memoir

Maggotty Mayhem

See my sister’s camper. It comes with all the niceties, great queen-size bed, comfortable furnishings, plush carpeting, lots of storage, and great appliances. After her last trip out, she unpacked her clothes, and after ensuring the camper was hooked to power, left her freezer stocked for the next trip. She’d need all those things next time for sure.

imageAs she packed for this trip and opened the freezer to put in some more goodies, she discovered the tragic aftermath of a power outage leaving her with the putrid remains of her previously frozen food mounded up with writhing maggots. The frisky, fat maggots seized the opportunity to leap for freedom all down the front of her shirt, leaving her awash in foul juices and previous generations of incarcerated maggots.  When her son called in the middle of the fiasco, he was appalled to learn such valuable fishing bait had been Continue reading →

Good Old Champ

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Art by Kathleen Holdaway Swain

I knew Champ, our horse, loved me since he trotted up to the fence every time he saw me. I carefully held my hand flat and let him snuffle up goodies with his velvety muzzle. My big sister said it he’d love anyone who slipped him apples, sugar and carrots, but she was just being mean. I didn’t tell my friends and cousins the trick, so they were scared he’d bite them. Before long, I found he could help himself to treats out of my pocket or off my shoulder.

My grandmother had written that she was coming for Easter and bringing Easter outfits with hats and shoes. I didn’t hear much except the part about outfits with hats and shoes. I was thrilled! I had been dying for a cowboy outfit with red boots, red hat, and shiny pistols in a holster but Mother said I needed other things worse. Good old Grandma knew what really mattered! I was up before daylight waiting for her. Breakfast and lunch dragged by…..…..nothing. I was getting more and more upset. Maybe Grandma wasn’t coming. Maybe she got lost. Just before dark an old black car crept up. We all flew out to the car, trying to get to her first. “What did you bring me? What did you bring me?” Mother tried to shush us, but nobody listened. Grandma was slow getting out of the car and slower getting in the house. No wonder it took her so long to get here. We got busy and helped with her bags and a big brown box from the back seat. There was plenty of room in there for a cowboy suit and lots of other good stuff.

Even though we were dying, Mother made us wait till Grandma went to the bathroom, got a cup of coffee, and caught her breath. She was slow at that, too. Finally, Grandma got the scissors and started cutting the strings on the box. She was so old her fingers shook. It took forever. I could have ripped into that box in a second, but would Mother let me? Noooooo!

Just before I died of old age, Grandma started pulling things out of the box. I knew she always saved the best for last. I got a gumball machine full of gumballs. That was great!! Next she pulled out a baby doll and handed it to me. Grandma couldn’t seem to remember I hated dolls, but I tried to be nice about it. All baby dolls were good for was burying when we played funeral. I tried to be patient till she got to the cowboy outfit. Finally, she hit bottom. She made me and my sister close our eyes and hold out our hands for our outfits.

I peeked just a little and was furious!! This was a horrible joke! We were both holding fancy Easter dresses, big ridiculous straw hats with flowers, and shiny white shoes. I hated them! Where were my cowboy boots and guns? My mother gave me a dirty look before I could tell Grandma what I really thought. I hated dresses, but Mother made us put on our Easter getups and pose next to the fence for a picture. It was hot. The clothes were scratchy. We looked stupid. My prissy big sister kept dancing around like a ballerina while the mean kids from next door laughed at us across the fence. I’d be dealing with them later. Boy was I disgusted.

Mother was as slow as Grandma. While I stood there like a dope waiting for her to take that darn picture, Champ came up behind me expecting a treat. We both got a big surprise. I felt a big scrunchy chomp on my head. The strap on my hat stretched tight, snapped, and that horrible hat with the flowers was gone. I flipped around, and Champ was eating my Easter hat. He still had straw and flowers sticking out of his mouth, but I could see he didn’t think too much of it either. He was the best horse ever. I never had to wear that hat again. He did love me!

A Simple Command

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Vintage Picture of Logging Operation

For a time, Daddy had an old time logging operation.  Mr. Bill was old when Daddy was just a kid so he was probably at least eighty at the time he ran Daddy’s brought his horses and came to work.  He set up camp in a shack on skids he hauled in on his old truck.  A mess of barking dogs piled out when he opened the truck door, quieting at his word.  A truck pulled in behind him hauling in his two enormous logging horses.  At Uncle Bill’s command, the horses backed out of the trailer and moved into position behind his truck.  He harnessed them to chains attached to the shack.  In seconds it was unloaded and skidded into place.  He quickly set to work sawing and positioning a few saplings to make a shelter for the horses, topping it was a few pieces of tin he pulled from the back of his truck.  Two bucket for feed and a water bucket later, he and the horses were snug at home.  The intelligent horses needed no reins, following Bill’s verbal commands as they slid the big logs out of the thickets, positioning them in perfect loading position next to the skids of the log wagon. There they waited until unchained from their load, only to walk around the wagon to assume their position on the opposite side of the wagon.  As soon as they heard the chain hooked to their harness, they worked in tandem to pull the huge logs onto the wagon, halting at the sound of the logs settling into place.  Had they only had opposable thumbs and been able to manage the chains, they wouldn’t have needed the help of the man at all.  It was amazing to see the skill and respect Bill and his giants shared in the job they did.

 

Twenty-Seven Biscuits

image imageMother made twenty-seven biscuits for breakfast every morning.  The number wasn’t intentional; that was just how it worked out.   Her recipe wasn’t measured, just experience.  She started out by hollowing out a hole in the flour in her big biscuit-making bowl into which she plopped out shortening scooped by hand straight from the eight pound can and poured in an indeterminate pool of fresh cow milk.  Bravely plunging her right hand in, she squished the glob of shortening through her fingers, working it round till it gathered just enough flour.  She worked the dough carefully, never using all the flour,  thereby letting the gooey mixture adhere to the bottom of the bowl. I thought that looked horrible and never mastered the age-old biscuit making technique that had probably come to her through many generations.

                Once she was satisfied with her mix, she tossed it a time or two to coat with flour, and started pinching off biscuits, which she gave a quick roll or two in her hands before placing smooth side up on her biscuit pan. Finally, she buttered the top of each so they’d brown nicely and popped them in the hot oven.  About twenty minutes later, biscuits!  She always ended up with twenty-seven, though she never measured.  They were wonderful.  The flour-filled biscuit-bowl was covered and went back into the cabinet till the next baking, which would be supper if she didn’t make cornbread.

                I am a biscuit-making coward.  I measure and mix my ingredients in a bowl, dust them with a handful of flour, then pinch them off and roll them out in my hands.  I spray them with cooking spray rather than dipping a spoon in melted butter to butter the tops, but they are still pretty good. 

Age-Old Biscuit Recipe 

(Can be easily doubled or tripled)

Preheat oven to 420 degrees

2 ½ cups self-rising flour (For plain, add 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder and ¼ teaspoon salt PER cup)

½ cup vegetable shortening or softened butter

¾ cup milk (I prefer undiluted fat-free evaporated canned milk.  Note:  this is not the sweetened condensed kind that goes in desserts)

Cooking spray

Mix 2 ¼ cups self-rising flour with shortening or butter.  Stir in up to ¾ cups milk to make gooey, not drippy dough.  Should be about the consistency of mashed potatoes.  Use remaining ¼ cup to dust top of dough, turn dust again.  Pinch out small handful, about ½ cup and roll a time or two in your floured palms.  Turn best side up on greased baking pan.  Spray tops with vegetable or butter spray to enhance browning.  Bake at 450 for 12-15 minutes on center rack. Done when tops are starting to brown nicely and browning can be seen around edges.  Should yield 8-10 biscuits.

These can be rolled out on lightly floured surface and cut with a biscuit cutter if you prefer.  Don’t waste leftover dough.  Roll into strips, butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and bake for five minutes.  Wonderful treat.  I have made entire batch into cinnamon sugar strips for a treat.  Watch carefully to keep from burning.

If you can stand the health risk, put your bacon in on a rack on a cookie sheet to bake on at the same time as your biscuits.  It will all come out perfect at the same time.

If you have leftovers reheat in microwave or slice in half, butter, and toast under broiler.

 

Grandma’s Tea Cakes

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My Grandma made these.  Mother made them.  I make them.  My daughter makes them.  We all had our own twist.  They are the best tea cakes I’ve ever had.  It was so good to come in from school and find these coming out of the oven.

Grandma’s Teacakes

1 cup of butter

2 eggs

3 cups sugar

4 cups self-rising flour (for plain add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/8 tsp salt per CUP flour)

2 Tsp vanilla

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Cream softened butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla.  Add 3 1/2  cups flour and mix till it is a stiff dough.  Use other 1/2 cup to dust over dough and dust your hands while rolling out.  Roll into 1- 1 1/2 inch balls and place on greased cookie sheets.  Cookies should be no closer than 3/4 inch.  Bake cookies center rack. 7 minutes, then turn pans back to front and bake 7 more minutes.  If you use three cookie sheets, switch those on lower rack to top rack.  Cookies are done when edges barely start to brown.  Cookies will be barely done and bend easily but still hold together when you slide a spatula under them.  Cool on wire rack or tea towel to cool.  The secret to keeping them soft is to take them out of the oven just as edges turn golden brown.  If you leave them on pan, they will continue to cook and get hard.

 

variations:

use cream cheese instead of butter

make a thumbprint and spoon in jam or filling of your choice before baking

press Hesheys Kiss on top

Make filling of cream cheese and fruit or chocolate to sandwich

Your family will love you.

I have rolled this dough up, wrapped in foil and frozen. It makes a wonderful gift.

Footloose and Fancy-Free Part 1

imageCousin Bobo was footloose and  fancy-free, unperturbed by the economic responsibilities of four children in three years. He doted on his child-bride, Inez, living quite happily with her and their family in an old unpainted, farm house on her mama’s place. Despite his aversion to a regular work schedule, he and Inez managed fine. There was no power to the house, so no bills.  The wood stove and fireplace provided heat and cooking. The house was abandoned when they moved in, so he tacked wire over the open windows to keep varmints out, shuttering the windows for bad weather. Mama was real proud he did the right thing and married Inez, so she wasn’t about to stir up trouble, especially after the young’uns started coming. Bobo plowed and planted Mama’s garden, later helping get the peas picked and corn cut. Except for the few days he spent plowing, and cutting firewood, he fished and hunted every day, often harvesting turtles for the table.  He happily peddled watermelons, fish, and turnip greens out of his old ’49 Ford Truck. They never ran short of game or fish. Sometimes he’d help a neighbor butcher a beef or hog, bringing in extra meat. He wasn’t averse to helping family with a little painting or carpentry work from time to time, as long as it was understood that his labor included a few days’s hospitality for his brood.  He kept Mama’s freezer full. That along with Mama’s chickens, eggs,  milk,  and butter kept them going just fine. Getting clothes for the kids wasn’t a challenge. Inez was the youngest of six spectacularly fertile sisters. Their cousin’s hand-me-downs were plentiful. All those little blonde tykes lined up in overalls year round was awe-inspiring. Most of the time, they wore shirts under their overalls in winter. Plenty of old tennis shoes lay casually around, should any of the kids decide they needed footwear. Some even had mates. Size wasn’t an issue. Should a shoe be too big, it worked fine to slide-style and let it flop. The kids weren’t partial to shoes anyway, unless they were picking around in a trash dump with old cans or broken glass. Strings were scarce, but I never noticed anybody complaining.

I loved it when Bobo, Inez, and the kids showed up. Mother wasn’t always so enthusiastic, figuring they had run out of groceries and needed a place to roost for a few days. They did seem more likely to show up in bad weather when a warm house was a comfort. Sometimes they’d stay a few days with this relative, a few with that one, moving one before the tension got too thick. Mother complained about relatives giving them gas money to help them down the road to their next hosts. I know I saw her slip Inez a little of her grocery money once, after Daddy went to work. They moved on. We ate gravy and biscuits till Daddy got paid the next Thursday.

to be continued

Well, Black My Eyes!

This post might not make sense to you if you’re not from the South, but I had a near calamity today.  I had a taste for black eye peas, so I got my trusty cast iron pot out and started washing peas.  Bud made a pass through and nearly swooned with happiness when he saw how lovely I looked washing peas, and the garlic, celery, and onion waiting on the chopping block.  There would be unhappiness in our home this evening if no peas and ham were forthcoming.  After seasoning and starting the peas, I went to the freezer to find the meaty hambone I’d squirreled back a couple of weeks ago.  I think to a Southern Cook, the hambone is more important than the ham itself, a delicacy to be hidden from nosey freezer plunderers at all costs.  In fact, I have been known to threaten bodily harm when a home-wrecking guest asked Bud, not me for the hambone after a meal.  I put a stop to that hussy then and there!

At any rate, the precious hambone has to be retrieved at the perfect point of denuding.  Too much meat on the bone is wasteful.  Too little just leaves the pea soup a bit anemic. I knew I had the most darling hambone hidden away in the freezer awaiting its rendezvous with my peas.  I reached in the freezer for my hambone and found………..nothing!  Well, actually I found ground beef and pork, chicken parts of numerous vintages, several kinds of sausage, vegetables and fruit a plenty, but no hambone.  I panicked.  Earlier in the week, I’d asked Bud to get the frozen meat trimmings and scraps to the trash.  God forbid?  Had he mistaken my foil-wrapped hambone for scraps. Worse yet, had he sneaked it out to another woman? I was almost too shattered to look, but finally found my hambone shoved to the back of the bottom shelf behind a bag of ice.  Never has a hambone been so welcome.  The peas breathed a sigh of relief when I dropped the bone in.

Our marriage was saved.

2 1/2 cups black eyed peas
8 cups water
1/2 tablespoon salt or more to taste
1/4 tablespoon black pepper
1 medium onion (whole)

1/4 c diced celery if desired
Nice hambone

1/4 teaspoon vinegar (or pepper sauce)

Simmer all ingredients in large cooking pot on stove top burner on medium heat. Use cast-iron pot if you have one.

Cook 40-60 minutes or until peas are tender. Do not allow water to evaporate entirely. If peas are dry they will burn quickly.

Serve with hot cornbread

Home is Where the Heart Is

image                                      Uncle Russ’s camper wasn’t this nice!

Bud’s Uncle Russ was ahead of his time, since he came up with the first camper/Tiny House anyone had seen in our part of the country.  Back in the late1950’s and 1960’s, the family occasionally awoke to find his old Ford truck with its homemade camper parked in their yard.  Enclosed within its two by four frame and galvanized sheet metal covering were a bunk and a bit of storage for his camp stove, personal belongings, and other gear, though his hygiene products didn’t take up a lot of room.

Uncle Russ was not encumbered with a regular job.  He travelled till he ran out of money, then stopped off and found a little job like mowing, helping with a harvest, or pumping gas to get enough ahead to make be on down the road a bit.  He never went naked or hungry, and always had a roof over his head.

When the Bethea boys, Dell and Louis were growing up on a farm in Warren, Arkansas, their Uncle Russell would show up from time to time.  He’d hang around and work with his brother Joseph till they got crosswise and he’d get mad and leave or Joseph would run him off.  Apparently, his grooming was lacking even then, since the boys, “I don’t know how you boys can stand to wash your face and comb your hair before every meal.  I don’t comb my hair but about every six months and it nearly kills me then.”

Early one Saturday morning, Miss Mary noticed his truck in the drive and called out to let Dell, Bud’s Dad know his uncle had come to call.  Uncle Russ knocked when he saw them up and about.  Miss Mary let him in and went to put the kettle on for coffee. Without a doubt, Uncle Russ had just acquired some instant coffee he was curious about, since he asked Miss Mary if she minded if he made his own.  “Not at all.  The water will be hot in just a minute.”

He stirred in four or five heaping teaspoons of granules.  Knowing he had concocted a powerful potion, she and Dell watched with interest as he tried to choke it down.  He made two or three attempts before remarking, “I made that a little stout.  I’m gonna had to pour it and have a little of yours.”

When Bud was about seventeen.  Uncle Russ made a trip down, asking Bud to sign a signature card to be put on a joint checking account, though Bud assured him he wouldn’t have anything to deposit.  “That’s okay.  You just sign this here card and feel free to write a check anytime you need to.”

Bud signed the card and never gave it another thought, knowing how odd Uncle Russ was.  Several months later, he got a letter from Uncle Russ, telling him how disappointed in him he was.  In fact, he was going to take him out of his will. Bud never saw Uncle Russ again.   Uncle Russ retired, an interesting move for a man who never worked more than a day or two at a time.  He sold his old truck and its fixtures, somehow acquired an old mobile home, and moved it to the family farm.  He died a few months later.  Bud never heard who beat him out of his inheritance.

 

 

 

 

Make a Joyful Noise!

imageDaddy was always right.  Custom and rules were for us, the underlings and nobodies of the family, and we’d best not forget it.  He broke the news that some Church in the Wildwood was having a revival and we were going tonight.  I never liked going to church much anyway, so this ruined my day, but wait, there was a bonus.  In case that was’t bad enough, Phyliis and I were going to sing a special.  For those of you unfortunates not initiated into the strange goings on of Baptist Churches back in the sixties, it was common for a slightly talented, or not, fervently religious girl to do a solo, hold the congregation captive for what could be a few miserable minutes.  Presumably, she had collaborated with the choir director and pianist, so as not to hijack order of the service.

Phyllis fit the bill perfectly, and had enthusiastically sung several specials in our delighting herself, Daddy, and hopefully, at least some people of the congregation.  A couple of times, he had even sprung for a new dress, so she’d really shine.  In all honesty, she sounded good.  Despite the fact that I wanted no part in the of it, I’d even been dragged into it a couple of times as backup, kicking and screaming.  I did not sing with a joyful heart.

My heart was heavy with dread as Daddy drove manically through the back roads in search of this obscure church, throwing a fit the whole time because we’d made him late.  This was standard practice wherever we went, since he’d never bother to start getting dressed till after the time he’d say we were leaving.  When it was obvious we’d arrive after services started, I felt great relief,cheerfully offering, “Too bad!  We won’t be able to talk to them about singing a special.”

Always right, as usual, he shot me down.”Oh yes you will.  I’ll tell you when to go up and sing.  It doesn’t have to be arranged ahead of time.  Just be ready to go when I say.  Tell the piano player you want her to play ‘How Great Thou Art’.” I gave up.  We were going to be stomping up there singing like a couple of dopes.

The seven of us filled a pew as the congregation finished a hymn, and launched in to another as I waited for the ax to fall.  Phyllis and I had sat on the outside so we could make our way more easily to the front when the time came.  After the close of the offeratoy hymn and the collection of the offering, Daddy gave Phyllis “The Signal.” As she stood and prepared for our interjection into the service, the choir director announced a “Special,” to be sung by a saintly appearing young lady.  Daddy’s face fell and Phyllis quickly sat down.  The singer limped through “How Greet  Thou Art” clearly enunciating “Greet,” not “Great” as we were prepared to do.  I never enjoyed a song more, the hilarity of the situation not lost on me.  As she finished, I stood as though I still thought Daddy expected us to sing.  He reached over, grabbing my skirt tail, stopping my progress.  I gave him a questioning look, as though I was confused at his shutting me down.

God is good.