Huh, you don't need no land

Yep, the purty little feller in the picture is your's truly. My sister, Jennifer, surprised me with this picture in the mail last weekend. She didn't know why she had it, but thought I might like to see it. I pulled that thing out of the envelope and nearly laughed my head off. Look at those rolled up britches legs and the way I am obviously posing! Also, check out the shoes, a pair of wanna-bes.

I'm not entirely sure when it was taken, I'm guessing around 1978-79. I'm probably 13 or 14 years old at the time. It looks like it was late fall/winter/or early spring. Either way, there wasn't any leaves on the trees and I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt, so it must have been cooler weather.

I am sitting on a piece of farm equipment, appears to be a rake. My papaw, Lorn Chesney, used to hitch these things up to the back of his mule or work horse and use them all over the farm. He had various pieces of equipment; rakes, plows, discs, sleds, etc... I remember that the seat on this particular one was really bouncy. I used to have fun sitting on it and singing while bouncing up and down. I'm surprised that the rusty metal held up under such abuse.

The spot where this was taken is up on "the hill" behind my papaw's house. My parent's house and my uncle Jim's house is over to the left past that large cedar tree, you can't see them in the picture. We used to sled down that hill during the winter time. We used old inter tubes and Volkswagen hoods for our sleds. I know it doesn't look that steep in the picture but it is pretty high. You can see House Mountain standing in the background.

It was always my dream to build a house up on top of that hill but sadly my papaw sold off the farm to some strangers and no one in the family inherited it. I even ask him one time if he would sell me a piece of land (not necessarily on the hill) but he just laughed at me and said, "huh, you don't need no land," and went about his business. He never knew how much that hurt me. It wasn't the fact that he wouldn't give or sell me any land but just the way he laughed and dismissed me like I was worthless. But, that's the way he was. That moment has stuck with me my entire life and I've been bitter about it this whole time. It's one of the reasons why I was not close to my papaw during his last days on earth. I wish I could have had a closer relationship with him and it wasn't from my lack of trying, I seriously tried, but always felt the door slammed in my face. I made an oath to myself that I would never treat my kids or grand kids that way because I know the emotional scars that it can cause. I believe that my papaw loved me, but he just didn't know how to show it.

The picture above is me standing in the foreground, my sister Pam over to the left, my mamaw Bessie is behind me, holding my cousin Brad, my papaw Lorn is on the right, he is almost smiling in this picture, which was rare. I don't know why Jennifer wasn't in the picture. She had asthma really bad when she was a baby and may have been sick or in the hospital during this time.