Close your eyes. Get set. Go! to where Bay Swamp smells like aftershave, to where friends raise Billie's dad a barn in a day. You're there! On her "pizer," Grandma, waiting to serve dinner, relaxes with a dip of her Sweet Society snuff. Billie's mom and dad, sweaty from hoeing tobacco, rush in and wash up. They can't wait to bite into Grandma's succulent chicken. They tell you, "Pull up a chair!" After dinner, take off your shoes, trek across sandy, open fields, feel sand between your toes. Beyond the watermelon patch, a rare sight: Venus flytraps and yellow trumpet flowers, set to gobble up every bug in sight, and Bug Swamp has bugs. Also gators, bears, cooters, possums, snakes gold. Later, on Grandmas "pizer," you'll hear how Billie and her mom almost become bear bait, and Grandma will spellbind you, telling about Grandpas tussle with a gator. Discover for yourself how Grandmas pipeline to God keeps everyone on track. Pity she doesn't have Hitler's ear in Germany, or Tojo's in Japan. Why, Grandma could even advise Harry Truman! He uses a weapon so strong it keeps on killing and killing. That Great Depression? Pray it won't destroy Billie's family. Her dad puts a mortgage on the place that can tear their family apart or hold them together. Luckily, World War II ends, and good and bad teeter into place.
