Decoration Day is a Sunday set aside to pay homage to those who have gone before us and decorate their graves. This old tradition predates Memorial Day. When friends and relatives are not all buried in the same cemetery it is impossible to be in two places at one time. So, different cemeteries have Decoration Day on different Sundays. You can visit a different cemetery almost every Sunday in April and May. Sometimes in this part of the country, people bring a picnic dinner and even have some sort of community church service on the grounds. This custom may seem a little odd to people who have never been to a decoration. But, it is a great time for family and friends to visit and for the children to learn about their relatives who passed on before they got to meet them. Another good thing about Decoration Day is that younger children get to learn about death and cemeteries under lighter emotional circumstances than those surrounding the death of a loved one.
Minnow Creek even has a shelter house pavilion. This pavilion is a relatively new (after 1960) thing. I am sure back in the old days they built a brush arbor and probably held not just one service but rather a series of revival meetings. After all, you wouldn’t want a good brush arbor to be used only once.
Truthfully, many of the children are not all that excided about learning. They are more interested in playing and finding adventure. There is no telling how many little ones have run and played completely oblivious to what the day is supposed to be about. That is good; children ought to be able to enjoy being children, right? Back in the 50’s Mothers did not always see it that way. Some how, they confused Decoration Day with Easter.
They would dress up their little doll children to look as if they were going to pose for the Sears and Roebuck catalog and they fully expected us to stay looking like that all day long. This seriously conflicted with the principles of fun and adventure. The mothers would try to keep the children in check by telling them to stay close so that they would not get hurt. There are many who have fallen and twisted ankles or had their heads bumped on tombstones. Accidents do happened…but come on… those kids ran all over the woods and neighborhoods everyday of the week all the rest of the time. So, mom who were you tying to fool? It was all about the clean new clothes and you showing us off to the family. It was Mother’s Day and you wanted to show what a great job you were doing. I mean, we are talking suits and ties for boys and frilly dresses and white dress shoes for girls. Most of the time children complied not because they were obedient as much as they feared the switch, belt, or hand swatting wielded by those moms.
Now, there were certain ones among the 1950’s children who not give up adventure easily and they were tempted to venture out in spite of the threats. One Decoration Day, Donnie and Tony were standing with their parents in their pretty little suits when temptation came a calling. It was Jimmy. “Psssst! You guys ain’t gonna believe what I found over there!” He pointed toward the fence dividing the cemetery from a neighboring pasture across the road. It did not take much temptation and at first opportunity Donnie and Tony sneaked away to find the great thing Jimmy was talking about and pointing toward. Oh my, a brand new pond! This thing could not have been finished more than a few weeks and rains all this week had filled it about halfway. There is no telling how many wonderful Indian artifacts had been loosened by that bulldozer or if not that, at least a ton of good throwing rocks.
We knew we shouldn’t be there. But, how could we walk away from a brand new pond? Sure, the dirt that had been stirred by the bulldozer had been turned into a sea of bright red mud. But, maybe we could get close enough to throw a few rocks without getting mud on our pretty suits or the white dress shoes. Then again, maybe not; soon the rocks were flying and the fun and adventure were in full swing. It seemed like only a moment and then that piercing sound of some parent’s voice, “You boys get back over here and I mean right now!” That is when we looked at each other and realized that the bright red mud was completely over our brand new shoe tops and our suits, shirts and ties were all spattered by the mud in tiny red spots. Normally, we would have found that hilarious, but that parent’s voice had taken all the fun out of this adventure. We were in for a whipping and a big one.
All of the boys got spanked and they were made to clean the mud off their shoes or at least try. But, for Tony it did not stop with one spanking. Hazel would spank him several more times throughout the day. She would try to clean the shoes and then spank Tony. She would try to get red spots off the jacket and then spank Tony. Just ask anyone who was there. They will tell you that Tony had a bad day at Minnow Creek Cemetery
The pond is still there and I look over there each year and say, Heck yeah! It was worth it!
Epilogue: Nearly thirty years later, Elaine and Tony were blessed with their first child, James. On Easter morning, when he was about two years old his mother had dressed him up in the most adorable outfit. He even had brand new high top white shoes. As we were locking the door to the house, James ran off the porch and into the front yard. The day before, Tony had brought in a truckload of topsoil. It was spread, grass seed was scattered and watering was complete. You guessed it, James headed right to the middle of the yard leaving deep tracks and accumulating a large amount of mud on his pretty outfit. Tony ran after him and carried him to the car where he sat James on the hood and began to remove James shoes to clean off mud. Mother was already sitting in the car and I asked, “Didn’t you see him going toward that mud?” “Yes” she replied, “I saw him,” Grandma Hazel had sat in the car laughing through the whole show. I wonder what she was thinking?
And that's the way I heard it on the mountain,
Tony Peoples
And that's the way I heard it on the mountain,
Tony Peoples
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