Chapter 1

Hello there, folks. My name is John Edward Delany. Most folks just call me JED. My great grand-daughter, Marjorie, talked me into writing this. Well, actually she talked me into dictating it to her so she could do the writing. I don't know why she wanted me to do this. It's not like I'm anyone famous or anything.

I'd have refused if it had been anyone but Margie asking me to do it. She can get me to do just about anything. The problem is, a lot of my story is just plain embarrassing to talk about with a young woman.

Hi, people. I'm Marjorie Delany. Gramps is an old fuddy-duddy. I love him like the dickens, though. It took a long time and a lot of questions to get some of this out of Jed. He has the idea that I'm some kind of innocent, and that I shouldn't be exposed to some of the things he did in his wilder days.

I'll be using a black pen when I am writing what Jed told me. I'll switch to a blue pen if it's something I'm adding on my own.

I was born on January 6, 1960. That makes me 85 years old. I have seven children, 28 grandchildren, 84 great grandchildren, and 123 great-great grandchildren. Hell, by the time they really get cracking on the great-greats, you'll be able to populate a small town with my offsprings.

All in all, I'd say I had a good life so far. It started out kind of rough. We lived on what my mom called a hardscrabble farm. We had about a hundred acres, but it was mostly hills. All but about twenty acres of it wasn't good for much, except pasture.

We raised hay and corn and tobacco. Mom's garden took up about two acres all by itself. We raised a few beef cattle and a few dairy cattle. We had hogs and chickens and a wide assortment of dogs and cats. We never went hungry, but we never had any extra money either.

My dad was a construction worker. That meant that he was always on a job when there was work to be done on the farm. My sister is just a year and two months younger than me. Mom, Becky, and I did almost all of the work on the farm. Mom was old before her time because of it.

There were good times as well as bad. Our closest neighbor was two miles away, and our closest neighbor with kids close to mine and Becky's ages was over four miles away. That meant that my only playmate growing up was Becky.

It's a good thing that we got along as well as we did. Later in life we had friends who said their kids fought all of the time. We weren't like that at all. It seemed like we always knew it was me and Becky against the world. Now, don't get me wrong. We weren't always nice to each other. Sometimes we'd even fight. We'd always make up within a few hours, though.

Growing up when and where we did was a lot different than it is here and now. For one thing, I can't remember Mom ever treating us like we were kids. That was both good and bad. The bad part was that we were expected to put in a full days work from as far back as I can remember. That might mean shucking corn, or cutting tobacco, or hoeing the garden, or any of a hundred other things.

The good part was that we were trusted to do things at a much younger age. I had my own shotgun and went hunting by myself when I was ten years old. I know that Becky and I were under ten when our parents would leave us by ourselves overnight. Of course we were expected to do the milking and feeding while they were gone. We were also expected to get ourselves ready for school, just as if our parents were there taking care of us.

One of the nice things about being trusted was that we could go swimming in the creek by ourselves, when there wasn't work to be done. I had a pair of cut-off blue jeans I swam in, and Becky had a pair of shorts and a blouse.

I think I was around twelve years old, when I saw Becky naked for the first time that I can remember. Mom and Dad were very hung up on a lot of things. They belonged to a fundamentalist church, and everything that was fun or felt good was a sin. Being nude with someone of the opposite sex was strictly forbidden. Neither Becky nor I either one put too much faith in our parents' religion, though.

Hang with him, folks. Jed tends to ramble. It gets more interesting as you go along.

Anyway, on the day I was talking about, we got our chores done and asked Mom if we could go swimming. Mom said it was okay, as long as we were back in time to do our evening chores. Becky and I practically ran to the creek and jumped in. We were having a lot of fun, climbing one of the big trees that hung out over the swimming hole, and then jumping in.

It was about our third trip up, when Becky slipped. She fell, almost astraddle of the limb we were on. I little stub of a cut off branch caught her on the thigh and ripped her swimming shorts all the way to her crotch. It also took a lot of skin off of her thigh.

I jumped into the water after her when she fell, and helped her get to the bank. Becky wasn't a crybaby, but she had tears running down her face as I got her out of the water.

"Are you okay, Becky?" I asked.

"It hurts, Jed."

"Let me have a look at it. Just lie back on the bank. I promise I won't hurt you."

Becky laid back and spread her legs apart. I pulled her ripped shorts aside to look at the scratch. It was wicked looking, and there was blood beaded up all along it. I didn't touch the scratch. In fact, I didn't even look at it all that long. I was far more interested in looking at a part of Becky's body that I couldn't ever remember seeing before.

"Honey, it's all bloody," I said. "I think it's just a scratch, though. We should probably go up to the house and get some iodine on it."

"Let me see," she said as she sat up.

Becky pulled her shorts aside and I had an unobstructed view of her most private parts. I was dumbstruck. I'd had hair growing around my pubic area for about a year now. I could see now that Becky did too. Hers was a light blond, and matched the hair on her head. It was still sparse enough that I had a good view of her most private part.

She saw me looking and asked, "Are you looking at my pussy?"

"Is that what it's called?"

"That's what our cousin, Dorcas, called it. She said a girl has a pussy and a boy has a dick."

"Mom always calls mine a pee pee."

"That's what she calls mine too."

"Well, mine's a lot different from yours."

"Can I see yours?" Becky asked. She didn't seem a bit shy about asking.

"You can if you'll take your shorts off and let me see yours."

Becky and I trusted each other more than we trusted anyone else, including our parents. Neither of us hesitated in dropping our shorts. We just stood there, staring at each other for a few minutes.

"Thank you, Jed," Becky said as she pulled her ripped shorts back up.

"Uh ... We probably shouldn't tell Mom we looked at each other."

"Of course not, silly," Becky giggled.

When we got back to the house, Mom shooed me out of the room while she took care of Becky's leg.

I would have to say that day was the beginning of a relationship between Becky and me that would last for the rest of our lives.

I have always been totally awed by Jed and Becky's relationship. It didn't surprise me that Becky wasn't shy about asking to see Jed's equipment. Women are naturally braver than men when it comes to sex.

I'm not really sure why it is, but Becky and I always seemed closer after that experience. The next couple of years went by in pretty much the same manner as the previous ones had. We did see each other naked a lot more often. It wasn't like we went out of our way to be naked in front of each other, but we didn't go out of our way to avoid it either.