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Wild Black Berry Books
Wild Black Berry Books
Category:
Memoir
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN-10: 1522961208
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 254
Copyright: Feb. 20, 2016
ISBN-13: 9781522961208
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Growing up outside of the local clique.
Growing up in a small town on the outside of the local clique was hard enough, but growing up with Mama, who was seemingly incapable of love, was no picnic either. Being the fourth of seven children, the fourth girl with three brothers younger, I was definitely the one in the middle. Despite the stigma of my family name, growing up in the fifties in the picturesque red rocks of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona, afforded me the things that molded my malleable mind as a child, allowing me to connect with the things of nature, the things that God had given me. We can all withstand a less than sterling upbringing as long as we realize that our lives are what we ourselves make of it.
Excerpt
When I got to the creek that day I found Ruth and her friend Wanda smoking twigs of dried grapevines. Evidently Daddy hadn’t left his cigarettes within reach, probably because he was becoming wise to Ruth’s penchant for pilfering his tobacco. She at times enlisted my help in snitching one of Daddy’s unfiltered Camel or Lucky Strike cigarettes for her, whichever brand he was smoking at the time.
On this particular day, Ruth encouraged me to put one of the hollow twigs of dried grapevine into my mouth. She then instructed me to suck in as she lit the twig with a match. I dutifully did as she instructed, gullible child that I was. I inhaled a large gulp of smoke as the grapevine began to smolder. The stinging smoke was like acid, it felt as though it went all the way to my toes, burning like fire all the way down. I instantly went into a coughing fit and the smoke billowed out of my nose, burning and stinging my nostrils like lye. My eyes smarted and watered profusely and I coughed until I threw up. I became hoarse and lost my voice from the irritation of the smoke and from all of the coughing. When the two of us got home that day, we were promptly confronted by Mama. My hair and clothes were permeated with the strong odor of smoke from the grapevine. Mama asked me if I was getting sick with a cold when she took note of the hoarseness, at which point I dutifully confessed to my part in the grapevine incident. Boy was that ever a mistake!
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