My Grandfather (Papa) and my Grandmother (Ma) Stark lived 2 miles south of Jackson's corner and just across the road south of Jack Craddock's place. It was sold to Dennis Sullivan about 1957 and they move into town. Dennis later sold the place to the ACME Brick Plant because it had lots of clay under it. Johnny and Betty Poznich later bought the Craddock place and lived there a while. While at the "Old place" as I call it, several events come to mind. Papa always had goats, chickens, guinea hens, maybe some ducks or geese, pigs, cows and a big garden.

When I first remember going there, I think there was only one or two light bulbs in the whole house. They had a small wind generator and a 12 volt battery. They could store up a couple of hours of light in the evening from the mild breezes during the day. North of the house, between two evergreen bushes was the mailbox. There were a couple of planks going across the ditch to the mailbox. Ma told me to go out and get the mail one day. Butch heard at the same time I did and tore out for the mailbox. I picked up a stick and threw it at him but missed him and hit the bush to the left of the planks. The bush had a HUGE hornets nest in it and Butch bore the brunt since he had his back to the bush still heading for the mailbox. He must have had 50 or 60 sting welts on his head and back and arms. I only had 2 sizable welts on my backside that matched the switch Ma wielded.

Another time my cousins Allen Rightmeyer and Judy McCullough were there with us.  They decided to hold a wedding.  Allen was the Preacher, Butch the groom, Judy the Bride, I was the ring bearer (a ring off a 1 lb coffee can) and Roger was the Flower girl?.  We marched up the drive in procession, with a goat accompanying Roger and eating the flowers out of the basket he was carrying them in.  I don't remember the actual ceremony that well.  Later Allen became a preacher and married Butch to his first wife.  That marriage lasted  only slightly longer than the first.  It's probably good that Allen did not marry Butch for the third time with the poor success he had on the first two.

Roger and I palled around most of the time.  We were out in the pen where the goat's were kept.  There was a roll of field wire about 4 feet high and 3 feet in diameter.  It had a opening in the center of probably 18 ".  We would hit one of the billy goats on the rump with a stick and then run and climb up the roll of wire and the billy goat would but the roll.  We laughed and when the goat got tired of butting the roll of wire, it would go back to eating.  We would climb down, get our sticks and harrass the goat again.  We did this several times.  The last time we did it and ran back and climbed up on the wire, the goat butted the roll at the same time Roger was to the top.  It jiggled and he fell head first down the center of the wire.  Upside down and not able to get out, he was in trouble.  When the goat quit butting to wire and went off somewhere, I climbed down and went back to the house for Papa.  I couldn't get Roger out either.  Papa turned the wire coil over on its side and Roger crawled out.   We didn't tell him about harrassing the goat.

The area around the "old place" was strip pit dumps.  Areas that had been mined for coal close to the surface.  They would pile up the dirt on each side of the pit.  Some of them were 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile long and 100 ft. wide.  they later filled up with water.   In the late 1930's, the state stocked catfish and perch in the pits.  In the eighties they made them public recreational areas now and have little parks and picnic areas around them.  Roger and I would go exploring in these pits and pretend that we were some of the original settlers and explorers like Daniel Boone or Davy Crocket.  The areas around these pits were pretty grown up and hard to get around in sometimes.  There were lots of blackberry bushes, good for eating in late May and early June and excellent for getting stuck in the rest of the year.  There were also wild cherry trees.  We always had something to snack on.  I especially liked the honey suckle.

One of my most favorite memories of the old place is waking up in the morning.  The only heat I remember in the whole house was the stove in the kitchen (wood burning).  There was a grated hole above the door way leading from the kitchen to the living room going to the upstairs main room.  Every morning we were awakened by the warmth and aroma of bacon or sausage or ham cooking with eggs, french toast, pancakes, oatmeal, homeade jams and jellies and lots of butter.  Most everything was cooked in pure lard.  They couldn't afford Crisco and like I said before they always had hogs.  There was no need for an alarm clock.....who could miss an invitation to breakfast like that?