I Remember Nail

Well, enough about grass. My dear old mother once said, son don't talk too much about green grass. She told me that many time in my younger years. I remember once at the dinner table, I said the word "grass" and she slapped me off the chair. Now that I think back, sometimes she would slap me off the chair when I wasn't even talking. Mother was funny sometime. Dear old Mom.

I have an older sister, when we were kids she used to ask all the kids to get naked and play ring around the roses. she really liked that game. Sometimes she would wear mothers hi heeled while she played the game. The kids loved it, except when she would get a switch and spank them. I dont know what ever happened to sister. The last time I saw her, She had on one of mom's hi heeled shoes and was looking for a bigger stick. The kids were all running around, trying to hide. We had such fun back then.

The first time I saw Nail, she was sitting on a hill of dirt that some old dump truck left there years ago. She had been there all day trying to hit a rabbit with a clod. I don't know why she would sit there so long, we never had any rabbits in our neighbor hood. The only rabbits we ever saw were the ones that Buster Wooten would catch and drag into the yard. Mother would get so mad at Buster for that. She'd say in her motherly way "Buster, Get that damm dead rabbit out of the yard. And Buster would. he always respected her so much. Buster belonged to the Wooten family across the road. He was their youngest son. Wasn't too much in school but, Damm that boy could run. He'd dart left and right and could stop faster then anything. Sometimes he'd be running full steam and just fall down on purpose and flop around on the ground. I never did ask him why he did that. There are some things people like to keep to themselves.

Nail and I would spend time togather after I came home from the war. We would set on "Nails Hill" I always called it "Nails Hill" in leu of a better name. She wouldn't let me talk much about the war. That always puzzled me. I tryed on many occasions to talk about the war but, they wouldn't let me. It had been one of the high lights of my life and I had learned many new and wonderful things, such as the value of a chocolate bar or a half used bar of soap or a pair of nylon's.

Nail was always proud of her first name, few people ever knew her last. The story goe's it came from her Grandad. Grandad Humphrey, of course. I was too young to have known him but, they say he was a hell of a man. A black smith by trade. Its said he'd work bare chested in his open shop, leather apron, hammer swinging, sparks flying, sweat flowing from dawn till dark. Plang, Plang, Plang all damm day. he had hopes of someday opening a chain of shops but he had been born too late, cars were here and all the horses were gone. He died of a heart attack one day, while beating the right rear fender off a 1938 model Packard. I suppose he couldn't take that Plang, Plang Plang any longer.

Nail's folks cared so much for grandad Humphrey that they wanted to remember him by naming their first born in a way that would refer fondly to his memory. They expected a boy and would have named him Anvil or Hammer or maybe even Sparky. But it turned out to be a girl so all those names were out the window. So after a very long deliberation someone hit on the name "Nail" and that was it. It fit quite well as Nail was a tall, thin girl. Nail always liked her name.

Everone figured that Nail and I would marry but I lost track of her and that never happened. Thinking back, I wonder why there was never any grass on that hill of Nail's? Nail always liked grass.