I hate it when I somehow hit one magical button somewhere on this damned keyboard that erases a whole frigging paragraph I just typed. I hope I can recall it to type it again so here goes.
James you took me back to Grannies house in my mind. The counters and table sagging with weight of the food (I love the word vittles). My parents had their own agendas, they divorced when I was 8 and I usually was pawned off on either my grandparents or my aunt & uncle a great deal of the time.
My aunt and uncle moved in their home in 1945. They kept a garden and froze or canned all their vegetables so it was rare they bought anything like that at the grocery store.
I liked visiting them cause I could earn money doing chores like stringing green beans or shucking corn they had grown. I could mow the grass with this crazy early lawn mowing contraption that had swirling blades and no motor. I learned to work for things at an early age with them and their fridge and home was open to me my whole life. I inherited that old place that was built in 1920.
Visiting my grandparents meant I had my own section of their quite enormous garden. They too, grew everything they ate. There wasn't much expense at the grocery store when they had to go. They had a chicken house where I gathered fresh delicious brown eggs every day. I can remember riding thru my grannies old farm house with a pink easter chicken riding on my tricycle handlebars! They had fruit trees galore, peach, green apple, and plum. There were blackberries, muscadines and grapes. Even a section with rhubarb that grannie made fried pies from that tasted just like peaches. They had a huge garden and I got to plant my own little section. I had my own strawberry patch and grew cherry tomatoes. I was expected to tend to it each time I was there. I sat on a tiny little rusty milking stool and he would sit on an old milk crate and he would listen to how my week was going or what song I liked to hear on the radio. He played the fiddle at square dances each weekend and was a carpenter during the week. Could build and make anything with his hands. Drove a gigantic old white buick and stopped faithfully to see me every single day to bring me coca cola in the small glass bottles and a brownie or snowball cake. My grannie could cook anything without recipes and did everything from scratch like pie crusts and cakes. Her motto was "Get you some more baby!" as you went around the table filling your plate sky high with incredible food. She cooked white beans on an old coal stove in the winter there were the best thing I ever ate in my life with a big old chunk of buttermilk cornbread.
Grand daddy was a bee keeper. This means you had a big old chunk of honeycomb/honey in a jar on the table every day. Sheer heaven, wild flower honey....
They raised a calf each year and took it to be slaughtered for the beef and would buy a hog and process it themselves each winter. There was a smokehouse with the best freaking smoked hams and meats. There is nothing like fresh cracklins and pork skins rendered off the lard when cooking it all down in a giant black kettle.
There was no running water. You pumped your water on the back porch from a cistern which was supplied by a well. You took baths in a giant wash tub that ALL the water was heated on the coal stove in winter and the cook stove in summer. There was an out house out back where you did your business and I got stung on the ass several times in my childhood.
They all taught me how to live off the land. That you really can be self reliant and do it all yourself without depending on a grocery for supplies. I spent my whole early life growing plants and flowers with them and it prepared me later on to be the gardener I am today. I was quite successful on my first try with my secret garden cause they taught me the basics.
Grand daddy died of lung cancer in 75 after too many KOOL nonfilter cigs. Soon after my dad renovated Grannie's kitchen and put her in a real bathroom. She enjoyed all these new modern upgrades for about 2 years. The state decided to put in a new highway and they paid her for her home and destroyed it. I cannot tell you how I felt watching all those memories go away....
But they still live on with me in my mind. Grannie died in 2011 and I still miss her like she just left yesterday. She was my hero in so many ways. A beautiful human being.
Thanks for reading, I enjoyed my few moments of what I call my little "mind movies" and remember the best parts of my childhood....
peace and love...
Grandpa tell me bout the good old days
[video=youtube;fLiRGW31nyk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLiRGW31nyk[/video]