Climbing through barbed wire

When I was 5 (1951), my mother took my older sister and me with her when she went to gather pecans near Rock Creek. We had to climb through a tight barbed wire fence.

My mother told Carolyn and me we would have to watch out for soldiers patrolling the area.

While we were picking up pecans beneath a large tree, my mother said, “Hide! The soldiers are coming!” I got down in the grass, but peeked up and saw a jeep with two soldiers drive by on the gravel perimeter road.

We gathered pecans until my mother decided we had enough. We climbed back through the fence, which had signs KEEP OUT and MILITARY INSTALLATION plainly posted.