Ole loquacious, or motormouthed, Nolan will probably be on hiatus "fer" quite a spell. He "done" run out "uv" stuff to say. Now, "ain't" that a big surprise? I'm pretty sure that it will be a big relief for lots of the Minden Memories regulars. That boy "done be" had the floor "fer" long enough... We need
to let someone else take the baton.
Charlie H. should know lots about "batons," and "sech." Down around Bryceland and Bienville, we kept one of the fast running guys on our "watermelon borrowing" team. That went mighty fine "til" he tried to jump a "barb wire" fence one night still holding on to a "borrowed" watermelon. He wasn't a good hurdler... in the "light of the silver moon," that is.
One thing that I did find interesting about the World War II years were the rationing books, coupons, and tokens.
Rationing was a big topic of discussion back then. We were somewhat lucky since my granddaddy owned a small farm down below Bryceland. He had a large victory garden, he didn't call it a victory garden, lots of cows, a sugar cane patch, a purple hull pea patch, a field pea patch, a "Kentucky Wonder" patch, several pecan trees--which produced the large Stuart pecans*, and a syrup* mill. So, our family did manage a scrounge a few things from him. The only problem was getting enough gasoline to drive from Minden to Bryce.
It has been my opinion, for quite some time, that North Louisiana was still suffered from the "Great Depression" until after the Second World War was over. However, since the economy in the area was still based largely on agriculture, small truck farms and such, that the depression didn't have the huge effect that it did on the large metropolitan and industrialized cities of the North. What did we North Louisianians know? We didn't have much money before the depression and we didn't have too much money after...what's the big difference? :-)
Anyhow, a great silence has fallen....hurrah!
Nolan
P.S. Dear hearts, contrary to what Paula Dean "sez," they are "puh-kahns," and not "pee-cans." My grandparents kept one of the latter under their bed at night, way back when. <smile> Dang, and I had to sleep in one of those "night shirts" when I visited them. Anyone remember "night shirts?" Come on...fess up, ya heah! By the way, my grandaddy made "sur-up," and not "seer-up." I know that we were from the "North...that's North Louisiana," but not that far north.... :-)