So much has changed in my life in the past year and a half.

Right now I am thinking of Thanksgiving. All of the years that we were on the farm we always had Thanksgiving at our house. It also was smack dab in the middle of deer hunting. So the two were intertwined; the deer season always opened the weekend before Thanksgiving. The deer hunters started arriving late Friday night. Opening morning, everyone shot out of their beds when they heard Papa (Bob) yell up the stairs "get up you buck hunters it's time to eat breakfast and get out to our deer stands." That was at 4 a.m. and I too had to get up then and start breakfast. We usually had bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, toast or biscuits, coffee and juice. I had a title I was the "chief cook and bottle washer."

After breakfast they all started assembling their paraphernalia which consisted of hunting boots, coats, hats, lunches, coffee, guns, shells, binoculars and walkie talkies. Sometimes I wondered how they ever made it out to their stands. Bob always had good intentions of being out on the trail to his stand by 6 a.m., but that never happened. By the time he got everyone else ready to go, he usually was the last one heading down the trail. The first day always seemed to be the best day. Everyone was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but each day they seemed to be a little slower.

After breakfast was over and the dishes done and a pot of soup simmering on the stove for any one who might come in for whatever reason. I then donned my boots and orange jacket and hat for now I had another name, I was the "deer driver" My job was to drive (walk) through the woods zig-zagging all the way of the 80 acres trying to push out deer for the hunters. When the grandkids and Rob became 12 and could go hunting, daughter Susie joined me on the deer drives. One year we surprised the hunters and brought along a sack of doughnuts. Boy, were they ever glad to see us.

The afternoon was spent getting the big hunters' supper ready for when they arrived at sundown (closing time). But Susie and I managed to do another deer drive before supper time. As they all came straggling in and hungry as bears, we all gathered around the dining room table. It took hours to prepare, cook and serve it, and minutes to consume it. They all had stories to tell, how many deer they had seen. Back in those days, it was nothing to see between 40-50 deer. Who had gotten a deer, how big, if it was a buck, how big were the horns. If they had gotten a deer, after supper they loaded the deer in the trailer and took them into Pittsville to be registered.

... Continued next week.