A Slice of Life
Bill Lites
We took I-49 North toward Shreveport to my dad’s family home site near the small town of Many, LA. We had a wonderful visit there with several of my uncles and aunts, remembering the good times my sister and I had during the many summer visits there when we were young
there was always the “ole swimming hole” where we spent a lot of time swimming, fished and chasing the crayfish. On the way out of town we stopped at the old country store where my cousins and I used to spend our nickels and dimes on candy and lots of firecrackers. One of my uncles ran the store back then but, by this time, the old lever handle gas pumps were gone and the store was closed.
From there, we continued north to Shreveport, to visit another of my uncles and his wife. He was a typewriter repair mechanic and had a wonderful shop full of all kinds of tools and equipment that he used in his typewriter repair business. It smelled of cleaning fluid and printer’s ink.
This is when he related the “watermelon nest” story to us. Seems as how he had this watermelon vine that had somehow attached itself to and grown up a tree in his backyard. Now I had never heard of a watermelon plant growing up a tree but my uncle wasn’t a man to fib. So, when a melon started growing high up in the tree, my uncle climbed up there and built a platform for the melon to rest on.
Well, would you believe it, when that melon matured to full size he climbed back up there, brought it down and he and his wife enjoyed it together. I asked him if that was the same tree, I fell out of and broke my wrist when my family was visiting him on one of our summer trips to Louisiana, and he said it probably was. My aunt had a fine dress shop out in the country away from everything. She often went on buying trips to the big cities, brought the latest styles in ladies dresses back to her shop, and sold most everything to the local ladies near and far.
To be continued……
Old Things R New 
Can you tell that Bill has a passion for travel?
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