Meet your new family

Our family, like so many others rolled along with only a few major surprises along the way. Once in a while, a relative would come out of the family tree and you would think "wow, do they swim in the same gene pool as us?". It would of course turn out to be true. I suppose that with names in our past like, Eula, Arizona, Horace, Jewell and the like that we should have know that our family tree was wrought with hillbilly branches. Dad liked the idea of showing us where we came from (unlike moms family who showed us where we could have gone). Our dad was always trying to show us that our roots were as diverse as any that you could run accross. You see a lot of our folks came from Tennessee. The story goes like this, when Ball Brothers (the Ball Jar) needed workers in Muncie, there were not enough qualified, cost effective folks to fill the bill. So they shipped workers from the Tennessee hills to fill those spots. That was what I remember overhearing. It might have been many other companies also in need of the "hillbilly workforce" who knows.

Dad liked to fancy himself a real country boy at heart. We witnessed his steady walk through the cowboy (hillbilly) lifestyle over much of our childhood. He liked to wear boots. He liked country music. He liked to horse trade, although he never traded a horse. I suppose thats what drew him, at least at first, to spend time with Aunt Eula and Uncle Max. Max was a trader. He lived at the Flea markets and loved to make deals. We used to visit with them on occassion. This is what we saw...

Max and Eula lived in Muncie. Muncie at that time was a nice middleclass american town with a lot of folks moving forward with their lives. As you pull up to their home, you are struck by the odd beauty of tires buried semi-circle lining the driveway of their home. The tires were painted white to distinguish them from the tires that you drive on. There was a need for some outline of the driveway because it was the only dicernable seperation of the dirt. Otherwise, you might have parked your pickup on the lawn. Keep it between the tires. When you visited it really felt like you were stepping back into mountain living. There was always a chicken or a pig or a horse or any other number of farm animal roaming the property. This too was an oddity considering they were well within the city limits of Muncie. In fact, we were within a couple of blocks of one of the main roads in town. These were simple folks and very nice. They had a few children, Kimmy, Timmy, Cookie, Pee Joe and Doug. The house was not big, probably 900 sqare feet or so. Wood floors and 2 bedrooms. The wood stove in the living room kept the house cozy. The kitchen always had something good cooking. This was one of the special treats. You could count on a pigeon, or snake or some other type of "specialty meat" to tantalize your pallate. These folks used to teach us how to catch carp. Who could forget the flavorful yummy we ate while camping with them called fried carp eggs. I can almost taste it now. Food wasn't their only contribution. We learned from them how to utilize space. When Cookie, their only daughter, needed some private space they did not have to build on to their house. This was ingenious. They moved her bed and her belongings to the front porch and gave her a room of her own. Imagine our surprise. You knock on the porch door ( the only front access to the home) Cookie would answer and welcome you in, via her new room. The walls of the former front porch were plastered with teenage girl memorabila and the sounds of teen music filled your head. You take a couple of steps and knock on the front door of the house and stepped into the living room. I was always in admiration, who would of thought, a front porch, a bedroom. You won't find that on trading spaces. We witnessed this same type of ingenuity when Doug and his girlfriend found out what happens without birth control. Max and Eula moved em to the front yard into the Cab over Camper that sat in the front yard waiting for the never to arrive pickup truck to snatch it up for a mountain vacation. This would be there new permanent home while they worked toward a future of their own. Never a dull moment during one of these visits.

Over the years our time with them was spent well. We would not forget the trips to Rome City Dam. Sliding down the dam in our bathing suits. Watching them fish for Carps. Learning how to mud pack a fish and cook carp eggs over an open fire. Those were the days. This was our some of our extended family. Check back later and I will tell you how your family can change color. Just like a mood ring.