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A place for everything
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"A place for everything, everything in its place."
As Grandma Bessie put the biscuits in the oven, she smiled at the little eyes watching her so intently. With a pat for each head, she gave every child a chore to help with the evening meal preparation. Julie and I were the oldest of the bunch. Julie took the glass plates from Grandma’s wrinkled hands and smiled adoringly. The littlest tow head, Jeremy, placed a napkin beside each plate. Joe was in charge of silverware and asked Grandma again which side of the plate to put the knife and spoon on. Joe was too busy to remember those kinds of things. My contribution was ice in the glasses for sweet tea.
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Grandma Bessie had lived on this old farm for as long as we could remember. The old barn in the back, with its tattered boards and peeling paint, was a stark reminder of days gone by. Grandpa would take us kids out to feed the chickens every morning almost before daylight. If we were helpful then he would let us ride Jessie, the old stubborn donkey that lived in the pasture with the cows. Jessie had a stubborn streak that Grandpa used to compare to Grandma’s temperament. We had never seen that side of her and most assuredly did not want to. From some of the stories that we had heard through the years, Grandma could be a handful. Her sweet demeanor was reserved for the grandchildren she adored.
Riding that old donkey took quite a bit of skill. First of all, Jessie was not a willing
participant. She wanted no part of some snot nosed child climbing on her back for a joy ride. She was content to be left in the pasture to roam if she so chose. Most of the time she just ambled along aimlessly chewing hay. The older kids had made friends with the old girl and could sometimes convince her to let the young’uns ride while someone walked along beside her.
Chickens roamed the yard with the cats and dogs. The only caged animals on the farm were in the pasture. There was a smoke house close to the house where Grandma would hang meat to smoke when Grandpa killed pigs. It reeked of stale meat. All food that was consumed by any member of that family or their descendents was either raised or grown on that farm. The garden was enormous and grew a variety of vegetables. There were sweet potatoes and green beans which Grandma used to make delicious casseroles. Grandma would use the corn to make creamed corn that would melt in my mouth. Collards and turnips filled the rows in the winter, and we heaped them on our plate after Grandma cooked them. Out of the garden, I'll never forget spending the summer gathering blackberries from the woods to have Grandma bake a blackberry cobbler that would make you throw rocks at Mrs. Smith. Grandma used everything on the farm. She made fig, pear, peach preserves, churned her own butter, and whipped her own soap. There was even a rain barrel outside that caught rainwater for washing clothes. These were things that later brought pleasant memories.
Scary things happen on a farm when you are an impressionable child. When Grandma decided to have fried chicken for Sunday dinner, that sucker had to be caught in the yard, his neck wrung, his feathers plucked and his bones cut into frying pieces. It was pretty intense to see a chicken with a broken neck still clucking. Grandma would chase it around the yard, grab it and wring its neck, then chop its head off with a big cleaver. Can you imagine the looks on those little faces when that chicken ran in circles around the yard with no head!
Another memory that brings a tingle to my spine was a picture in Grandma’s front room. A front room was the one closest to the road in an old farm house. The picture was taken sometime in the early 1900’s. It was oval and had the most piercing eyes. The young’uns would go in that room sometimes and the older ones would scare them by showing them the eyes that followed them. Where ever you were in that room, those eyes were intent on you. The photography was brilliant for that era but it was a little spooky to think those dark eyes would follow you!
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“Punkin, are you going to finish your job? We’re waiting for you. Grandpa’s stomach
thinks his throat’s been cut”.
“Yes, Grandma I am. I guess my mind wandered off”, I assured her.
As we sat down at that long table I realized what a lucky girl I was to learn so much
about another generation. As my grandparents aged, the inevitable was that this old farm would become a distant memory. Grandma placed the biscuits in a basket covered with a cloth napkin. The pickles she canned last summer were in the middle of the table. "A place for everything, everything in its place,” she always told me.
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Both my grandparents have long left this old world but their legacy lives on in the form of memories for my siblings, cousins and extended family. That old farm house is still standing but shows its age. There were many good times shared at that place. God, I miss them!
© Copyright 2007 SouthernDiva (UN: southerndiva at Writing.Com).
All rights reserved.
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