Sharing a Slice of Life #18: Random Picture Day

Our challenge was to take a picture at random from our picture box and blog about it.  Go over to Sharing a Slice of Life to join our fun.  I just read SouthernArkies post about her picture of a sewing room.  What a memory.
If you have visited before you know, I blog about my Hero, my husband every Sunday.  As it happens the Hero is in this picture. 

The picture was taken in my Uncle Ed's kitchen on his farm in Pawnee, Oklahoma about 1973.  The jacket the Hero is wearing was one that I had sewn for him.  He loved it and wore it out.  Also pictured is my dad sitting at the table, and my Uncle Ed standing and rubbing his eye. 
It is a standard kitchen, but it represents what I had always hoped for but never achieved in my own home.  Everyone migrated to the kitchen to visit.  I never had a kitchen to sit in.
When I was growing up, the living room was for formal guests, only family or close friends were invited beyond.  The kitchen was the place you sat down at the table and had a cup of something, and visited.  Old times were talked about.  Card games were played here.  Needs and challenges were discussed. Sometimes tears were shed.   It represents closeness, family, and love. 
The Kitchen, a place where the body and soul were seen and fed. 

Sharing a Slice of Life 'Fires'

Texasblu gave us the prompt fires.  As she says, there are many fire stories in my life, some which I will share this winter to warm you while it is snowing outside. 

The story which goes with this time of the year is when I was 5 years old.  We were renting a house in the country, while my mom applied for college and my dad was trying to get back to productive work after loosing his leg, a story I told about here.  There wasn't trash pick up in those days, but we had a 50 gallon metal can my dad had fashioned into an incinerator. (I see your minds; they are starting to put two and two together.) I need to further advise you of where our house was.  Pawnee is built in the Sandstone Hills Region of Oklahoma.  Our house was near the top of a hill.
With this background, I will continue.

This particular day was probably, according to my mom, not the best day for burning trash.  It was windy and dry.  She had started the fire, then went back inside for more paper to burn.  She was easily distracted and had not put the wire lid back on. When she came back out, the wind had picked up a piece of trash from the burning trash and had sent it into the field.  Everything was so dry that the fire was already spreading down towards our neighbor wildly.  My mother at first beat the fire out around the butane tank.  When she had that safe, she looked around and saw me wide eyed and as usual bare foot behind her.  She bent down and told me to stay near the house.  She could not take me because I didn't have on shoes.  She was going to run down to the neighbor's house, (which was not close) and use their phone to call the fire department.  I nodded and watched her take off at a run down the road.  I was scared and just looked at the fire spreading.  Then I had a sudden flash in my mind what I needed to do.  I took off running to the barn yard where everything was fenced in.  I proceeded to let the rabbits, cow, chickens, and anything that was caged up loose so they could escape if the fire got to the barn area.  Then I went down by the mail box to wait for my mom to come back. 
I was crying and I remember one of my dad's friends a black man, stopping by to talk with me and comfort me telling me that help was on the way to put the fire out.  I don't remember my mom coming back, but I have always remembered the kind hearted friend who stopped to comfort a little girl. 
Men from all over the area came to help put out the fire.  I can remember their faces which were black from the soot of fighting the fire.  They gathered off an on at our the house and I took them cold water to drink in my little red wagon.
The fire never came back towards the barn, but my dad told me he was glad I thought of turning the animals out for safety.  My mom always told me as she was half way to the neighbors. she realize she had left me with the fire and a butane tank in between. She could only push herself to run faster.  In the end, we were all thankful that only woods and fields were burnt, no houses or people.

The experience has always stayed with me.  To this day, I am still leery of burning bush or anything out in the fields. Smokey the Bear was my friend and I always followed his instructions.  Children today would do well to know him...
And with that, I wish you a "good day"!

Summer Visits and Poignant Memories

When I was little, my father loved living in Pawnee, Oklahoma. We lived there until I was 8 years old, then we moved half a state away. We would go back to visit every holiday or family event. I would often spent several weeks with my cousins during the summer. We would go to the Indian Pow Wow's and fish, and go to the movies. It was always fun.
On the left you see my son, when he was 18, we went back to visit the old town again.


One of the sights to see was Pawnee Bill's Museum. My dad told me he knew Pawnee Bill and that when he was about 8, he would play with Billy, Pawnee Bill's son. He said they would play cowboys. He had lots of fun with him. It was after one of his visits that Billy accidentally hung himself from an old windmill. My dad always remembered the fun with Billy and the sadness of Pawnee Bill and May, who closed up Billy's room and never reopened it while May was alive. I checked out the dates recently and I know that my father was there at the time of Billy's death and that they were of the same age.

The old theater is still there. My father worked next door washing dishes after his lost his leg in a logging accident. He worked to put my mother through college. I can remember going to the movies here. I particularly remember a movie about werewolves and that I got so scared my dad had to take me home.
This was a neat place to take my children back to visit because there are so many historic ties of their family to this place with wonderful stories.