I guess you could call the beautiful rolling hills and wooded areas of Union Parish the BOONIES. But it sure is a place to make the heart grow warm. As I sit here tonight thinking of Thanksgiving tomorrow it's easy to go back 30-35 years and find myself sitting on the front porch of my MaMaw and PaPaw Antley's house in Point. For those of you who have never been to Point, it's really just a curve in the road with a store, churchs, couple of cemetery's and a few houses. Gosh, I can smell all that food cookin coming through the screen door. The old wringer washing machine is sitting off to one corner of the porch waiting for Saturday. Hangin on the side wall is the big old washtub she'd bring in and pour buckets and buckets of hot water into for us to bath. If you listen real close you can hear the mantel clock that PaPaw wound every Saturday night. The key was in a little drawer inside the clocks door. Everything is so quiet you can hear a car coming from miles down the road. As it comes in front of the house they slow, blow the horn and wave. The only people who didn't weren't from around there. On the other end of the porch sits the well with the old wooden water bucket and dipper sitting on top just waiting for somebody to lower it down and get the coldest and best water you've ever tasted. It gets awfully hot in Louisiana in July and August and that water sure did hit the spot. If I close my eyes I can see myself walking down the porch steps and turning around the corner of the house. There sits the out house down through a few trees. If it's still day light I could even look at the Sears Roebuck catolog while attendin to business. Listen real close and you can hear MaMaw working the hand pump in the kitchen drawing water in a pan to wash dishes. I can go around the back of the house and look in the screen door and there she is getting the biscuits out of the oven. There's two meats and a gillion vegetables on the table from her garden. Hanging on the wall is an old mirror with PaPaw's razor sharpening strap beside it. Just as I hear another car coming she's pouring the tea in glasses. This car stops and PaPaw comes through the front door that's placed exactly even with the back for a breeze to go through. He'll wash his hands for supper in a old battered tin bowl and dry em with a towel hanging from a nail. MaMaw won't sit to eat until everybody is served. Not long after dark we'll take a trip to the out house with a flash light then climb into one of the five beds in that two bedroom house. There's one double bed in the back of the living room, three in the main bedroom and one small one in the back room. If it's cold weather you'll be weighted down by the mounds of quilts on the bed. It's so quiet that you can almost hear the water rippling miles away on D'arbonne! Daylight finds breakfast already on the table and PaPaw pouring his coffee into the saucer to cool it. Oh yes, Union Parish is very rural. My grandparents got there indoor bathroom in the mid 70's and sold the old out house to a neighbor down the road. It was much better than the one they had. My heart and gut grows heavy thinking of all that's lost to us now. So many of our old folks are gone as is their way of life. Excuse the nostalgia today but it seems appropriate as we give Thanks to also thank those who came before us. And even as those are sweet sweet memories to me I have to also give thanks for the many things I have that make my life so sooo much easier than my ancestors. I had a beautiful nephew born yesterday and he'll never know anything of their way of life except my memories. As I Thank God for him tomorrow I will also pledge to tell him about our folks that paved the way for him. Happy Thanksgiving to you all! ^j^ Debi Antley Murphy