I was living with my grandparents on the farm just south of Columbia, Tennessee. I was sitting at the kitchen table, looking out at the rain. It was about this time of the year. Even at age 6, there’s a calendar in your head. The few honest-to-goodness summer days you actually have left start nagging at you.
Pretty soon, the sun starts going down earlier. The evenings start cooling off. Then, just down the road, the S-word. School! Just thinking about it gave me a headache. Not long, and I’d be locked in a room full of kids and having to get taught stuff. Inevitability is tough to deal with. Every remaining day of true freedom counted.
If it was snowing, I could go outside and play. My grandmother, Miz Lena, didn’t care. Kids playing in the cold, according to her, built up their immunity systems. Actually, I hardly ever got sick. Still that way. Who knew that all those times Miz Lena put me outside and I froze my butt off was for my own good.
If it was blistering August hot, it didn’t mean a thing to Miz Lena. Any time I complained about the heat, she’d remind me that grown men had to work in the blistering sun to feed their families. That fact never made it any cooler.
You could freeze or risk heat stroke, but just as soon as the first wind hinted that those black clouds were gonna burst, Elizabeth, Grand Mom’s housekeeper, was at the back door hollering for me to come in.