A Word Edgewise |
 |
A Word Edgewise |
|
Last Updated 01/20/06
For
more literature go to Clendenin Books
Email: mjclen@our-town.com
LISTEN TO A LITTLE ABOUT THE GOOD OLD DAYS
By Mary Joe Clendnenin
(I have a
guest columnist today. Thought you might enjoy reading this that my dad, Joe Fitzgerald,
wrote about the past. Was probably written in the 1930s.)
I can remember back to the time when we trimmed the lamp wicks (and farther back when they put a little tallow or gravy in a saucer and laid a cotton string in it for a wick). I have carried many a can of coal oil from the store with a potato stuck over the spout. That was back when they had sitting rooms, or parlors, and the young man went there to spark the girls. The couple sat around and looked at family albums.
Visitors always slept in this room. There was a big feather bed and when you got
into it you felt like you were sinking into a cloud. You went off into a dreamless sleep
and was always wakened too soon by Pa calling the boys to get up and go tie fodder while
it was still damp. We would be out in the field by four o’clock and then Ma would get
up and put the little pot in the big one for the guest. In a little while you would hear
the old coffee mill going and that was always time for guests to get up. But
often—more than often—the guest would get up and help the old man and the boys
tie up the fodder. You could hear a lonely old owl crying over in the woods, and the
cowbells began to jingle as the girls went to the cow pen to juice the cows.
Back then nearly every home had an aged “grandma” or “grandpa”.
I can remember Grandma Bibb, Grandma McInroe, Grandpa Moore, Grandpa Johnson and many
others. That was before they got cancer to kill the old people off. Old
“grandma” would sit by the side of the fire and would have her clay pipe laying
up handy. She would fill her pipe with big bale tobacco and would reach down and pick up a
live coal with her hand and lay it on her pipe. When I was a kid I wondered how they could
do this and I got burned many times before I learned how to pick up a live coal. They
churned in an old fashioned--often a cedar—up and down churn. Took all morning
sometimes to get the churning done. Often, near the house was a patch of sorghum cane. And
such molasses some people could make?
Come fall and it was a delight to take a day off and go to the creek and gather
pecans. Back then there was a wild, very sour grape which grew out of the thick woods and
people would gather these and even dry them to make pies in the wintertime. I know where
two of these vines are now, but no one pays any attention to them. We lived close to
nature then, and who knows, getting away from nature may be the cause of cancer. The land
is poor and what we eat now could not have the kick to it that old-fashioned turnip greens
and sow belly had.
Remember how they would put the milk in stone jars, set it in front of the fire and
turn the jars around so the cream would form? That was back when the roosters were allowed
to run with the hens, the brazen mean things. And when we had muzzle-loading guns and it
took a gun a minute to fire after the trigger was pulled. And when little girls went to
school with their hair braided and hanging down their backs.
That was back when they had Arbuckle coffee, and you could save the signature and
send off to get a ring or razor. But you always had to send along two cents to pay for
them. I can remember when such a thing as baking powder was unknown and the women bragged
about the biscuits they could make with soda and sour milk. Just after hog-killing time we
would have crackling bread, and we would put potatoes in the hot ashes to roast them. They
didn’t have lunches then, but we did have breakfast, dinner and supper. Back then,
when they killed the hogs they would roast the pig tails with the potatoes and they were
good.
That was back when we had the Populist party and everyone hated old King George.
When it was a crime to cuss in front of a woman, or ride a pony in a store house. They
were always getting some fellow up for carrying concealed weapons, and it was considered
an honor to stay all night in a hotel. The dead were buried in home-made coffins and a few
of the neighbors acted as undertakers. You could die then and be buried for ten dollars,
but if you get out of the world now for less than five hundred dollars, you have done
something to be proud of. They say the world has gotten smaller, but it was just as small
then. It was an event if a woman went to town, or if a man went to another county, when he
got back his neighbors would all visit him to see how tricks were in the other part of the
world.