Category Archives: One o’the Nine Stories

family get-togethers to remember old times … by one o’the nine

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Well it’s 2012 already but it feels about the same as the old one what with the Republicans still campaigning since they started around the end of 2008. I don’t make resolutions for the new years. Don’t believe in them. Like dieting, they don’t last long, so I don’t even bother. I did decide to work on a list of things that need doing soon. Like cleaning my half of the office. I’m prompted to do so because I can’t find my plugin for my (old-fashioned, outdated) Ipod. It took me two weeks to remember what the container I hid it in looks like. Now, with any luck, I’ll round it up in a few weeks so I can update and charge it and take it to the gym with me–I NEED the distraction! No matter what they tell me, exercising does NOT make me happy. No resolutions there–just a sincere effort to change lifestyle. That does work. I can tell already. The other big item on my list is to clean up my Wintersong archives–I’m sure there’s a lot in there that would embarrass me now. In fact, I’ve already been rewarded! Back in ’09, before the big C days of 2010, I put in drafts of many one o’the nine posts from my story-telling uncles (now deceased) down in Florida. Lots of people seem to like them, and I thought I’d used them all up and forgot they were there in the drafts. There are very few left now–here’s one I hope you like. With the holidays just past us, I expect some of you have your own stories to tell from your family gatherings. I’d enjoy them if you care to leave a comment.

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Last week I ate supper with all of my brothers who are still living except one. While we were eating, one of them–named “Speckle”–told me he wanted me to write a retraction on something I had written about him. About three weeks ago, I wrote about Speckle sitting in church winding his 75¢ pocket watch. Now the reason he was winding it was so people would know he had a watch. He wanted me to correct a big mistake about him and watch. He informed me that it cost 79¢ and he didn’t want people to get the idea that he was some kind of cheapskate that would buy a 75¢ watch. Well, here is the retraction, Speckle, but it sure looked and sounded just like a 75¢ watch to me. We had a wonderful time together at supper talking about the good old days when we were children growing up on the farm. We only have a chance to get together once in a great while, and when we do you can bet we always have to talk about the good old days.

There were nine of us boys and one girl. The dining room table was a long, homemade table with benches that sat on each side, also homemade. I well remember the good food my mama used to put on that old table for us younguns to eat. There were peas, potatoes, lima beans, cornbread and raw onions. There was all kinds of greens with pot likker. In case you don’t know what pot likker is, it was the juice or liquor that the vegetables cooked in. There is nothing better than a bowl of pot likker and a big chunk of Mama’s cornbread. We also had a big glass or fruit jar full of buttermilk or clabber to go with our meal.

While my brothers and I were together that evening, my brother we call “Goat” asked me to write a story about the times we went chinquapin hunting and also tell about the sassafras tea we used to drink. Well, I would mention it now, but I can’t spell chinquapin or sassafras. I will assure you when I learn to spell them I will tell you all about it.

We had a wonderful time together talking about good times, and may I suggest that you call all of your brothers and sisters and get together again and talk about the good old days. It doesn’t matter if you were raised on the farm or in the city, I’m sure you can find something worthwhile to talk and laugh about. A good laugh will do you more good than a dose of Castor oil.

Postscript: Speckle was my father, although I was not aware at the time that he carried that particular nickname. The reference to “cheapness” is right on. He bought everything according to price tag. My poor mother was never able to just buy something because she liked it even if she could afford it. That explains the plastic panels with garish flowers printed all over that we used on all the windows and called curtains. And the mohair couch we sat on to watch the wonder of the technological age of the times–television! When it was new it scratched your legs (girls were only allowed to wear dresses then) something awful! Does anyone know what Chinquapins are? They seem to grow all over the states, and even in Japan. Some species grow into large trees, but around the swamp land we lived on, they were more like large shrubs and the “fruit” looked very much like chestnuts covered with a protective, prickly bark. I never ate any that I remember because you need special expertise getting them out of the covering. However it’s spelled (Chinquapin seems to be preferred), Chinkapin is the English name. I’ve indulged in a lot of Sassafras tea since it’s something Mama would brew when we were sick and you could still find it in the woods for free, and of course I drank a lot of pot likker in my time. Now if you’re one of the few left who know what clabber is, you get an A and moved to the front of the history class! Cornbread was also legendary in our southern country home. My son-in-law, who grew up in Germany, thinks corn is for pigs, but I don’t care. I’m glad he refuses to touch my melt-in-your-mouth creamed corn, since it leaves more for me to enjoy. But the world, she does keep a-changing, doesn’t she! Don’t forget the family stories!  

time for counting blessings

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No, the deer and cat in the picture aren’t ours; that’s a photo a friend sent in an email a few years ago. But “our deer” have begun to appear from the tops of the mountains along the Wasatch to stimulate and annoy the dogs next door. Hubby saw some last week outside the fence surrounding our back yard. We expect to see the coyotes anyday now. We’ve yet to see the little weasel that likes to winter over under our deck, but every now and then a flock of birds stop by to have breakfast as they pass by on the way to someplace warmer.

Every year around this time I’m reminded how hard it’s getting to keep the holidays simple. In spite of what TV commercials imply, the holiday really isn’t about the “gimmies.” It’s my fault. I’m watching too much TV and subjecting myself to too many confounded commercials. There’s so much pressure to “give that perfect gift”. When I was one, kids waited for Christmas to come because that’s when Santa might visit–if you were good–and leave you something really special that you knew your parents could never afford. And whatever you did wake up to Christmas morning–even if it wasn’t exactly what you’d had in mind–was something you probably wouldn’t get any other time of the year. You learned to like it and use it even if you never did exactly love it. There was always hope for next year.

These days, most people have the wherewithal to buy for themselves whatever they need and lots of stuff they don’t. They don’t have to ask Santa or anyone else to get it for them. It make giving gifts a bit difficult to say the least. I decided to make my gift buying simpler by attaching either the receipts or gift receipt to the package, so the burden is on the recipient if the choice is neither needed nor the right one. Of course some families don’t have it so good…and every year the numbers seem to grow. I wish Santa could do something about that but I guess the world doesn’t work like that.

I hope no one will mind another re-run from One o’the Nine during these busy days. I originally called it “When is Enough Enough?” I admit to slight editing in order to tone down the didactic tone my uncles favored in their depression memories, but I think the essential message in this particular piece is timeless. It was written by my Uncle and published in that small Florida press in the mid-1980s. I’m struck by how much worse conditions seem this year than they did two years ago when it first appeared here. Some things never seem to change do they? I thought it especially appropriate at this time of year, since so many families are having or facing some of the hardest times of their lives, losing jobs and homes, sometimes not having enough to eat. I don’t regret being brought up without the focus on materialism that most American children–in fact most of us–fall victim to today, because I know that the best things in life don’t come with price tags.

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Back during the depression (of the ’30s) when no one had any money, and many didn’t have enough to eat and wore patched britches–because that was all they had–we learned to make-do with what we had and appreciate anything we got. We never threw away much because we didn’t have anything to throw away except maybe a spool when Mama had used the thread from it. Back then spools were made of wood and very seldom thrown away. Spools had several uses other than holding thread.Two of those uses that come to mind are handles for doors that had no knobs, and as toys for us to play with.

A piece of string was threaded through the hole in the spool, tied together and the toddlers pulled it around the house. If we were lucky enough to get someone with a sharp knife to whittle the spool in two pieces, we would put a stick through the hole and sharpen it down, making a top (or spinner) out of it.

Other toys I remember making and enjoying as a depression child was a button with a string strung though two holes, tied together, then pulled back and forth making the button spin back and forth to make a buzzing sound.

Another was just a plain piece of twine tied to make a loop, then through manipulation of the thumb and fingers, making a “Jacob’s Ladder.” With that same piece of string and a different manipulation of the thumb and fingers we would make a see-saw–sometimes called a sawmill. I still remember how to make a Jacob’s Ladder and a see-saw. In fact I just recently made a string see-saw with the help of one of my grandsons, and I believe he enjoyed see-sawing almost as much as I did when I was his age.

I find that in this throwaway–discard– computer age, that children can still be amused by simple things. All they need is someone who will take the time to show them how to make the simple toys, and they will thoroughly enjoy them, sometimes more than some expensive technical toys.

It is too bad, I believe, that fathers and mothers can’t take the time to spend with their children teaching them how to enjoy the simple things of life. It is much too easy to buy some expensive toys, give them to the children, then leave them alone so that mother and daddy can do other stuff without being bothered by them.

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Postscript: Back when I was  a kid, around this time of year, I was so mindful of Santa’s elves sneaking around unseen and making notes on how I was behaving, I was a veritable angel, ‘though I’m sure my parents would tell you the opposite if they were here. Christmases were lean enough as they were–in the ’40s and ’50s when the Depression was supposed to be over–that I couldn’t afford more than one or two transgressions between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Kids aren’t cowed by elves anymore, at least not my grandchildren. One day last weekend, our 7-year-old Grandson had at least two tantrums in one single afternoon–one of which resulted in his first–and hopefully last–running away from home caper. His mother, who–as a psychologist–has studied enough child psychology that she was prepared enough to wish him good luck and tell him goodbye, was confident enough to wait it out. He left–only to circle around and come back home long enough to get his shoes which he couldn’t find of course, so he left again, barefoot. This time he was gone a bit longer, and it wasn’t easy to resume the wait–this time closer to half an hour before he got too cold and came home.At least part of the reason he felt compelled to run away was that his parents were awful people who never bought him anything. Never mind all the expensive Lego toy sets or the expensive electronic gadgets and almost any kids’ DVDs you can think of including Starwars, it’s just never enough. I have no answer when his mother asks “how do you deal with a problem like this?” I wish I had a magic formula–if I did I wouldn’t sell it, I’d GIVE it away. Because I know our grandson isn’t the only child out there who has never gone without his needs being met who still expects more. His parents are looking into some way to make him understand that there are children all over the world who have real needs, who have no toys and not enough to eat. I hope Santa has some ideas.

would no guns or fishing on sundays make us better people?

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Well, it’s been a long time since I posted anything from the Looking Back series my uncles wrote in the mid-1980’s. There aren’t many left and I’ve been reluctant to get to the bottom of the pile. As it has a way of doing from time to time, that file turned up while I was looking for something else, and as I poked around through the unposted pieces, I found this little gem. It begins like most if not all his stories began:

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Back in the early thirties when I was a boy on the farm with my father and mother and eight brothers, things were much different than they are today. In the country that I grew up in, it was against the law to shoot a gun or to fish on Sunday. Even if it hadn’t been illegal, I wasn’t supposed to go because Papa said it was wrong and I was more afraid of him than any game warden or sheriff.

One Sunday afternoon I was riding my horse in the woods back near the river. There was a lake that we called the Black Lake. The river had overflowed and left lots of big fish when it was down. I always carried a cork stopper from a syrup bottle in my pocket with a hook and line wrapped around it.

I rode the horse to the lake and cut a pole from a tree limb. For bait I put a small frog on the hook, and I was ready to catch a big one! I threw my hook into the water and as soon as it hit, a large one grabbed it and as fast as I could throw it in and pull it out, I would have a big brim!

Soon I had a large string of fish, but what was I going to do with them since it was Sunday and Papa wouldn’t let us fish on Sunday? Well, after a short conversation with myself, I decided I’d take them to a black man’s house that was on my way home. This would be better than throwing them back. No one would ever believe that I had caught them if I threw them back.

I took the fish to the black man’s house then and gave them to him, but he insisted that I stay and help eat them. There were several other black men there, most of whom worked for Papa, and soon we had the fish cleaned. Rebecca, the black man’s wife, cooked them. I had to sit at the table with them and being the only white person there, I looked like a pale ghost on a dark night.

The black man that owned the house was named Jessie and was very hard of hearing. Before we ate, Goat, another black man, was going to ask the blessing, but Jessie didn’t hear and began talking. Well, Goat just stopped asking the blessing and said “excuse me Lord while I talk to Jessie.”  Afterwards he continued asking the blessing as if nothing ever happened.

The fish was soon eaten, and I was on my way back home. I know this isn’t an exciting story today, but it would have been in the early thirties because the country was segregated and white and black people did not eat together and you did not go fishing on Sunday.

Children today never think anything of eating with black friends or going hunting or fishing on Sunday. It isn’t against the law and Daddy will carry them fishing or hunting before he will carry them to church.

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Postscript: I’m not sure if fishing or shooting a gun on Sunday was against real law or if everyone in our neck of the woods just thought so. Even I didn’t realize the difference between “family” or “Baptist” or “real” law until after I grew up and decided that whatever was fun was against some law or the other at the time, enough to make you want to get away as soon as you grew up. In spite of all these laws, his humor remained intact and probably helped him overcome whatever shortcomings that we can legitimately blame on our humble beginnings.

Since he was a practicing minister during the writing of Looking Back, naturally he included moral-shaded elements of his newfound religious convictions. He never considered that anything other than having fathers (or mothers sometimes) who didn’t take their children to church on Sundays was the reason they sometimes didn’t turn out so swell in life. If only bringing up children was as simple as taking them to church. Life should be so easy.

His success–as a minister and as a story teller–was no doubt much more the result of the family stories he skillfully wove into his sermons rather than his limited Bible school education.