We have to go meet the pizza delivery guy. I am always jealous of people in cities who can ride their bikes on sidewalks and have lemonade stands and have pizza delivered right to their doors. Dad orders pizza from the pizza place in Nashville, and then he has to go meet the pizza guy at Van Buren. The extra mile and half from the elementary school to our house is too much for the delivery guy to manage.

Dad heads out to the Crouch’s Market to rent a VHS and get some Coke. Coke doesn’t necessarily mean Coca Cola. “Coke” is any sort of dark soda, the way any tissue is a “Kleenex” or any photo opportunity is a “Kodak Moment.” We get to ride along.

Crouch’s Market has been around since the dinosaurs. It smells like gun oils and wood and the felt that covers a pool table. Norma runs the store. She sells lunch meat and souvenir hats and live bait. Right up by the counter, there are racks with Sour Straws and Kit Kats and Big League Chew Bubblegum.

The movie rentals are in three long rows. Dad rents the same movies every time – “Aliens.” “Predator.” “Terminator.” “Jurassic Park.” “Starship Troopers.”

One time, Gary and I found a huge mushroom in the woods and took my picture with it. It hangs on a board in the back room at Crouch’s, by the pool tables. I like to find it every time we go there. Pictures of Papaw and Troy and Gary with deer and turkeys they hunted are on display there too. We’re famous.

When we get home, Dad munches on the circus peanuts that always accompany a trip to Crouch’s. He cracks and shells nuts while he sits on the couch watching football or basketball or “Rambo.” He mixes peanut butter and syrup in a bowl and makes sandwiches with it.

Maybe once a year, he’ll order a pizza. He calls the pizza place in Nashville. Places the order. Waits a half an hour or forty-five minutes and heads out to Van Buren Elementary to meet the delivery guy who won’t come all the way out to our house.

Snow leaves our yard completely covered in at least a foot of fluffy white. Dad sets about making a snow village in the driveway. Some dads shovel snow so you can get the car out or make a path from the back door to the mailbox.

My Dad makes an igloo and a snow bench that lines the entire driveway. He creates snow chairs and a television with knobs and antennae. My Brother and I make lumpy snowmen out front. They don’t stand a chance in the face of Dad’s art and architecture and smooth edges and pristine, flat surfaces.

 He thinks he’s an artist. Sometimes, I believe him.

We skate on the ice in the Creek. Some patches of ice are wide and we build up pretty good speed. Mostly, though, where the water was shallow, rock edges stick up through the frozen surface and trip us in our tennis shoes. When a big snow hits, we start teeny little snow balls at one end of the field and roll them until they are ten times our size at the other end. Little bits of hay and brown grass and dirt cling to the snowy surface of the giant snow balls littering the pasture.

Ginger and Jiggy have shaggy coats. Their hair clumps in sections when the snow or sleet dries on their backs.   Their manes get tangled, and I brush them out and braid them. I am enchanted to be this close to such a big creature and not be trampled by hooves. Ginger especially likes it when I brush her. I  can see it in her eyes and the way she ducks her head down, inviting me  to pat between her ears. She and Jiggy sleep in the barn at night, packed in with bales and bales and bales of hay.

The hay loft is full. We climb the rickety ladder and squeeze through the square opening, coughing and sputtering as bits of hay and barn-dust invade our lungs. When you get into the hay loft, you’re supposed to pull the heavy wooden slat back across the hole so that no one accidentally falls through. But we always forget.

We’re too busy climbing over the scratchy bales, stacked high to ceiling. A barn cat has kittens and we hear them mewling in the back corner. Cozy and warm. Tucked away between two bales, their crusty eyes and wobbly legs are beautiful and pitiful to see. We can’t touch them yet, and it’s killing us.

 We peek out the loft window and watch the horses in the field below. They don’t do a whole lot. They just eat grain and hay and grass and get fat. Sometimes, Papaw sits us up on their bare backs, but they never learned what do with a kid on their shoulders, so they simply stand there, perplexed.

Papaw put a block of salt in the field. The deer have thick tongues and, in the wee hours of the morning, they lick deep grooves into the sides of it. We get down on our hands and knees and lick it too. We break ice cycles off the porch roof and suck on them like lollipops. They taste like rain water and tin.

My brother has a brilliant idea. “Let’s sled down the creek bank and onto the creek!” I go first. The round, silver sled flies down the bank! Excellent. I hit the surface with a thud, my head falls back with the jolt. My head hits the ice. No real damage done. Just a bump.

Oh, and I’m never listening to my brother again.

My brother has a brilliant idea. “Let’s stick our tongues to the pipe, like they do in A Christmas Story! Let’s see if it works.” I go first. And now I’m stuck. I simply cannot move, my tongue stuck to the piping above me in the tunnel. “Hewp!” I cry out. My brother says he’ll run inside and get some hot water. I wait. And wait. He isn’t coming. I rip my tongue from the frozen surface, and run back up to the house, bleeding. My brother is on the couch, stripped down to his long johns, drinking hot chocolate, and watching cartoons. In the bathroom, I peer at my battered tongue in the mirror. It’s brown around the edges, and red and bumpy in the middle.

I’m never listening to my brother again.