Bug Swamp's Gold

Close your eyes. Get set. Go ... to where Bay Swamp smells like aftershave, to where friends raise Billie s dad a barn in a day. You re there On her "pizer," Grandma, waiting to serve dinner, relaxes with a dip of her Sweet Society snuff. Billie s mom and dad, sweaty from hoeing tobacco, rush in and wash up. They can t wait to bite into Grandma s succulent chicken. They tell you, "Pull up a chair " After dinner, take off your shoes, trek across sandy, open fields, feel sand between your toes. Beyond the watermelon patch, a rare sight: Venus flytraps and yellow trumpet flowers, set to gobble up every bug in sight, and Bug Swamp has bugs. Also gators, bears, cooters, possums, snakes ... gold. Later, on Grandma s "pizer," you ll hear how Billie and her mom almost become bear bait, and Grandma will spellbind you, telling about Grandpa s tussle with a gator. Discover for yourself how Grandma s pipeline to God keeps everyone on track. Pity she doesn t have Hitler s ear in Germany, or Tojo s in Japan. Why, Grandma could even advise Harry Truman He uses a weapon so strong it keeps on killing and killing. That Great Depression? Pray it won t destroy Billie s family. Her dad puts a mortgage on the place that can tear their family apart or hold them together. Luckily, World War II ends, and good and bad teeter into place. "