Month: July 2019

A few years ago, I pulled into the parking lot of a local store. There was a load of kids in the back of a truck. One of the kids was teaching the others to spit. They were hanging over the side of the truck bed, two fingers pressed on their lips, aiming and firing a projectile of spit. I thought they were doing an admirable job with their spitting skills, but then, they didn’t know Mrs. Cash! She had been a neighbor of my grandparents years ago. She would have put those kids to shame!

My grandparents lived along a country dirt road. Neighbors would wave as they drove by with a cloud of red dust following them down the road. I thought that was the perfect place to live. There was a big barn, an apple orchard, a shed with a tractor, other buildings and even an outhouse. The house seemed huge to a little kid and there was even a porch across the front. A wide hallway divided the house in two. On the left side was a living room and a big kitchen. I remember taking a bath in the washtub in the kitchen floor as Grandma Bee baked peanut butter cookies. The tops of the cookies were squished with a fork, sprinkled with sugar and they were yummy! I can still smell those warm cookies being taken from the oven. 

They lived in an era where neighbors were more than just people who lived nearby. Neighbors helped one another with their crops. They were a community who took care of one another. If someone had a need, the neighbors would pool their resources to help. They also took time to visit with one another. Ladies would gather for quilting bees. Grandma Bee took me with her once. I crawled under the quilt that was stretched out on the frame and watched the needles move in and out of the fabric as the women buzzed like a hive of bees.

One of their neighbors was Mrs. Cash.  She was more than a neighbor; she was a friend. I never heard her called by her first name. Back in those days the ladies were called Mrs. or Miss and men were called Mr. I really only remember one thing about Mrs. Cash and that was she dipped snuff or chewed tobacco. I don’t know if Grandma Bee approved, but she at least tolerated Mrs. Cash’s vice. In fact, she enabled her habit by having a spit can that Mrs. Cash used. That lady would sit on the red vinyl sofa in the living room, work up a good spit and let ‘er fly. She could hit that spit can that sat all the way by the door. Ping! She’d hit it every time. She could spit as good or better than any man, and man, that woman could spit! Ping!

It was the early ‘60’s. Daddy had been appointed his first pastorate. Besides pastoring three small town churches, he also worked and went to school. My mom kept up with us kids and did whatever was necessary to survive. She was busy all the time. With cooking, cleaning, sewing, baking bread (6 loaves at a time), canning, herding kids, church functions, typing college papers, and everything in-between, she had no time to herself. 

We lived in the church parsonage. I didn’t realize at the time that we were relatively poor. That’s why we had to eat oatmeal. It was a staple in our household, and Mama said it would stick to my ribs. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now. Though I was small, I learned to cook there. I made mud pies in the back yard under the big pecan tree. My sister made her mud pies on the piano keys, and I think she got into trouble. I guess she didn’t want to practice that day.

The pastor’s family did benefit from parishioners sharing their produce in the summer, eggs or fresh meat at butchering time. Some of the former pastors may have been asked out to eat regularly, but our family didn’t get asked very often. Who wants to have the pastor’s family for Sunday dinner, especially when there are 6 kids, 3 of them rotten boys? We did get asked on occasion though. I loved going to the Brandenburg’s house. Mr. Brandenburg was blind. He ran the general store in town and knew almost everyone who came into the store by the sound of their feet. One day my dad walked in, and Mr. Brandenburg said, “Hello there, Preacher. Sounds like you put on a few pounds.” He kept an immaculate garden and tended the grape vines that draped over the arbor to the side of the house. Mrs. Brandenburg was so kind and a wonderful cook! 

One Sunday morning Daddy said we were invited to dinner after church. I was excited because I thought the Brandenburg’s had asked us to come, but they didn’t.

Ms. Mary lived out of town. Her house was close to the road on a small hill. Across her driveway was the well. Her chickens were free range, and we had to be careful where we stepped. When we found out that we were going to her house the complaints began. Even Mama and Daddy didn’t want to go, but they graciously accepted her invitation. We were told to eat our meal and not to say a word. Ms. Mary was not the best cook. She put the food on the table and had us sit down to eat. She passed a plate and said, “Have a biscuit.” I had never seen a green biscuit before. Her biscuits were green, and I mean, they were green. They tasted as bad as they looked. She baked them in a kerosene stove and that’s exactly how the biscuits tasted – like kerosene. 

As I look back through the years, I now see things in a different light. I see a woman who gave sacrificially to honor her pastor and his family. She was a simple country woman who had little to give, yet she gave the best she had. Somehow with that thought, even mud pies would taste a bit sweeter and green kerosene biscuits would taste more like manna. 

Some of the best adventures are found on the front porch. There is something special about a porch, don’t you think?  It’s a great place to take time just to sit a few moments to relax and sort your thoughts. It’s also the place to take a trip without even going anywhere.

There have been many days when the grandkids would sit with me on the porch and ask for stories. They have asked for stories about my ancestors from days long gone and of their wild west adventures. I’ve also been asked to tell familiar childhood stories in the voice of the big bad wolf or one of the three little pigs.

Porches add to our arsenal of memories. When I was a kid, I loved to sit on the porch with my granddad. I’d rub his bald head so his hair would grow. He would let me roll his Bull Durham tobacco cigarettes. They were so loose the ashes would fall on his shirt and burn little holes. We’d swing for hours. Whenever a storm came, he would go sit on the porch swing, and I’d go with him. I’d be scared to death because of the thunder and lightning and would stay tucked up under his armpit.  He taught me respect for the storms. That’s where I learned that nitrogen came from lightning and nourished the soil for the crops.  We all need the rain.  I learned that storms come along in our lives, and they are for our good to teach us lessons of life. That’s also where I heard tales from long gone times of his childhood and youth. I heard stories of his “batching” days when he and old John followed the harvest season all the way into Canada to work on the threshing crews.   

Sometimes the porch swing brought other memorable events.  One such day, we were sitting in the swing and my brother crossed the road into the pasture.  My grandfather told him, as he had many times before, to stay away from the mama cow.  She had a new calf.  Well, any of you who know my brother also know that he is his own adjective.  If one of the kids are told they act like or look like Uncle B, they know exactly what that means!  Anyway, he had that grin plastered on his face and decided to tempt fate and that mama cow. He sauntered toward that calf.  Down went the mama cow’s head!  She pawed the ground and started for him.  Daddy Bee hollered and told that boy he’d “better get.” Well, he “got” as fast as he could, running all out toward the barbed wire fence.  The mama cow was faster, but my brother had a head start.  He barely made it to the fence and slid under the bottom wire.  I know exactly what is meant when someone says they “escaped by the seat of their pants.” If he had been any bigger or his britches any looser, they would have gotten snagged by that barb and the rest of him would have been snagged by that mad mama cow.  

 Ah…. porch days  … I think I may need an afternoon trip.  Any takers?