Rembering Old Times

 

 

Owen Newsletter Thoughts of Old

I don’t remember so much old times- I feel them. Probably don’t make sense to a lot of folks but my recollections are riddled with strong vivid memories and feelings that travel along with them.

I close my eyes sometimes and I can hear the cold spout branch gurgling. I look down at the small pool of water, and I see a round gallon jar of buttermilk kept cold by the water from the mountain branch splashing out of a pipe over the buttermilk. I look down the way toward Frozen Creek Road, and I see Daddy’s old corn crib with a worn and rusty tin roof. Further down I see the old foot log crossing the creek to the field leading up to Frozen Creek Road with an old green apple tree up to the North. Don’t eat those apples until they ripen.

I turned my view to the potato field where we cleared rock from sunup to sundown and piled them at the end of the field. I feel the hot summer heat on my back. On hot summer days snakes crawl from deep in the rock piles and get along very well with the others who sun themselves on the warm rocks.  We made Potato hills by piling dirt on the picked potatoes Mama would tell me in the wintertime: Son, go dig me up a bunch of potatoes for supper. I would wear my raggedy coat and trek to the potato hill, and I always got a pat on the back which I can still feel after these long many years. Would not trade that pat for a pot of gold, well maybe two pots.

Up toward the woods I see a well beaten path that had chinquapins hanging on the limbs that crossed over the path. I feel the sting of the thorny burs that open when the nuts become ripe. My fingers feel the pain of picking those brown nuts from the burrs and sometimes I get lucky and pick up a bunch from the ground blown out of their homes by a strong east wind.

I recall rolling rounds of wood down the hill to keep Mama’s wood stove warming those ever-present pots of soup beans on the stove. What a staple for poor folk. Bowls were in an old white tin cabinet. Above the stove on a stand were two doors that contained biscuits on the left and a plate of round corn bread cooked in a lard  greased cast iron pan.

Sometimes neighbor kids from the Morgans would step up on the concrete back porch and just come into the kitchen and fill a bowl of beans, pick a spoon from a drawer and try to choose whether to supplement the beans with a biscuit or a chunk of cornbread. We were poor but not too poor to share.

While my daydreaming was full of a mixture of thoughts, I heard a faint sound interrupt my musing. It was my Mama standing on the back porch: Son, hey son. Bring me up a jug of sweet milk and buttermilk for supper. OK Mama.

I carry the two jugs of milk into the kitchen; she pats me on the back. Daddy comes into the kitchen and tells me he needs me to go to town with him.

We head for Rosman. Hardly qualified as a town but we did have one redlight on Highway 64 that led to the city of Brevard 9 miles further down the road. We stopped at the Company Store. At that time, Glouster Lumber Company ran the Company store. The sawmill workers did not get paid cash. Every payday, they lined up across the French Broad River at the lumberyard office to receive a pay book with coupons of varying denominations, which, guess what, could be used at the Company Store to buy groceries, work boots, overalls, gloves and axe handles made from sturdy Hickory wood.

The lunch counter toward the back smelled wonderful. Past the lunch counter was a set of rickety steps that led up to the attic which was stocked with everything under the sun. On the right side was stacks of C&H cane sugar, six 10-pound bags wrapped in sturdy brown payer. I started carrying those bags of sugar down those steep stairs trying to keep my balance while Daddy visited with Virgina Owen’s Daddy, the cook. When I got back down with my sugar load, I pushed open the back door that was on elastic bands and loaded Daddy’s 53 Chevy pickup. We always came in the back door from the parking lot. After I got the truck loaded, Daddy opened his wallet and took out several $20 dollar bills. I said all done Daddy can I get a chilli dog? He pulled a dollar from his front pocket and gave it to me. I ordered a chilli dog and a pint of Sealtest Chocolate milk. Daddy bought a poke of penny candy mixture and we headed back home. I had to eat my chilli dog on the way home or my brothers and sisters would squall because they did not get one. Buncha crybabies. They sometimes become invisible when work was to be done. When it came time to trek up the path into the woods to the still place, Daddy would load two tow sacks full of the 10-pound bags and put them over my shoulders. Initially I carried eighty pounds of sugar into the still place. As I got stronger, my load increased to 120 pounds, six ten-pound bags on each side of my shoulders. Later when I joined the Navy, I chose the Aviation Navy. As a young Airman in an Attack Squadron on an Aircraft Carrier, I loaded bombs onto the A4 low level bombers off the coast of Vietnam. The bombs weighed 250 pounds, and I lifted my half which was 125 pounds and another Airman lifted the other 125 pounds on a steel bar while the ordinance man hooked the wires up and armed the bombs. The work was called a bomb loading party. Didn’t seem like much of a party to me and the loading lasted 4 hours of work at a time. When we were bombing at night, I would get 

another 4-hour party. Sorta reminded me of carrying 120-pound bags of sugar up the mountains of Western North Carolina. I loved it all.

I would not trade my experiences and memories for anything.

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