My mother is the oldest of ten kids born to a sharecropper and his wife. She has a rich store of memories and stories of growing up in the fields of east Texas during the Great Depression. She tells of moving from Oklahoma in a covered farm wagon, because they could not afford a car;hoeing corn, chopping cotton, digging potatoes then burying potatoes in trenches lined with straw to keep through the winter. It can make you wonder why anyone who had a choice would pick farming for a life. She has fond memories of her parents and siblings, and growing up in a much simpler time, but no nostalgia for the life on a farm.It was hard work from can till cain’t, and the only time off from the fieldwork was so she could do the laundry in an iron pot over a wood fire.
So the story my brother told made me laugh, but didn’t surprise me.
My younger brother Dennis, a few years ago, decided to treat mama to dinner at a new  restaurant that had opened in town. It was a country themed, down home cooking place. Milk cans and butter churns lined the entry,wagon wheels hung on the walls over the booths and served as chandeliers.
He noticed ,as they were seated, that our mother glanced at the wheel on the wall over their booth, and frowned. As they were reading the menu, ordering, and waiting for their food, he was puzzled by her continued frown or scowl whenever her gaze chanced upon the wheel on the wall. It seemed to peak when their food arrived. As the waitress set the plates on the checkered tablecloth, Mama directed another frown at the wheel, as if it was intruding on her.
” What’s the matter Mama?”
” Why do they have those nasty wheels on the walls?”
” Well, it suppose to be an old time country place, you had wagons back in the old times didn’t you?”
“Yes, we had wagons, but we didn’t bring them in the house.”