Category: Childhood Memories

Some of my brothers were notorious for teasing the dog. Ringo would have been a good dog, but all the pestering made him mean. Ringo bared his teeth, growled, snarled and was always ready for a fight. He was the mailman’s worst nightmare and chased anybody that went down the road or came near the house. I was hesitant to even go outside if no one was with me.

One day, one of local preachers pulled into the driveway. He chanced getting out of his car. I guess he felt he was safe when Daddy went out to talk with him. My mother peered through the kitchen window. She sneered a bit as she watched the encounter. There were some people my mother just did not like, and that preacher was one of them. She thought he was sneaky and sleazy. More often than not, my mother’s first impression was prophetic. If she thought someone was sneaky and sleazy, it was usually true.

There was a wheelbarrow on the carport that contained old cans to be taken to the dump. The preacher looked kind of like a cocky strutting rooster. He got a little too comfortable and propped his foot up on the lip of the wheelbarrow. Ringo thought the sleazy preacher crossed the line! That was his territory. He grabbed the preacher’s britches leg, with a little bit of leg in it. Ringo shook his head back and forth just as if he chewed on an old rag. It took some doing to get Ringo pulled off the preacher, but Daddy managed to get him loose and tied up – the dog, not the preacher.

That was the last straw. They were afraid the dog might attack someone else, so he was history. Daddy called the neighbor down the road and asked him to take the dog off and “get rid of him.” I didn’t ask exactly what that meant, but I knew.

I doubt my mother felt any remorse whatsoever – at least concerning the preacher. There were some people she just did not like!

For some reason I do not understand, my mother thought it necessary that my sister know how to ring a chicken’s neck and prepare it for the frying pan.

The plan had been for my sister to chase the chicken around the yard like a madman, but our dog, Ringo, wanted in on the chase. Early the morning of the execution, the chicken was put in the laundry room at the far end of the carport and Ringo was tied up.

My sister looked reluctant as she stepped into the laundry room and the door closed behind her. I stood inside the kitchen door. Ringo was going crazy. He was snarling, growling, and pulling as hard as he could to get loose. I didn’t dare step outside. The noises that came from behind the closed door were horrible. It sounded like a major battle with all the squawking, banging and yelling.

She chased the poor little chicken, grabbed it by the neck and twisted as hard as she could to no avail. That just made the chicken mad and it squawked louder and flapped it shedding wings harder. The door opened and my sister slowly emerged, hot and sweaty. Her hair was all messed up and she looked like she had lost the battle. Feathers were still flying in the air as they floated to the floor. What a mess! That poor chicken almost “gave up the ghost” on its own. That poor thing had a sore neck for sure. Daddy put the bird out of its misery.

Though I never understood why Mama thought it was so important for my sister to know how to ring a chicken’s neck, by the time we ate fried chicken for supper, it didn’t seem to matter.

To my knowledge, my mother never told any of us girls about the facts of life or mentioned “the birds and the bees.” I wasn’t even given warning about a once-a-month visitor – well, at least from my mother – or my big sister. It’s a good thing I had big brothers!

One day my other sister, just two years older than me, asked mama, “How do babies get here?” Mama answered, “The same way little pigs do. Now go do your chores.”

I took my sister aside and told her where babies come from. She didn’t believe me. Now I know it did seem a bit far-fetched, but that’s what my brothers told me. And you know what? I think that’s the only thing they ever told me that was actually true!

I’m glad they didn’t tell Mama. She didn’t find out until her sixth baby. I guess that’s a good thing!

My brothers knew how to ride bicycles. The oldest brother took me for a ride one time on Ernie’s bicycle. I crawled up in the basket over the front tire and got off involuntarily when my brother rode through a ditch and dumped me out breaking my collar bone. My middle brother went for a ride one day and got dumped off by the railroad tracks all by himself and broke his collar bone. My youngest brother, still older than me, was the only one I remember having a bicycle all his own. He broke his arm once and when the doctor took of his cast for the last time it was stuffed full of pencils and other things he stuck in there to scratch his arm.

My sister and I had a bicycle without tires or a handlebar. It was one of those big spools that at one time had telephone line or cable wrapped around it. That spool was much bigger than us. We flipped it on its side and somehow managed to get on it and move our feet to make it roll up or down the driveway. It’s a wonder we didn’t fall and break something. I don’t know how we managed to keep our balance long enough to stay on the thing. It may not have moved very fast, but I seem to remember having to run on that rolling spindle just to stay on top.

I often went visiting with Daddy. There was a family in Dewey Rose who had a little girl about my age. She was rich! She had her very own new bicycle. I was envious. Whenever Daddy went to visit her family, I liked to go along. One day she asked if I’d like to ride her bicycle. Would I? You bet! That’s when I learned to ride. I was probably six or seven years old and thought I was grown because I could ride a bicycle.

The Duncan kids had bicycles. They even had extra bicycles. Sometimes they asked my sister and me to go bike riding with them on those back-country roads. They also had chicken houses. We’d go in the chicken houses, especially when they were full of little chicks. I was usually always barefooted. You know, it can be quite messy to go in a chicken house barefooted. That’s not something I’d recommend. It was hard to dodge those little squishy chicken bombs even though most of them were covered with wood shavings.

I never did get my own bicycle, but I was glad I had friends willing to share their riches. Sometimes the simplest of things others might take for granted bring the greatest joy to someone else.

My grandmother was a churchgoer. She was a faithful member of Mt. Bethel Methodist Church. When we stayed with her, we went to church, too. My granddad only went on special occasions, but he did attend the daily devotion every morning in his living room right after breakfast. My grandmother read the devotion out of the Upper Room – the scripture, the story that went along with it, and the prayer. To my knowledge, she never missed a day – and neither did my granddad – nor did he complain about it.

The little church was organized in 1833 and served the farming community known as Ola. In those early years, the main crop was cotton. When my grandparents moved south in the early 1950’s, they soon became an asset to the community and to the church. They were good neighbors and always willing to lend a helping hand. It didn’t take long for the church family to find out that my grandmother had some mad baking skills. When the church had fundraisers for various ministries, a pan of her cinnamon rolls was auctioned off at a hefty price.

A church isn’t a building, it’s the people that come together to worship, fellowship and care for one another’s needs. Within the church was Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson. When I was born, Mr. Wilkinson made a highchair for me. It has survived all these years and three generations have used it. Leroy and his family were part of the congregation as well. You may have read about him in a previous story. Another person in the congregation was a lady who was a dwarf. She was as short as me, maybe even shorter, and I was just a kid. Her short arms hung unnaturally by her side and her disproportioned body caused her to waddle when she walked. She was always so kind. I think she liked me because we were both short. These country people were a community of people who came together to support one another in good times and bad.

Some Sundays after church, we had lunch on the grounds. There were some good cooks in that little country church. However, there were some things I didn’t care for such as okra, turnip greens, collards and southern cornbread. There were also plenty of salads. My grandmother would take carrot salad, pineapple salad or some other kind of odd salad. I bypassed those but the ladies of the church sure liked them.

Someone always made a “chocolate cake” that was not a chocolate cake. Daddy laughed about that. When he got a slice of chocolate cake, more often than not, it was white cake with chocolate icing. A chocolate cake should be just that, chocolate.

Whether my granddad entered the door of the church or not, he lived an exemplary life of Christianity. He walked his faith. He was genuinely kind and complimentary. No matter what he was doing, he would set that aside to help a neighbor or a stranger. He didn’t show love by empty pious words but rather by his actions. If we walked such a path, our world would be a much greater place.