Merry Christmas to all my readers and may each day of your New Year be as joyous  as Doodle’s ( my poodle) will be.
Carolyn Stewart – Stone

“Just where will you get the money to buy it?” I challenged. We didn’t raise turkeys and had never in my memory eaten one.

“I don’t have to have money,” he said pointing at his head, “I’ve got a plan.”

Barnard found a willing accomplice in Bruce, our only neighbor. While Barnard fed livestock and milked cows, they discussed whether he could shoot well enough to win a turkey at the Turkey Shoot – that was the first time I’d ever heard that term. I knew their concern was legitimate for Barnard had a lazy eye, causing him to need a spotter for locating game in trees.

For several weeks before the turkey shoot, after chores, Barnard gathered up our squirrel dog – a mutt named Poncho – the twelve gauge and me, and we trundled to the woods for his shooting practice. He only asked me along to spot the squirrels and then help him find them.

I did so love the woods. I skipped, kicking up freshly fallen leaves to enjoy the musty and pungent smells of bay, hickory and sweet gum.

“Stop that,” Barnard scowled. “You’ll scare every squirrel within a mile into its hole.”

“And Poncho,” I pointed at the barking squirrel dog, “won’t do that?”

“It’s not the same.”

Many days when Poncho didn’t tree a squirrel, he’d run back to his old faithful, an enormous sweet gum just below the barn where a colony of squirrels lived and hid in its multiple holes, and start barking like he’d found something.

Other times, Poncho would run eagerly ahead of us and suddenly start barking wildly. When we’d get to him, he’d be jumping up on the tree trunk like he wanted to climb it and grab that squirrel. We knew we had one! That is, if I could find it and point it out to Barnard.

Those nights, supper was gooooo-d. Momma fried the squirrel, made biscuits, brown gravy and coffee so hot we poured it into saucers and blew on it before sipping.

The long prepared-for date finally arrived. Barnard and Bruce left for the turkey shoot in one of Daddy’s logging trucks, also with Daddy’s prized L.C. Smith, double barreled, twelve gauge.

After they left, I worried. At ten, I had no idea how turkey shoots worked. I thought all those men going to line up, find and shoot the same turkey in a tree. Would Bruce be able to spot the bird in the tree and point it out to Barnard?

It also concerned me that even if Barnard got a turkey it would be full of lead and uneatable. I didn’t mention this to anyone fearful it would sound Girlish.

After waiting what seemed like forever, they returned. Barnard had gotten his turkey and to my relief, Tom came home in a crate, alive and gobbling.

He was a beautiful bird and strutted around our yard like he owned it. Neither Daddy, Momma nor Barnard had the heart to kill and eat that turkey.

Tom lived a long and pampered life at our farm, a constant reminder of Barnard’s triumph.

Unfortunately, no matter what Daddy told her about his experiences with said preachers, Mama chalked it all up to Daddy being a backsliding reprobate. This created just a bit of tension in their relationship.

Throughout Daddy’s life experiences, he developed and lived by a code of ethics that any Buddhist would recognize. Mama based her life on the literal translation of the Bible, and she too, lived her beliefs.

Between the two of them, philosophical discussions around our dinner table ranged wide in concept, and as hot as the coffee we drank. I thrived on those discussions.

Some very early memories were of Mama, every Sunday getting me up early, scrubbing me down with what felt like lye soap with a wash cloth akin to steel wool. Then I’d be dressed in a frilly dress, that I didn’t mind, patent leather slippers, which I did mind, and dragged off to Church.

Now, I must admit, that I loved the singing at Church, that is, if Daddy was there to lead it. Oh my, that man could sing down the spirit! Many a time, I watched the audience fascinated by their response to his singing; their faces would begin to glow, eyes grow bright, then with tears streaming down their faces, they’d get out in the aisles and shout and praise God. Those are precious memories.

After the singing, the Preacher would take over and preach us all into hell, where as Daddy left people high on God.

As long as the singing was good, Church was tolerable. Unfortunately, Mama had a habit of inviting the Preacher for Sunday Dinner.

One time in particular, Mama was having fresh, fried chicken. Now, in the country, the first fryers of the spring were a delicacy, cause chickens didn’t seem to want to start families when the weather was turning cool, so we didn’t have tender fried chicken till the hens turned amorous as spring approached.

And she chose that Sunday to invite a new Preacher for Sunday dinner. There was this tradition with country folk of not allowing younger children to eat if company came to dinner. That fate befell Barnard and me that Sunday, and we were banished to the front yard until the Preacher ate.

You can imagine how we felt. He and I sat on the roots of the huge oak tree, that dominated the whole area, doing some impressive grumbling. Running away fingered prominently in the grumbles, after all, they couldn’t possible care for us, throwing us out like that. Applying astute reasoning to the plan, we concluded it would be best, if we first waited to eat the chicken before sneaking off to become hoboes.

He and I thanked God when the Preacher finally left, and we raced to the table. The fried chicken platter was big, white and oval. My eyes rifled to that platter, which held two, scrawny chicken feet, toes aimed heavenward. That was all. Barnard got one; I got the other.

I must confess to a certain amount of coloring that experience had on my views, where Preachers are concerned. To this day, every time I see a well fed Preacher, I see two chicken feet in the middle of a big white, otherwise, empty platter, toes pointing toward heaven.

At seven years of age, I thrilled to a real treasure adventure, when Daddy arrived home from work, telling us about a buried treasure found close to Vida, AL.

Barnard and I hurried through supper, rushing Mama and Daddy, “Let’s go! Let’s go, we wanta get there before dark.”

Everybody seemed to know Daddy. If he hadn’t met them through buying timber, land and pulpwood over five, central Alabama counties, they knew him from all-day singings at their churches.

So it was no surprise, when the elderly couple came sprightly from their house into the front yard to greet “Mr. Stewart”, waving us to their backyard to see the hole, where the buried treasure had been pulled.

After much discussion amongst the adults, we trooped inside to behold what had been buried.

The house was the common, wood-framed, farm dwelling with parts of the ceiling floored, serving as a loft, and part open to the rafters.

A large crockery churn sat in the loft with a rope around its neck. This rope ran from the churn threw a block and tackle – a necessity – they said, to raise and lower the heavy treasure.

The churn, pitted and leached by alkalinity in the soil, looked old. It had inch wide, red writing, brushed on it, stating the amount inside, and that it had been sealed with lead and acid.

They eagerly told their story:

Two men, strangers, stopped by their place about six weeks before, telling them that there was treasure buried in their yard, and if the couple consented, the strangers would dig it up, and split it equally between them.

“We thought we had us a couple of crazy city-slickers.” The woman said, “I mean, look at this house, ain’t nobody ever lived here with money enough to bury.”

“And you could tell they were from some city; they talked funny, and had hands that had never shelled an ear of corn,” the man said showing his well callused hands.

The woman took-up the story. “So we just listened to them talk, and well, if they wanted to dig up our yard, didn’t put blisters on our hands, and I can plant petunias in the hole come spring.”

“We were danged-sure surprised when those two hit that churn. Lordy, it was so heavy, took me and those two all we had, to lift it out of that hole.” The man explained.

The strangers convinced the couple to store it in their loft, unopened for some days, before they all got together to divide it, cautioning the couple to tell no one lest the government take it away.

A few days later, one of the guys stopped by, wanting to take the elderly couple to a fine restaurant to celebrate. These were country folk, who didn’t own a car, and who had never been to a fine city restaurant. They were delighted, cleaned-up, dressed in their finest and went with him.

The date set to divide the treasure came and went. The couple became antsy and decided to open the churn for a look-see at the treasure.

They knew something was wrong as soon as they began lowering the churn – it was way too light. When it reached the floor, the seal had been broken, the top loose enough to move around and nothing was left in the churn.

To my knowledge the loot, nor thieves were ever heard from again.

Mama and some neighbors gathered at a house down by the public road, busy doing grown-up stuff. The railroad tracks were about 150 yds away, and left to my own devices, I began wandering closer to them. I was familiar with the sounds the trains made, but I had never seen a freight engine up close.

I heard a train approach, so I waited for a good look at it. I had just looked up, and from around the curve came a big black-iron monster; a monster that could have only come from That Book Of Revelations Mama talked about so much: black smoke belching, demonic sounding whistle screeching, big arm like-things (side and main rods) sticking grotesquely from its sides, pumping those iron wheels – I turned and screamed all the way back to Mama and hide my face in her skirts. The adults were very amused.

I now had a picture to go with the train sounds. It wasn’t long and the night trains became just another sleepy-time sound, sort-of a lullaby.

One cool dark and quiet night, I slumbered, hearing the approach of the nightly freight train. It’s steam engine chug-chugging in faster and faster intervals picking up speed to climb the hill beyond our house, when the familiar lullaby was rent, simultaneously by the scream of the whistle and the shriek of iron wheels locked, sliding on the metal rails until it stopped.

The engine huffed, steam ssss-ling. Then a different, hair raising, wailing whistle pierced the quiet air of the country night. The train huffed, backing up.

The whole household erupted into activity. Daddy was dressed in seconds after his feet touched the floor. Mama ordered me to stay in my bed. No problem there.

Daddy discussed with Mama, what action to take, but that was decided for them.

“Thwack.” The front door vibrated in it’s frame with urgency. Railroad men wanted Daddy to bring his car (need for transportation again) and identify a victim.

Daddy was gone for hours and I, no more than five years old, was sleeping when he returned. So it was the next day that I learned Ole Ty, a neighbor who lived so far back in the woods that only a foot path led to it, had been lying on the tracks with his neck across one rail, was killed.

Daddy described the headless and mangled body condition of Ty. It gave him bad dreams for months.

Much speculation ensued. The engineers reported Ole Ty. never moved and it looked like he had been carefully placed with a gallon jug of white lightning by his side.

There were no law officers in those parts, and Railroad detective’s concern was with the RR’s culpability.

We’ll never know what brought Ole Ty to that pass, but the sounds of that night were imprinted in my memory and easily recalled on a dark, cool and quiet night.

My favorite courses were the sciences and maths, but by far the most useful in day to day has proven to be – homemake.  We cooked, sewed refinished and reupholstered furniture,  made slipcovers, arranged flowers, learned proper table manners, how a lady was introduced, on what side of her escort she walked, proper attire for different events and how to dress and act on the first and future dates.

When spring arrived the Ag boys and homemake girls gave their annual banquet to showoff all their skills to parents and friends.

About a week before the event, the guys prepared a huge barbeque pit and secured about a cord of green hickory wood. Getting that green hickory to fire-up then burn low and maintaining it at a steady low burn, I am told, is an art form, and the only way to achieve expert pit barbeque.

Early on the morning thereof, the guys lite their hickory fire, the girls prepared several gross of chickens for barbequing, cooked side dishes, decorated the lunch room, and made sure the drinks and ice were ready.

The girls sported dresses and aprons they had made and the guys stood around their fire-pit (Neanderthals!) flexing their muscles and boasting.

It was a jolly-ole-time.

Below are pictures of my classmates and I at our spring bar-b-que in 1959.  We were in charge of the ice and drinks, and of course we were clowning.

Fun at the Spring banquet at Billingsley High School

The second picture is of us eating outside, the lunchroom being reserved for parents and teachers, is shown in the background.

Spring Banquet

So enterprising merchants got themselves old vans or buses, installed shelves, ice chests, stocked them with merchandise and voila’ – the Rolling Store was created.

Day to day life in the woods seldom varied.  If we had visitors, it was usually some one needing Daddy’s help either to take them to the hospital in Clanton for emergencies such as broken bones, getting gored by a bull and once a neighbor hemorrhaging with TB, or to borrow the money to pay for those medical bills.  Daddy gave it to them even knowing he’d probably never get it back.

So when Bernerd and I saw a bus-like vehicle creak down our long drive and pull-up under our massive oak tree – well, that was exciting, cause Rolling Store Man had arrived.

Rolling Stores didn’t adhere to a schedule, so Mama couldn’t plan a head and have money on hand, but that wasn’t a problem.  What with her being known as The Praying Woman, her produce was trusted and sought after.  Rolling Store Man, gladly traded for Mama’s chickens, eggs, butter and canned blackberries and huckleberries and their jams.

When he pulled up and parked, first he and Mama would determine what kind of chickens his customers wanted, whether pullets, baking hens, a yard rooster, or fryers and send Bernerd and me to round them up.  She took care of the more delicate and breakable merchandise.

Rolling Store Man weighed the chickens, stuffed them in cages he kept in the back of the bus, then he and Mama got down to the serious business of haggling till the value of everything was struck at that time Mama would buy.

She let me stand inside the Rolling Store beside her, where I could feast my eyes on all those fascinating items Rolling Store Man had on his shelves: Phials of first aid supplies – merthiolate, mercurochrome – rolls of adhesive tape and gauze, menthol gum for making lineament, boric acid for making sore eye solution and beautiful blue stone crystals used to cure ground itch on horses hooves.

There were tins marked with scull and crossbones, which  I longed to open just to see what poisons looked like, what color they’d be, and if they would explode if I mixed them together.  I’d ask questions about explosive probabilities and Bernerd, being four years older than me, would try to drag me out of the store, but I’d hold on the door frame thwarting his efforts.

There were the spools of thread and packets of needles to tempt my hands, but Mama was strict.  I was never allowed to touch anything less Rolling Store Man think I might steal.

That was OK, for I knew Mama would buy us some candy, which was featured prominently on the shelves by the entrance – boxes of the luscious tasting, to Bernerd and me, rarity.  I loved the penny candy.  It sat in those boxes just sparkling at me.  All those blues, yellows, reds and greens looked like gemstones.

When Mama completed her purchases, and Rolling Store Man trundled back down the drive, she’d hand us each a candy bar and a nickel’s worth of penny candy.

Bernerd and I would sit on the big roots under the Oak to eat our candy bar, lick our penny suckers, knowing that we were also in for a treat at supper – hoop cheese and bologna, sliced from a stalk, served on lite bread.

Wow!  Life was goo-ood that day.

We had one flock of chickens living at the barn, and another lived around the house.

How the chickens knew which flock they belonged in, I have no idea, but they did, and visitation did not occur between the flocks, enforced by their lord-high roosters.

The barnyard flock was ruled over by an iridescent, indigo rooster that glistened in sunlight. His tail plumage, of the same color, shot-up from his body only to fall in a graceful drape.  A tall, red comb rode on his head, setting off the indigo quite nicely. I loved to watch him lower one wing and prance a flamingo around one of his ladies.

The house flock’s sovereign was a large Rhode Island Red.  He was no less handsome, but to me his flamingo dance wasn’t as graceful.

Hens being chickens, all seemed to want to hide the prizes they laid from the prying hands that gathered their eggs.  And in the spring, when the urge to sit came over them, hitting them all at once, they would rebel, and you’d see an exodus from the nests in their pens to the woods.

Mom only allowed ten to fifteen hens to sit in a season.  At twelve chicks a hen, that would be a hundred to one hundred twenty chick, which meant about 275 chickens in one flock.  Too many to feed.  Population control was essential.

When the hens headed for the woods, Mom would call in her Treasure Hunter to find the nests.  It was great fun.  I’d do exaggerated sneaks fantasizing various scenarios from busting up treasure thieves to finding nest filled with golden eggs.  I found most of the nest, but not all.

Frequently, a lady would come strutting and clucking home from the woods with a dozen or more little fuzzy, peeping biddies trailing behind her.

She’d strut amongst the other chickens, proudly showing off her brood.  The other hens gathered round and chicken gossip commenced.

The rooster, of course, was above even noticing the commotion.

The mother hen would scratch the dirt, then cluck a call, and the biddies would dutifully gather, pecking in the area Momma hen had scratched for them, peeping all the while.

I’d watch the hen and chicks interactions, and the pride the other hens seem to take in one of theirs having pulled one over the humans.  It was a beautiful sight.  I wasn’t terribly upset over having missed a few nest.  In fact, I made a point to miss a few.

I remember a special Saturday afternoon in the mid to later ’40′s. My two older sisters, youngest brother and I were gathered around our dining room table and our portable radio. Our attention was riveted to the Alabama Crimson Tide football game.

Coffee, a must for all family celebratory events, and homegrown popcorn handy, but forgotten, we leaned, as if pulled by magic, toward the radio. That magic was named Harry Gilmer jump passer extraordinare.

The game almost over, the Tide needing a touchdown to win, the ball being snapped, Harry Gilmer going back to pass, he jumped way up, just hanging there and rocketed that ball into the end zone and into history. God above! We managed to take a breath and went nuts, screaming, pounding on the table and throwing popcorn into the air.

***

Time past. I reached junior high and my siblings were either away in college or married and gone, but the devotion to the Crimson Tide they had instilled within me had been nurtured and grown.

More students at Billingsley High were Auburn fans, and, to me, Auburn fans verged on the fanatical. I, of course, never stooped to being fanatical. Soon, I discovered that riling them, was easy and fun.

My favorite provocation was throwing epithets. I called Auburn fans cow herders and their War Eagle a featherless chicken; they called Alabama fans stuck-ups and the Crimson Tide – shoreline scum. In a good volley, epithets could be slung back and forth for ten or more minutes before the long suffering teacher put a stop to it.

In seventh grade our exchanges ratcheted to new heights – poetry and essay. I wrote a two page poem about the travails of Auburn’s hapless quarterback trying to play against Alabama’s heroes of the field.

Smart and quick witted, Wilfred and his group countered with essays equating Auburn’s quarterback’s triumphs on the field to those of Hercules.

Our teachers were so astounded and pleased by our sudden plunge into literary endeavors that they let us read our compositions to the class.

Well, it didn’t take long for us to realise that our writing and reciting was getting us out of class.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the teachers to reach that same conclusion.

Oh, well, we de-escalated our football battles back to the mere slinging of insults, but it continued to be great fun.

POST SCRIPT:

Harry Gilmer’s name and his technique of jumping to pass came from my memories at five and six years of age. I went to ask.com to fact check these memories before posting the story. Imagine my pleasure when a picture of Harry, jumping up to pass, came on screen. Making it even sweeter was finding that he is still alive. Turns out that Mr. Gilmer was quite the athlete, and some of his records still stand.

Below are two links to read of his career and see the picture of his famous jump passing.

Harry Gilmer

St. Louis Today on Harry Gilmer

In the ’40′s, coming out of the Great Depression, my parents still produced what we ate, augmented by hunting and fishing.

Sandwiches around our table were unseen. Mom cooked three meals a day, consisting of a meat, lots of vegetables, with biscuits and cornbread – the cornmeal ground from corn we grew – slathered with butter from our own cows.

Desert? Nah, only on special Sundays did Mom waste the resources and spend the time to make her famous chocolate fudge cake.

On the grounds of Billingsley High stood a cannery, where surrounding families brought their produce and preserved it in gallon cans.

The lunch room benefited from the counties share of these canned goods, so for many years we were served delicious vegetables at school also.

It was as I neared junior high age, that a buzz went through my class, concerning the coming Friday lunch room menu They were going to serve hamburgers and potato chips! My only excitement came from knowing, I’d find out what those food items were.

So why the buzz? To me, hamburgers proved to be nothing more than a lot of bread with a piece of dry ground beef. I was so unimpressed, I gave mine to Earl, but kept the pickles and potato chips.