Today is Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017, the time is 2:20 a.m. I find early morning to be the best time to think and write especially since the house is quiet and my husband asleep. My mind drifted back to my childhood when days were carefree.

I remember one winter when I was about ten years old there was snow on the ground. My sisters and I were playing in the snow running up and down the hill. Somehow I lost my gloves and apparently my energy because I could not climb back up the hill. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t do it. Eventually my sisters walked around the hill until they found a place where they could pull me up.

I also reminisced about walking to school. We didn’t have school buses so we walked through the East End’s Cemetery and across the railroad track to get to school. Rain, snow, sleet, or hail, like the postman we made that journey. Some days were rougher than others, especially when we had to make the trek in the winter.

When my sisters and I came home from school my mother usually had a sweet potato waiting for us. After we finish eating we would go and help our father clean the school. We cleaned the school all year round even during the summer. My sisters and I waxed the floors and chairs so that when the school opened everything would be cleaned. When we swept the floors and a penny was on the floor daddy made us put it on the desk. He said it wasn’t ours so leave it. We said “what if the penny doesn’t belong to the person that sits at the desk?” Daddy said it doesn’t matter, it’s not yours.

Finally I started thinking about my mother. My mother loved to sew and she made many of our clothes. I loved the dresses with oversized collars that covered our shoulders. In the evening she would sew and would give us a penny for each button that we gave her. We were giving her so many buttons that she came suspicious that we were cutting the button off the good clothes. That was the end of us finding buttons for a penny.

God has blessed me with a wonderful family. My mother and father, as well as some of my sisters and brothers, are no longer here, but I thank God daily for allowing me to have wonderful memories of them.

Be blessed in Jesus’ name.

Mary Simmons is a columnist for the Kenbridge-Victoria Dispatch. She can be reached at aboxofloveKVD@gmail.com.