It seemed like I always went home with a memory after visiting my grandparents house.

Everytime we went to my Grammy and Grampy Carmichaels small farm in Castle Hill, Maine something would happen, which seemed to leave me scratching my head, wondering if my family was any less normal than most other families I knew.

My grandparents lived about five miles from us, which was a straight shot north on State Road. I believe we spent nearly as much time at Grammy and Grampies' as we did at our own home. I enjoyed our family trips to my grandparents place, there was always something interesting going on at the little farm.

My grandparents lived a simple life. Their house was no more than a tarpaper shack. The whole house sloped towards the back yard. If you stood in the farthest part of the livingroom, which was on the road side of the house, and started walking towards the kitchen, which was towards the back yard, you would be almost at a run by the time you reached the doorway, which seperated the two rooms.My grandparents did not have indoor plumbing either.

All the houses in the area were basically in the same shape, as my grandparents house. My grandparents also owned another house, which sat only a few feet from the house they lived in. My parents were living in this house when I was born. I could never figure out why my grandparents did not live in this house, instead of the house they lived in. I thought the house my parents lived in when I was born was much nicer, it was much bigger and did not slope. Both houses were the same on apperances though, and like my grandparents house this house lacked indoor plumbing too.

There was no shortage of chickens running loose around the yard. There were also coonhounds tied to trees here and there. An old billy goat wandered the yard freely, begging for food from us kids. I remember how bad Billy as he was named smelled. Mum would yell to us kids, "Don't you kids touch that ole smelly thing." There was also a cow or two and a couple of horses in the back field.

I remember one day while we were visiting my grandparents, my grandmother was washing clothes in the front yard. She had an old wringer washer. I loved to stand and watch how flat the clothes got when she put them through the wringer and how much water was pressed out of the clothes.My mother and her older sister Verna were sitting on the porch talking about some man grampy knew who had made a yodeling record. My grandmother walked over after she was done hanging up the laundry.

I was playing in the driveway with my mothers little sister Pearl, who is only a couple years older than me. Also, my brothers and sisters and some neighborhood kids were playing in other areas of the yard. What was really interesting about Casle Hill was it seemed like everyone was a relative in some way or another.

I don't know who started yodeling but it didn't take long before my grandmother, my mother and my mothers sister Verna were all yodeling. All of us kids stopped playing and ran to the steps where the yodelers were sitting. Us kids stood there and listened.It wasn't long before us kids started laughing at the adults. It wasn't that they yodeled bad it was just they didn't yodel to good either. To me if I could have imaginged what cats sounded like when they screamed while in heat, that is what those adult woman sounded like.

It wasn't long before every coonhound in the area was howling. Us kids ran around the yard laughing. I was holding my hands over my ears. I yelled to my mother, "You're hurting the dogs ears." all of a sudden there was a higher pitched yodel mixed in with the other three voices. Everyone fell silent, even my the yodelers. We all heard some awful screaming coming from up the road. It wasn't long before my cousin Betty came running into the yard screaming.

Everyone ran out to meet Betty. No one had to ask Betty what was wrong, because she was sreaming in pain, "A dog up the road bit me on the rear-end." One of the adults picked Betty up and carried here to the house on the farm that my grandparents didn't live in. Someone chased the chickens from the kitchen. I was sitting on the front steps looking over my right shoulder at everyone looking at the dog bite on Bettys' butt. All of a sudden the chickens from the house were hitting me with their wings as they were swept out the front door by someone with a broom. I can still remember how the chickens cackled as they flew past my head. I was surprised no one got in trouble for chasing the chickens out of the house ,because my grandmother was very protective of her chickens.

Bettys' butt had a puncture wound and was black and blue but other than that, she was fine. The adults went back to their yodeling and the coonhounds went on with their howling.

The adult woman, "Yodel-lady-who." And the coonhounds howling right along without missing a beat, and us kids still standing around laughing while covering our ears.

-- george nh (rcoopwalpole@aol.com), February 09, 2002