Kid Memories

SO many things I want to write about on here, not sure how personal I want to get. I can write things and not post them...how would that be?
Here is random stuff I want to write and will surely have to come back to for some editing later.
I remember going to visit relatives in Mississippi when I was a kid. There's the before Mimi and Pop's divorce memories, and the after.
I remember going with the whole family when I was very little, maybe between 3-6. I have a distinct memory of wondering how it came to be that my Mimi was my Mimi. You know, the age where kids are just figuring out about people other than themselves. Here's how I pictured it going down: I could just see my parents driving to her house, they got there at night and came to the door at the carport and knocked. Mimi answered, the porch light was on, and my Mom and Dad said "Will you be our daughter's Mimi?" and of course she accepted the invitation. Probably after that she invited them in and fed them black eyed peas and cornbread it the kitchen.
What's interesting is that my Popaw wasn't even in this scenario.? Just Mimi. I guess I figured Pop came with the package by default.
I remember when my niece's were that age and explaining lineage to them. I remember how when you're a kid, you can't even imagine grown-ups ever having been babies or kids. It was like a myth, a bedtime story, a fable; "Once upon a time, long long ago when Mommy was a little girl"...
Of course I absolutely loved hearing tales of when my parents were my age, or any kid age. They told us stories that made me pine away for those "olden" days! Mom's stories were always fun; her driving her Fiat around Laurel at age 12. She had to sneak and drive along only certain streets so she wouldn't get in trouble. Or going to stay with her grandparents at their farm in the country, stories of "Granny Jeffcoat". Granny alone is an entire novel unto herself. She once shot a mockingbird with her .410 through the window as she lay in bed with a broken hip because she wanted it quiet. Then she fed it's babies to her cats. We love that one.
Dad's stories had a different flavor, since his family were so different. His stories usually included an element of mischief, although never maliciously. He is a fantastic story teller and to this day I still beg him to tell me the stories again and again. Stories of him and his cousin Lee, or Parks, or Luke. Stories of fireworks and old school "improvised explosive devices". In these times a kid would be put straight in jail for any number of common escapades for my Dad. Also wonderful stories that I identified with completely and loved because they were about his love of animals, and nature, and art. Also I loved how he had hated and resented school so completely just like me, or rather I just like him.
Once in second grade he stopped to play in a creek on the way to school and caught crawfish. He had a plastic kind of book bag and filled it up with water to keep the crawfish in. Once he got to school he hung up his book bag in the coatroom (in the olden days school classrooms had coatrooms) and the teacher later looked in horror at the water running all over the floor and listened to the scratching of the crawfish clawing the inside of his book bag.
But I digress. Then there are memories of going to Mississippi after Mimi and Pop divorced. The main reason Brandi and I continued to go for years after was really to see our beloved Karla and Vanessa, friends we met because their farm was right behind our Pop's farm. I didn't think of it that way for many years, but had it not been for them, we wouldn't have visited nearly as much I don't think. After the scandalous divorce, family tensions ran high. Everyone chose sides, except our branch of the family. Being six hundred miles away made this easier for us.
For years we had to see Pop in secret, Mimi could not know of our visits although it was probably not long at all that she didn't know.
I remember having been with Bran at Pop's and (before Bran had her driver's license) having to call Mimi and ask her to bring us back to her house. Bran made me call because she said "she likes you better!" and after I got off the phone we realised Mimi would of course assume we were at Karla & Vanessa's and go there. In horror we ran frantically through the cow field "over the hills and through the woods to the Hodge's house we go!" We got there in time before Mimi, shew! I hated having to be so secretive and deceptive just to see my Grandfather, plus I was really bad at it.
Oh the story about the time I messed up my Lie and confessed to Mimi that we had indeed delivered Christmas presents to Pop! Lord what a mess. But that will have to be for another time...