When I was a boy, my family went away on occasions and left me in the care of my grand parents. At that time two aunts and two uncles lived at home with my grannies. I didn’t mind staying with them for a while. I had fun with my aunts and uncles. They all pampered me. I got to watch them milk the cows and they let me try. Of course I failed but it was fun trying. In the fall we would go to the woods to hunt chestnuts. I learned that the nuts came in a case of sharp burs.

The difficult part came at night. All their beds were full of people when it came sleepy time. So what were they going to do with me? I could spend the night on the floor on a thin pallet. I never slept well on the hard floor, and woke up crankier than anyone else. Well they came up with the solution. Did you ever sleep at the foot of a bed with people attached to the feet? Well it’s an experience. My aunts, being a little less bulky than my uncles, won the honor of my company for the night. The way this works is as follows: the corner of the quilt at the foot of the bed is turned up supposedly without disturbing the other two-thirds of the quilt. The occupant takes his pillow and carefully slides into the corner after the adults have taken their places. The adult bodies are skewed from their normal positions to make room for the intruder and might try assuming the norm sometime during the night, and so it behooves one to find something to hold onto in an emergency. With that bit of preparation thought out, one is now ready to relax and try to sleep.

During the night I have experienced a number of things that I never did while sleeping on the floor. But what the heck, the bed was a lot softer than the floor. Before I went to sleep I could not forget that a foot or two resided very close to my face and that a heel might come crashing into my nose with little warning. After more squirming than usual I went to sleep. The next thing I knew I was awakened by a slight pain in my shoulder. Did someone stab me with a knife? I couldn’t feel any blood so I figured that someone had not trimmed her toenails recently. Turnover time seemed pretty dangerous. I soon learned that it was best to turn when the others turned. This way I had a chance to recover my share of the quilt in case it was pulled off of me. Sleeping at the foot of the bed is not exactly ideal, but suppose I’d had to sleep in the middle.

Momma and Daddy soon returned to rescue me and asked, “Did you have a good time staying with Grandma and Grandpa?”

“Oh yes,” I said, “And I didn’t even fall out of bed.”