Another thing I remember from my youth has to do with crazy sayings which mean nothing in fact. Some of them are about as scientific as a black cat causing bad luck if he crosses your path.
Anyway, most of the parents in our neighborhood didn't want their kids going out in the hot sun bareheaded. They would tell the kids, "If you go out bareheaded, the old buzzards will puke on your head."
One Sunday we were visiting Uncle Andrew's family. At least ten of us boys and girls started out into the pasture and someone noticed that Lela, the youngest girl, didn't have her bonnet on. The older ones told her the buzzards would puke on her head if she didn't go back and get her bonnet.
About 55 years later, Lela told me that she had always had a kind feeling toward me since that day because I was the only one of the whole bunch who would wait for her. All the others ran off from us and left us to catch up as best we could.
When we threw a stick and it went end over end or round and round sideways, that was just plain throwing a stick. But if we pointed one end forward and shoved the stick forward by a thrust on the back end of it, our scientific name for that operation was "puking" the stick. And we might start one end of a stick through a hole in a fence or over a fence and "puke" it through or over in the same manner.
Another thing grown-ups told us kids was, "If you want to see the wind, you've got to suck the old sow." Well, I wanted to be able to see the wind, but that seemed a little far out, even to me. And before I got around to qualifying, I learned that they were fibbing to us about it. You still couldn't see the wind.
Here's another one for you. When we killed a snake, we kids wondered why he wouldn't stop wiggling. We could even cut his head off and he would keep right on wiggling. They told us a snake wouldn't stop wiggling till sundown, unless you turn him over and make him lie on his back, then he would stop wiggling. Trouble was, we couldn't get him to lie on his back. Even with his head off, he would keep rolling back over on his stomach, as long as he could wiggle.
On the Exum farm, our house was about a half-mile from Grandma's two-story house. One day Mama sent me to Grandma's. I don't remember what I went for, but I do remember that when I got there, I couldn't find Grandma anywhere. I went all through the house looking for her.
I didn't find her but I found a full box of matches on one end of her sewing machine, where she always kept them. Now, everyone knows that all little boys like to play with matches. And since I was one of those little boys, I, too, liked to play with matches, especially since I knew I was not supposed to touch them.
So, I got a handful and went outside. As I went, I struck them on the porch wall, on the porch posts, on the bricks along the flower beds and on the front yard fence. Soon I was out of matches and had to go back for more.