No, I was not born a Dixon. I was born a Caveny and we Cavenys LIVED in Dixon. Dixon Community, that is. A rather large community at that, down in the country.
We buried my 84 year old aunt Evelyn Caveny Graham today and one of the pastors is a fellow Dixoner. My age. We grew up together, played together, went to Bible School and 4-H together. We were Dixoners. We had similar backgrounds and similar ideas and similar hopes and dreams. There were a lot of us Dixoners. Maybe close to 50 of us around my age.
The pastor reminded me of many things I hadn't thought about in a very long time and it was as if I stepped back in time 40 years or so. Here are a few things I remember about Growing up Dixon:
1) Bible School at Dixon Presbyterian Church - you got 2 cookies and one cup grape kool-aid.
2) Near Thanksgiving time, we loaded turkeys onto a truck at Jack Hughes' turkey farm. (And he paid us.)
3) On Saturday mornings in the cool of the autumn, all the Dixoners gathered to slaughter cows or pigs. We kids got to cook chunks of meat on a stick over an open fire.
4) On Sundays we went to church. Period. Then we sat in the font yard and made ice cream and ate that with Aunt Evelyn's pound cake. (The best in Dixon.)
5) Gene Hughes' store had vanilla flavored cookies with seams in them that he put in a tiny paper bag for you.
6) You could ride you bike 3/4 of mile up to Huffman's store for a Chocolate mule. Nobody kidnapped you.
7) At 4-H we learned how to cook and sew. Even the boys.
8) Every night we sat in front of the t.v. and listened to Walter Cronkite tell us how many people had been killed in Vietnam that day.
9) In the summer, we picked apples off Grandpa John's tree and rolled the slices in sugar. We were told not to because we would get worms but we did anyway.
10) We went down to King's Creek swimming in our clothes.
11) When somebody's cow got out, everybody got excited and helped round it up.
12) When the hay was bailed, all us kids got to load it on the trailer. That night, we got to have a hayride through the dirt roads.
13) In the fall, there was always a Cooter Stew. Everybody brought their own bowl...
14) My aunt Geneva (pronounced Genever) let me thread needles for her quilting. She wouldn't let make any stitches though...She also kept "True Romance" books hidden under her sofa cushion.
15) Same aunt always made macaroni and gizzards...Yuck...
16) My uncle Bob kept a bottle of something out in his shed. Never could understand why he made so many trips out there in the evenings after work...He lived right next door.
15) We were only allowed to spend the night with cousins.
16) If you got in trouble, you had to go get your own hickory switch. ouch!!!!! I had to get quite a few in my day.
17) Uncle Harrill had me believing an old troll lived under the bridge near his house. I think maybe it still does....
These are just a few of the things that made life in Dixon so sweet.
My cousin and I were talking about this today. We looked around and asked, "How did these people get so old?" How did I get to be almost 50? How did life get so different? It was so very simple then. It was so safe and secure. We knew everybody in that 5 mile or so radius. Today I don't even know the people at the end of my street. Sad. And it is real sad that my kids will never know what I had......... Growing Up Dixon....
