Walk Through This World With Me

I thought of the old George Jones tune when I saw this picture of my grandkids taken last weekend when they went to visit my little 88 year old mother (their great grandmother). Aaron is almost three and Ava is one.

"Walk through this world with me,

go where I go.

Share all my my dreams with me,

I need you so..."

"Come take my hand

And walk through this world with me."

I glad they have pictures to remember these times. I still remember visits with my great grandmothers when I was very young.

Several years ago, I wrote this poem for a state contest. The poem category was "Steel Magnolias". I thought of my mother when I saw the category and penned this poem for the occasion.

THE MYSTERY OF THE FLOWER

She was the Belle of Jeff Davis County.
Stunning to the beholder.
Long haired brunette
with more curves than a mountain highway.

She was raised in the traditions of the South.
Never leave the house without your make-up.
Always dress to the nines.
Her wide brimmed hats shadowed her face
to add to the mystery.

She learned to be strong and silent in adversity.
A player in a man’s world.
Influential, but not obtrusive.
Beautiful, but powerful.

She remains the same today.
Never making an appearance until her face is fixed.
Her hair shows no gray.
Graceful and fragrant like the Magnolia’s blossom.

But make no mistake,
her resolve is steel.

Dennis Price

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween. It is the last day of October 2008. Every year as a young boy, my October birthday was celebrated with all the trimmings of Halloween. For several years, my dad dressed up as a witch and made an appearance to all the kids who gathered in celebration. It was a happy time with minor scares to spice up the festivities. As I remember it through the years, most of the costumes were homemade. We had great fun trying to collect the proper pieces to make up our outfits. We walked our own neighborhoods and Trick or Treated at as many doors as we could manage. Parents were out with the little ones, and the big kids' tricks consisted of soaping windows, wrapping bushes and trees with toilet paper, or throwing a raw egg or two. People made many of the treats; homemade candy, caramel apples, fruit, and popcorn balls. In most cases the worst part of the next day might be a little clean up. Now, most choose not to call it Halloween. We have researched it and found its evil roots and find it necessary to call it by its more socially and politically correct name, "Fall Festival". The celebrations are held indoors in guarded security with only commercially manufactured treats which must be individually wrapped. Most of the costumes are bought off the rack. My, we have come a long way. I long for those quiet days of yesteryear before we were so well informed, and before we slid so far morally as a nation as to fear our neighbors. I plan to participate because of the little ones. I will buy some fresh individually wrapped candies to distribute (I ate the ones Bebe already bought).

Read these, and as you do try and guess who said them:

During this election year let's be reminded of these words:

* You cannot help the poor, by destroying the rich.
* You cannot strengthen the weak, by weakening the strong.
* You cannot bring about prosperity, by discouraging thrift.
* You cannot lift the wage earner up, by pulling the wage payer down.
* You cannot further the brotherhood of man, by inciting class hatred.
* You cannot build character and courage, by taking away men's initiative and independence.
* You cannot help men permanently, by doing for them what they could and should, do for themselves.

Do you recognize the author?
It was Abraham Lincoln.
Very, very wise words, written years ago and we still don't get it...

May Need Some Work

Aging Memories

The century old sage
sat his old Farmall cub
stroked his gray stubbled beard
stained with tobacco juice.

"Everything's changed
ain't nothin' the same
'cept the tractor,
the house,
and the barn."

He grinned and spat.
"Got no teeth but still chew."
His old red tractor
chugged, sputtered, and squeaked
much like he did.
Slowly, memories came.

Memories of childhood
clearer than yesterday.
The house as it once was.
His life as a young man.
Those in his family now
all passed away.

"Everything's changed
ain't nothin' the same
not the tractor
the house
or the barn."

Dennis Price (Photo compliments of old Wom Tigley and the lovely Jane)


People ask for criticism, but they only want praise. - W. Somerset Maugham

The Old Log Barn

This barn resembles the one at my grandparents' farm when I was a kid. I love old barns. I don't think anything can cause me to want to stop, look, and take a picture more than an old barn. When I see one, I have a visceral feeling about the people who built and used it. My grandad was still farming on a small scale when I was a kid, and up through my early teen years. They lived in one of the Sears kit houses that I described in a previous post, but down the gravel lane to the left side of their home were numerous out buildings. All were either graying clap board, or log with clap board. The fruit house was directly behind the main house and it is where all the jams, jellies, and canned vegetables were stored. The "tater" house, a low log hut sitting over a pit dug into the ground and used to store potatoes, was to the left of the lane behind the fruit house. Then there was a fence that separated the yard from the chicken yard, and inside that fence was the chicken house and tack room. To the right of that was the buggy barn. They didn't use the buggies anymore, but they were still in the barn and were great for imagined western reenactments. At the end of the lane behind a second fence was the main log barn. The barn's logs had no chinking in them, so we could climb the sides of the barn up to the hay loft by using the logs like a ladder. In the early days, the barn housed milk cows, and mules. It was a muddy smelly place for the most part, but you couldn't beat it for adventure. I loved the corn crib where all the harvested feed corn was stored. It had a corn sheller with a crank handle on one side and a cob spout on the other. It was attached to an old wooden ammo box. After you shucked the ear, you would place it point first into the feeding funnel at the top and turn the crank. The ear would turn as the mechanism inside removed the kernels and dropped them into the box. The naked cob would fall outside. I would always go and put a couple of ears through so I could have something to feed the chickens.

We used to climb into the loft where we could look down on the live stock from above and remain out of harms way. We could also see the surrounding country side through the loft door. After my grandparents quit farming, except for a big garden and some chickens, the old out buildings stood silent, icons to the age of the family farm. A source of sustenance during the great depression. When I would visit after I was nearly grown, and ask my grandmother how things were going, she would always respond by saying, "the old barn is squatting a little more this year." I never knew how much information was being conveyed in her short little statement on life. Grandpa did keep one horse or mule around to use in his garden. I would always try and ride whatever happened to be available at the time. My experiences with plow horses formed the basis for my poem entitled "Old Trigger".

OLD TRIGGER

Trigger was a plow horse
Who, seldom saw a saddle.
I was just a big kid
Who rarely rode a straddle.

I lived in the city,
Away from field and barn.
When school was out I’d visit
Old Trigger on the farm.

I thought I’d try and ride him,
And made a split-bit bridle.
I knew it might not stop him,
But hoped it’d make him idle.

Uncle Barney’s saddle
Was split right down the middle.
It was old, the leather dry,
The cinch strap cracked and brittle.

I saddled Trigger, led him round
Beside an old steel drum.
I stood on top and jumped aboard
He snorted, bucked, and spun.

The summer sun was brutal
Old Trigger soon lost steam.
He plodded down the gravel road,
At plowing pace it seemed.

I tried to make him pick up speed
With kick, and click, and whistle.
Then I turned him toward the barn
And he became a missile.

I rocked back and grabbed the horn,
Pulled hard on cotton reins.
But Trigger galloped faster
As he barreled down the lane.

The barn loomed large before us.
He stopped just past the door.
I became a yard dart,
Flying headfirst to the floor.

When I regained my senses
I made this observation:
That you shouldn't ride a plow horse
For fun or transportation.

Summer Time Fun

Ever since I was a boy, I loved the water. Having grown up in south Mississippi, I was a frequent visitor to the creeks there. When I was small, and not every one had an indoor bathroom, we would sometimes take a bar of soap to the creek to bathe in the evening before it got dark. The photo above is a picture of Black Creek. In south Mississippi, the creeks are the color of iced tea due to the tannins formed when leaf material falls into the water. Many are spring fed with cold clear spring water and are very cool even in the summer time. As a teen we waded up Little Black Creek until we found a bend where the water formed a deep hole and the creek was wide. We dove until we were certain no logs were on the bottom or other impediments to diving, then we fashioned a diving board with two, 2 x 12's we packed in with us. It was secluded and unknown to the public. We took our girlfriends there to swim and have picnics (always in a group) to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. We cooled watermelons in citrus bags steaked out in the cool waters.

This painting depicts a grist mill on a creek somewhere other than Mississippi, I suspect, but it is representative of another favorite swimming hole near my grandparents home. It was called the mill tail. An old grist mill once stood on the location, but it was long gone and only the cement base remained to form a dam. The water flowed over the top and deepened the creek below. It was the perfect place to spend a hot summer afternoon. I enjoyed that first dive into the reddish waters that momentarily took my breath away and eventually made my lips turn blue.
These creeks probably didn't meet the minimum safety requirements for a government approved swimming hole, but somehow we survived the experience. I hope kids today are having the same experience in a creek somewhere.

James Dent. A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.

The Treadle Sewing Machine

I was browsing the other day through images to use in my blog, when I ran across this drawing of an old Singer treadle sewing machine. Immediately a flood remembered sights, sounds, and smells filled my concisousness. My maternal grandmother had a machine just like this one. It sat adjacent to the bed in the master bedroom of her house. She and my granddad lived in the country in a Sears and Roebuck Kit house, and the master bedroom was on the right hand side at the rear of the house. I usually slept in the front room just adjacent to the front porch. In the winter it was the coldest room in the house being the furthest away from the fire places.

The house in this small photo is very similar to the one they had except that the porch was half as large and the front bedroom extended to the front even with the porch. There was a fireplace in the front room (living room) just behind the front porch, and another double sided fireplace between the middle bedroom and the master bedroom. The middle room behind the living room on the left side of the house was the dining room, and behind that was the kitchen. In later years, a back sleeping porch was added and an indoor bathroom at the corner of this porch. The house always smelled like good food. My memories of my grandmother always center around the kitchen. As I recall, that's where she spent most of her life. Early in the morning before the sun came up I could hear her rustling around in the kitchen. The smells of biscuits baking, coffee boiling, and bacon frying were the best alarm clock anyone could ever want. When we visited, I liked to poke around the house looking in everything for treasures. My granddad's roll top desk held writing paper, pens, Sunday school books, his bible, receipts, cigarette papers, Prince Albert tobacco tins, pipes, chewing tobacco, and an assortment of other treasures. But the most accessible trove was the old treadle sewing machine with its small little drawers. There a kid could find, in addition to needles, thread, and other sewing supplies, a plethora of items grandmother had taken from the pockets of clothes she was mending. There were pocket knives, marbles, shotgun shells, rifle bullets, buttons, fishing lures, hooks, bobbers and anything else one might forget to remove before putting his torn or buttonless garment in the pile to be fixed. We also enjoyed working the treadle and making the machine operate. When my grandmother heard these sounds from the adjacent kitchen, she would yell, "You younguns quite pilfering in my sewing machine." That usually stopped us for a while. We tried to stay on Mammaws good side because it could mean a special treat if you did. My pawpaw worked in a general store and always brought home candy, chewing gum and soft drinks. The old pie safe in the kitchen held the candy and gum, and the soft drinks were in the refrigerator. My grandmother loved Grapette sodas in the small bottles. They were a brand made originally in Camden, Arkansas starting in about 1939. She guarded her Grapettes and woe be unto the child who dared get one of her special treats. So, when you merited a treat, mammaw would offer you one of her special drinks. I don't remember being asked to have one very often, but when I did, I felt really special. I was fortunate to have great fun when I was a child, and to be surrounded by loving and caring parents and grandparents. I know some have not been so fortunate. I enjoy my own children and grandchildren now that I'm retired and have time on a regular basis to dedicate to them.

Loutisha

This is not the actual house or the characters referred to in my story. I borrowed this from a Mississippi blogger. The house however is similar in appearance. The middle of the house had an open hallway called a "dog run," running the full length of the structure from front porch to back porch separating the house into two fairly equal sides. It sat on the main road and was a short distance from my grandmother's house. A short gravel lane ran between my grandmother's house and the main road. When I would visit my grandparents, one of my first stops was my great grandmother's house. This is a condensed version of my memories.


The old white frame dog run house sat atop a bluff overlooking the paved road. Its tin roof was topped with two lightning rods which were grounded by a large twisted cable. Each rod tip looked like a spear head pointing skyward. About midway down the shaft was a clear glass ball. The house had a porch which ran all the way across the front. On the porch was a rocking chair, and in this chair on almost any given day sat Loutisha. She was my great grandmother. We called her Granny Tish.
The dog run was open and split the living quarters of the house in half. Granny Tish almost always dressed in a long skirt and long sleeved blouse even on the hottest summer day. A cotton bonnet hung over one of the rocking chair’s back posts. She wore gold wire rim glasses that didn’t seem to help her eyesight much. She would squint at your approach and make a guess at which one of the grandchildren’s offspring you were. Her once dark hair was mostly gray now and she wore it in a bun at the back of her head. The skin on her face was wrinkled except on her high cheek bones. She had a pleasant earthy aroma. It was a mixture of Calgon bath soap, cooked bacon, wood smoke and coffee. Her old Collie dog was always nearby. The porch was adorned with a few pot plants in tin buckets, a broom made of broom sage, and a water pail with a dipper for drinking. A metal basin for washing your hands was also on the shelf with the drinking water.
She had a well out in back of her house with a wooden windlass. A long metal bucket hung over the tile curbing attached to a long cotton rope. I still can hear her saying, “Don’t you kids turn a loose of that windlass, you will break my curbin’” The water from her well was sweet and cold. She had a big wood stove that could be stoked from the front or top. A metal cabinet over the cook top was designed to keep food warm. In the morning she kept a pot of coffee warm on the stove. Her breakfast usually consisted of buttered “cat head” biscuits and slab bacon. I liked to watch her eat.
If the weather got stormy she would leave the porch and go inside. She didn’t like lightning. She would say “It’s a comin’ up of a blowout.”
I was young and I found almost everything she did fascinating. Several long cane poles leaned against the front porch and she always had a coffee can of worms at the ready. She loved to fish. I can picture her ambling down the gravel lane toward the creek with her cane pole in one hand and her worm can in the other. Her old dog went along to keep the snakes away. He occasionally showed up with his head swollen from an encounter with a water moccasin. She would never allow you to fish with her if you were wearing light colored clothing. It scared the fish. She carried a folding knife to repair her line, and stab turtles who were stealing her bait. “I neigh stobbed me a turkle” she’d say.
Sometimes she asked me to stay the night with her, but I was afraid. My cousins said the house was haunted because my great grandpa Jack had died there. I always went back to my grandmother’s house, which was just down the lane, when the sun went down. Granny Tish was from a large family, and when she was fifteen, Jack (my great grandfather) was courting her older sister, Mandy. When he came to ask Mandy to marry him, she turned him down. Tish knew she would and had climbed a tree near the walk leading to their house. As Jack walked dejectedly away from the house, Tish dropped down onto the walk in front of him and said, “If Mandy won’t have you I will.”
I was in grammar school and learning to read and write. Granny Tish did not have much formal education. She would labor over the grocery list before the delivery man came. I was comforted that someone had as much trouble writing as I did. She died when I was fairly young, but I’ve always had fond memories of my visits with her.