Peanuts, Pixie Stixs and a Grapette

Between the years of 1962 and 1964, my family lived in a little town about 50 miles northwest from Cowtown. Dad commuted thirty-six miles roundtrip to Weatherford and worked for the Coca-Cola bottling company and Mom taught math in the upper school grades. We lived in the "teacherage" (think parsonage for teachers) which was just a half a block from the old two-story schoolhouse.

Right across the street from the teacherage was the First Baptist Church where I attended GA's (Girls Auxillary - "Arise, shine, for thy light is come") and practiced my music lessons on the Sunday School's ancient upright piano. We didn't have a piano in our home, and the pastor and his wife were most gracious in allowing several girls to use the church's in the afternoons after school.

Poolville First Baptist Church

Those years will always hold a fond remembrance of childhood: of the rough caliche roads that promised endless Saturday morning chores of dusting furniture, the ice-cold Grapette soda and penny candies from Carter's General Store, and long summer days spent on bicycles with friends. Sometimes, if we were lucky, the red cardboard cylinder of salted peanuts would hold the treasure of a dime or the rare quarter in the bottom instead of the usual penny.




*I am the blonde on the right - recognize those Pixie Stixs?

My own children and certainly my grandchildren will never know this kind of idyllic childhood. Where the freedom to explore and grow included large pastures, wild plums, and the safety and nurturing that small communities used to offer once upon a time.

Yes, the sixties were an era of much social upheaval for our country, a time of monumental changes, but I still get nostalgic about much that was this America.