I remember spending summers on 'The Farm'. That's what we called Grandpa's (my great grandfather) place. He owned the entire top of a mountain in Northern Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountain Range.
Each summer my parents and most of my mother's 11 brothers and sisters would make arrangements to send their children to 'The Farm' for the summer to help our grandparents with chores.
It was a glorious time! We would congregate with an insane amount of cousins and work and play together all summer!
Once a month Grandpa (who was actually our great-grandfather) would take us on a Saturday fishing trip. Sometimes these trips were overnighters if we had done particularly well with getting our chores accomplished.
These were great events. A lot of preparation and teamwork had to go into getting ready to go.
Grandpa had a flatbed logging truck that we would load with all our supplies. Supplies that included things like a dozen cane-backed chairs (that grandpa made years ago), several coffee cans full of sourdough balls (for the catfish), stacks and stacks of blankets for bedding and tents, and piles and piles of rope to hang the blankets over for tents and to put on the ground around our tent area to keep the snakes away while we were sleeping.
Then there were all the fishing poles and tackle boxes (about 3 dozen poles and half a dozen tackle boxes). And there was a good supply of dishes and cast iron pans for cooking on the open fire, and jugs of water for drinking.
One trip I remember in particular was when my Grandpa took a group of us down to the river bank to camp for the night and fish for some catfish.
It was the Red River, deep in the Ozark mountains. There were about 12 or 15 of us grandkids along with him. We fished for the afternoon and set up camp for the night.
It was a grand time, listening to the crickets chirp and my cousins' laughter. Lightning bugs were lighting up the air around us so that if you squinted your eyes, it looked like there were as many stars on the ground as there were in the night sky above us.
The smell of the fire that was crackling in the middle of our camp circle filled our nostrils and always prompted at least one of my cousins to come up with a good ghost story.
We roasted marshmallows and cooked jiffy-pop popcorn over the open fire. Grandpa let us stay up as late as we wanted on these trips. There was no question as to whether or not we would be able to rise the next morning. Of course, we did. We got up and cleaned up the camp. Packed up the gear, and settled in to fish until Grandpa was ready to go.
Sometimes on these trips, if we'd behaved ourselves properly enough, Grandpa would leave a little early to head home and stop by the swimming hole on the way for an extra treat.
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