"...the best laid plans o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley" (Burns)

.....Back when Robin was in high school--or college, she had a project which required her to interview her grandparents and perhaps other relatives about their "olden days".  Some of these responses need to be kept for posterity before they get lost forever.  The following is a response from my mother about "the nickel caper".

" Well, I told you that the best years of my life were when I was a little girl, childhood.  I remember way back--between the ages of 6-14, truthfully were, I think, the happiest years of my life because like everyone else remembers we were very , very poor and I had absolutely all hand-me-downs, my sister's hand-me-downs and my father, he used to give us about a penny a week.  We came home from school and had bread and sugar for lunch.  We didn't  know what milk looked like.  And I was happy, 'cause I knew no other life.  One time, it was very, very cold, winter time; I went into the street.  And those days, all the rich kids had sleds.  I didn't have sled, y'know what I used, was a milk can, the milk cans with the covers?  And I'd sit on the cover and I'd go sliding, I enjoyed that, y'know I didn't have any toys or whatever.  Then, the thing that I remember vividly.  There was like  20 cents, there were four nickels in the ice, those years when it snowed, and snow piled real high, took months to clear away.  And I saw these four nickels in the ice.  And I started digging with my nails and fingers.  I couldn't get it up fast enough.  I finally found those nickels and I went out and I bought my two sisters and three brothers 2 cents candy--you could get about  20  pieces for a penny, those days.  And all through my childhood, I mean as a little girl, I enjoyed my life. 

.....It makes me heartsick to think that that was the only time in her life that she might feel once again that kind of happiness.  It was never to happen.  It reminds me of Robert Burn's poem, "To a Mouse" when the farmer says, "....but mousie, thou art blessed compared wi' me; the present only touches thee. But backward, och, I cast my 'ee on prospects drear, and forward tho' I canna see, I guess and fear."  There are several other stories from family members regarding events they could recall in their lives which might be of interest, and thus "blogged".    I'll think about it.