I remember the smells, especially when it rained. There were so many pine trees for miles and miles that you took them for granted. I never seemed to be aware of them until it rained. Then, the aroma hung around everything like a blanket, settling the dust. Not heavy, just really clean smelling. It seemed we were always begging for rain in East Texas in the summer, and we had no such thing as air conditioning.

The combination of relief from the heat and the dryness and that wonderful aroma made everyone want to run around out in the rain dancing. My grandmother and I did that very thing on her front sidewalk many times. That walk went from the porch to the street, a busy street by that time in the 60's , and I was not allowed to go beyond the rose bushes that lined the front perpendicular walk. It was not a walk really; more like a worn place that had become a trail for everyone from the postman to potential customers for my grandfather's architecture business. The driveway crossed the sidewalk between the porch and the rose bushes and opened on either end back down to the street. There was a vacant field on the South side of the house that most visitors parked in. The driveway was used for business or when someone was picking up my grandparents and me.

There was always someone picking us up because neither of my grandparents ever learned to drive. I never thought of our transportation choices as odd or unusual. I thought of it all as a great adventure. Mostly we walked or took the bus line that ran along our street. Sometimes a cab took us to a restaurant, which was unusual, or to a particular store my Mammaw wanted to visit, which was even more unusual. Everything that was important to us at the time was close enough to walk. All was within two miles. Downtown held all the stores and businesses where we had to go to pay the bills. The ballpark where we watched Little League and where my dad grew up was only around the corner.

Across the busy street was the "ritzy" neighborhood. Mobberly Avenue, the street where we lived, divided the town socially, pretty much unbeknownst to me at the time. Mammaw loved flowers and up there in that neighborhood, with the mansions for several blocks square, were the most beautiful manicured lawns and flowerbeds. We were able to walk and enjoy all of them whenever we wanted. Our yard was pretty but simple with the rose bushes in the front and a huge old Mimosa tree on the North side of the driveway. That tree hung out in the street and shaded both the side of the house and the dirt and gravel driveway. I certainly spent a lot of time climbing in that tree and suppose that is why Mimosas are just about my favorite. The backyard was where all the plants, flowers, elephant ears and the birdbath were nurtured, along with a fig tree that covered the whole back of the house. My Mammaw was forever chasing blue jays out of that fig tree with her yelling and a flapping dishtowel.

I remember spending a lot of time outside. I watched television at home, but the summers I spent in Longview don't hold any memories, or at least very few, of television during the day. I do remember watching a few things with Mammaw after Pappaw died. "Truth or Consequences" and "As the World Turns" stick out most in my mind. I was always doing something else while the television was on I guess - playing Jacks or Solitaire. My Pappaw had taught me how to play and to never cheat, even if you were all alone and no one would catch you. I know now what he meant when he said it would take all the fun out of it. I really felt I had accomplished something when I could show Mammaw all the stacks with Kings on them at the end of a long game. She of course bestowed on me great praise for every little accomplishment, like the first time I hung out the clothes all by myself.

I had to have been about 8 years old when I had begged enough to do the whole process by myself. The big wait was not that I couldn't do it properly; I had been helping with the washing , hanging and folding the laundry since I was 5. It was that I could not reach the funny old clothesline. That was the trickiest "doodad" to maneuver and Mammaw did it so well. You see it took balance and forethought to figure out. Her clothesline consisted of two strong wires about 5 feet apart that ran from the open part of the backyard to the back thicket. Each one had a tall stick notched at one end to hold the wire off the ground. Well, you can imagine trying to hang clothes up next to the stick, which was way off the ground. So, what happened was the stick leaned precariously and at a severe angle to the ground according to the height of the clothes and person hanging them. Sometimes a stiff breeze would cause the lines to sway back and forth and I always thought it looked like the clothes were dancing with each other.

There is nothing to compare today with the feel and smell of clean, line-dried clothes. I miss that and so many of those memories from that time. Sometimes, when it rains in the summer and the sun is still shining, I smell those pine trees and see my Mammaw and me surrounded by clean clothes dancing on the sidewalk in front of everyone driving by.

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