Growing up in the South

Growing up in the south was such an adventure. It seemed like I was living along side Huckleberry Finn.

I enjoyed our trips to see my grandparents who lived in the country. No matter what time of the year it was, there was always an adventure at hand. Living in the country has some advantages, but many ones I did not care for. The one that comes to mind is not having running water, so every time I got thirsty I had to go out to the well and run a bucket down and crank up a thirst quencher. I am here to tell you that was some of the best water I have ever tasted.

There was one thing my grandmother Ethel Lee could do very well, that was to cook. When it came to eating time that was one thing you did not want to miss. From the homemade biscuits and ham at breakfast to the table full of fresh vegetables and all kinds of meats at lunch.

When it came time to stock the dinner table with fresh meat, whether it was chicken, ham, or beef, it all came from the farm. To watch my grandmother prepare a chicken for dinner was not for the faint at heart.… She would catch one of those feathered critters and cut its head off with a very sharp double bladed axe. I never watched much past the head cutting thing as that was something I would rather leave to my imagination. All I needed to know was how good it smelled frying on the stove.

If you have never experienced having to use a true outhouse, well let me tell you, it is not something you will soon forget. I don’t know which is worse, having to enter that small shack in the winter or the middle of summer when the temperature seems like it is in the triple digits. What you might have heard about the old Sears catalog is true.

I used to like to go exploring. You never knew what you might get into. Like the time I tried to learn the fine art of milking a cow. I never quite got the hang of it, but I did manage to get a lot of milk on my shirt. I don’t guess many people have ever tasted fresh milk right from the source, with all the health cautions today. The only thing I can say, it really tasted good.

My grandmother would always seem to be making butter when I would come. I kind of like the task. Except all the churning you had to do before the butter was ready to remove from the milk. My favorite part was “kneading” the butter to remove the remaining milk and then mold it into some kind of recognizable shape. Some people would use a fancy mold, but it was more fun making your own shapes.

One summer while spending a few days at the farm, I learned what the locals called a pole cat, sometimes referred to as Mustela putorius. I think that is the fancy scientific name given to this rather unloved critter. What I most remember about my first encounter with one was the smell… They are supposed to have a sent gland under their tails that if alarmed, will give off something you only wish to encounter once per lifetime.