In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Free Association.”
Anyone who has read here for very long knows that I’m from Small Town, USA. Make that Southern Small Town, USA. Home of red clay.
When I was a kid I got into soooo much trouble one day after a big rain. We had a trench, more like a ditch, that ran the length of our property. It was full of the reddest clay dirt you’ve ever seen. Some of the neighborhood kids and I thought that a game of war involving said red clay as mud bombs would be cool. It was. Now those are some cool IED’s. We built mortar shells of red clay and lobbed them back and forth at each other, ducking, and dodging, and hiding behind things. For hours. It was a blast (pun intended).
The shit didn’t hit the fan until my mother saw me, though. See, I decided if I was going to get all wet I should probably wear my swim suit. That brand new one that we’d just bought the day before. That brand new white swim suit. Which was now ruined because red clay does not come out.
What I learned that day carried me far beyond that childish mud slinging incident. You see, one of the “perks” of living in Small Town is that everybody knows everybody. And everybody knows everybody else’ business. If they don’t, hell, they’ll make it up.
The thing about mud slinging, though, is that anytime you want to sling it you’ve got to get your hands dirty, too.
January 26, 2015 at 10:38 am
It sure is awesome to play in the rain! Add the mud and it doubles the fun ! 🙂 Sorry about the white swim suit.. But i am sure the fun outlasted any white material 😉
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January 26, 2015 at 10:44 am
Thanks for stopping by and for the comment!
It was totally worth it!!!
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January 26, 2015 at 10:40 am
Ok, playing in the rain is fun, but I’ll admit I get kind of grossed out by mud. 🙂
I’m happy to have never lived in a small town. There have been times I’ve thought it would be a fun thing to do and I am sure there are some very nice things about it, but I don’t think it would be such a good thing if you end up becoming “that family over there”.
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January 26, 2015 at 10:47 am
Ya wuss! 😀
Yeah, it’s all fun and games ’til somebody gets hurt. Mostly living in a small town is a pleasurable experience. Tight knit communities tend to band together to help their neighbors in hard times. Everything is fine and dandy until you become the subject matter (speaking from experience). Then it’s not so much fun anymore.
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January 26, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Reminds me of going into the hog pen after a rain to hunt peepers. Ruined a few outfits that way as a kid. And Mom wasn’t much happier about brown mud than yours was about red mud.
Also, reminds me of the distinct feeling I had that if I had broken up with my now wife when we were dating, I would have been breaking up with the entire town of Butler…
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January 27, 2015 at 8:38 am
Peepers? What is that?
Ah yes. Breaking up. When I left my husband I basically, with very few exceptions, broke up with the whole town.
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January 27, 2015 at 8:50 am
Peepers = little frogs that come out after a rain…
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January 26, 2015 at 1:44 pm
Maybe I’m dense. What lessons did you learn that you carried with you?
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January 27, 2015 at 8:40 am
Never wear your nice new swim suit to play in the mud. 😀
No, it was more a life lesson about how figurative mudslinging works pretty much the same way. Any time you trash someone else – even if it’s the truth – you get a lot of mud on yourself. Mudslinging is a dirty pastime. You get stains that never come out.
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January 27, 2015 at 8:44 am
Ah, I figured maybe it was something like that.
I’m glad it wasn’t about small town gossip. That seems like a silly thing for people to be gossipping / poo-pooing about.
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January 26, 2015 at 1:45 pm
We loved rain. We would build dams, small dams, big dams and forts after a good rain. In our case we used sand. There was enough beatings once in a while but we would be back the next time it rained
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January 27, 2015 at 8:42 am
Yep, always back in the mud after the rain. Having weighed the benefits and consequences it was totally worth it to get in a little trouble.
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January 27, 2015 at 8:54 am
I don’t know why our parents did not jyst allow us to be kids
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January 26, 2015 at 1:51 pm
Sounds like you had a great time. So what if your new, white bathing suit was no longer either new or white. It’s all about having fun!
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January 27, 2015 at 8:43 am
Well, I certainly thought so. But try telling an angry mother that!
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January 26, 2015 at 9:59 pm
I just realized I wasn’t even following you! I have your blog bookmarked and just come to you when I have free time, but I’m glad your posts will come to my inbox now! So thankful for your presence here.
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January 27, 2015 at 8:44 am
Ha! Who knew? I thought you were following me, too.
Thanks, CC! I look forward to more of your writing, too. It’s always so real, so vulnerable, so descriptive.
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