Swap Shop

20 SOUTHERN SENIOR MAGAZINE | Summer 2023 Not everyone has the privilege of growing up in the country and on a farm. Our farm consisted of cattle, sheep, horses, and Grandma’s chickens. And don’t ever think that Grandma wasn’t pecu- liar about her chickens and eggs. But she had to be. It’s how she purchased her grocery items – by selling and or trading her eggs. And this is what brought on a good switching from Grandma one day with the help of our city slicker cousin. Our cousin, who I will just call Cousin, was a city slicker and he was probably a little on the spoiled side, being an only child. Well, Cousin and his family would come visit about once a month and he loved to go into Grandma’s chicken house and mess with the eggs. He was fascinated with the countryside of things. He was also fascinated with how easily eggs would break when you threw them. We expressed to him constantly over and over and over again, “Do not go into Grandma’s chicken house. She will tear your hide up”. To no avail, he constantly went in and broke Grandma’s chicken eggs – using them as baseballs to show us what a “good arm” he had. Every time he broke eggs, we all got a good switch- ing. No ques- tions asked about who did it, we just all got it. Well, we had taken about all the switching we cared to have, espe- cially since it was brought on by someone that willfully did what he was told not to do. One day, after getting a good switching from Grandma, me and my brother took Cousin out behind the hen house and gave him a good working over, and not with a switch. I don’t think it needs say- ing, but we never got another switching for breaking eggs again. Another cousin, and yes, from the city, whom I will call Cuz, loved to come visit and ride horses. My brother and I enjoyed riding horses and rode them everywhere we went. We rode them to round up cattle, rode them to the creek to swim (us and the horses), and even rode them to visit the neighbor kids, a few miles down the road. If you didn’t have a truck or a horse back then, you walked. Like I said, we enjoyed riding horses, but when Cuz would come to visit, all we would hear is, “Let’s go ride. Let’s go ride.” Well, one day we took him riding. We rode and we rode and we rode. After an hour or so we noticed he got to squirming on the horse and complaining about his backside hurting. So, we rode some more. After a few hours, we decided he had had enough. When we arrived home, he could barely get off the horse, much less walk. And he was almost crying with his backside hurting. My brother looked at me and winked and stated, “Hey, Cuz, come inside, I got something to go on your back- side. It will cure it in no time.” We all trooped in- side. I knew what was going to go down. “Bend over and spread’em”, my brother told Cuz, as he pulled the old Avon aftershave out of the bathroom cabinet. Cuz never saw it coming as Brother dashed the aftershave all in his back- side. He started screaming and trying to put his backside under the bathtub faucet, as we all laughed hysterically. Gotta give it to Brother, Cuz never begged to ride horses again. Did we get a switching for doing this? I’m sure we did. But it was worth it. Stories From Yesteryear As told by Joe Nelson S