There's always something that has to be done, and someplace
one has to be. Work and chores and projects and hobbies and
duty.
This evening, I wasn't up to cooking, made a trip to Sonic to
settle for a supersonic cheeseburger that came with a free order
of tater-tots. A cup of microwaved coffee, a plastic cup of water
and dinner is served. It's been a long, hard week and I'm worn
down.
I have the annoying (to others) habit of reading while I eat.
I went to my bookshelf and the book that caught my attention
was "The Hunting Rifle" written by Jack O'Connor and published
around 1970.
I don't think that I had read more'n a couple of pages - I closed
it and I sat there looking at the dog-eared and stained brown
hardback cover...
And I began remembering things that I had forgotten.
Going to bed at night between cold sheets and pulling
layers of quilts all the way up to my ears because my
grandparents couldn't afford the costs of keeping the
butane space-heaters lit all night.
Waking up the next morning to the aroma of sugar-cured ham
frying mingled with the warming scent of hickory smoke
when I opened my bedroom door (after being told this is
the last time I'm going to come in here 4 or five times)
and to see the wood stove glowing cherry red. I'd be
wearing socks and long-johns and I'd stand so close to that
stove that I was almost in it.
My grandma believed that any day that began without strong, black
coffee would be ruined before sunup. If you're old enough to walk
to the breakfast table, you're old enough to drink coffee.
Then, there was the morning business. We didn't have indoor
plumbing until I was 15. You could walk around the side of the house
to pee, but the big job required a 50 yd. walk to the privy. In the
wintertime you froze your little buns off and in warm weather you
worried about snakes and spiders.
But when that was done there was the country fried ham and
red-eye gravy and eggs that would run yellow when you
stabbed 'em and home-made biscuits drowned in butter
and jars of muscadine jelly and sorghum syrup to slab on
and to pour over the biscuits.
School was something to endure mostly. But come September,
there was always the anticipation of seeing people that you
hadn't seen for 3 months and dang, how Vivian had blossomed
and filled out over the summer. I remember hoping she'd just
overlook the pimples all over my face and maybe she'd be my
new girlfriend.
Basketball season and would I be good enough to make the cut
for the traveling squad that year?
Then the anticipation of school being out. Trees budding and
squirrel season opened May 15th in SE Oklahoma. They'd be into
the mulberry trees and I'd kill a half-dozen or so with my Model 311
and my grandma would fry the young ones and make gravy and
she'd make squirrel and dumplings with the old, tough fox squirrels.
I remember the intoxicating scent of the spring rains, and going
to Little River to watch it rise - back before they dammed it up and
ruined it. A sock full of grasshoppers, a cane pole with braided line
and about 2 ft. of leader, split-shot just above a tiny gold hook and
I'd catch a tow-sack full of perch. I scaled 'em, gutted 'em, cut the
heads off and my grandma fried them whole - battered in cornmeal.
I always ate the crispy tails first.
By the 1st of July, I could still catch fish, but the seed-ticks and the
chiggers and the copperheads and the water moccasins and the
rattlesnakes just waiting to bite some kid that was foolish enough to
wander into their territory...
Well, it was just more comfortable to stay home. And listen to the
St. Louis Cardinals games on the radio with my grandpa in the shade of
the yard, and drink iced tea - sweet tea, of course. Stan the Man and
Kenny Boyer and Julian Javier and Ray Sadeki and Bill White and
Joe Cunningham and the closer, Lindy McDaniel. He was one of the first to
throw the fork-ball, now they call it the split-fingered fastball.
This evening those are some of the things that I remembered that I forgot.
Bob Lee
one has to be. Work and chores and projects and hobbies and
duty.
This evening, I wasn't up to cooking, made a trip to Sonic to
settle for a supersonic cheeseburger that came with a free order
of tater-tots. A cup of microwaved coffee, a plastic cup of water
and dinner is served. It's been a long, hard week and I'm worn
down.
I have the annoying (to others) habit of reading while I eat.
I went to my bookshelf and the book that caught my attention
was "The Hunting Rifle" written by Jack O'Connor and published
around 1970.
I don't think that I had read more'n a couple of pages - I closed
it and I sat there looking at the dog-eared and stained brown
hardback cover...
And I began remembering things that I had forgotten.
Going to bed at night between cold sheets and pulling
layers of quilts all the way up to my ears because my
grandparents couldn't afford the costs of keeping the
butane space-heaters lit all night.
Waking up the next morning to the aroma of sugar-cured ham
frying mingled with the warming scent of hickory smoke
when I opened my bedroom door (after being told this is
the last time I'm going to come in here 4 or five times)
and to see the wood stove glowing cherry red. I'd be
wearing socks and long-johns and I'd stand so close to that
stove that I was almost in it.
My grandma believed that any day that began without strong, black
coffee would be ruined before sunup. If you're old enough to walk
to the breakfast table, you're old enough to drink coffee.
Then, there was the morning business. We didn't have indoor
plumbing until I was 15. You could walk around the side of the house
to pee, but the big job required a 50 yd. walk to the privy. In the
wintertime you froze your little buns off and in warm weather you
worried about snakes and spiders.
But when that was done there was the country fried ham and
red-eye gravy and eggs that would run yellow when you
stabbed 'em and home-made biscuits drowned in butter
and jars of muscadine jelly and sorghum syrup to slab on
and to pour over the biscuits.
School was something to endure mostly. But come September,
there was always the anticipation of seeing people that you
hadn't seen for 3 months and dang, how Vivian had blossomed
and filled out over the summer. I remember hoping she'd just
overlook the pimples all over my face and maybe she'd be my
new girlfriend.
Basketball season and would I be good enough to make the cut
for the traveling squad that year?
Then the anticipation of school being out. Trees budding and
squirrel season opened May 15th in SE Oklahoma. They'd be into
the mulberry trees and I'd kill a half-dozen or so with my Model 311
and my grandma would fry the young ones and make gravy and
she'd make squirrel and dumplings with the old, tough fox squirrels.
I remember the intoxicating scent of the spring rains, and going
to Little River to watch it rise - back before they dammed it up and
ruined it. A sock full of grasshoppers, a cane pole with braided line
and about 2 ft. of leader, split-shot just above a tiny gold hook and
I'd catch a tow-sack full of perch. I scaled 'em, gutted 'em, cut the
heads off and my grandma fried them whole - battered in cornmeal.
I always ate the crispy tails first.
By the 1st of July, I could still catch fish, but the seed-ticks and the
chiggers and the copperheads and the water moccasins and the
rattlesnakes just waiting to bite some kid that was foolish enough to
wander into their territory...
Well, it was just more comfortable to stay home. And listen to the
St. Louis Cardinals games on the radio with my grandpa in the shade of
the yard, and drink iced tea - sweet tea, of course. Stan the Man and
Kenny Boyer and Julian Javier and Ray Sadeki and Bill White and
Joe Cunningham and the closer, Lindy McDaniel. He was one of the first to
throw the fork-ball, now they call it the split-fingered fastball.
This evening those are some of the things that I remembered that I forgot.
Bob Lee
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