Sweet Home Alabama

Last night Lorenne asked me about her great grandparents. So I started telling her stories about my Grandma Gregson and going to Alabama as a child. Some of the things I remember about going to Alabama:

1-It always took THREE long days to get there. But somehow we would fight less in those three days than we did in a normal day at home. And all 11+ of us were crowded into our camper.
2-No matter what time, day or night, we got in Grandma would always have a huge meal ready for us. There would be rice, biscuits, gravy, black eyed peas, butter beans, honey butter and so much more. We would sit at the long tables and stuff ourselves silly.
3-One of the highlights of staying at Grandma's house was gathering the chicken eggs each day. My favorite nest was the one in the small barrel nailed to the tree. Grandma would get so mad at us if we scared the hens off the nest to get the eggs.
4-All of our cousins thought we were crazy because we didn't like to drink the water down there. They would tell us that water was water and the water there didn't taste funny. No matter how much we argued that the water tasted different they wouldn't believe us.
5-It was always fun to watch people count us as we got out of the camper. With the first few out they didn't pay much attention, but then as we kept coming you could almost see their heads bobbing back and forth counting us. I'm sure the fact that we wore matching shirts really threw them for a loop. It seems like someone asked Mom where she found shirts that matched in all our different sizes. They about fell over dead when Mom said she made them all.
6-One of my favorite memories of the drive was when we stopped at a McDonald's in Louisiana on the way down. We were so tired of being in the camper that we were thrilled to have a chance to play on the outside playground. So even a torrential downpour couldn't keep us off the playground. When it started raining we just went down the slide like a water slide. I'm sure everyone thought we were crazy, but it was just the break that we needed.

I shared with Lorenne a lot more different memories. When I was done she said that she wished she could go to Alabama and have fun like I did. It made me stop and think. Would it be the same if I took my kids? Probably not. Most of what made Alabama so memorable was Grandma Gregson. Without her there and her house gone it just wouldn't be the same.

My family may not of had a lot of money growing up, but my parents gave us a wealth of memories. A lot of the best ones came from our trips down to Alabama.