Dirt roads, Rotary phones, & a Rural Upbringing -"plum" full of value

Most of my best memories come from
some old dirt road

 My childhood took place in the latter part of the '70s and throughout the 1980s beginning in Cunningham, TX where the population hovered between 200-300. A very rural setting, such as this, made for a unique upbringing. As I approach 40 years of age I realize that because of this, I experienced life differently than most people from my generation.
I remember growing and thinking this is what life is all about. I had it all; my best friend lived across the street, I didn't have a care in the world, and there was never any trouble finding things to occupy our time. As kids, we had our own little slice of Heaven. In town, we had a General Store that doubled as a Post office, three churches, and a working cotton gin which employed some of the men in town, including my father. The General Store sold everything from groceries to material for clothing. Except for the pets and farm animals, Cunningham became a ghost town on Sundays, because most of the population attended church.

The thing I enjoyed most about my childhood was the closeness of the entire community. There is an African proverb that states, "It takes a village to raise a child," and this is the only time in my life that I found that to be true. Take for instance; If we happen to be across town playing and it was lunch time, typically, we were offered lunch by a kind neighbor so we would not have to ride our bicycles back home and miss out on valuable play time. In the same respect, if we were doing something we knew was wrong in the presence of that same neighbor, we would be subject to the punishment that person deemed fit. Normally, that would be a scolding and the threat of calling our parents. This was just the way it was, everyone took care of the children in the community. As children, we were taught right from wrong. It was very clear to us that consequences followed every action, and whether good or bad, if you were responsible for the action then you suffered the consequence.

Everyone, including children, had responsibilities. I am not just speaking of chores, we had those too. What I am talking about are things such as; children respecting their parents, adults respected each other, all were respectful to our elders, and most important, we all knew how to be kind to one another. Not everyone in town was a Christian, but all knew of God's Grace and the doors were always open to the churches in town. We didn't have access to the technology that we have today, and we were able to survive. Rotary phones were the newest gadgets. I remember picking up the phone to call a friend and heard two other voices on the line. I was nosy, so I listened in on the conversation a little. My mother told me that we were on a "party line." A party line is a connection that has two or more subscribers; meaning that we had to wait until the conversation was over before we could make a call. Depending on who was talking, this could take a while.

On many of those hot summer days, you might find us enjoying a watermelon and planning our next adventure, or having ourselves a chinaberry war. We would play football in the street, take our BB guns out into the woods and pretend we were hunting. My best friend had a three wheeler that we would ride up and down the road. We did all of these things, usually without the presence of an adult, and we survived. I now know the reasons why. We were raised knowing right from wrong. Values had been instilled in us that helped us to make the right decisions. We were raised in a time and area where people cared and watched out for our safety, and we knew this. We were raised in church and taught that sin is sin, so even if our parents could not see what we were doing we still had our Heavenly Father to answer to.

Not all can look back on their childhood and recall memories such as these, but everyone has their own set of values that have been instilled in them throughout their lives. Keep those close to your heart, but share with the ones you love.

"Whether good or bad, responsibility is to accept the consequences of your actions. This is the least we can do as human beings."