GENE MINIX'S______________CRUISIN' THE NOSTALGIA HIGHWAY

One of my fond memories of childhood days was walking down the path to the spring at my Granddad's home.

There was no well and the spring was the means of water. It was a ways from the house. To get to it you walked a path, crossed a footlog over a branch to just a beautiful sight. The spring, with it's cool clear fresh water came out of the rocks. The spring was probably about two feet deep with rock on three sides of it. Like a little box of water. The overflow went out the bottom side down to the creek.

There was a gourd dipper that hung on a tree near by. It was used to dip out the water which was always seemed to be cold and refreshing. How good on a hot summer's day!

I'm reminded of a verse in Isaiah, "And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not."
--Gene

SWEET MEMORIES!

© Copyright 2003 - 2012, by Gene Minix.
All rights reserved.
A GENPAT production.

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GENE MINIX'S________________

CRUISIN' THE NOSTALGIA HIGHWAY

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Do you all remember the Hootenanny? It was the musical sensation that swept the nation in the early and middle 60's. Of course, the word Hootenanny had been around for a long time. It was just waiting to take off and it did! It was a nation-wide folk music happening.

Hootenanny is a word for a get-together for singing and playing and listening. People from Hollywood, and New York and the hills of Tennessee played and sang together. Uptown hippies and earthy country folk, college students and business men and women, young and old...all joined together to sing and listen to the work songs, the cowboy songs, blues, gospel, bluegrass, love and humor.I remember it very well and enjoyed it a lot. The songs and the music, the instruments....guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, harmonica, mountain dulcimer, the jug and the washtub.

Do you remember the artists? Flatt and Scruggs; Peter, Paul and Mary; Joan Baez; Burl Ives'; the Weavers; The Kingston Trio; The Limeliters; to name just a few of the many.Then there was the M.G.M. movie, Hootenanny Hoot. I think it came out in 1964. It was a romantic comedy which starred Joby Baker, Pamela Austin, Peter Breck with lots of songs by a lot of singers such as Sheb Wooley, George Hamilton IV singing Abilene, Johnny Cash doing Frankie's Man Johnny, the Brothers Four and many others.

There were thousands of songs sung, I suppose, that were Hootenanny songs. See if you remember some of them. House of the Rising Sun, The Midnight Special, Michael Row the Boat Ashore, If I Had a Hammer, Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair, John Henry, Hush Little Baby, This Land Is Your Land, Greenback Dollar, Tom Dooley, This Train, Shenandoah........Remember? Yep, thought you would.

Now everybody join in ......If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning..............

Sweet Memories !

© Copyright 2003 - 2012, by Gene Minix.
All rights reserved.
A GENPAT production.

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GENE MINIX'S________________________________
CRUISIN' THE NOSTALGIA HIGHWAY

January 29, 2004


It is a cold day here this morning. The tempt. is 14 degrees F. But inside it is nice and cozy and warm.
But I remember growing up on the farm. We lived in an old house on a hill surrounded by tall Georgia pines. The outhouse was at the back of the yard toward the garden. Nearby was the big barn and chicken house. Near the back porch was the well, we had no running water.

The house sit on rock pillars with no underpinning. The cold winter wind whistled as it blew under the house and you could feel it through the walls in some of the rooms that had not been sealed. I remember when Daddy put sheetrock (drywall) in the bedroom and we moved the beds out of the living room into that room. Until then, the beds were in the living room which was the only room that had been sealed inside.

The house had never been painted and the boards were weathered and gray.

The house was heated by a big tall wood burning heater in the living room. There was a wood stove in the kitchen, but on those cold days, the stove would not even heat the kitchen and many times we would eat our meals in the living room by that big wood heater.

But looking back, those growing up years on the farm sure didn't seem bad at all. We always had plenty to do and life was always exciting. I'm sure times were hard but in many ways they were very good. We always had plenty to eat and we stayed warm by that big old wood burning heater. In so many ways, they truly were Good Old Days.
-Gene


SWEET MEMORIES!


© Copyright 2004, by Gene Minix.
All rights reserved.
A GENPAT production.
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