The night was an unusually mild one for mid-summer. In southwestern Oklahoma, a family sat in a backyard. The adults watched as groups of rambunctious children ran around the yard acquiring dirty faces, and mosquito bites. The fresh grass tickled between their toes, and stained little feet green. The air cooled and the children began to tire. Soon, they drifted to the feet of their parents. The long awaited storytelling commenced.

The oldest among us were telling the tales, but they were doing more. They were giving us a sense of our history. They told of times long before we were born, of people who had passed on, and places they lived in another time. We heard about covered wagons, land runs, outlaws, babies who died before they could walk, and families who lived on the sparest of incomes. Their lined faces would crinkle as they smiled at the memories of their youth. They became wistful as they spoke of “mama and papa”.

Often, a large group of us would gather at one of the campgrounds at the
Wichita Mountains for an evening sitting around a campfire roasting hot
dogs and marshmallows. The crickets would chirp and the coyotes would
howl. You could hear the lonesome “whooooowhoooo” of the owls. It seemed magical to be a child in that place at that time.

When we would head out to the campgrounds, Uncle Lon would amaze us by feeding the raccoons from his hand. Lon was my great uncle. He was a wiry, old man with black-rimmed glasses and a balding head. He was something of a novelty to the small children. He taught us how to play checkers and to blow bubbles with our gum.

Until I was six, we lived in the house where my father had been born in 1932. Directly across the alley from us, were 2 great-aunts and one great-uncle in 2 houses. One of these homes was built by Pop Stephenson, my great-grandfather. The one next door was the home of the Smith family. Two of the Stephenson girls had married two of the Smith boys and a circle of family continued as well as began.

I remember many evenings spent in the company of this family with their legends and stories. Other aunts and uncles who lived further away would come and visit. Sometimes there would be watermelon or homemade ice cream- hand cranked that afternoon to be served with angel food cake. Iced tea and lemonade sat waiting in giant pitchers to whet the thirsts created by the sultry summer air. The sounds and smells of summer were punctuated with the tastes of these delectable summertime treats.

It seems as if those days are gone forever. There are very few gatherings of relations. Watching television or surfing the Internet in air-conditioned comfort has replaced the simple pleasures of a summer evening spent outside watching lightning bugs flicker in the darkness. Families have become smaller and now they scatter to different corners of the country as if blown by the wind. It is as if there is nothing to weight them in place; as if they cannot stay put without the strings of a large extended family tying them to their roots.

The truth is that life now is different than it was even 30 short years ago. It is no longer a world where it is easy to stay in one place all of your life. Staying employed now requires going where the job takes you. It is so easy to travel from one place to another why shouldn’t we move away? Coming home is as simple as hopping on a plane or sliding behind the wheel of your car and getting on the interstate.

I look around at friends and acquaintances and wonder if they even think of their family history anymore. Are they sorry that their children are missing out on the times spent with grandparents, aunts and uncles who live hundreds or thousands of miles away? How can I give my own children a sense of their history when their father’s parents are gone and with them the stories of their lives and the pasts of their families?

There is a saying: “Little one, I wish two things. To give you roots, and give you wings.”

I look at pictures with my children and explain to them who they are looking at and what role they played in my life, how they are related to us and why they are still an important part of our lives today. The black and white of these photos speaks of times gone by. When I do this I am hoping that I am giving the roots they need to stay grounded when they spread their wings

Those summer nights of long ago may be gone, but they are not forgotten. They are remembered in the smell of freshly cut grass, the Dove soap with which our mothers scrubbed the dirt from our bodies and the calamine lotion that they dabbed on our mosquito bites. The memories live on in the stories we were told and those, which we tell our children.