Bobbie Gene's Way. Rosemary McLemore

      Being that this small house had no insulation and a tin roof, it was so cold in the winters and extremely hot in the summers. Cold weather is rare in Florida; however when it got cold, it was bone chilling and the hot days are bone drying. Mother made sure that the big window fans were buzzing to keep us children cool in the summers. The big stone fireplace kept us warm when old man winter came along; however, I don’t ever remember us children cutting a lot of wood for it. Knowing us, we used whatever tree branches and limbs found out and around the house. Because of the tin roof, it was so soothing to hear the raindrops during those dog days of summer.

      Our little shack of a house had natural hardwood floors, but these floors weren’t varnished or protected. In spite of the unprotected floors, we still had to make sure the floors were mopped and cleaned with bleach on regular basis. Just imagine mopping floors that have splinters. I can only guess that once upon a time, they must have had some type of varnish. One thing for sure, this small house was one of the cleanest houses on backwoods road.

      The big down fall to the small house was that it was old with cracks that needed repairing. Things seem to crawl through cracks when dark comes. Mother reminded us that at least, we weren’t sleeping outside. I remember thinking to myself, yes, Mother, but I can see outside through a crack on the wall. Of course, I would never say this aloud for Mother to hear me.

      Repairs were things we as a family had to pursue on our own. There would be no calling professionals to do any work. Mother did some of the manual work around the house which meant nailing pieces of wood here and there to cover the biggest cracks. Most of our furniture were hand-me-downs from our grandparents. We did have one television to watch. For some reason or another, the rabbit ears seemed to always end up broken. The best way to replace rabbit ears is by sticking and old ice pick in the center connectors; this was of course Bobbie Gene’s Way. Even though the struggle was real, Mother always seemed to make things work somehow. I can recall when my younger sibling Elaine was born; since we didn’t have a crib for her, we simply used a dresser drawer. It seems so silly now, but at the time, it just felt right.

      This small house set on several acres of land which meant that there was plenty of room to run and play outside. Our yard was always clean and free of litter. All trash was burned out back in a barrel.

      Raking and burning leaves was something that we enjoyed doing together. We would stand around and watch the flames from the fire form various shapes. We would call out the different things that we would see with the shapes of the flames. This gave us a chance to use our wild imaginations. Like a lot of kids, we became fascinated with fire. While running and playing around a pile of burning leaves, I accidently pushed my sister Gennie into the burning leaves. Well, she survived, but my behind was burning far worse than that pile of leaves when Mother found out.

      One thing you must understand about being disciplined by Mother: you were always given a warning first. She had a hard stare with the wicked eye to let you know that she wasn’t pleased with your behavior. Usually that hard stare was enough to get us children back on track. We didn’t have enough sense at that age to fear God, but we did fear Mother. She made it clear, “I don’t play with children.”

      If you got into trouble, you first had to break off your own switch, which consisted of a skinny flexible twig that you strung together. If you didn’t get a switch big enough, then she would get it for you. The dreaded lecture was the next thing to take place. She talked the entire time that you were getting your whipping. She explained why you were being whipped and what you were going to do once it was over. One could never understand any of the words that were coming out of her mouth due to the crying and screaming coming out of our mouths.

      I must say that whippings were far and few among us children because one or two good lessons were enough for a decade.

      Nowadays when I hear small siblings fighting because the other sibling is touching them or sitting too close to them, I can only imagine how well this would have gone over with our mother. Growing up with eight siblings who cared who touched what and sits next to whom. We were just happy to be some place or in each other’s company.