Summer List No. 4: Head East

One of my favorite childhood memories is spending summer afternoons on my grandparents' backporch. As kids, we would spend hours playing out there, and then eventually, just rocking and talking. As we grew older, our conversations changed, but the feeling is the same. Papaw and I now talk about parenthood and politics -- his has moved further to the right over the past few years and I have crept over to the left. He gives me advice on how to raise two independent, well-mannered boys. Meanwhile, Mamaw is busy teaching me how to make all my favorite dishes of hers: potato salad, chocolate pie and, this past weekend, ribs. I try my best to soak it all in.

We marked No. 4 off our summer list over Fourth of July weekend -- along with a few other items I'll post about later. The boys and I traveled to Jonesborough with my sister and her two children. (Stop for a minute and take a mental picture of that: two adults, four kids under the age of 6 in a car for 450 miles each way.) My mom, Don, and my brother and his family met us there on Saturday. It was a chance to get all the grandkids together, something we only manage to do a few times a year.

 I'm not sure why, but throwing rocks into the dog's water bowl is a favorite pasttime as Mamaw and Papaw's house. Mary, Jack and Ben spent much of the weekend torturing the poor dog.

My favorite thing about summers in Jonesborough, for my boys, are the wide open spaces. We spend almost all of our time outside, feeding heifers, playing hide and seek and whatever else they can think to do. Don and Mom brought their Jeep up for the day, which stayed on the go the entire trip. Ben insisted on being everyone's passenger, constantly looking for someone to drive him.

These moments are always my favorite, when I find the two Jacks -- Jack and Papaw -- talking about cattle or donkeys or whatever else they find to discuss. On Sunday, Ruby and I took the boys to Jonesborough Days for a few hours. There, the kids rode trains, got their faces painted and played in the sprinklers.