Hog Butcherin'

I remember at least one of our hog killings - probably more, but they have run together in my memory for many years.  We had Poland China hogs that Daddy fed every morning and night.  They lived in the "hog pasture" for about a year and then we put them up in stalls in our old red barn.  We didn't have Purina Hog Chow in those days so we had to make our own by hauling corn: stalks, ears and shucks to Mr J. J. Griffin's place south of town.  He and Daddy would agree on what mixture we needed and various amounts of oats and powdered molasses would be added and the whole mess ground to a fine powder.  We fed this stuff along with anything left over from our kitchen to the hogs and as I remember, they were rather large animals.  We also fed them skimmed milk from our little dairy operation.

Then on a very cold clear day the process would start.  Mac would shoot the hog between the eyes with a .22 rifle and then everyone would help dip the carcase in hot water and then scrape the hair off the skin.  Eventually the saws and long knives came out and the butchering process would go on for a couple of hours.  The folks from across the road would get the "lights" and the head, tail, trotters and etc., etc.  The saying was that when we butchered a hog, we used everything but the squeal.  

As the process moved indoors, Mamma would start rendering the lard and frying the sausage.  Daddy would break out his Morton Salt Cure tools and start curing the hams and shoulders.  Mamma would fry the sausage and put it in quart Mason jars, pour about a cup of the grease over the sausage patties and invert the jar.  We stored the jars on shelves on the back porch and whenever we wanted sausage during the winter, she would pull a jar off the shelf, dig the sausage out of the congealed grease with a big spoon and then reheat the patties in a frying pan.  This was what we called "canned sausage."  As I remember it, everyone loved the sausage that way.  I wonder if I would have the nerve to try it now.

After Daddy injected the salt mixture into the hams, he would use some of the lard to coat them about a quarter inch thick and then he would liberally sprinkle the grease with red and black pepper to keep the "skippers" from spoiling the meat.  Apparently "skippers" like ham too, but they didn't care for heavy spices.  Those were the best darned hams that I ever ate.  You aren't allowed to use as much Potassium Nitrate now as you did in those days, so the flavor of modern hams is a lot different.

More Yellow House Stuff

Other things that I remember about the Yellow House besides my family and our friends are the pictures, the wall paint and the bookcase. There were at least 4 pictures that I remember.  One of Jesus with a crook staff herding a bunch of sheep.  I've had nightmares about that picture all my life.  For some reason, the God that I kept confusing with either Santa Clause or Ghengis Khan, or a mixture of both, and that picture go together.

There were two baby pictures, one of "moi" which was adorable and one of Mac which captured his future physiological attributes as well as that little smile of his that always meant he was "up to something."  When Mac was in bed at the end, sometimes we would talk and I'd see that grin and I knew that he was there just for a minute.  The last picture that I remember is a painting of a Crested Cardinal sitting on a Magnolia branch - complete with Magnolia blossoms.  It was done by our neighbor, Mrs. Winifred Nance who lived in one of the P&N Section Houses located near the railroad stop.  Claudette - my sister-in-law still has that painting in her living room.  Mrs. Nance moved away when I was still very young and we never heard from her again.

As for the walls:  The kitchen was bright yellow, an airy place where many good memories lie.  Memories of Mamma, the tall kitchen stool that I sat on while she cooked and the white cabinets across from the sink.  The "breakfast room", the hall and the living room were painted what I now call "Morgue Green" and were quite gloomy if you paid attention to them.  But I have good memories about those places as well.  Especially the bookcase which contained all the things that I read in those days - the novels, the travelogues and the encyclopedias.  It was made of plywood and never finished or painted, but it was our entertainment center for my entire childhood.  We stored all the books and games there and really never missed having a television.

The Yellow House

The house was four rooms and a bath with an incidental kitchen and back porch tacked on during the construction.  It had been a milking barn with a concrete floor, but my Dad transformed it into a little yellow cottage.  The back porch was for hanging cured meat, washing clothes and churning butter.  The front porch was a pad of concrete with a roof. We used a cinder block as the step.

As a child I had a "rollaway" bed in my parents room.  Mac slept in the back bedroom next to the bath.  This became my room when he moved away.  We both kept treasures in that room: arrowheads, unusual stones, bits of army gear gleaned from our Dad or from uncles or just, "found" stuff.  There was a bullethole in the north wall above the bed to attest to my stupidity.  Fortunately nobody was hurt or killed.

I remember that in the beginning we heated the house with firewood in an open hearth.  Most of the rest of the house would be near freezing, but that front room was always toasty.  Then Daddy brought home a used "oil heater" and things got a little better during the winter.  I had a pair of pajamas with white and maroon stripes and one freezing morning I got a little close to the heater and burned holes in them.

We never had an air conditioner, and we didn't know that we needed one.  The windows stayed open all summer (unless rain threatened) and the doors were open as well.  I don't remember ever locking those doors. It was a good house and my home...

Cats and Dogs

Life around our farm was never without dogs and cats.  The first dog that I remeber was "Flip."  Flip was considered to be a Terrier of some kind and was to squirrel hunting as Leif Ericson was to Viking!  He hated squirrels and wanted all of them dead.  He could find one of those tree rats 75 feet up, flat against the top of an Oak limb.  He could even sense squirrels in their nests.  People were always coming by and asking if Flip could go hunting with them.  What did people do with the squirrels they killed?  Squirrel and dumplings, fried squirrel, squirrel stew...  There were no deer in this area then and darn few squirrels and rabbits.  Flip just disappeared one day and never returned.

"Lassie" was a female Collie who had mastered the complexities of moving cows from one place to another.  She was capable of going into a pasture, circling up the whole herd and bringing them wherever you wanted.  It was our fault; Lassie became bored with the amount of work that we gave her and decided to round up a few cows for herself and friends.  We lost a calf and she had to go.  Fortunately, Lassie had been such a great asset, she was allowed to keep her life and be banished to another farm.

"Tom", the black cat (with some redeeming white around his neck) was the family mouser who was allowed in the house as long as the rat and mouse problem was kept under control.  Tom lasted for years and then one day turned up missing.  When we found him I had my first experience of the death of a loved one.  But there were many other cats and dogs in my young life.

More Neighbors

Other than the family on the other side of the road, the nearest possible playmates were about a half mile away.  Jimmy Buchanan, John and Mack Sanders and Gail Griffith were playmates if I wanted to ride my bicycle (and if I could get permission) to one of their houses.  They all had TV's, so lots of times I would meander their way in time to watch "Sky King" or "The Lone Ranger" or another of the serials that played in those days.

When I was seven, Gail's Mom took the two of us to Greenville to be on a TV show ourselves.  We were in the gallery for a "Howdy Doody" show sponsored by some shoe company.  I remember being questioned about my name and where my home was and I remember that during the mid show commercial, they piled about 200 pairs of shoes in the floor.  There was one matching pair and the one that found those won some kind of prize.  Thirty kids, 2 mintues, 400 shoes, 398 of which did not match - get the picture.  I didn't fare well on that one.

I remember one cold rainy day, when I was 8 or 9, I heard on the radio that the "Russians" had launched an artificial moon called Sputnik.  I had listened to the "beep...beep...beep" from it and wanted to know more. I rode my bike to Gail's to see if there was anything about it on TV. The world changed that day for all of us.

Jimmy, John, Mac and I would play "war" - with our BB guns, with cap pistols, with sticks and pinecones. War was a kids game then; spurred on by TV shows, movies and the tales told by our fathers and uncles about WWII.  I was inspired to be a soldier in those younger years and was later given my chance.  Playing "war" and actually doing it were quite different in some ways but much alike in others...

The Nearby Neighbors

 Tommy, Kay Frances and Caraletha were my earliest friends outside the family.  Tommy was a year older, Caraletha a year younger and Kay Frances was maybe 3 years older.  They all belonged to the Family that lived across the railroad tracks.  The boss of the family was "Aunt" Ada and her sometimes sober Husband named Walt.  They raised crops of cotton and vegetables on the land that belonged to Mr Milford and were the watchmen for his Planer Mill located on that side of the road.  Aunt Ada was my sometimes baby sitter who also helped around the house; cleaning up and washing and ironing clothes for Mamma.  Tommy and I played a lot; fishing and exploring whenever and wherever we wanted.  

There were two other groups of folks living on our land at that time.  One was another Walter and his nephew Theodore.  Walter and Theodore lived in a 3 room house about 50 yards from our house.  Walter was "crippled" and hardly ever left the house.  He had no wheelchair and couldn't move about on crutches.  Theodore would carry him from the bed to the front porch and back.  Theodore also did all the cooking.  That was where I saw whole meals being cooked on the open hearth of a fireplace.  Our other rental house was about a quarter mile away and was tenanted by different families over the years.  It was finally torn down too, but we still call that 30 acre field the "Red House Pasture." 

The only thing that I have to remember any of them by are a few stones left where the houses used to stand.  

The Field Hands

Ours was an operating farm with crops and beef cattle.  We usually had at least two field hands working and sometimes there would be several more.  Mamma cooked for everyone and the hands would come to "dinner" at noon and we would generally have leftovers for "supper" at around 6:00.  She would cook 4 pounds of round steak or 3 fried chickens or two big roasts and we would always have whatever vegetable was available in the garden.  We grew a lot of green beans, lima beans and field peas in those days.

The field hands were Billy, Rufus, Odell and sometimes Harold, Walt, Gus and Broadus.  I remember that Broadus was killed in a "club" in Cokesbury by a man that brought a gun to a knife fight. Walt was cut with a knife and dumped on the railroad track. It took several hundred stitches to get him back together. Billy, Rufus and Odell were either drafted or enlisted in the Army at an early age.  Gus, who was in his 50's in those days remained in the area and worked for us on and off until he was in his mid seventies.  At 72  years of age, he could shoulder a 250 pound creosote post and walk away with it.

My Brother Mac

My brother, Mac, or as we called him later, George, was 12  years old when I was born.  He was always a rather healthy looking, heavy-set individual who could be really serious or really frivolous depending on the people around him and what he intended to do at that point in time.  He and Totsie were forever playing practical jokes on each other and on anyone else that might be an easy target/victim.

I remember one cold night in the old yellow house, Mamma and I heated up the clothes iron and put it at the foot of Mac's bed for him to burn his toes on.  We moved furtively around the house, snickering and sniggling until he came out of the bathroom and went to bed.  We heard nothing and were very dissapointed.  Later as Mamma started sliding into her bed in the dark, her toes encountered a HOT iron.  Mac had turned the tables on our little joke.

Mac started Clemson the day that I started the first grade.  Later he joined the Navy and spent a lot of time in the Mediterranean.  I remember one Christmas he sent home a giant box of watches, perfume, chocolate, a swiss army knife for me (that I still have 50 years later) and other knick-knacks.  Mamma and I loved that stuff.  Daddy got a self winding watch out of the deal and everyone was happy.

Home life was pretty good.  Daddy worked as a rural mail carrier and Mamma ran the house.  Mamma's real name was Eva, but most people called her Totsie.  I have my suspicions about where that moniker came from, but I guess I'll never know.  She was short (about 4' 9") plump (around 150 lbs) and had dark brown hair.  Born in 1910, she knew about most everything that happened in the 20th century.  She lost a sister and a father to the "Spanish Flu" in 1918.

Totsie sometimes carried a gun.  She kept the .32 S&W in her apron pocket a lot of the time.  I remember more than once when someone came to our door, Mamma answered it with hand on pistol.  It didn't occur to me until years later that since our house was on a dirt road and really remote from everyone else that we were in danger from outsiders.  Now, I protect my home much the same - except I don't wear an apron all the time.

I knew that I liked to travel when my cousin Mott took Mama and I to Jacksonville when I was very young.  The ocean, palm trees, eating in "cafes"; all of those made me very happy.  There were probably no ideas of world travel at that time, but that was a beginning.  At six when I learned to read, I began by picking out an encyclopedia and reading it cover to cover.  In one summer I read the entire Compton's Encyclopedia and found out about places like Siam, the Congo, and lots of others that I added to my list of places to visit.

During that same period, the soviets made their first Hydrogen Bomb, Korea was in full flame and we all worried about the bombs and how we would die the terrible deaths of the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  There were discussions with neighbors about where the bombs would hit; but never any talk of what we would do when it happened.  Newspapers were full of warnings and even the political cartoons were scary.  Stalin died that year and we didn't really know that with him gone, some sanity would eventually return to the earth.

How it All Began

2300 Hours, 6 Aug 1947:  Ma says to Pa - it's happening!  Pa cranks the 1937 Ford Coupe and off they go to the "Old Hospital" in Greenwood.  Earlier - in 1944 this building was hit by a tornado and was subsequently rebuilt.  But back to 1947. Ma continue in labor that night and all the next day.  At 1900 on the 7th the delivery took place by caeserian section and the bouncing baby boy was born.

He was always a sickly child and before being 6 years old was visited by most of the "dread" childhood diseases of the time - to include pneumonia, scarlet fever, Impetigo, all of the various measles, mumps, chicken pox. whooping cough and "the flux."  By the grace of God he lived long enough to get one of the first shots of Salk Vaccine in the area.  That's what we had in those days - not Sabin or MPV.  

But the good thing about all this was that he lived and prospered under the influence of farm chores, pond swimming, whippings, hand churned ice cream and etc.