Therapy or Good Times?

  Once again my good friend, Darlene, visited the Bayou.  She comes to fish, talk and just generally escape from the woes of the world for a while.  Usually, we do more fishing than anything else but there was nary a fish to be found today so after several attempts, we gave up and came back to the Little Bayou House.  I was not sure what we would find to do there but Darlene is not one to sit idle long.  She grabbed a couple of bags of pecans and a large tray.  Even though I protested that she did not have to work at my house, we both sat down to shell the pecans. Several hours later, twenty pounds of pecans were all shelled and ready to be bagged for the freezer. Those added to what we shelled yesterday makes for a nice bundle of nutmeats to use this winter. What a friend I have in this lady!  Although I would have eventually gotten the pecans shelled, the chore went a lot quicker with two pairs of hands and plenty of talk....or should I say singing.  Christmas music filled the house so it was only natural that we sang along with the tunes.  

  There is something relaxing about shelling pecans in the snug Little Bayou House.  Darlene called it "Boredom Therapy" so the task now has a new name.  She is right.  If you think about it, sitting with a good friend long enough to shell that many nuts can be sort of a therapy.  Add a bit of singalong music and the brain just cannot stay in a funk long.  Perhaps that is what is wrong with the world today.  Gone are the days when entire families sat together to shell pecans, snap green beans or shell peas.  What was done, matters not.  It was that time spent together...talking, laughing or (in our case) singing that made things right.  Gone are the "Good Old Days" where friends were dependable, times were happy and family was everything.