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With life’s pressure and troubles, do you ever think about just plain running away from it all sometime if you really could?

Well, back in those olden days…did you actually run away from home a time or two?

Do you remember sitting outside under a bush planning it all? Thinking how your mama and daddy would feel when they discovered you were really gone. That would pay them back for not letting you go to the Saturday midnight show with Mack Nichols and those older boys. They’d be sorry, especially if you never came back.  

Let me share a prime example of planned running away. Spickey Chadwick, as a youngster, got upset with his mama or grandpapa, J.T. Brown, and confided in an older lady living there in the Brown Hotel by the name of Minnie Lee Boozer that he was figuring on running away. Now, Minnie Lee slyly decided to go along with Spickey’s scheme. She told the lad that she was going to Demopolis, and she would carry him that far. Sorta surprised our hero, but he fetched some grub, and packed a grip at the insistence of his benefactor.  

Come time to leave, Minnie Lee walked out, opened the door to her car, and looked back at Spickey. That lad stood there with a sack of donuts in one hand, a little grip in the other, and a head sorta sagging down at the thought of heading out north of the Bogue. Well, Sir, Spickey, who was always known for fast running, took off for home, and I’m told he didn’t come around Minnie Lee for quite a spell after that. 

Talking about taking a trip away from the folks, I was all primed to travel back to the North Pole with Santa Claus one year.  Had my grip packed just like Spickey had. Ma and Daddy seemed mighty supportive of my leaving. Too supportive to my way of thinking.

Well, come Christmas Eve morning, it sho’ looked like I might be leaving that night. I summoned up my courage and broke the news to the folks that since I would have to stay up north for a whole year, I decided I better stay on here, and help around the house and all. They seemed pleased enough, and I was mighty relieved my own self. 

Hey, I noticed some pecan trees didn’t do too well this year. Reminded me about one time a pecan tree didn’t bear to suit my daddy.  He loaded up some double ought buckshot, filling that tree full of lead, and be dang if we didn’t have a passel of nuts that next year. (I’m sure the history of that tree bearing every other year had nothing to do with it).

Alice had a lady helping her around the house a couple of days a month, and that lady heard Alice talking about the Wisteria Bush not blooming. Clara had the answer.  She and Alice each got ‘em a switch and commenced to beating that stubborn bush.  Looked pretty silly, but it seemed to work about as well as Daddy’s buck shot did on that pecan tree. 

Well, reckon I’ll settle back now, and be glad I haven’t had the urge to run away from home lately.