Floating on Clouds

February 23, 1966

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill. Not much happening around here. The snow melted. We went back to school. I guess I'm glad. Nobody wants to go to school all summer. Better to just get it over with in the winter. And school's not all that bad. One of those necessary things and I like learning stuff. 

I like the winter skies too. Those great looking clouds in the extra blue sky. Did you ever wonder how it might be to float around on one of those clouds? Maybe like being in a hot air balloon. Free to float wherever. Nothing holding you down. You'd have a bird's eye view. 

Of course, Wes says he knows all about that from when he was on that Jupiter spaceship. He says they were up pretty high because it's not good to let the earth people see those flying saucers. They get all excited when that happens. Wes is so funny. Sometimes I think he floats around on a cloud. 

But I do like his Jupiter stories. I like stories period. That's the kind of class I'd like at school. One where you could just read and read and read. Without having to write book reports or look for hidden meanings behind every words. Just a class where you got to enjoy the story for the story. I guess that would be more like a school recess than a class. But I do like to read. Don't you?

Time to see what's going on with Bailey.

BAILEY'S BUG by Jocie Brooke
(Continued from last week. The whole story so far is under the Bailey's Bug link up top.)

   Bailey pulled his tongue all the way into his mouth to sniff the air in the barn. Coyotes had been there, but not for a while. He told Lucinda that and then added, "And I do smell mice."
   "Then you catch them," she said crossly. "Cats can't hunt when they're wet."
   With that she climbed higher in the barn. Bailey sniffed around in the hay, but he couldn't concentrate on the smells. He wasn't any good at catching mice anyway. He couldn't creep up on them the way Lucinda could even when the thunder wasn't making his legs all trembly.
   Bailey looked up at Lucinda, but she was hunched in a ball with her eyes closed. Maybe sleeping would make her feel better and then she could catch some mice. 
   Bailey scratched out a hole in the hay close to Skelley. The old dog was already asleep with his nose on the painted stick. Bailey lay down with his head on his paws. He wished he had the plastic toy with him. That might help him hear the hum again.
   Beside him Skelley gave a shiver. Bailey stood up and brushed some of the hay over on the old dog.
   Skelley opened one eye. "Thank ye, lad." Then he went back to sleep.
   But Bailey couldn't sleep. So instead he tried to work the cockleburs out of his fur. Still, he was sort of glad he had the cockleburs to pull and bite on. And when he finished with them, he could worry with the thorn in his foot. That might keep him from thinking about how hungry he was or how the hum wasn't humming in his ears.
   Maybe the hum hadn't really left him. Maybe it was just the noise of the rain and the roar of the stream racing by outside that was keeping him from hearing it. The thunder was fading away, but the rain beat down harder than ever.
   Even if the hum didn't come back, he could just keep walking toward the sunrise. He wouldn't have to tell Lucinda. Sooner or later they would have gone enough miles and Reid would be there waiting for them.
   With that thought, Bailey quit worrying the thorn in his foot and put his head back down on his paws. Water was seeping in around the edges of the barn to join with the rain leaking through the roof. But it was dry where he and Skelley were and very quiet other than the pounding rain.
   For a minute before Bailey closed his eyes, he wondered if it wasn't too quiet. No birds. No owls. No raccoons. Nothing moving anywhere. Everything was probably just holed up sleeping through the storm the way they were.

(To be continued)

Starting 1966 Off with a Whisper

January 5, 1966
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Can you believe it's 1966? Wow! In a few years we'll flip the decade and then it'll really be hard to write the right date for the year. I'm getting fairly good at changing a 5 into a 6 on my school papers. 

Yeah, it didn't snow, so we had to go back to school. Not very fun. Although I did like seeing my girlfriends again. They were all sporting new sweaters they got for Christmas. I was too. The one Leigh gave me. Leigh knows what's pretty and doesn't make the mistake of buying girlie looking things for me. I am not a ruffle type girl! 

What did you do to celebrate the New Year? Daddy let me sit up and watch the new year in on television. He says he can't see why anybody would want to watch a ball drop in Times Square, but if I wanted to waste my time watching that nonsense, he supposed one night a year it wouldn't hurt me to sit up till midnight. I took a picture of the television screen at midnight when 1966 showed up. 

I jumped up and down and shouted sort of under my breath because everybody else was already asleep. Even Tabitha. You'd think at her age she wouldn't be too old to want to see the old year out and the new year in. She said she would have if Robert was there. That's her fellow. But he wasn't and Stephen, at one year old, doesn't know anything about new years showing up. She said he'd be up and ready for his breakfast at seven sharp the same as any other morning. 

I guess she was right. For sure she was right about it being more fun to celebrate a new year showing up if other people were around. Too bad I couldn't have watched the old year out with Wes. He'd have had a dozen Jupiter New Year's stories to tell. I'll have to ask him to tell me one tomorrow when I go by the newspaper office after school. If he does, maybe I can share it with you next week.

Meanwhile, it's time to see what Bailey, Lucinda and Skelley are up to. We left them last week with an owl about to swoop down on Bailey and scare him silly. Lucinda would say he's silly already. But if a big old owl was diving at me, I'd be scared. Wouldn't you?

BAILEY'S BUG by Jocie Brooke
  (Continued from last week. Read it all at Bailey's Bug.

    Bailey cowered against the ground as the bird's talons skimmed his back. Then as suddenly as it had appeared, the owl flapped away to a quieter perch in another tree. 
    Barking, Bailey ran after the bird. That started the coyotes up again. Bailey jumped around in a circle trying to figure out which direction to chase after the noisy coyotes, but their barks and yips seemed to be coming from every direction.
   "For mercy's sake, Bailey," Lucinda hissed from the tree over his head. "It was only an owl, and I told you owls don't eat dogs. It was trying to scare you away."
   "And those coyotes?" Bailey stopped hopping in circles. 
   "They mostly don't bother dogs like you either. I told you nothing normal eats dogs." Lucinda emphasized the word normal. "Now go to sleep."
   "Miss Lucinda is right, Bailey me lad," Skelley said. "We need our sleep for the journey tomorrow." The old dog promptly curled up in the hole he'd dug out next to the tree trunk.
   Bailey stayed on his feet, studying the shifting shadows long after the coyotes fell silent once more. He had the feeling eyes were watching him even though he couldn't see anything. Great saucer eyes. If only he could climb up in the tree with Lucinda.
   He wanted to bark again. That was what he always did when he didn't know what else to do, but Lucinda would yowl at him if he woke her up. So instead of barking, he growled real low to let anything that might be out there in the dark know that he wasn't a dog to be messed with. Hadn't he stopped a monster bulldozer? Hadn't he crossed the river of car without getting mashed? He could fight off a few coyotes and an owl. He could.
   He kept his growl rumbling down in his chest for a long time until his feet began to hurt. At last, still watching on every side, he eased over to where Skelley, his nose on his baton, was sound asleep. 
   Bailey eased down close beside the bony dog, but he kept his eyes open until they burned. He spotted mice creeping from the cover of one leaf or bush to another. A gray ball of an animal with a skinny tail trundled by. Another creature who looked like it was wearing a mask and who had rings on its tail scurried past. All the woods creatures seemed too busy to give Bailey more than a passing glance. 
   After a long time, when the owl didn't come back and the coyotes stayed silent, Bailey closed his eyes. He shut out the night noises around him and concentrated on the hum inside him until he could almost feel Reid hugging him.
   If he had to, he would walk through a million trees with eyes everywhere to find Reid. If he had to.

(To be continued.)

Loving December and Christmas on the Way

December 15, 1965
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. About Christmas. Don't you just love December? Christmas comes in December and there is so much to love about Christmas. First no school for a couple of weeks. All right, that shouldn't have been first. Jesus being born should have been first. But He knows I'm ready for a break from school. All those tests and homework papers and teachers talk, talk, talking. I don't guess everything about school is bad. There are my friends. I like getting to talk to them. 

What else is fun about Christmas? Church programs and Sunday school times. See the card. Janie made this for me in Sunday school. Isn't it the sweetest card you ever saw? Janie is eight. So she's not in the Beginners class that where I help Miss Vangie keep all the little kids happy. Or at least sort of occupied and quiet. Thank goodness, Miss Vangie always brings vanilla wafers. Little kids love cookies. But Janie is in the Primary class. Miss Sally teaches that class. Janie does like to sit with me in church sometimes and so she made me this card. I like the presents under the tree, don't you? 

That's another thing that's fun about Christmas. Presents. I guess I shouldn't say that. People are always saying it's more blessed to give than receive, but I see that most everybody starts smiling when somebody hands them a present. But the giver is usually smiling too. And I do like getting presents for the people I love. I'll have to write Janie a little story about Christmas and give it to her. She'll like that.

Do you like getting presents or cards that people make especially for you? 

I'm writing this story especially for you. Maybe tonight we'll get Bailey across that road and into the dark beyond. Do you think he's going to be scared? 

Bailey's Bug by Jocie Brooke
   (Continued from last week. The whole story is under the Bailey's Bug title up top of the page.)

Chapter 9

   When Bailey said go, they raced across the first road to the middle. There they sat a while gathering courage to challenge the second road. Cars whooshed by on both sides of them and it was easy to imagine being stuck there on that narrow strip of grass forever. 
   Bailey stared toward where the lights always showed first on the road they still needed to cross. He could barely count to five from the time he saw the lights until they zoomed past. Would they be able to run fast enough? 
   "Well, are we going or not?" Lucinda demanded.
   "Going." Bailey stood up. No lights coming. "Now." He ran as fast as he could across the hard blacktop. Skelley passed him before he got to the other side. 
   Suddenly lights shone out and then a huge truck barreled down the road toward them. It blasted its horn when it caught them in its lights. The two dogs leaped into the ditch even though they were well off the road. 
   Lucinda stood her ground at the edge of the road and yowled at the truck. The sound was lost in the rush of its many wheels and the clatter of its trailer. She glared after it until the red lights on its back disappeared down the road.
   "Forget about him, Lucinda." Bailey jumped out of the ditch with Skelley behind him. "He didn't get us. We made it across."
   "Across." Lucinda looked back at the road. "Yes, we're across." She sounded very tired. "I guess we'll have to go on now." 
   Without another word, she marched straight toward the thickest dark under the trees.
   Bailey looked back at the road too. Back that way were lights and houses and people. Not Reid, but other people who might feed them. While on this side of the road, there was nothing but dark. What if the hum in his ear was wrong?
   He felt anything but sure as he followed Lucinda into the woods with his tail dragging the ground. All of the sudden, the road seemed easy compared to the spooky darkness under the trees. Even the big yellow bulldozer he'd fought that morning didn't seem so bad now when he thought about it. At least he could see it and know where it was. Anything could be hiding in the dark woods.
   Skelley didn't seem any more eager to enter the woods than Bailey. The baton rattled around in the old dog's mouth, and his bones gave a tremble under the hide stretched tight over them.
   "Just a bit of a chill," he said when he noted Bailey looking at him. "Me master used to say somebody had walked across his grave when he had a shake like this."
   Talking about graves didn't make Bailey feel a bit better. He laughed to hide his nervousness but it sounded shaky even to his ears.
   With eyes shining golden in the reflection of a passing car's lights, Lucinda glared at them from the edge of the woods. "Don't be scaredy dogs!" she said. "Nothing here but trees and bushes and a mouse or two."
   "How do you know?" Bailey caught up with her.
   "Cats can see better than dogs. Cats do everything better than dogs."
   With that, she turned and her black body blended in with the dark and practically disappeared.
   "We better be after her, lad," Skelley said. "We'd never forgive ourselves if any harm came to Miss Lucinda while we were back here dragging our feet."
   From the dark shadows ahead of them, they heard an exasperated meow. Bailey and Skelley scurried after her. 

(To be continued) 

Storms and School and Stories

September 8, 1965


 

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. We get all kinds of things at the newspaper office and when Zella showed me this, I thought of Bailey and Lucinda right away. I know Lucinda is a black cat and not a white cat and Bailey is a bigger dog than this with bushy fur, but Lucinda does feel like she has to protect Bailey even if she'd rather lie in the sunshine and ignore him. More of their story is below. 

It's slow writing now that I'm back to school. Those teachers love giving homework. Doesn't matter if you already know how to do something. You've still got to do another ten pages to prove it. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. Maybe it's only five pages. 

Then, I've got to help Aunt Love to make sure she doesn't burn the house down when she starts cooking and then goes in the other room and forgets she's cooking. Tabitha could do that, but she's about as bad. She chases after Stephen and forgets all about supper. She does have to keep the baby out of things. None of us want him to tumble down the steps or anything. On top of all that, I have to help Dad at the paper and try to keep Wes halfway straight. Wes laughs at that. He says he's the one trying to keep me straight. But whichever, that doesn't leave much time for writing stories about dogs and cats. Not when there are other stories to write. Like about the 4-H meeting or the thunderstorm knocking out the electricity at the Courthouse.

Of course, we don't have it so bad with the weather. Down south there's a hurricane headed toward Florida. The second hurricane of the year. They've named it Betsy. There are all kinds of warnings out that it might hit Florida tonight. Betsy doesn't sound like a serious enough name for that kind of storm. 

What would you name a storm? Maybe Beulah. A Beulah would be one to watch for. The weathermen say Betsy is one people better be watching out for too. So I guess the name doesn't matter that much. It's how strong the winds are that matter. Dad said we should pray for the people down there and so I did. Guess we'll hear on the news in the morning what happened. 

Have you ever been in a hurricane? I can't imagine a storm like that.

Well, here's the next episode of Bailey's Bug.

 

BAILEY'S BUG by Jocie Brooke 

(continued from last week)

        Lucinda sighed heavily as if she’d just heard the weather forecast with no sunshine expected for a month. “Lean down and let me take a look.”

            She examined the nasty leash with her paw and nosed his collar. With a mutter of disgust, she chewed on the slimmest part of the leash. But with a shudder, she backed off.  “Tastes like dog.” She retched like she was going to dislodge a hairball, but Lucinda wasn’t one to admit defeat. “You chew it,” she ordered.

            Bailey gingerly took the leash in his mouth expecting it to attack any second. It didn’t and he bit down on it. When it didn’t bite back, he bit harder and jerked it around. The thing grabbed his neck and banged his head against a branch. Bailey barely kept from yelping. Then they both put their paws on the leash and Lucinda told Bailey to jerk back, but the leash just slithered free and laughed at them.

            “We’ll just have to let it go along.” Lucinda licked her paws and smoothed down the hairs on her ears.

            “But it’ll grab my feet and get me all in a tangle.”

            “Won’t be anything new about that. You stay in a tangle.” Lucinda turned away to peer out of the bush. “The coast is clear. The Robinsons have gone in the house to wait for us to show up on the doorstep which is what we should do if we had any sense.”

            She kept muttering as she crept out from under the bush. As he scooted out behind her, Bailey didn’t try to hear what she said. It was better if he didn’t know. He could find Reid without her help. Of course, he could, but he had no idea what was between here and wherever Reid was. Lucinda would know what to do if something weird happened. Cats knew about things like that because they were smart. And Lucinda was the smartest of all.

            Bailey bounced along, hardly even noticing the leash clattering along with him. Even it seemed to know it had to behave with Lucinda with them. He stopped to check for monster cars, then jogged across the street and into an open lot. Lucinda kept up with him without saying anything but now and again she made a growly sound that was definitely not a purr.

            After they walked a long time, he asked, “Have we gone miles yet?”

            “Dogs!” Lucinda hissed. “Always asking stupid questions.”

            “But have we?” It would be nice if they could find Reid before the stars came out.

            “I didn’t come with you to answer your stupid questions.”

            Lucinda was staring straight ahead, her head high, her tail stiff and straight as she walked. For just one worrisome minute, Bailey wasn’t sure she knew how far miles were. He took a wrong step and forgot about the leash. It tripped him and he almost stumbled right on top of Lucinda.

She slanted her eyes at him.  “You’ll never make it miles if you keep letting that leash trip you.”

Bailey kicked the leash to the side and felt better. Of course, Lucinda knew how far miles were. She was just a cat of few words. She’d tell him once they got closer to Reid.

Then, as they walked past the park, he decided she wouldn’t have to tell him. He’d know himself because that would be how far they’d walked. Miles. To another state. To where Reid was waiting for him.

(to be continued)

(Remember the beginning of the story is under Bailey's Bug up there on the top of my report.)

 

Back to School with No Curls

September 2, 1965

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Don't have much time. School has started. Sigh! Oh, I don't suppose it's all bad. I get to see my friends and Leigh helped me buy some new clothes. I wore one of the new skirts today. It's a-line and a neat color of green and it doesn't look half bad. 

Now if I could get my hair to do something besides lay flat on my head. Straight hair is the pits. All the other girls have these cute little curling rolls around the bottom of their hair. Mine is straight. I roll it and it just looks like I forgot to brush it. I spray it and it looks like rope strands or something. Wes tells me to let it be straight and be glad about it. He says straight hair is all the rage on Jupiter. I told him I don't go to school on Jupiter. But I think I'd probably be more popular there. 

I don't let Dad hear me say something like that. He says popularity is over-rated. That the only one I should worry about being popular with is the Lord. And that I'd better remember that and not do things I shouldn't just because other kids are doing them. I'm not about to do that. You know, stuff like sneaking around smoking or skipping school.  I just want my hair to have those cute flipped up curls or I'll take curls under. But guess I'll have to settle for straight and apply for Jupiter schools.   

Did you ever worry about how your hair looked when you went to school? Or about wearing the right clothes? Did you sometimes feel like you were the only girl in school who looked gorky?

Oh, I did write a couple more pages about Bailey and Lucinda. I didn't have time to write much. I was too busy trying to make my hair curl. But here they are.

Bailey's Bug by Jocie Brooke 
   (The story continues. Remember, the rest of what I've already written is up there under "pages" on the tabs. Hope you understood that. I sure didn't.) 

    Lucinda didn’t say anything for so long that Bailey decided she’d gone to sleep on the branch above him. Cats could sleep anywhere.

    He was thinking about shaking the bush to wake her when she made a funny hiss. Not mad. Kind of tired sounding. “If you’re determined to go even though it is dumb and you don’t have any chance of ever finding Reid and there won’t be any food and you’ll end up wandering around forever and starving or reduced to eating carcasses on the road.” Lucinda shivered and set the bush to shaking.

    “I’m going.” Bailey tried to block out the part about no food. Carcasses on the road might not be too awful. Might not.

    Again there was a long, worrisome silence. Lucinda had to be thinking about her window seat and sunshine. Then all at once she leaped out of the bush and landed on all four feet right in front of his nose. He couldn’t keep from jumping a little.

   “As much as I hate the thought of going with you, I can’t let you go off half cocked with nothing more than a bug in your ear for help. Heaven help me but I’m going to have to go too.”

    Bailey hopped up and down, setting the bush to shuddering. He had his tongue out to give her a happy dog lick, but she swiped at his nose with her paw. She didn’t pull in her claws.

    “Don’t you dare. I don’t do dog slobber. Never forget that!” She made the funny little hissing sigh again. “I’m only going with you so that when you get lost, I can lead you back to the Robinsons.”

    “I won’t get lost. Dogs don’t, you know.”

    Lucinda acted as if she didn’t hear him. “I’ll purr and rub Mrs. Robinson’s legs, and you can do that stupid dance of yours with your tongue hanging out that people seem to like. Heaven only knows why.”

    “We won’t get lost.” Bailey panted happily, but he was careful not to let his tongue drip on Lucinda. “Thank you for coming with me.”

    “Dogs!”  Lucinda had a growl in her voice. “Never met one who wasn’t more trouble than he was worth. Well, come on. Let’s get this foolishness over with.”

    Bailey started out from under the bush and jumped when the leash rattled. He gave the nasty thing a leery look. “What about the leash? I don’t want it to go with us.”

 
(To be continued)

Barefoot Days are Almost Here Again

Photo Courtesy of Anita Peppers

May 26, 1965
Jocie Brooke reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. A very excited Jocie Brooke because in three days - three short days!! - school's out for the summer. Yay!! It's not that I don't like school. At least most of the time, but in May, I hate school! 

Nobody should have to spend all of May in a classroom looking out at the sun instead of being in said sun. I mean, it's time to take off your shoes and feel dandelions between your toes. Maybe find a 4-leaf clover so luck will come your way.

Dad says that's silly. He says a Christian doesn't depend on lucky charms. A Christian should depend on the Lord and on his fellow Christians for his or her good fortune. But it's still sort of neat finding a 4-leaf clover. Or it would be if I could ever find one. Tabitha, my sister, she can step out in the grass, look down and see a lucky clover without moving another step. Right where I was just searching. I think she's half leprechaun. Don't tell Dad I said that. He'll be giving me a lecture about how it's okay to pretend, but a person shouldn't get carried away with silly stuff. 

But I like making up silly stuff, don't you? Wait, I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anybody. I'm going to write a book! Not just a little five page story, but a book with chapters and everything. Do you think you'd like to read it? I might write it on here - if it turns out to be any good. You know, it's easier to think about doing something rather than actually doing it. Right now, I'm just thinking about it. But I can't wait to actually get started. I'm going to let a dog be the main character. I think a dog makes a great character. A dog did in The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford. That story was so much fun. My book will be something like that, but I'm not sure how much. I've got to think up a lot of things before I can get it written. 

One good thing, I'll be able to write barefoot. I love to lose my shoes when it's summertime, but in our yard, that's not always a good idea. Or sometimes even in the house where you're liable to step on one of Stephen's metal cars or a stray block. Outside, it's not all clover and dandelions either. We have a few locust trees. Remember, they're dad's favorite because of the sweet smelling flowers. The flowers are okay, but the little thorns on their branches are no fun at all when they step on one. Bits of those branches are always falling off to lay little traps in the grass for unsuspecting feet. But the blooms do smell fantastic. Worth getting a few stuck feet from time to time. I'm just glad we don't have chickens. You go barefoot out at Miss Sally's and sometimes you get squishy chicken poop up between your toes. Now that's no fun at all.

Did you go barefoot when you were a kid? Did you have to always wash your feet before you went to bed? Every night?

Scent of Lilacs and News from Hollyhill

April 14, 1965

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Not much to report this week. Dad says that's good because it means nothing bad has happened. And I say why can't something good happen that we can report. 

But in the newspaper business, bad sells more papers. Like the wind blowing the roof off of Mr. Dexter's barn last week. Everybody wanted to buy a paper to see that picture. Of course, plenty of people had already driven out there to see the barn roof sitting over in the field instead of on the barn with their own eyes. I took the picture Dad put in the paper. I like taking pictures, but Dad says I have to be careful about using too much film. He's been thinking up ways to pinch pennies ever since he filled out those tax forms last week. So I can't take a picture of every flower I see even if they are signs of spring. And that's good news! But not the kind that sells newspapers. 

But I think spring is good. That means summer is not too far away and school will be out!! Yay!! This time of the year, school just gets too long. Way too long. They start wanting you to take tests every other day and by now, your poor old brain is so tired you can't squeeze one good answer out of it. But you have to anyway because you sure don't want to fail and have to do it all over again next year. I'd run away to Jupiter if that happened. 

Trouble is, Wes tells me they have school all summer up there. That's why they know how to build space ships that run on bug juice. Jupiter bug juice. I think even Wes has spring fever, not coming up with anything but rerun Jupiter stories. You want to know about that one just check back a few issues to the story he told me in February about Jupiterian Fropples. 

Since we're talking about stories, how about those two book covers up top? That's the book where you can come visit us here in Hollyhill and find out about all our secrets. That writer didn't keep anything back. The book cover on the right is the first cover the book had back when it was published in 2005. But now it's back out with the new cover, the one where I'm reading on the steps. Both covers have lilacs. Guess that had to be since the title talks about smelling lilacs. I like lilacs, so that's okay. They budding out here, but haven't bloomed yet. We're supposed to get some cold weather. Redbud winter, Miss Sally says. I'm going to cry if it freezes the lilac blooms. Really, I am. Loud, so Mother Nature can hear and feel sorry.

Anyway, back to those book covers. Which one do you like best? I like the bike, but I guess I have to like the new one best since that's me on it. It's not every day you get to have your picture on a book, now is it?

Oh, and if you have some newfangled way of reading that I can't even imagine, you can get it for free. I thought you had to go to a bookstore to buy a book or order one from a book catalog and then it came in the mail. But Wes says in those science fiction books he reads that they send books right through the air sort of like t.v. shows. I don't know if they have antennas or what. Sounds crazy to me, but if you are way out there in the future and know what he's talking about and you have one of those futuristic gizmos, you can read all about my adventures in Hollyhill without paying a dime. It costs nada, nothing. At least for a while. That's better than the books in the dimestore.

So, till next week when maybe the lilacs will be blooming, happy reading. 

Kids are Just Kids

Photo credit: The Roanoke Times, file photo, 1960.

January 13, 1965

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. We had to go back to school after Christmas last week. The snow kept us out a couple of days but then it was back to books and teachers. 

School's not so bad. Not now that I'm used to high school and all. That first day last year when I had to start as a freshman and the school was integrating and nobody knew exactly what to expect - well, that day was one of those days that make the ants crawl around under your skin. But now I know where my locker is and where my classes are. I know the upper class kids can be jerks, but I can just ignore them and do fine. And I know that kids are just kids no matter what they look like. 

We hardly even think about integration these days. It's like we've been going to school together forever. At least, that's how it is with Charissa and me. Have I told you about Charissa? She's one of my best friends now. We're both PKs. That's short for preachers' kids, you know. And PKs need to stick together.

I can't believe we didn't know each other before the schools integrated. We grew up in the same town but we were never in the same places. But now we are. I've even been to her church to hear her father preach and she's been to mine to hear Dad. The churches are a lot different. When they sing at her church, they sound like they could keep on forever. When we sing at Mt. Pleasant, we sound like we just wish the song was over. I like the way her church sings better, but when I told Dad I thought we needed more oomph in our songs, he just laughed and said the way we sing hymns is fine. 

Maybe so. But I liked clapping my hands and singing at Charissa's church. Of course, if I tried that at our church, Aunt Love would have a stroke right there in the pew. She would. She'd think clapping hands in church wouldn't be reverent. Funny how people come up with different ideas of how to be properly reverent.

It's funny too how people thought we, Charissa and I, couldn't attend the same schools. Our skin might be different colors, but we're so much alike. Besides the PK kind of stuff. You know like we both like aqua. Not only for the color it is but also for the way the word looks spelled out. Charissa and I both like words. We like to run our tongue around new words we're just learning. We both like Blue Monday candy bars and soft drinks and we can keep a hula hoop going forever. And we both definitely know how it is for a whole church full of people to think you ought to never make a mistake because you're the preacher's kid. Either that, or they decide you get away with murder because you're a PK. 

Do you remember when your schools were integrated? You might think that sounds funny - to think about kids going to separate schools because of the color of their skin. And you know what? You're right. But back here in the 1960's we were just figuring all that out.