Southern Exposure From a Northern View

I grew up on Roanoke Island, A small Island on the coast of North Carolina, just a small place, with larger than life people and history.
However not knowing any of that at the time, my days as a child were filled with the magic of pirate ships, and digging for treasure. Long days of eating strawberries, and playing soft ball in a pasture, turning the road into a hop scotch pad.
Spending hours collecting locust shells, and freaking my mom out with them.
Playing in doodle bug holes, thus my nick name.
Spending time in the Elizabethan Gardens, pretending to be a Queen, especially since my middle named was Elizabeth.
Listening to the boat builders hammer and saw, and that wonderful smell of fresh cut lumber.
Catching fish, and eating them soon there after, digging for clams, and picking up drift wood, shells, and digging for old bottles and such when the tide was out for treasures. Digging sassafras roots and chewing on them, waiting patiently for the scuppernong grapes to be ready and fighting the yellow jackets for their sweet sticky taste. I was just old enough to understand how to look out for rattlesnakes, and how to row a boat, and how to chop fire starter. I also learned not to never eat a persimmon before it was ripe. introduced to how to murder a chicken! The smell of placing said chicken with feathers still attached to it into a tub of boiling water, is still one that I have trouble forgetting.
The long summers were a school of learning in itself.
I learned some very painful lessons. Chiggers are irritating, blueberries are harvested by green snakes, and they will fight you for them.
Jelly fish are mean, and suck your blood. mosquito's love small girls with shorts, horse flies love people more than horses, old abandoned houses are dangerous, and have lots of rotten floor boards. The sun will turn you red, and give you water blisters, sometimes rowing a boat too far out, can be a major problem.
Using pine boughs to make a tent, is a good smell, but pulling ticks out is not a pleasant extraction.
Bulls in pastures are not necessarily friendly at times, and do not care to be ridden.
Horses will bite.
Ok, so now, I am going to have to take a nap, I am exhausted from reliving moments of my childhood.
: )