NANCY, Part 3.

 We must have had another kid living around our house named "not Me".  He or she seemed to be the one who did everything wrong.  "Who carved arrows in the furniture with a bent nail???"   They all said, ... "not me."   Nancy should have gone to college and gotten a psychology degree with a diploma to hang on the wall because she has more natural ability than anyone I have ever met.  She would ask who did something and then pick out the likely one and say "I know you did it".  They would deny it and she would tell them that she knew because she could see it in their eyes.  I thought that she didn't know who did the dastardly deed any more than I did but then they would usually blurt out that they did it and they were sorry or they would move their eyes all around to avoid looking at Nancy and look more guilty than if they had just admitted it.  I learned that it also worked for me. Nuff said.

    We couldn't afford much of a vacation with the kids so we thought we would rent a camper and go to Jekyll Island for a few days.  It worked out so well that we went out and bought a tent camper when we returned and headed to the mountains for a week.  The cost was affordable with a $4 a night charge for a tent site at Rayburn Beach.  Nancy made up the beds like home

and cooked for us like we were home.  It was vacation for us but was harder for her than being home.  She always said that she was having fun too.  

    We were at Rayburn Beach campground during blackberry time and the kids picked quite a few blackberries.  They wanted Nancy to make them some jelly.  It didn't matter that she was there with only a coleman gasoline stove, sugar, and a pot.  Nancy said she had never made jelly but she knew she needed some pectin but she would give it a try.  She cut, smushed, cooked and cooked the purple stuff and finally decided that it would not thicken up and turned the stove off but left the stirring spoon in the pot overnight.  The next morning she had this big lollipop.  It had hardened into solid candy and she picked it up with the spoon.  Not to be outdone, she heated it again until it was liquid and poured it over their pancakes and they were happy.  See, she is fearless.

    This may have been her early attempt at jam and jelly but she succeeded after that with plum, pear, muscadine, peach, and strawberry.  She would pick these little wild strawberries and make the best strawberry jelly you ever had.  They were so small that it took a lot of them to make a batch but it had a pale color and was delicious.

    We lived in an area in Hall county that had a lot of wild plum bushes.  We all helped and picked washtubs full.  Nancy called it "Wild Plum Jelly Jam".  My folks place had some old fashioned pear trees and she would make Pear Honey from them. We had planted a vineyard and got the muskadines. 

    Note:  This "Nancy" part is mainly about Nancy.  (Duh)  I plan to revisit different time frames from time to time and not just make a chronological record.

NEXT- The Move 

We once had a governor of Georgia say that before we could improve our prisons we needed a better class of prisoner.  I say, "Before we improve our government we need a better class of voter".
Bill Buffington