Precious Memories from a loving son.

One Tall Tale from the Jackson Farm!

Many moons ago, back in the hills on the Jackson farm, there grew a huge oak tree covered with wild grape vines. Now to you city folk, you may not know it, but that is some of the greatest entertainment you can have. Betty and I (and sometimes we'd let Joy tag along) had these grapevine swings back in the woods, we had two on one big oak tree. One we called the big one because it would swing way out over a bluff. There was nothing below you but air, sand and a big old creek bed. You made darn sure you had a good hold on it before you ran and took your big jump. The other one was called the little one. It was fun but it would not go nearly as far out. We had the swings down perfect, one of us would swing from one side of the tree on the little one while the other would swing past you from the other side with the big one.

It was so much fun but Daddy had told us many times, we were spending too much time at those grapevines. One Saturday PM, we were playing with the grapevines and we had let Joy go along. We were swinging, having fun and suddenly, we heard this weird noise. It sounded like something we had never heard. We all got quite, the sound was getting closer. We got really quiet then someone said, "Look at that!" we saw this really scary "thing" in the creek bed, it was groaning and getting closer. It scared the living ****, right out of us. We had this man in the neighborhood that everyone feared. His name was Harvey Wilson. Betty's eyes got the size of quarters, and she said, "that's Harvey, let's get out of here."

Betty took one of Joy's hand and I took the other. We took off toward the house as fast as we could go. I'm surprised that Joy's arms did not come out of the sockets because her feet barely hit the ground. We even jumped the gate going into our lot. Mom saw us coming and came out to see what was wrong. We told her and she acted real concerned. We stayed away from the grape vines for a while, at least until we found out that the sound and the image was Daddy, down on his hands and knees, trying to scare us. Folks, I tell you, he did a darn good job.


Left to Right:
JACKSON

RUBYE L
1900-1980

MARRIED
SEPT 28, 1919
AT REST

LYNN
1899-1982