Now going down South to Georgia every summer, was something we knew was going to happen weather we wanted to go or not.  We had cousins that lived down there that wanted to escape living in the country at all cost.  When they got to be adults, away they went, could not much blame them; there was no future down there except for becoming a farmer.  After living that life, they wanted no parts of the farm.  I bet today, you could change their minds.  Needless to say our cousins had to live that life were somewhat envious of us.  We lived in the city, shopping center, malls, and street lights!  Well here is what happened to us that summer.

We had a cousin named Johnny, he was named after his father.  He and the other cousins thought that they would play a joke on us.  Every Saturday night on grandma's screened in porch, around 9:00 p.m. after the sun set.  It was ghost story time.  Well unbeknownst to us our cousins about eight of them had put their little heads together, and here begins the joke.  It was almost totally dark on the porch.  My first clue should have been, the porch light was not on.  But grandpa had given me a flashlight, it was small, he got it from the feed store when it had made a purchase.  But he let me use it at night; he knew that I was afraid to walk down that hall in the dark.  He did that after I slept in the bathtub, afraid to walk back to the bedroom down that long dark hall.  Well it was in my pocket, and I said nothing to no one, to let them know that I had it.  The story that my cousin Johnny was telling was about following the light. Now we did not know then, but the light he was referring to turned out to be lightening bugs.  You know the little bugs that appear every summer, and their tail ends glow at night.  Well Johnny proceeded to tell the story about this mysterious light that some old men followed into the woods.  Being a young child you have a tendency to believe what an older child tells you; follow the lights, boy were we gullible, no just dumb!  Not far from the porch was a patch of woods.  From where we sat on the porch you could see many lighting bugs glowing.  It looked both scary and inviting.  My cousin continued with his story.  He said that people had gotten lost in that patch of woods, by following those lights.  Johnny said that the blinking lights would lead us to some buried treasure.  Oh boy we were going to be rich, DUH!  So while telling this story, Johnny suggested that we go look into the patch of woods ourselves.  Stupid us we did.  Now our other cousins walked ahead of us, and we, meaning, myself, my sister, and my two brothers, we brought up the rear.  Now unbeknownst to us, our cousins had put their head together ealier.  They had every intention of trying to scare us to death well they almost succeeded.  Following behind our cousins, Johnny was still telling the story. I did not notice until they were all gone.  By that I mean that one by one, they disappeared, until only Johnny was left.  We stopped.  Johnny said wait here yall, I see something ahead.  We should have been thinking but we were not; Johnny left us!  My sister and my two brothers began to panic, that is when I pulled out the small flashlight that grandpa had given me.  I said stop crying you guys, I got a flashlight. We made our way back to the house.  Our cousins were no where in sight.  We would not be able to see them anyway it was so dark outside.  You remember what I told you, no street lights.  Our cousins had gone to their house next door.  They were looking out of a window.  We could hear them laughing, but the joke was on them, I had a flashlight.  I told my siblings that I would come up with something to tell the cousins, should they ask, everyone was in agreement.  Then I told them to wipe those tears away.  Of course when we came out of the small patch of woods, you know they asked us, "What happened to you guys"?  I said with a straight face, the old man that lives in there showed us they way out!  You could have heard a pin drop in that Georgia sand.  I also told them, "he was real nice, yall ought to meet him".  We then left them standing there with their mouths hanging open, and we went to bed.  We locked the porch screen door behind us.  No more talking that night.  The joke was on them.  We were city kids, you cannot get us like that, didn't they know they lived in the country.  I do not think that they ever went back into that patch of woods again.  Dummies!  LOL LOL LOL