Nostalgia

Yesterday I read letters from my mother, my Aunt RubyLee, and my Uncle Bunyan to their mother, Zepha Lee Peters, my grandmother, also known as Ma-Moo. The letters were hand written in pencil in the 1930's from Austin when their mother was in Arkansas having surgery of some sort. Their father, Henry Elmore Peters, was somewhere else for an unkown reason. I've read these letters before, but reading them again was just as fun as the first time. And of course now I'm thinking about their youth versus my youth. I can't help feeling a bit envious of their adolescence, even though I've heard Mother speak of the saddness and abuse that existed in her childhood. As young people, they were free to ride bikes to Barton Creek and cook on an open fire. They ran with a crowd most everywhere they went. They were three teenages living alone: cooking, cleaning, and working outside the home. Church was the center of their social life (no T.V.) and they were very active members. Contrary to that is my childhood and adolescence. My childhood was filled with happiness and adventure, but my adolescence was a big zero: drugs, cigarettes, boys and the local church. What a waste. I am glad Mother saved these letters. I almost feel as though I've traveled back in time. I can see RubyLee kidding Mother about her new boyfriend, Raymond, and mother throwing a bisquit at her. A bisquit that was hard and put a bruise on R.L.'s arm. A fact that R.L. laughs about in her letter, because she was the cook that made the hard bisquits. It all goes back to a sense of place. I choose them as my place and forgo my place. I am beginning to get very scattered thoughts and I'm not in the mood to line them out for print. I'll write again later....