Memories

Now that I am old I have discovered the very back end of my memory bank. There are things in there that I haven’t thought of in years. This one returned to me recently. When I was a child around 11 or 12 years old we lived in the country, and I attended church with my family on Sunday morning, and Sunday nights and all points in between. We prayed. I learned to pray. I prayed for this, I prayed for that. I prayed for rain, I prayed it would stop raining. I prayed for everything I could think of. That is the way I remember it. If anything went wrong I prayed about it.  A knot came up on the back of my hand. It was a small knot. We didn’t know what it was, and it didn’t hurt so it was pretty much ignored. I prayed it would go away. All kids in the vicinity attended a one room school house; it had a building with one side open for those that rode horses to school.  We were playing around that building one recess when a boy my age and I got into it over something. I can’t recall what I did to him, but he picked up a corncob and threw it at me, and I threw up my hand to protect my face. The corncob smacked the back of my hand, and when I looked at my poor hand the knot had disappeared. I said, “thank you, God.” I didn’t thank Ray for it. I’m sure you’ve heard that God works in mysterious ways. He does, even if it takes a corncob.

 I remember Ray Richards, the boy that threw the corncob. We were the same age. He died several years ago in an accident. He was very young. I can’t remember what kind of accident. I know it wasn’t a car wreck. We lived near Glencoe. Oklahoma. Ray had brothers and one sister as I remember. Billy was his sister. His brothers were James, Carl and Buddy. If he had more siblings, I don’t remember them. Maybe someone in the Glencoe area will read this and know who I am talking about. Small world you know.

It’s amazing how you can remember something 75 years ago, but forget to put the ice cream back in the freezer.