I spent a good deal of time at that old homesite. One day, I was sitting there and I heard a young squirrel chattering at me. I turned around and he was sitting there on my log, about 10 feet away from me. He acted as if I was invading his territory. It was hard to keep from laughing at him, he looked like he was trying so hard to be tough, standing up on his back legs barking at me. I just turned my head and acted like I was ignoring him, all the while keeping an eye on him to see what he would do. I don't believe he had ever seen a human before. He was obviously pretty young, we didn't allow anyone to hunt on our land, and as far as I know, no one but me had been in that part of our woods in years.

He finally quit barking at me and went back up into the trees, occasionally barking, I guess to let me know that he was still around. From then on, everyday when I went to my spot, or his, depending on how you look at it, I would bring some bread, or some kind of treat and leave it on the log before I left. He always made his presence known when I was there, although he didn't come back down from the trees. When I would leave, I would walk off into the woods after leaving his treat, find a tree to stand behind and watch to see if he would go get it. For about a week, he never did, but the next day it would be gone, I didn't know if he came and got it of if some other small animal had taken it.

Then one day as I was leaving, I had given up on waiting for him to go get it while I was there, I was heading back home and I heard the leaves rustling. I looked back and saw him running from the log with the piece of bread in his mouth, headed back up a tree. Well, to make this story a lot shorter, I finally gained enough trust from the young squirrel. He and I became friends, at least to the point to where I could sit down on the log and lay the treat beside me and he would come up and get it while I was there. And then eventually he got where he would sit there beside me and eat it. I never tried to touch him though, I don't know if I could have or not, but just being able to gain that much trust from him was enough for me.

I know you're probably wondering what all of this has to do with my mother. Well, she's the one that taught me patience with animals. We always had cats around our house, and there was always another litter of kittens being born somewhere. It started out with two cats that she had gotten as kittens from a neighbor lady to try and control the mice. After that, the family grew. Usually the kittens would be born somewhere that we weren't able to get to, and the mother cat would only bring them out once they were old enough to wean. She would lead them to our back porch where she knew that my mother would put out food for them. By this time, they were old enough to run around and play, but not being raised around humans, we couldn't get our hands on them. That's where my mother taught me a lot. She would sit for hours out there on the back steps after she sat the food out for the kittens, and just watch them shyly come up and eat. She never tried to get them to come up to her or try and touch them. Eventually, they would come to her, rub around her legs and beg to be petted. It was always so amazing to me. It always worked. She could do this with just about any animal.

It's easier now to remember all of these good things about her. They've always been there, but there were many other things that happened between us that I grew up resenting, because of that, unfortunatly, I pushed all of these good thoughts to the back of my mind until much later.

When I try and remember my childhood, the earliest memory I have is of me sitting on the floor in our living room cutting pictures out of a magazine and pasting them into a scrapbook. My mother was sitting at the sewing machine, probably making me more clothes. I remember asking her to play a game with me, or help me with my pictures. Her response was, "I don't have time to play games." I guess that time in particular sticks in my mind because that was always her response.

I don't remember her ever taking the time to play games with me, or spending a lot of, what most people refer to as, "quality time" with me. I'm sure that there were times that she did, I'm just saying that I don't remember them. I suppose that's why, when I was old enough to play outdoors by myself, I headed for the woods to explore.

I was really spoiled as a child, which caused a lot of resentment from my older brother and sister. When they were growing up, my mother worked outside the home, and they both had their chores to do around the house. By the time I came along, or at least by the time I was old enough to do my share of the chores, she had quit work and stayed at home with me. She had her own way of doing things around the house, and when I tried to help, she would always come behind me and tell me that I wasn't doing it right, and she would re-do it. She remained this way for the rest of her life. I was never allowed to help with the cooking or washing the dishes, because it was never to her liking, so I quit trying to help.

Of course at the time, I was grateful. Of the few friends that I had in the area, I had one in particular that I was allowed to visit with. She had twelve brothers and sisters and she had tons of chores that she was responsible for. Every time that I would go to her house, I always ended up helping her with them. I thought it was fun, I did things there that I wasn't allowed to do at home. Of course, she loved for me to come over! She was very seldom allowed to come to my house because of all the work she had to do at home. It was at her house, and being around her where I first started to question religion. I was raised as Southern Baptist, and she was raised Penticostal. I won't go into detail about all of my feelings about this matter, I have another page on this subject if you want to read about that.