I was gonna make him admit there was no spelling error before I explained it to him LOL. After I tell him he'll be as country as I am. So here goes:
Back in my growing up days we lived so far out in the country, to go hunting I had to go towards town. Neighbors were few and far between. Most families those days had only one car and dad usually took it to work. So, once a week usually, the moms would all get together (4-6) to go shopping in one families car (whichever one was available that weekend) and drive into town (about 13 miles) to do grocery shopping and/or whatever else needed shopped for. Understand there were no malls back then, and no 7/11's etc, so everything had to bought from town. Now, when all the moms got together to 'go to town', whichever mom didn't need to go that particular weekend or volunteered to stay home would play host and overseer for all the mom's kids that day. All the neighborhood kids whose moms had gone to town would gather at the stay home moms place for that day. She was the boss mom for the day for sure. She looked out for us, made us lunch, put band aides on our cuts and bruises, busted our azzes if we acted up (oh yeh, that was totally acceptable in those days), in other words watch out for the whole neighborhood's kids in her yard, or in her house if the weather got bad. But generally all the kids were to stay out in the yard so as to not make a mess in the boss mom's house.
Well, every kid in her yard that day were considered her YARD kid. Just an old country word to mean those kids the boss mim took care of for the day. Obviously they were not her kids, but for all intents and purposes they were her kids for that day. So after I grew up and my wife and I learned we couldn't have kids, everywhere we lived we took it upon our selves to be the neighborhood aunt/uncle for all the neighborhood kids who needed a little extra. She always kept brownies made for any of the kids who came over, or jello squares, helped the little girls sew and make clothes for their dolls, etc, and I kept air in the boy's bicycle tires, help keep their cars running later on while teaching them how to do it themselves, took most of them on their first hunting/fishing trips, taught most of them how to handle firearms, etc when they were young. Just a note here, but for the last 40 years before we sold out and moved here to the institution (retirement community) we lived in the same neighborhood/house. So we saw most of the neighborhood kids grow up from babies to young adults and start their own families. Many of them brought their first born, etc, by to meet us and we loved it. As they got older, the kids that still hung out around our place were treated as if they were our own and we offered them all the guidance and love we could.
They were all our YARD kids. But especially the one in question in this thread. HE used to hang around our house from the time before he was in 1st grade till today. He and his parents (great people and great friends) lived just directly across the street from us so it was easy for him to slip off from home and come over just to hang out. Many times when he was younger he would come over and when his mom would finally miss him she'd call my house and say: Joe, is XXXXX over there?" I'd tell her "yes we're doing XXXXX." She'd laugh and say "OK, when he gets to be a pest, send him home." I don't remember ever sending him home, not even once. He and I were very close over the years as he grew up. I taught him to hunt/fish, how to tune up his first car, helped guide him in buying his very first hunting rifle, put him through the state's hunter safety program when he was about 13 I think. I was a volunteer state certified instructor for about 16-18 years. He even asked me for advice on how to present his special prom date with a corsage. He would often come over on Sundays and have dinner (lunch for you yanks) with us, and afterwards he and I would often lay down on the living room floor to watch a game. We both would occasionally fall to sleep on the floor and my wife would just step over/around us just like he actually lived there rather than wake us up. He might be there the next morning, and he might not be, but he always found his way back. He even brought his dates by to introduce us to them, and finally his wife to be. We knew her almost as long as we knew him, loved her as well and offered her basically the same attention we'd offered him over all those years, and when they had their first little girl, we were the first to meet her right after the grandparents. We were fortunate enough we held that first little girl in our arms before she actually made it all the way to her home home from the hospital. They wanted it that way.
A few years before we sold out and moved, he and his family (they had a second daughter a few years after the first) moved out to Wyoming for work in the oil fields, then a little later to N Dakota to start his own business. He's done very, very well and now owns/operates a business involved with the Balken oil find worth several million dollars. He still comes by to visit whenever he's back here in town along with his family if they come with him. He's as close to a son as I'll ever have, in fact he's not only in my will to recieve all my guns/tools, trucks, and whatever else I have when the time comes, but he's already been given more than half my collection when we sold out and moved along with one of my safes. And he's as much a son as if he were blood, and yes, he's my YARD son.
Sorry to get so wrapped up in a simple explaination, but I just felt I needed to. Hope y'all don't mind.
