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        Late in the evening, the honky-tonk lights would come on and the whole world seemed to light up. Cars would come speeding down the highway, screech their brakes, and spin into the gravel parking lot. Car doors would slam as young couples hurried into the bright lights. Every time the honky-tonk door opened, we could hear the loud music being played on the juke box. We girls would all sit on the front porch of our Aunt's house and watch the excitement. Things would move along quite normally for awhile. More cars, more couples, more bright lights. Then things would begin to change.

        About this time of the evening, Mother would insist that it was time for all us girls to go to bed. She said we didn't need to be watching all the goings-on at the honky-tonk, but we slipped around and watched anyway.

        Gradually, as people partied a little more, tempers would flare and fights would break out. We watched several big fights on the parking lot of the honky-tonk. It was always a pretty exciting event. After awhile, someone would call the police and they would come and break up the fight. Occasionally, someone would do some real damage such as break a windshield on a car. But one thing for sure, nothing was boring out there in the country.

        Behind my Aunt's house was a big corn field. At dinner time, my Aunt would walk down to the corn field and cut corn right off the stalk for our dinner. Nothing ever tasted quite that good again. Sometimes she would scrape the kernels from the cob and fry the corn. I can still smell that corn frying and taste that special taste that only a summer visit to the country can provide.

        And I can hear that wooden ice box door slamming shut a million times during the preparation of dinner. The ice box sat out on the screened back porch of the 'heart house'. There was a big block of ice in it and the wooden doors latched as they slammed shut over and over again. When dinner was almost ready, another Aunt would chip ice from that big block with an ice pick and we girls would help put the ice in big glasses for tea.

        Back in the distance behind the corn field - way back - was a row of small buildings. I didn't know what they were, but we were cautioned never to go back there. So we didn't. When I was about thirty years old, I realized that was a house of ill repute. Guess my Aunt owned that. too. She was a very enterprising woman.