When I was just a little bitty baby momma would rock me in the cradle

..in them 'ol cotton fields back home

Arkansas in the seventies was just as you thought as they would be, countrified. It hasn't changed much since then either.

Me and the other kids living nearby grew up in nature. Farms and fields. Woods and creeks. T.V. wasn't really around and neither were roads. You usually had two; one leading up to your house and the other cross-secting out into town.
We played outside most of the year. Mothers didn't need to come check on us. My sister and I would play and get dirty for hours...and hours. My nickname was "pigpen" because I really liked to get dirty and my sister's nickname was "chickenlegs" because she was tall early on.
We would play in the crop rows and picking strawberries and blueberries. Hide and seek down the rows that were cross cut by trails. Eating the fruit was tolerated, not allowed. We were little kids and portions were small unlike today's standards. It happened so often and naturally I never thought about it until I was a little older when someone actually had to drive to a store and pay money to eat fruit.
That makes me miss it so much more.
When we moved north into the mountains the farm was much bigger. My grandma had large crops and cattle, geese and fowl too. I won't get into all the creatures that walked and wadded in the grass with us as we imagined ourselves soldiers or hunters as the cast was always changing. I do have to mention one animal in particular, however, and that was Chief.
Chief. Man, that was a good dog. Big like a wolf and stark white. of course he was always dirty and had yellow spots from animal blood that we couldn't wash out but his original color was white.
He was gentle towards humans. Heck, he wouldn't bark if your drove up to the house and he didn't chase strangers. He was the sum total of my uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends. The decade before I arrived this pup grew up with a similar tribe of kids who ran him, ran with him, and adventured the country side day after numbered day. A warrior and friend of our extended family entrusted to keep the property safe. He exacted his toll for such a labor, in chickens and guineas, throughout the years but otherwise steadfast.

The reason I wanted to talk about Chief was his amazing ability to understand my most important command..."Chief, let's go adventure!" or some derivative there of. Sometimes I would just walk out and he would be laying under the porch swing, sleepy in the day sun, and I would say "Chief! Adventure!", and up he would rise strut off the porch cut around the house and down in to the woods. Here I would come jogging behind trying to catch up.
Out into the fields, through the woods, under fences, across creeks, on and on we would go. Sometimes he would take me to where the cattle were cooling off in the woods and we would chase them until I couldn't breathe. A small stampede through the branches. Oh the sound! Deafening. It was great. His barking, their mooing, and the sound of hooves and wood breaking. Running after cows hurtling passed trees while getting slapped in the face by branches and leaves.
Other times he would take me to a small pond where turtles and fish were fat and crowded. He would jump right in and lap at them while I tried to catch turtles as they raced to freedom on the banks. The smart ones would dive down and hold their breath until the two of us tired of the game.
Chief always took me somewhere interesting and hardly ever was it somewhere I had been before, at least in that season.

I remember one time we set out in the morning after grandma had cooked up eggs, sausage, biscuits and chocolate gravy (don't ask, it's a regional thing).
It was me, Chief, and my cousin A.J.
A.J. and I were a few years different in age, me being older, but we were cut from the same cloth. Full of bravado, stupidity, excitement, wonder, and humor...we made a great pair. Where I would jump over a high ledge he would wait, when I couldn't kill a snake or skunk he could. We would pummel each other daily and never think twice about it. Stealing beers from the uncles and drinking by the creek. Cussing with fervor and imagination in hopes of creating the "great put down" that could not be out done.
I digress.
On this bygone day the three of us ran, walked, crawled, and jumped for miles through pastures and around ponds. Watching tall grasses hot in the sun weave and fall in front of us from Chief running ahead. Each grain top that touched our legs felt like warm finger tips. Golden, feathered fingers reaching out to the world in groups of a million. The expanses were so unbroken and untamed we couldn't see a fence or a house for hours only the mountains, the grasses, and the sky. Our own voices stomping over the sounds of crickets and toads. At one point I slowed behind A.J. and Chief to breath a bit and looked at the dark path they cut in front of me in the oatmeal and honey. They were headed down the slope of the field towards a patch of birch trees and a creek. I looked behind me at the paths we had cut across the fields and in to the dark woods some two miles back. In the same field were I stood but just up a short hill stood a lone tree. Bright green tops and deep shadows near the ground. The grass was all worn down around it. Some lovely spot for an animal to lay in I could imagine. Nothing was there at that moment but the smell of fecundity hung in the air so whatever used that spot wasn't far away. I took in the greens, ambers, hazels, bronzes, and cobalts before taking off again to catch my two partners.
The hours went by. Yelling at each other. Yelling at chief. Talking about the world and our bravery. At times we got hungry but we knew we were far from home and if Chief could go without food so could we. We found a creek that didn't have any moss or fish. Sliding down the oil shale and in to the rock bottom we drank along with the ancient, white dog. The water bubbled up from the rocks some ten feet from us and ran down to where we knelt. With each handful we tasted cold earth and stone. Wiping some through our hair and splashing each others shirts we took off again. Down the creek and up a grassy side that had promising tree roots poking out to aide in climbing up.
It was a day that lasted forever. We were alive and living on this Earth with passion and excitement. I felt it that day. I could see it in A.J.'s eyes too. We were young and knew that this was what we were meant to do.
As boys we went on and on.
Chief lead us back to the farm near dusk and we all ran into the house...dog and all. As we gobbled leftovers and scraps parents barked disappointment masked with relief that we weren't dead.
Chief ate everything we gave him plus what was in his bowl from the morning.
Of course the adults weren't too happy but they knew it would only have been a rattlesnake that would have hurt us and that at least is an honorable death.

Black maggots

There are many buildings, and parts of buildings, that go unused or are abandoned on the campus of EMU. Some of the buildings have been derelict for quite some time, and there are portions of others that just aren't meant for human habitation. Dark and lonely places underneath the bustling ground about. These were the places I would wander.
While working for the campus I was given keys to a good many of these buildings and while opening doors and crawling over obstacles I would find even more hallowed spaces. One weekend day I was doing just such an expedition around an old dormitory. This five story building once housed the brightest students on campus but now lay hidden under unkempt trees and tall fences. I had already climbed the fence once to gain entrance to the large center garden, a huge area of open grass with five hardwoods over a century old each. A tattered, grey rope hung from one tree's branch higher than the second floor with what might have once been a swing seat but was now lightning bolt shaped shred of wood. In this secret garden the turn of the century majesty of the building was much more apparent. Hand placed bricks of slightly different colors gave the walls a patchwork quality like priceless Native American blankets. White marble and sculpted plaster around every window and staircase, partially draped with dark ivy.
I walked around for several hours trying fire escapes and staircases in hopes of one being unlocked or old enough to force open. Looking in smoky, dusty, dirty, and opaque windows baked by decades of ultraviolet I could make out silhouettes. Each glimpse inside further cemented my resolve to gain entrance. I came down from the last staircase ventured and searched all the partially overgrown windows of the basement/ground floor. Handles and locks were in such states of disrepair that it looked like some metal had fuzed. Window after window. Lock after lock. From the Northeast corner all the way to the Southwest I moved sticks, grass, rocks, bugs, spiders, and wind blown garbage trying to open something. After an hour I had almost completed the circuit, some 60+ windows and doors when a half-sized window opened easy as a breeze. I laid down on my belly and slid in far enough to clear my head and shoulders. It was a public bathroom replete with stalls and mop bucket. Alas, having spent much of the afternoon exploring and finding an entrance the light was fading and I didn't bring a light. I closed the window and resolved to come back the next day.
Over the fence and back home I went with a boy's sense of excitement for something new. I'm sure I dreamt of what I'd find in there the next day. Perhaps even thought of some forgotten treasure or pirate's booty.
Ha! How am I kidding?
I don't remember waking up. Taking care of business, or why it took me almost to midday to get back to the abandoned building but I remember laying on my belly and opening that half window again.
As I pulled myself in through the window passed my chest I looked around. Dirty stalls and dark tiles like any you would imagine in a scary movie. The stall I have hovering over was about three feet below me and the toilet was white like a skull but the bowel was black as midnight. The door to the stall was missing so I could look right in to the rest of the bathroom, which is why I saw the mop and bucket. I laid there for a minute to listen for any noise, making sure I was alone to explore.
Not a peep.
I backed out of the window and flipped over so I could go feet first and slowly drop down to the floor below. I grasped the outer walls and lowered my feet down to the toilet bowel and made a successful landing with both feet, careful not to plunge in to the abyss of the toilet. It looked like hell. After I made contact with the rim and felt solid I limbo'ed the rest of the way in and stood on top of the seat quietly making sure again I was alone. As I stood there in the silence a new sound came to my ears. A stood frozen listening to the sound of movement.
Soft.
Moist.
The sound of walking over wet leaves. Stirring a bowel of pancake batter. Mashing your tongue in your mouth.
My mind raced for a moment with imagination. A squid beast loose in the building! A zombie eating some flesh!
No.
It was close. The sound was right on me, by me, under me.
I stepped down from the toilet and stood in silence for a moment as I looked around for the source of the sound and looked down in the toilet bowel. The blackness wasn't a stain. It was a thousand black maggots wriggling in some filth of a liquid. After my eyes adjusted I could see their scaly skin as each one crawled over the other in multitudes. My eyes must have been the size of half dollars. Like Frodo in the swamps of misery my head was slowly pulled closer to the black hole of maggots despite the rest of my body desperately trying to pull it back. The closer I came to the mass I saw something that brought new horror enough to force me back.
Just below the rim of the toilet seat were a series of fine spider webs. As the maggots matured and gnats flew out to freedom they would be ensnared in the web. Not all of them mind you, as there were thousands of maggots and hundreds of gnats, but enough to keep the spiders fat and happy.
I shuddered looking at the whole scene. The horror of living in that kind of dystopic habitat?
I stepped away from the toilet I had just moments before perched on and looked around my new found land. Hallways lined with appliances, furniture, refuse, clothes, boxes, boxes, and creatures that go bump in the night.
I wasn't all that comfortable walking onward but that's exactly what I did.
The horror.

The horror.