The Onion Patch

    In the summer of 1939 I, my mother, and my sister Betty were living with Grandmother and Grandaddy Jones on the old Lockley place, a mile or so southwest of Chipley. We had moved to there from the Watts place. The Lockley place was about a quarter of a mile west of the present site of the hospital. This area is now quite developed, but at that time it was out in the country.
    The house sat on a site of about ten acres, with woods all around, except for a big field on the south side. The fence rows were covered all over by honeysuckle which filled the air with a tantalizing fragrance.
    While we were living there Grandmother had a garden in which she always grew several rows of onions. My Uncle Joe was still living at home, and he and I loved "onion gravy", made by cooking the diced tops of the onions in flour gravy.
    Uncle Joe could make good onion gravy, so one afternoon I pulled up several onion plants, took them inside, and asked him to make some. But he was furious that I had pulled the onions before they had "grown out", and sent me back out to replant them.
    Peeved at this turn of events, I replanted them with the tops in the ground. Uncle Joe, though, took care to see if I had done as he had instructed, and upon discovering my variance from directions he picked up a small switch and corrected the matter forthwith.