Orville Highpockets Jarrett found himself standing before the Pearly Gates of Heaven. 

Saint Peter stared uneasily at him through the golden bars and was just about ready to press the "Enter" button to let him in, when it hit him! "What the hell is that smell?" Saint Peter cried out. Then he quickly pressed the "Reject" button which sent poor Orville straight to the pits of hell.

The Lord of Flies was making his rounds when he stumbled upon the dejected war hero from Loose Screws, West Virginia. He took a good whiff and then bellowed out: "Oh, hell, no! You're not coming down here and funk-up my crib!" Old Beezelbub went straight to his hot line (the Red Phone) and dialed 1-800-GOD. After an hour of bickering back and forth, the rulers of Good and Evil agreed that Old Orville still had plenty of life left on Earth. And they sent him back to, of all places, Bollywood, India!

Orville had finally made the Big Time at last. He was given a small part on CW's Supernatural television show, which had recently moved its operations from Hollywood to Bollywood to save on the costs of production. The episode he was to star in was titled: "The Man Who Would be King of Loose Screws, West Virginia."  But, after working several days with Orville on the set, the Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean, went to the show's creator, the great Eric Kripe, and asked him to please change the title of this episode to: "The Man Who Smelled So Funky that He Was Thrown Out of Heaven and Hell." Mr. Kripe granted them their wish. 

And the story of Orville Highpockets Jarrett will live on for another day.

- - - - - -

A Note from the Author: I would like to take this time to dedicate this little story to all of my homies named Orville. I've come to believe that there's a little Orville in all of us. Haven't you ever been riding down the highway with the windows open on a hot summer's dog-day afternoon, and you catch a whiff of something that gives you the urge to check your underarm deodorant? And you say: "What the hell is that smell?"

The End

Another Orville story will appear soon. Thanks for dropping by!

The Feds Come to the Rescue:

Orville was housed at Red Onion State Prison and this is where I met him, as he and I would share a cell. His strong B.O. would be his own personal salvation. For when we went outside for recreation, the northeasterly winds would carry this smell all the way to the footsteps of Washington, D.C., more than four hundred miles away. The U.S. Secretary of Defense got a good whiff of Orville’s strong odor one evening on his way to Happy Hour. He had his driver follow the horrible smell all the way down to Wise County, Virginia, where he found the source of it inside of Red Onion State Prison.

Orville Highpockets Jarrett was immediately pardoned from prison and put on a special Air Force plane to Kabul, Afghanistan, where he would become America’s number one weapon against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He was given an AK-47 rifle, but with no bullets. Unbeknownst to him, his main weapon against the enemy was his body odor! He felt a strong sense of pride and patriotism when he would be sent out all alone into the hills of Afghanistan and round up the terrorists as they surrendered to the awful smell.

 

The terrorists were slowly dwindling, but some die hards held fast. Until their sheep and cattle came out of the hills with front legs held high in the air, crying out: "Baa Baa" and "Moo Moo." Which translated means: "We Surrender!" Followed by: "What the hell is that smell?"

Finally, the die hards all were gone, and America's war with terrorism was over! And Orville Highpockets Jarrett became an instant hero and  household name overnight.

Orville was sought after by the media, and he did interviews on shows with Oprah, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and many others before finally returning home to Loose Screws, West Virginia. There was a ticker-tape parade, where all eleven residents honored him and carried signs saying "Orville For President" and "Orville for Mayor." It felt good to be home again, as he strutted his Body Odor stuff down the dirt main street of town, barefoot, shirtless, and with his suspenders pulled up all the way to under his arm pits. After a long day and night of celebrations and drinking white-lightning from a jug, Orville stopped by the Donald's restaurant and ordered the 20--piece chicken nuggets dinner. He was given a free room at the Dewdrop Inn Motel, right next door to Donald's. He was very tired, and he went to use the bathroom before he retired for the night. Unfortunately, he stepped on - of all things - a bar of Irish Spring soap, causing his feet to fly up from beneath him. He hit the back of his head on the white porcelain bath tub, crushing his skull and killing him instantly.

not finished yet . . . 

Hello to my readers:

I have mentioned previously my cell mate, Orville, whose body odor was way beyond normal. I have written a fantasy story about him and want to share it with you. It helps a little to share the story, even if I can't actually send you a sample of the smell. Good news for you!

Here is part one The Saga of Orville Highpockets Jarrett -

Introduction: How Orville came to be in prison.

Orville came from a small town called Loose Screws, West Virginia, population eleven. In the spring of 2007, he decided to venture out from the secure nest of homes and hitchhike to Bollywood. Of course, no one ever told him that Bollywood was in the country of India, clear across a lot of water. He had made up his mind that once he had made it across the great Ocean of the Mississippi, he would be at his destination, scott-free.

His luck was with him that early June morning, when a hog farmer driving a ‘57 Chevy truck picked him up. Unfortunately though, his luck didn’t hold up very long as the hog farmer drove south instead of west. Before the night was over with, Orville was stranded in the city of Roanoke, Virginia.

Already broke and very hungry, Orville came across the strange sight (to him) of the Golden Arches of MacDonald’s. (In Loose Screws, the restaurant was only called Donald's. The Mac part and the Golden Arches had not yet arrived.) He smelled food! For the next week he would sleep out in the woods during the day hours, and after the MacDonald’s closed at midnight he would discretely venture out to go dumpster-diving behind the store where he would find boxes and boxes of Chicken MacNuggets. As he made his way back to his sleeping nest in the woods with his stomach filled with fried golden nuggets, he told himself that he never had it so good. 

       But the Sisters of Fate would soon urinate on his parade, and he was arrested for loitering. He was given a forty year sentence to serve, one year for vagrancy and thirty-nine years for funking up the city with his body odor. An odor that five years later still lingered in the nostrils of the good folks in Roanoke.

more to come . . .

Welcome to those of you who are just joining us. Please scroll down to read my articles in order from bottom to top.
Kenny Ray

Here is a story that Ruth Ann has asked me to share with you all. In 1983-84, my cousin and I had just finished preparing a new cafe in Mobile, Alabama to open. It was called The Cock of the Walk, and it opened on January 1, 1984. The name came from the old Riverboat days of the 1800’s, when the meanest, baddest dude on the Riverboat was called the “cock of the walk.” I had been hired on as a waiter, which was an easy gig because the only food the restaurant specialized in was the best tasting filet of farm-raised cat fish you will ever put into your mouth, along with a side order of fried green dill pickles. So, a waiter didn’t have to memorize too much from a menu. I wore a black felt, wide-brimmed hat with a goose feather sticking out of the side, a red long puffy sleeved shirt with long draw strings, and black pants and shoes. The hours were from 5:00 to 10:00 during the dinner time hours. Our bread and butter, as the owners explained to us waiters, was this jalapeño cornbread served from a black cast iron eight-inch round skillet. The whole novelty behind us waiters making good tips would come down to how good we were at flipping our cornbread into the air and catching it again in the skillet. We quickly became masters of the game, and once we got that down we started flipping the bread and catching it behind our backs. The customers loved it when we were successful, but it didn’t take long to discover that they loved it even more when we dropped our cornbread! Then we would quickly pick it up, brush it off and say: “We’ll put that back in the oven and use it again later.” They would laugh at our goings-on.  Whole families would return week after week and ask for their favorite waiter by name. It was, like overnight, we had become a part of their families. But, the show must go on and our act had to grow. So, we began to toss our cornbread from one waiter to another. They loved us even more. Finally, we came up with the four-waiter toss. It was a hot Mobile Friday evening, and there were at least seventy-five people in the front room of the restaurant. We had carefully placed a waiter in each corner, four in all, and on “GO” we would toss our cornbread to one another. It was a long toss, to say the least. But, one thing we forgot to account for. Since the toss would be a long one, it had to have enough height and speed to make it to the other waiter. And we had forgotten all about the ceiling fans between us. We tossed the cornbread, the fans caught it and shredded it and then showered it all over the customers. “Oh, no!” I thought, “we have really messed it up this time.” But the customers loved having cornbread shredded all over them. Everybody laughed and had a gay old time!

 Ahhh, only in America! Or, only in Mobile, Alabama on a hot summer’s evening!

Like Grandma and I had done for two years to Grandpa's grave, I was now taking flowers to place on her grave. I would sit and talk to her, and I told her how much I loved her and missed her.  Sometimes I would feel close to her, and other times I would feel nothing at all. Then it suddenly dawned upon me that this would have meant everything to her, for I realized that it is the little things in life that mean the most. And this is what she taught me, just by her actions of taking those flowers to place on my Grandpa's grave. For in life, the hands of fate and time give little to us at first, and then take so much from us in the end.

I return often to these memories. They recall to me the best part of my life. Losing my grandparents and my plans for a happy future while I was in my middle teens sent me into a free fall that resulted in years of alcoholism, as I tried to live with the pain and the confusion. I became a disappointment to my family and to myself. And I know that in this real world there is no going back.

Sometimes, as I lie in my cell, I think - and hope - that I am a young boy again sleeping and dreaming on the couch in the farm house. Then I shall finally wake up from this nightmare and walk into the kitchen and there they all will be, Grandma and Grandpa and maybe even Freckles and Eggroll, like nobody ever left or died. And I can be Kenny Ray, the happy young man who works the farm with the two people he loves most in the world.

. . . . . . This is the end of my memories of my beloved grandparents. Thank you for sharing them with me.

In my next message, I will post a story about my early days as a waiter that Ruth Ann thinks is very funny.

Grandma's cancer progressed. She would lie in the back seat of her Chevy Malibu while I drove her down to the Naval hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia, for her to receive radiation treatments. As we drove down Highway 460 and through the town of Waverly, she would point out places to me that she remembered as a small girl.

Eventually, like a foreign invading army, the cancer ate its way through her body, and she moved in with us to be with family. We set up a bed for her in our living room, where I would sit with her as she talked of days gone by.

I turned to drugs and alcohol to kill my pain of watching her slowly die. She had been the sun my world had revolved around since I was born, and she was only sixty-four years old.  I was slowly dying inside with her. My pain and hurt would selfishly turn to anger toward her for the act of dying before her time. And what about the promises we had made to one another years before while harvesting those concord grapes? I was keeping my end of the bargain. Unfortunately, she couldn't keep hers.

Finally, on a cold, snowing February Sunday in 1979, as she begged the Good Lord up above to please take her to relieve her suffering, she fell into a coma and died. I do believe with all my heart that she instantly went to a much better realm, for a faint smile was born across her lips as she took her last breath in this world.

They would leave the farm to me. But I immediately sold it to Grandpa's sister, who lived in Norfolk. I sold it for two reasons: one, I was young and broke; and two, I did not want to go down to the farm and picture my Grandma standing over the stove frying chickens, or my Grandpa as he walked the fields or through the woods. Although, if it had been about a decade later, I might have kept the old place and worked it in honor of their memory.

Next post will be the last of these memories with my beloved grandparents . . . 

In 1975, my family and I moved westward to Powhatan County. In the Spring of 1976, Grandma was rushed to the Kenner Army Hospital at Fort Lee, a couple of miles outside Petersburg, Virginia. Grandpa was a navy veteran and had proudly served in both World Wars. Grandma was diagnosed with colon cancer and had her colon removed. Even though colon cancer ran on her side of the family, it still caught everyone by surprise. Grandma was a southerner, and she would fry everything we ate. That is probably why so many in her family died early of colon cancer, but at the time nobody thought about healthy diets.

The summer following her operation, everything was still running smoothly on our little farm. A big garden was still planted and harvested. Grandpa had not one but two large strawberry fields. Ours was one of the first strawberry farms in Chesterfield County. Beginning in the late 60's, people would come every middle of May from as far was Richmond, Petersburg, and Colonial Heights to pick our strawberries.  I just read a line from somewhere the other day that we never fully or clearly understand the present as we are experiencing it until it is fully in the past. And now I know that makes sense. But in the summer of 1977 I really did not grasp what was happening when I was sixteen years old and had just gotten my driver's license. I did not understand that everybody that I grew up with, including the pets on our farm, were slowly dying around me. I did not see that as Fall and Winter of 1977 arrived, this would be the very last season that the three of us would share together on our little farm.

Grandpa would often go with me down to Husband’s Place, or I would venture down by myself. After lunch one summer afternoon in 1970, my Grandma and I went down there together. We walked past our little orchard and past the several bee hives that lined the old country road. (I always hated those honeybees, for it always seemed that one of them would find their way to fly into my hair or ears.) As we made our way down to the cabin, we were carefree as can be, and I listened to the stories she told me about her past. She brought a pocket knife with her, and as I reflect back now I do believe we were going down there for one purpose only. That was to carve the initials of my family members on one of the beech trees. We picked one out right next to the cabin, and she went to work. Shortly afterward, it looked like this: 

H.L. (my father)

P.L.  (my mother)

K.L. (that was me)

S.L. (my middle sister)

K.L. (my youngest sister) 

1970

Every time after that, I would venture over to this tree, run my fingers over the names and make sure they were still there. Which of course they were.  Back in 1987, I happened to be working on a construction job down in that part of the county. One evening after work, I made a stop there. I walked across the dam and over to the tree to check out the carvings: still there! That was the last time I went down there.

In 1998, about a month before I was locked up on this sentence, I drove across the creek and up to the old place. The creek is nothing but a little ditch now, with the water barely trickling down it. I could remember back to a time when my Grandpa explained to me how in the old days they used to keep the trees cleared back from the banks of the creeks. That kept the creeks nice and wide, with plenty of water. But now the trees had grown large, pushing the banks in. Plus, the population had grown ten-fold in this area of the county, with sub-divisions everywhere, which of course put a strain on the underground water levels.

My grandparents' little farm was surrounded by acres and acres of wooded forest, fields, and creeks and streams. I could walk one way one day and go in another direction the next day. It was my own personal Magical Kingdom. I could always go to my little own world while walking around there, free from the stress and strain of the outside world - even at my young age. About a half-mile from the house, there was a place called Husband's Place, named after a lawyer out of Richmond. It sat down on a creek which had a little dam. It was a big deal back in the 1950's, when people used to go there to picnic, swim, boat and fish. There was a cabin with old fashioned picnic tables and benches, a barbecue pit, a place to hang a hammock, an old chain link swing and, at the top of the hill old thick ropes that people used to swing way out on. During the sixties and early seventies, the place was hardly ever used. Great, smoothed barked beech trees grew along the banks of the creek. It didn't matter how hot it might be back at the house. Down in the bottom underneath those beech trees, it stayed nice and cool and shady. The sun would gently filter through the thick leaves of these magnificent trees. It always seemed to put a person into a very relaxed mood. All these years later, I can close my eyes and feel the sun's rays beaming down on me through the branches of the beech trees and smell the cool, musky air coming up from the creek's banks. Truly a Magical Kingdom.

Having grown up in the country, we hunted in the winter time. My Grandpa taught me how to hunt at a young age. We hunted mostly small game, such as rabbits and squirrels, for they were plentiful around our farm. I used to love to squirrel hunt. The squirrels that lived along the creeks were very smart. There would be a lot of hollows running along the creeks, and when they saw or heard us coming, they would run up the hollows and hide and would not come out until we were gone. The squirrels on high ground would build their nest high up in the tops of trees. A lot of them would build nests at the end of very long thick vines. My Grandpa taught me how to grab the vines and pull until the squirrels came a-runnin' out of their nest. They were easy pickings. Grandpa would do all of the pulling of the vines while I stood back and did all the shooting. 

In the Fall of 1977, I was spending a weekend in November on the farm, and it was a cold, brisk and windy Saturday. I asked Grandpa if he wanted to go out hunting for squirrels, and he declined. This was the first time ever for that. So, I went out by myself, back to an area which was always loaded with nests and vines. I pulled on the vines until I returned to the house with five dead squirrels. I can still remember thirty-four years later the smiles on my grandparents' faces when I came through the door. Their little boy had grown up, and now he was the hunter. 

After Grandpa and I went hunting, we would bring the game home for Grandma to cook for us. We didn't need it, though, but it was a way of life when my grandparents were coming up in order for them to survive. But, as I reflect back now, shooting a poor defenseless critter does seem pretty cruel and maybe reflects our society as a whole.

Here is a side story about Freckles. There is an old a.m. radio station in Richmond, WRVA, that's probably been a part of Richmond longer than the Richmond Times Dispatch. One Sunday afternoon, my parents and I were visiting at my grandparents' house. They were sitting around the table reading the Sunday paper while listening to WRVA. In between songs, the DJ came on and said "Would the owners of a spotted brown-gray-black pig please come and reclaim their pig from the neighborhood of Indian Springs (an area just through the woods and creek of my grandparents' place)."  My grandparents looked at each other before heading out to the hog pen. Sure enough, ole Freckles had made her escape for freedom through a hole in the fence on the back side. She headed towards the city of Richmond or Petersburg for a new life, free from slop and nasty old hog feed. Her freedom was short-lived, however, as Grandpa caught up with her and returned her to her pen. 

As the years passed by during the early to mid-seventies, Freckles had a vast number of baby piglets herself. Finally, she had a last litter of four, and her milk had all but dried up. Grandma and Grandpa took the piglets and placed them into a large cardboard box and kept them in the pantry of the house. Every two hours, they would feed them with baby bottles of milk until they were old enough to eat regular feed. 

I went over to their house one weekend, and my grandparents told me they had taken Freckles to the stockyards of Richmond or Petersburg, I can't remember which one. I can remember them watching the expression on my face, for they knew how much she had meant to me when I was younger. But by now I was at the age where I had girls and other things on my mind rather than some old pig. I really didn't give it much thought. As I reflect back now, I realize that animals have more common sense, soul and spirit than we give them credit for. And I remember that Grandpa had taken me to the stock yards of Richmond and Petersburg when I was a young lad. And now I realize that Freckles deserved a much better send-off than those slaughter houses in the stock yards before ending up as sausage links or strips of bacon on someone's breakfast plate. I think of how scared she must have felt when she was left all alone and sensing something was dreadfully wrong as she met her fate. Which just goes to show that life is sometimes not fair for neither man nor beast.

There was an old chicken farmer named Calvin McGee, who lived several miles from our place. Every so often, Grandpa and I would venture over there to see what ole Calvin was up to. There were several enormous oak trees in his front yard where Grandpa and Calvin would sit in lawn chairs. They would talk about the good old days, and soon their talk would turn to prophesying the end of the world and how this great country of ours was quickly going to hell in a hand basket. Late one evening, while the two shared stories that even at my young age I'd already heard it seemed to me like a thousand times. I ventured out past Calvin's fields into the woods on the backside of his property where he kept his hogs. One old sow had recently given birth to a whole litter of baby piglets. It didn't take long for me to notice a cute little female piglet with brown and grey-black spots all over her. She came over to the fence while her brothers and sisters were steadily having their evening meal of mother's milk, and she looked up at me. I knew there and then that I had to have her as a pet. I got what I wanted, for on the way back home she rode in the floorboard of Grandpa's pick-up truck. 

I named my new pig Freckles, because of all of the spots that covered her body. They say that pigs are extremely intelligent and have a functioning I.Q. of that of a three-year-old child. I believe every word of it. I played with that little piglet as though she was a pet dog. As she grew bigger, she would see me coming towards the hog pen, and she would eagerly run over to the fence and rub her side against the fence. This was her cue for me to rub her back. Even when she got old she would slowly walk across to the fence and look up at me through her now thick eye lashes and rub herself on that fence. 

More to come on Freckles . . . 

In the early '70's, I had a hairy little Pekinese named Eggroll. That dog and I did everything together, and he loved the woods. The only problem with that type of dog is that they are extremely unafraid of anything, and since their eyes stick out more so than the average dog there was always a danger that the other dog would put their eyes out. It happened to Eggroll, and he lost one eye. But that didn't stop him from always standing up to the biggest dog in the neighborhood even though it was always a fight he could never win. In the fall of 1975, my family and I had moved to a house in Powhatan County, Virginia. A stray collie came from out of nowhere and put his other eye out. My parents said they were going to take him to be put to sleep. I was fourteen years old. I sat in my room crying. I couldn't even go out to say goodbye to him. But a couple of hours later, they returned with Ole Eggroll. They couldn't put him to sleep because of me. The new house we had moved into sat way back in the woods, and the next spring he took off. You would think that a dog, even a blind dog, could smell his own scent back to the house.  But he disappeared and never was seen again.   At the time, I was sick with the flu, so I couldn't go looking for him until I was better - which was way too late. There was a small river, the Appottomax, about a mile behind our house. I have a feeling that there is where he went and drowned. I feel kind of selfish now that I should have let my parents have him put to sleep. It might have been a kinder ending for Eggroll than drowning in the Appottomax River. I saw recently on television that a Pekinese named Malachy won first prize as best in show at the Westminster Dog Show. It brought back many warm memories of my days with Eggroll.

Grandpa's rows were straight as an arrow, and one afternoon while he sat and sipped on some Old Crow whisky he shared his secret with me - which was nothing more than two stakes, a good eye, and a string line. After fresh Spring rains had fallen, I would tag behind him and Molly. Much to my surprise, the most beautifully crafted arrowheads would surface to the top of the recently tilled ground. Grandpa said that this part of the country used to be an Indian reservation. I bought that story then, and I collected as many of them as I could find, stashing them away in an El Producto cigar box. As time went by, however, I realized that I had never seen arrowheads of this size and different curves made out of stones. Not in any museum, National Geographic or any type of educational television shows. Some of these spear stones were up to four inches long, which made me wonder what kind of game they were hunting. Also, given the time frame that the early British colonies came and settled across the state of Virginia, wouldn't the Indians have just gradually moved westward? I decided that there was no way that there was once an Indian reservation in this part of the state. I deeply believe that those arrowheads were from the prehistoric era and were used for killing much larger, perhaps prehistoric, game than what we've seen in these parts for a long, long time. Maybe even a giant wooly mammoth?

Hello to all of you,

Thanks for coming by and sharing my stories. Unfortunately, my smelly cellie continues to pollute this tiny living space. I am thinking about letting our military know that I have a guaranteed major weapon for them. Just put him downwind any place where there is a threat to us, and they will surrender and beg for mercy.

Here's another happy memory from my days with Grandma and Grandpa:

I spent all of my free time with my Grandma and Grandpa on their farm. I was always the apple of Grandma's eye. We would raise and sell every kind of vegetable you can think of. My favorite time of the year on the farm was mid-August, when we would have a long row of purple-blue Concord grapes, long clusters of the most beautiful grapes I've ever seen. Grandma would cut the top ones, and I would lie on my back on the pine needles and cut the low ones. She would be at peace with the world during these times that we shared together. She told me later on that at that time she and Grandpa had been talking and wondering if I would stay with them when I got out of high school to help them run the farm. Both of them agreed that I would probably get married and wouldn't want to stay with them and help them. That's when I stopped her and told her that I would always stay with them and run the farm, for that is always all I ever wanted to do. If only it would have worked out that way, how different my life might have been.

Sundays were Grandma's fried chicken days. She would start early in the morning. I would be sitting patiently at the kitchen table behind her, with my elbows on the table and my chin cupped in the palms of my hands. She knew I was a leg man, and after the first batch of golden-brown fried chicken was finished, she would grab a paper towel and bring me a hot-out-of-the-pan chicken leg that would melt in your mouth. Then she would pat me on top of my head before returning to the stove to finish cooking. Life was grand then. Who needs to go to heaven? Just let me go over to Grandma's house on Sundays for the fried chicken again. That's my heaven!

Grandpa was a terrific salesman. After Grandma and I had finished picking the ripe vegetables, whatever was left over after eating, canning, and sharing with other family members, he would sell. Surprisingly, he didn't have an old pick-up truck, but a '67 blue Chevy Malibu. We would put into the trunk and back seat of the car the fruits of our labor to sell. Everybody knew Grandpa, from the supermarkets on Jefferson Davis Highway to the Firestone tire store to the Meadowbrook Country Club, we hit them all. And after he and his barefoot grandson had sold everything, I was usually awarded with a six-pack of strawberry Nehi. My life was certainly grand then. If one could choose his heaven to spend his eternity in, that little farm back in the 1960's and 1970's would surely be mine!

See you all again real soon.

Hello to you all,

I am grateful for the folks who have read my new blog and a kind person who responded. It is a lonely life in my tiny cell, and being able to communicate with you means so much to me. My cellie is not much company, as you might guess. Since he has no life on the outside, any conversation has to be about this place - and he has to be right always. Sometimes, just to keep my sanity, I will agree with him on a particular topic that I know he's dead wrong on. He will pause and realize I'm agreeing with him. So what does he do? He'll change gears and contradict himself, just so he can disagree with me. And so my days go.

Now let's go back to my memories from the late 1960's up to 1975, which was a grand time to be living in America. Rock 'n' Roll was in its prime and still king, while westerns ruled the TV.

My grandparents' farm was a magnificent couple of hundred acres of fields and rolling hills, beautiful massive oak and pine trees, and several flowing creeks running through this landscape that was nestled among other passed-down from generation to generation farms in the eastern part of Chesterfield County, Virginia. Surprisingly, it was only a stone's throw from the city of Richmond. Today, one would probably have to drive fifty to sixty miles into the country from Richmond to find such farms. But as late as the 1960's and into the middle 1970's, it would only be about a ten minute drive down to the south of Richmond on Jefferson Davis Highway to be among the farms and open country. Not long after the end of the Vietnam War, a population explosion evolved in the area. The older generations seemed to all die off, leaving the farms to their children. Almost all of the children that I knew in the area sold off to real estate developers, and subdivisions of homes sprang up quicker than the spring corn that once graced the same open fields.

In the early 1960's, my parents rented a small, quaint little house on a street called Merrywood Road, which was halfway between Richmond and my grandparents' farm. Grandma did not have a driver's license, so Grandpa would drive her over to our house to care for me and my baby sister while my parents were working. I can plainly remember as if it were yesterday eagerly waiting for her to come over to stay with us. Every morning before she arrived, I would take my crayons and color small pieces of paper, then carefully hide them around the house. Behind the refrigerator and the sofa, in the cabinets - you name it, I hid the small pieces of paper there. And then, no sooner would my Mom leave for work then I would grab my Grandma's pinky or her pointer finger with my small child's hand and lead her around the house to find the hidden pieces of paper - almost always taking her directly to the spot where I had hidden them. Like the very good grandmother she was, she played right along and looked surprised when we found one piece after another. Sometimes, when situations get too tough and unbearable in here, I'll reach out into the air and grab her finger once again for comfort and strength.

During this time, before she would leave with Grandpa at the end of the day, she would cook supper for us. If there was something on my plate that I didn't want to eat, maybe squash or some vegetable that young kids don't like to eat, I would begin to cry because my parents would make me eat it. Grandma and Grandpa would stand at the back door acting as if they were preparing to leave. Grandma would look at me and say "If you eat your vegetables, I'll stay longer." I would stop my fake crying long enough for her to take her coat off, but then I would refuse to eat my veggies. Of course, this would lead her to put her coat back on and head toward the door. Then I would proceed with my fake crying again, and she would take off her coat again. She and I had a human yo-yo game going.

As time went by, and I grew up on their farm, any time I did something wrong Grandma would never punish me or say anything. However, on the way home with my parents, Mom would confront me on what I had done wrong during my stay with Grandma and Grandpa. Here I thought I had gotten away with something. But grandparents can be tricky. Perhaps it was payback time for the human yo-yo games.

Thanks for sharing this with me. I will send more along soon.

Hello to you all out there.  I was born and raised in the Richmond, Virginia area. I am an inmate in a state prison in Virginia. I have many childhood memories I want to share with you, as well as an inside first-hand look at life in a maximum security prison. I hope you will respond to my messages. A good friend on the outside will send me your responses, and I will answer you via the same route.

These days, my cell mate is a 6' 6" 255 pound giant, a hillbilly from a small town in West Virginia.  He spends his days either eating or sleeping. It's like living with Big Foot in a tiny cage. Showers do not interest him, and deodorant is unknown to him. His body odor is beyond description. He does not read a lick, and he's content to watch whatever TV show I am watching. He is a good example of someone who has been institutionalized. His world is within these walls, and his topics of conversation refer to situations and people here. When he does touch on a national or international topic, it amazes me to hear how dull minded he is and how he never has the facts straight.  It would be bearable if we each had separate jobs to do outside of our cells during the day. But unfortunately someone in the prison was caught trying to make a weapon. As a result, we are on total lock-down. He and I are stuck together in the cell 24/7. It is trying my patience and my determination to keep on my good behavior so I can be transferred to a level 4 prison, which I have already been approved for twice. Unfortunately, those prisons are filled with new people, and there is no place for me yet. 

I spend a lot of my time thinking back to my early years. It helps me to deal with the present when I can reach out to the happy memories I have of my grandparents and their unconditional love for me. 

During my very young years, my parents both worked, and the care for me and my younger sister was given over to my paternal grandparents who lived on a nearby farm. I was their first grandchild, born on January 27, 1961. They had raised two sons who both flew the nest and married in 1960. I quickly filled the void left by their departure. And I am here to tell you that I really hit the jackpot with this stroke of fate. For they would have seven more grandchildren, but I would always be Number One. They loved me and spoiled me to death.

More to come, friends. I look forward to your responses.