In Western Kentucky (Ballard County)

When I was in elementary school and my youngest aunt was in high school on Friday's my little brother and I would take a bag with two day’s of cloths to school and instead of walking home we got on the bus that did the route past the farm with Aunt Jan and went out for the weekend. We got to help with the chickens and other light chores (and thought we were having fun).

Aunt Jan, Lynn and I did our homework together and at night we took a blanket and small flashlight into the front yard where we laid on our backs while Jan opened her Science textbook to the astronomy chapter and taught us the constellations and stars. We also would be overrun by the dog and the latest litter of farm kittens who demanded their own share of attention.

On Sunday we went into town to church and either walked home from there or rode the bus to school on Monday and then walked home until the next weekend.
Grandma's southern fried chicken, homemade bacon, ham or sausage, corn bread, rolls, biscuits with homemade jam or jelly, fresh vegtables from the garden and chess pie didn't hurt either.

Some Saturday's in the summer Granddad would take the day off (a neighbor would feed the animals and milk the cows Saturday night and Sunday morning (we would do the same for him at times) and the whole family, including aunts and uncles and great aunts and uncles, Great Grandfather(born 1865, died 1957) and maybe a few friends would all pack up the camping gear and go fishing at a private lake down by the Ohio just a bit east of the Mississippi junction where Granddad and two Great Uncles owned shares next to each other (only one share had a cabin) and fish all day then have a big outdoor fish fry and bon fire that night.

We slept under the stars (the old people and babies got the cabin) while the adults put their bed rolls in a circle with the kids in the middle.

Sunday we would drive back to town to go to the later church service before going back to the farm to care for the animals etc.

During the fall and winter hunting seasons we would sometimes do the same thing only we hunted and fished and the bon fire had a huge iron pot of Burgoo Stew with wild game meat added. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/kentucky_burgoo/ Real Burgoo Stew had at least 3 kinds of meat and at the camp at least one was wild game.

It was a different time and way of life, almost a different world. Large parts of it still live in my memory, at least for a while.

While my grandfather didn't raise hogs, he was always around helping when the hog farmers did the cutting and killing. I watched them cut hogs in the spring, and then slaughter them in the fall.

They always asked my grandfather to dispatch the hogs during the Thanksgiving weekend slaughter. He could dispatch any hog with a single shot from his .22LR Stevens. When I was five, he asked me to kill one of them. I shot one poor hog about four times in the head, and he never dropped. My grandfather kindly took the rifle from me and finished the poor beast with a single shot.

In Western Kentucky (Ballard County)

When I was in elementary school and my youngest aunt was in high school on Friday's my little brother and I would take a bag with two day’s of cloths to school and instead of walking home we got on the bus that did the route past the farm with Aunt Jan and went out for the weekend. We got to help with the chickens and other light chores (and thought we were having fun).

Aunt Jan, Lynn and I did our homework together and at night we took a blanket and small flashlight into the front yard where we laid on our backs while Jan opened her Science textbook to the astronomy chapter and taught us the constellations and stars. We also would be overrun by the dog and the latest litter of farm kittens who demanded their own share of attention.

On Sunday we went into town to church and either walked home from there or rode the bus to school on Monday and then walked home until the next weekend.
Grandma's southern fried chicken, homemade bacon, ham or sausage, corn bread, rolls, biscuits with homemade jam or jelly, fresh vegtables from the garden and chess pie didn't hurt either.

Some Saturday's in the summer Granddad would take the day off (a neighbor would feed the animals and milk the cows Saturday night and Sunday morning (we would do the same for him at times) and the whole family, including aunts and uncles and great aunts and uncles, Great Grandfather(born 1865, died 1957) and maybe a few friends would all pack up the camping gear and go fishing at a private lake down by the Ohio just a bit east of the Mississippi junction where Granddad and two Great Uncles owned shares next to each other (only one share had a cabin) and fish all day then have a big outdoor fish fry and bon fire that night.

We slept under the stars (the old people and babies got the cabin) while the adults put their bed rolls in a circle with the kids in the middle.

Sunday we would drive back to town to go to the later church service before going back to the farm to care for the animals etc.

During the fall and winter hunting seasons we would sometimes do the same thing only we hunted and fished and the bon fire had a huge iron pot of Burgoo Stew with wild game meat added. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/kentucky_burgoo/ Real Burgoo Stew had at least 3 kinds of meat and at the camp at least one was wild game.

It was a different time and way of life, almost a different world. Large parts of it still live in my memory, at least for a while.

You are welcome.
NW TN less than a mile from the KY line. Pretty close to my hometown of Barlow in Ballard County. How far from Reelfoot Lake? We visited there a couple of times when I was a kid. My family had a long history of "touring". Several members would save for a few months then get together using one or two cars depending on how many people and take off in some direction, often picking highways they had never driven before, and travel until half their saved money was spent then work their way back on different highways. They did have a few favorite places but always tried to get there and back by a different route. And each time they headed in a different direction. My Grandmother, her sister, her brother and his wife were the core of the touring group esp after he retired and sold his restaurant and Grandma sold the farm and moved into town. they cover a big % of the places from the Texas panhandle to the east coast and the gulf coast up to the great lakes over the years. They each had things they liked to get to bring back: plants and cuttings, craft shop salt and pepper shakers, knick knacks etc. etc. They preferred things made by local craftsmen in the places they visited. Aunt Mattie noted that she probably should have been on the 10 most wanted list by the Park Rangers for the numbers of endangered and rare plants she had in pots and around her yard (Grandma had a few also). They never tore up whole plants, they took small cuttings and seeds just like they did with domestic plants from gardens and planted, grafted and grew roots in water before potting the plants or putting them in a flower bed. They were very good at it. They had some apple and peach trees that had 3 or even 4 different varieties on one tree thanks to grafting. They also had a "shade and moisture" area between two sheds about 8' apart and with a big shade tree over it behind Uncle Earl's and Grandma's houses that was shaded and watered often that had several types of moss, ferns, violets etc. so thick that there were stepping stones to get through without damaging plants.

Spent a lot of time in your area showing horses. Marion, Princeton, Arlington. We lived in Fulton Ky for 4 years, then moved to South Fulton and stayed there until 2 years ago when I downsized to relocate in Alabama to be near my son and DIL after my husband passed away. I don't like living in town and I hate being without a single horse. We had 77 at one time. Even though I hate living in town, I am so thankful for all I have left and that I still feel 25 every day of my life. AND I can ride horses any time I want to. I can drive 2 hours to be at the training barn of a friend who lets me ride all the barn champions! My blessings are so many I cannot start to count them all.
Sounds like you've had a pretty pleasant life too. Nothing like the good old days.

Barlow and my Grandparent's farm (sold in the 60's) are about 5 miles over land from the Ohio-Mississippi junction.
Since 1965 I have lived in various places in the Los Angeles Metro Area - well March 66 to Jan 69 in the Army and Dec 66 to Jan 69 that was in Vietnam.
I spent 35 years counting my student teaching with the Los Angeles Unified School District teaching history, geography, government and a few other things including one year of basic photography for short periods. Grades 7-12 with the student teaching year and 15 regular years at the Jr High level and my last 13 years were at the high school the movie "Stand and Deliver" was based on - James A Garfield HS. Easier than herding cats but a bit harder than herding cattle or horses. I retired in June 2007 and just about 2004 my wife became the troop leader of our Daughter's Girl Scout troop and I got drafted as first "Cookie Dad" and then Assistant Troop Leader. That ended in 2012 when Jasmine graduated from HS and started pre-med at UCLA. Now after pre-med, working as a lab assistant to doctors/professors doing papers and getting her name on two of those papers she is in her 5th year at the University of Virginia Medical School (zoom classes during the worst of Covid "sucked" according to her so she worked as a lab assistant for most of that year. Next June I get to call her "Doctor" Kitten* and she starts her residency.

*She didn't sleep with teddy bears, she slept with cats so my nickname for her was "Kitten". If it was a cat she loved it. But dogs got equal time and love, she just left having a dog to myself and her mother.

Sounds like "the good old days" were yours. They were mine as well and I grew up wondering why God was so good to me. I don't think I ever did great things to deserve it. Then someone told me. You don't have to deserve it. It's a gift...always. I've had some hard times like losing my youngest son to cancer in 2015, losing my hubby in 2019 and the loss of many loyal pets, but I try to keep in mind what my dad always said to me. Ya gotta see some rain before you can truly appreciate sunshine. Hope you and those you love enjoy a LOT of sunshine....and keep shootin'.