From The Arbor Preparing For The Holidays  There are still a few leaves clinging to the tree limbs of our
imagined arbor under which we three editors of The Bodock Post pen our monthly
thoughts and editorial comment, but I expect they will have fallen ere the
throes of winter arrive. In years past, I have seen lovelier fall foliage
than we have had this year in Bodock Country, but our weather has allowed
farmers plenty of dry days to harvest crops. Of course, the dryness of the
countryside has necessitated area burn-bans, and I’m hard pressed to
reason how a ban that prohibits my neighbors from burning leaves is a bad
thing.
For millions of us, Bing Crosby’s "White Christmas" expresses our own desires of the ideal Christmas weather. Typically, I start humming or singing the lyrics of "White Christmas" right after Thanksgiving or about the first really good cold snap the first week of December and don’t lose hope of a white Christmas until after Christmas Day. I start getting pumped up about the holidays as early as late October, when my family typically celebrates its memorial Frances Carter Birthday Dinner. Our late mother taught us to appreciate certain Thanksgiving and Christmas traditions and to enjoy being together as a family, and she initiated the approaching season of thankfulness and giving by preparing a holiday feast on the Sunday falling closest to her October 27th birthday. Mom wouldn’t prepare a feast built upon chicken and dressing year ‘round, as is the custom of some, because to her, chicken and dressing was a cold-weather food. At best, we ate chicken and dressing for special occasions four times a year, sometimes less. This year was the first year since Mom’s death in 1989, that we observed her birthday later than usual. Schedule conflicts prevented our doing so in October, but we made up for it the first Sunday in November with chicken and dressing and all the trimmings. We only had three desserts, but that number will rise for Thanksgiving and Christmas when we pull out "all of the stops." While I enjoyed our recent and traditional "Mom’s Birthday Dinner," and will have celebrated Thanksgiving by the time this article is published, I probably won’t have the Christmas spirit until mid-December. True, Christmas is my favorite holiday, but it takes the juxtaposition of certain events for me to fully experience Christmas. Firstly, the weather must feel like Christmas. It should be cold, not bitterly cold, but overnight temperatures should be at or near freezing. Secondly, it should look like Christmas: decorations must be up at home, in neighborhoods as well as downtown Pontotoc, and in retail stores. Thirdly, it must sound like Christmas: elevator music at area retailers replaced by the songs of Christmas, and church congregations get to experience more hymns of the season and special choral music of Christmas. And fourthly, I have to give something away. Gift giving doesn’t come easy for me, as it typically involves shopping. And, shopping requires thought as to what the recipient of the gift would want or need. My wife is far better at discerning such things, so I allow her to purchase most of the gifts we give to others. I will make a few purchases, mostly of "the last minute" nature. When all things above are aligned or fulfilled, I will then more fully enjoy the smells and tastes of Christmas. Of course, we would have no Christmas celebrations, Christmas traditions, Christmas music, Christmas gifts or Christmas dinners, had there never been Christ Jesus, whose birthday we celebrate and honor and whose death for our sins makes possible our entrance to Heaven*. It is my hope, one that is shared by my co-editors, Ralph and Carl Wayne that yours is a blessed Christmas Season. As always, your comments are appreciated, and we welcome the opportunity to share one or more of your true-life stories, providing they meet our criteria for submissions. See http://rrnews.org/bp/submissions
* Certain restrictions apply: Sins must be washed away by the blood of the Lamb. Salvation is by faith, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." ~ By Wayne L. Carter, Associate Editor & Publisher
Mama’s Present The Three Musketeers
The year was 1955, and it was cold and icy. I was 10 years old, and it was
the last day of school before we got out for Christmas. I would have
two weeks at home, just me, Mama and my baby brother Coleman. We were
the Three Musketeers, or at least that’s what Mama called us.
She said that if the three of us stuck together and weathered our storms,
then we’d be just like the heroes I’d read about in the classic
comic book, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre
Dumas. I’d already learned to appreciate the classics and Mama taught me early on that if I learned to read silently to myself, then I’d never be bored, I’d always have a friend and I could travel when and wherever I wanted without ever leaving our cozy little three room house. She had started me out with two of the classic tales for my birthday on August 27th and after reading them, I immediately wanted more. She explained that the vendor only came around once a month usually on the 1st, so I’d have to wait until then. I guarded those first two comic books as if they were printed on silk with gold ink. Four more days until the 1st of September; I began to count the hours until it was time for the vendor to make his rounds again. In fact, I waited on him much like my grandmother, "Den" waited on the mail to bring her Social Security check on the 3rd of each month. I waited for Mama to come home on the day I knew they were supposed to be delivered, and when I asked her where my new Classic was, she just smiled and said, " Well, it’s getting rather close to Christmas. Let’s just wait and see what Santa brings." I didn’t want to wait until Christmas to see what Santa brought. I wanted to read about the mischief Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer would get into, and I wanted to find out what a Tale of Two Cities was all about. The dark dreary days of December dragged by as we waited for Christmas, then suddenly one morning I woke up to hear Mama answer the telephone with "Christmas Eve Gift to you too." Finally it was Christmas Eve. Santa would come tonight. Breakfast was especially delicious that morning and soon it was time for Mama to leave for work. I hated to see her go off that day. It was so cold and the north wind was howling already like a freight train barreling down the track. She opened the front door to leave, and the sleet that had begun to fall stung our faces like a thousand needles. This was going to be a very long day for us all waiting on Santa to finally come to our little house at 318 North Third Street. For as long as I could remember Mama always walked to and from work and tonight she didn’t make it back home until nearly 7 o’clock. When I heard her boots stomping on the icy steps I cried out, "Mama’s home, Mama’s home." I ran to unlock the front door for her and there she stood with her head scarf knotted under her chin and her gloved hands holding her old gray coat together tightly around her thin frame. Her purse was draped across her chest and she was holding two presents in her arms. She placed the presents under the tree and made a beeline to the overstuffed chair beside the gas space heater. She was so cold she could hardly talk. As she slipped out of her coat and scarf, I sat down on the floor in front of her and started unclasping the metal clasps on her old worn out goulashes. She slipped her feet out of them and into her warm house shoes she’d placed by the heater earlier that morning. She leaned back in her chair and motioned for me and my brother to climb up in her lap. We nuzzled our little faces next to hers and started pelting her with questions. "Mama, what’s in the red package; more Classic Comics I hope! Is it for me or is it Coleman’s?" The shape of the package nearly gave it away. "Mama is the striped package for me or sister?" My little brother chimed in. "Well, listen at you two, aren’t you even gonna give me a minute to catch my breath?" I felt terrible. She’d just walked in, cold and tired from a hard day’s work and all we were concerned about were the packages under our little tree. "I tell you what, you let me warm up a bit and then I’ll heat us up some soup and we’ll talk about presents and Santa and reindeer and whatever else you want to talk about." "Stay put, I’ll fix the soup Mama." I felt bad about being so selfish earlier. After supper we talked and talked and Coleman finally fell asleep in her lap. "Mama," I said as I stretched and let out a big yawn. "There’s not one single present under the tree for you." Why had I not noticed that before? "That’s OK baby girl, I’ll get my present in the morning when I see the look on your happy faces." The last thing I remember on that cold and blustery Christmas Eve was the sight of Mama arranging gifts under the tree; mine on one side and Coleman’s on the other and tree lights casting funny little shadows on the living room wall in our warm and cozy three room house on North Second Street in Baldwyn, Ms. Mama crawled into the bed between me and my little brother and turned out the lights. She pulled us in close to her and we all snuggled together in her bed as she thanked God for the day and her children in a soft whisper. I felt safe and happy and loved. And why not, God had blessed us all with good health, and we were The Three Musketeers. ~ By Clarene Evans, Contributor A Different Gift An Expression Of Love Christmas gifts come at various times, in different ways, wrapped in unusual circumstances, and from people whom you might least expect them. Christmas gifts are, or should be, about love, not just things. Over fifty years ago, I received a couple of wonderful gifts of love, one more or less expected, another quite unexpected. My folks gave me a beautiful wrist watch for Christmas in 1954 and as a high school junior I really liked it. It was a gold Bulova watch with a fancy glass covering the face. It was first class, to say the least. However, while away at college in 1957 I left it in the shower room of our dormitory and upon returning found it gone. Disheartened and broke, that Christmas vacation while at home, I went over to Pearlie Collins Jewelry. His shop was located in his home near where the Pontotoc County Library is located today. Tommy Douglas was my constant companion and friend through high school and Pearlie was his uncle. Since Pearlie and I were friends by association with Tommy, it was only right to give him my little dab of business, and besides, he might give me a break on the cost as well. Little did I know what kind of a deal that would be. Telling Pearlie I only had seventeen or eighteen dollars to spend for a "Timex" type watch, he asked how long I would be at home. About two weeks was my answer to him, and he said to come back a day or two before I left and he would have me a watch. He said he had some re-built movements, and he would put it together with a case and band, and it would probably be better than the cheaper watches on the market. Before vacation was over Pearlie called and said my watch was ready. As I looked at this magnificent wrist watch it looked like a brand new expensive timepiece. Mentally, I began to count my meager funds. He told me how he had put together with a used case, a used movement, and used face, with a simulated leather band. It looked good to him, and although not new, he thought it would give me good service. When I went to pay all he would accept was seventeen dollars and fifty cents. Wow! What a deal, or so it seemed. Thanking him, I paid him and was on my way back to school happy as a lark.
One day, I noticed it slowing down and took it to a good watch repair shop for a cleaning and whatever repair it might need. Upon picking up the watch the repairman said it only needed cleaning and commented on what a fine time piece it was, solid stainless steel case, waterproof, a quality seventeen jewel Swiss movement, the whole nine yards. Years later when the watch needed cleaning again, a different repairman spoke of its quality. Still I had no idea of what I had. Although it still ran very reliably, the next repairman told me that the movements had become so worn that it would not keep good time. So, after thirty-seven years of service, I finally decided it was time to retire the watch. Reluctantly, it was placed in a box with other mementos and slid into a drawer. That’s not all the story, yet. While talking to Pearlie’s wife, Jo, many years later after he had passed away, I related my story of the watch to her. In her sweet and natural way she said to me, "There is no telling what value Pearlie gave you in that watch! If Pearlie really liked you he went out of his way to accommodate you. There is no way to know what price that watch might have cost; most likely much, much more than the price paid." Although I cannot tell Pearlie in person how much I appreciate his Christmas Gift and how much he helped a young college lad, I can tell you. I still have the watch; it still runs after all these fifty three years. Pearlie was a real friend to me. Thank you Pearlie! And now you know the entire story! ~ By Ralph R. Jones, Managing Editor Trampoline Christmas Children's Favorite Christmas I don’t recall the year, but I well remember the Christmas that my children, Rayanne and Jason, got a trampoline. That it was a secondhand trampoline didn’t bother either of them. In fact they had played most of the summer on it. Just a block down from our house on Eighth Street lived the Hayes family. Barbara and I were friends with Omri and Linda and our two children often played with Linda’s two girls by a previous marriage. The girls had a large trampoline, and it seemed Rayanne and Jason were on it more often than the two girls. Noting my children’s interest in the trampoline, I asked Linda where they had bought theirs. In answering my question she offered, "Why don’t you just buy ours? After all, your children are on it more than mine." Linda suggested a fair price that included the almost new pad that encircled the outer rim of the trampoline, and after discussing the deal with Barbara, we bought the trampoline as a Christmas gift for Rayanne and Jason. Determining how to surprise our children with the trampoline on Christmas morning proved difficult. I suggested a plan to move the trampoline into our backyard after our children were in bed on Christmas Eve. To actually move the trampoline, I enlisted the help of my younger brother James, who owned a large pickup truck, and his friend Wendell Morrison. Late on Christmas Eve, after Rayanne and Jason were snuggled in bed, the three of us loaded the heavy trampoline onto the back of James’ truck. It was too large to fit inside the bed of the truck, so we rested as much of the trampoline as possible on the sides of the bed of the pickup with its legs overlapping the bed by four feet or more on each side. Wendell and I, walking alongside the pickup, helped balance the trampoline as James drove slowly toward my house. About halfway there, James stopped the truck and asked, "How are we gonna get it in the backyard? This thing’s too wide to go between your house and the fence." I didn’t have a fence, but I had neighbors on three sides of me who did, and our yard was "fenced in" by my neighbor’s fences. As we stopped to strategize, the cold wind chilled us thoroughly. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I had an idea. "Why don’t we take it up Robbie’s driveway and set it over the fence?" I asked. Though eyes rolled, one of my helpers asked, "Can we get it through the gate of the driveway?" I didn’t know, but I thought we could. Fortunately, there was enough room, but the trampoline kept trying to slide off the pickup as we went up the slope of the driveway. Wendell and I were pretty well spent by the time we got the trampoline off the truck. Still twenty yards away from the fence, I suggested, "Let’s try rolling it." However, the strong wind and the unwieldiness of the now sideways trampoline quickly changed our minds, and we sat it upright and walked it and partly drug it toward the fence adjacent to my backyard. After lifting one set of the trampoline’s legs over the fence, one of us scaled the fence and prepared to help as we all strained to get the rest of the trampoline across.
On Christmas morning, an excited Jason and Rayanne woke us up to tell us that Santa Claus had been to our house. Barbara and I stumbled into the living room to watch them open their presents, and also to open ours. None of us can recall what all we got that morning, but I’m sure Jason and Rayanne were wondering, "Is this it?" as they surveyed the presents they just recently opened. "Why doesn’t one of you check in the carport, in case Santa left something outside," Barbara suggested. Jason took the bait and ran. A minute later, he burst back into the living room yelling excitedly, "Rayanne, we’ve got a trampoline." Seeing the two of them bouncing on the trampoline in their pajamas was truly a Kodak moment, but we did not capture it on film and can only remember it. We managed to get them inside long enough to put on warm clothes before returning to the trampoline where they played most of the morning. At that moment, they didn’t realize they were bouncing on a used trampoline, and when we told them where we got it and that it didn’t come from Santa, they didn’t care. It only mattered that they had their very own trampoline. Even today, if someone asks them about their favorite or most memorable Christmas, they will usually think first of the year they got a trampoline. ~ By Wayne L. Carter, Associate Editor & Publisher Christmas Traditions Changes Through The Years For me, Christmas traditions fall into three categories: Mine, meaning those in my growing up years; His, those of my husband’s family, and Ours, the combined traditions of our families and the ones we’ve made in our present family. Mine: Christmas of 1967, was the first experience I had celebrating with a family other than my own immediate family. Following my wedding in August of 1967, I found myself sharing holidays with a new set of parents and siblings. This is a situation most newlyweds find themselves facing. Growing up, Christmas Eve at my house was a special time because Daddy would always allow us to pick one gift from under the tree to open on Christmas Eve. This was a tradition that started after we were older and the excitement of Santa had somewhat faded. Because of this tradition, Wayne and I spent the night of Christmas Eve with my parents. Christmas morning we opened other presents at my parents' house, loaded our car and headed for Pontotoc to spend Christmas Day with Wayne's parents. His: The Carter household had a special Christmas morning tradition, a breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, sausage, cheese biscuits, jam, jelly, homemade preserves and/or Golden Eagle Syrup, coffee and orange juice. Mrs. Carter would make her biscuits by her regular recipe, and just as they would begin to cook from the top and were still sticky in the middle, she would pull them open and insert a slice of very sharp "hoop" cheese. These would then be returned to the oven to continue cooking. Um, um, good! As the years passed, we did not always make it to Pontotoc in time for Christmas breakfast, but as soon as we arrived, we would all gather in the living room to pass out gifts. After gifts were opened and the piles of wrapping paper cleaned up, the women folk would return to the kitchen. Dinner on any day, but especially holidays, at the Carter household had to be served at 12:00 noon, promptly, so lots had to be done between breakfast and the noon meal. Mrs. Carter had already worked all day the day before and most of the week before, preparing all of the traditional foods for her family. The house would be filled with the scents and aromas of dressing, candied sweet potatoes, rolls, etc. Her dressing was always the same, which was wonderful.
Wayne's favorite cake was fresh grated coconut with divinity icing; James' favorite was German chocolate; Fred's was an old fashioned amalgamation cake, and Sara Sue's, too, was the amalgamation. Mr. Carter liked a seven layer (very thin layers) orange cake, but as I recall no one had any trouble eating any of the ones Mrs. Carter chose to make for the holiday. Besides the cakes, we also could sample divinity (if the weather had been fair), Martha Washington candy, and maybe fudge or Jubilee Jumbles, a cake like cookie with chopped walnuts and caramel icing. Mrs. Carter, as you have probably guessed, was a wonderful cook. She loved to prepare food and enjoyed serving her family those scrumptious meals. We still joke about her statement before almost every meal, "Well, I hope you can eat it." Following a day of eating, napping, visiting, and munching, we would once again load our car and head north, back to Ripley, to my parents' house. Christmas meals there were not as scheduled as at the Carter's house, since my daddy was a hunter. On many Christmas mornings he would leave early and hunt until the middle of the afternoon. Therefore, Christmas dinner at the Crouch house most likely would be late afternoon to early evening. Stuffed from eating all day, Wayne and I would return and nibble some more festive foods with my folks. Christmas, 1968, was somewhat of a change in tradition, since my daddy died July 2 of that year. No matter how hard we tried, the holiday just wasn't the same. I don't remember too much about that Christmas, for, besides the empty seat for my dad, Wayne's family had experienced a tragic death on his mom's side of the family during the month of December. Two years later, Wayne and I found ourselves living in Pontotoc at Christmastime. That was the year that Christmas traditions really started for us. We did make it to Wayne's mom's house for Christmas breakfast that year. After helping prepare the noon meal, we hit the road for Ripley and my mother's house in the mid-afternoon. Ours: After Rayanne was born in 1971 and Jason in 1973, I remember thinking, "All these traditions are nice, but when will my children get to experience traditions at our house?" I was beginning to want to make our own memories for them. In 1978, Wayne's father died, and again there was an empty seat at the table of our extended family. I don't remember if it was that year or a few years later, when Mrs. Carter began spending the night with us on Christmas Eve, where we would prepare the "traditional Christmas breakfast", and then move to her house for the noon meal. Somewhere along the way, my mother joined us on Christmas Eve, and came to Mrs. Carter's for Christmas dinner. Mrs. Carter taught me how to make dressing. "The secret to good dressing is lots of good rich broth from a fat hen, lots of butter, and plenty of eggs. Don't forget to add two or three left over biscuits to the mixture, just to make it stick together good. Mix it all up the day before and store it in the refrigerator overnight and add more broth just before baking." She also taught me how to make her special congealed salad, the one Blanche Benjamin gave her the recipe for the year there was a scare on cranberry sauce, and it was all pulled from the grocery shelves. She gave me her recipe for fresh grated coconut cake with divinity icing (since it was Wayne's favorite), but I never learned to make one like hers. Fortunately, Wayne did. Since Mrs. Carter's death in 1989, I have tried to carry on some of the Carter traditions, especially on the foods. We (our immediate family, Sara Sue and her children, and Brigitte, my great-niece and her daughter Kylie) gather at our house for Christmas Dinner, served promptly at 12:00 noon on Christmas Day. Usually, someone will comment, "Well, I hope you can eat it," and we usually do. Wayne still will not agree to the practice of opening a gift on Christmas Eve, but we have, for approximately 30 years, opened our house on Christmas Eve to friends and family as a gift to those we love. ~ By Barbara A. Carter, Contributor
Biographical
Sketch:
Barbara Crouch Carter is a native of Ripley, MS, and a graduate of South
Tippah High School, Ripley, MS, as well as Northeast Mississippi Junior
College, Booneville, MS. She is
currently Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity, Pontotoc County,
Mississippi. Barbara and husband Wayne
make their home in Pontotoc. Barbara and Wayne have two children
and three grandchildren.
Barbara enjoys reading, journaling, and working with four-year olds
in Sunday School.
Little Santa Claus Lost And Found In the December 2, 2006 issue of "Ridge Rider News" volume 548, Editor Wayne Carter graciously published a story of mine on "The Little Red Santa Claus." One of the closing paragraphs of that article said: "Since so much time has elapsed, and Mom and Dad have passed on to their reward, the little Santa has been misplaced. One day while going through an old trunk or box of remembrances, he may once again appear. He may be misplaced, but he’s not forgotten." In general, the article went on to say, on a hot day in August of 1937, a ten-pound baby boy was born to Lillian and Anderson Jones in a little two-room house out behind the Methodist Church. A neighbor and close friend of his mother there in Randolph, MS, began work on a little stuffed Santa for the baby as a Christmas gift. The family cherished it and each year, regardless of how humble the tree was or what the financial shape of the family, this little Santa graced the Christmas tree. It was there under the tree each year even during the little redheaded boy’s college years. The boy married while in college, but he and his family still came back for Christmas each year. What happened to the little Santa during this time is not known. What is known is that, he got lost somewhere during those years. I’ve often wondered about the little Santa and longed to know what had happened to him; did he get discarded, or if, per chance, he might still be lingering around in a storage box, or in a drawer of memorabilia somewhere. As Mr. Paul Harvey would say, "AND NOW THE REST OF THE STORY."
Upon seeing the little guy, I almost wept. An old friend had been found, memories of Christmases past rushed back, the scent of a cedar trees, and the sparkle of icicles saved and hung again and again on branches came back to memory. Many Christmas moments with my Mom and Dad came flooding through my mind. Christmas came early this year to one old man. This Little Santa Claus made this old guy mighty happy. Once again this little fellow will take his rightful and honored place under the Jones’ tree. Merry Christmas to All ! ~ By Ralph Jones, Managing Editor Fishing In The Creek Fun With Cane Poles And Worms Ann Marie fishes in a creek which runs through Papa’s farm. I beg to go too, and she says, "Come on! The more, the merrier. Get the fishing poles from the rafters in the car shed. I’ll get a shovel and a couple of cans to put worms in." Ann finds a couple of Prince Albert cans. "I got cans. Let’s go dig." We take the shovel to the barn, turn over old boards and find plenty of worms. The soil smells like garden soil turned over by middle busters in the spring. Smells good, if you like that smell, and I do. The worms kink when the light hits them. I put them in the cans and covered them with soil. "That’s enough," Ann says. "top the cans off with dirt." I store the cans in a shade on the back porch. I climb to the rafters in the car shed, "How many poles do we need?" "Three." Rosie lives up the road and helps Mama wash on Mondays. Sometimes she fishes with us. Ann is my aunt, but she won’t let me call her aunt. "It makes me feel old," she says. Mama is my grandma. She keeps me while my mother and daddy work in the fields. I pull three cane poles down from the rafters. Ann checks out the lines, the hooks, lead and floats, and makes repairs. Then we go eat. After we clean the kitchen, Rosie comes around the house with a fishing pole on her shoulder. She wears a faded head cloth tied around her head, like the one she wears on wash day, and her bottom lip bulges with snuff. She places two fingers on her lips and spits into the grass. "Ya’ll ready to go fishing?" "Yep!" Ann turned to me, "Tootlum, get our worms." At the porch, Mama steps out of the kitchen with her bonnet on. I grab the cans of worms and follow her. We get our poles and look them over again to make sure they are dressed out right. Rosie lets the gap down at the back of the car shed for us to walk into the pasture where the creek runs. She waits for us and puts the gap back to keep the cows in. We walk in a line down the cow path on our way to the creek with fishing poles across our shoulders and lines with floats and things dangling. Mama sees a black gum bush growing in the barbwire fence to our right and walks over to it. She always breaks us black gum toothbrushes when we go fishing in the creek. While we wait for the fish to bite, we brush our teeth. "Break all of us a toothbrush," Ann calls to her. "Alright," Mama says. She comes back and passes out black gum sticks. We walk on down the cow trail to the creek without talking, because we are working on our toothbrushes. I thought Mama was the engineer of the black gum toothbrush; but I read later that the homemade stick toothbrush was used in Egypt to clean teeth before Christ was born. A cow bawls. Rosie stops, shades her eyes with one hand and looks out across the pasture where the cows graze north of our fishing hole, "Y’all ain’t got no bad bulls in this pasture have you?" "Got one," Ann says. "Maybe he won’t see us." She always puts any hindrance to something she wants to do out of her mind. "The cows are over by the back fence. They're not paying us any attention." "They’ll sneak up on you," Rosie says, and spits. "They’re eating grass and minding their own business," Ann says. We get to the creek, see the water and forget about the cows. "Water’s still," Ann says. "Maybe they’re biting." We squat down and bait our hooks. Ann lifts her pole and drops her hook right on target. I know she is on target, because she doesn’t fuss. She eases herself down to sit on the ground with her eyes focusing on her float. Mama does the same. Rosie spits on her worm just before she swings the line out and drops the hook into the creek. "Why do you spit snuff on it?" I ask. "Fishes like snuff," she says. "Always brings me luck." I put a worm on my hook, and for a minute I consider spitting on it. But I figure I’d miss it, and Rosie would laugh. So I swing my hook out and drop it into the water with a plop! "You’ll have to be real quiet now," Ann whispers. I hear a water foul’s call downstream. A frog leaps from near my feet into the creek. I jump up! "Shssssss," comes from Ann. "Fish can’t hear," I say. "They don’t have ears. Why do we have to be quiet?" "They can feel vibrations," she whispers. "If they feel or hear anything, they get skittish. And they won’t bite." "Ya’ll be quiet," Mama says real low. "I’m getting a nibble." I look at her float bobbing up and down. Then, the whole float goes out of sight so fast you don’t have time to say Jack Robinson. Mama pulls on the line till everything on it comes out of the water like a streak of rose colored light. She slings that line over her head onto the grass behind. A fish flops in the grass trying to get back to the creek. Mama takes it off the hook and threads the stringer through its mouth. At the edge of the water, she drops the stringer with the fish into the creek and anchors it in the creek bank. "The cows slipped up on us!" Rosie yells. "They’re just grazing," Ann says. "Don’t get so excited. That old bull is way out yonder. He’s the only one I’m scared of." The cows graze on away from us, and the bull never comes close. We fish all afternoon pulling one red-belly perch after another out of the creek. About four o’clock, we gather things up to go home. Rosie pulls the stringers out of the water. "Some of these fishes are too little to eat," she says and spits in the grass. I know she is talking about the fish I caught. "Maybe they’ll stink the gravy up a little," Ann says. "We’ll keep them all." "Papa eats the whole fish when they are little. Bones and all," I say. "Let’s get to the house and clean these fish!" Ann says. ~ By Nancy Henderson, Contributor Biographical Sketch: Nancy Henderson, a native of Choctaw County, Mississippi, graduated from Mississippi State University with a B. S., M. S., Ed. Spec. and finally an Ed.D. (She just couldn’t find enough to do). She taught school 17 years and retired after 8 years as a principal in Oktibbeha County. She and husband, Jimmy H., have one son and two grandsons. After retiring, Nancy and Jimmy H. built a mini storage business in Eupora, MS. She turned her vegetable garden into a flower garden, bought a new computer and started writing. Today, Nancy writes family memoirs and has been published in The Oxford So & So. Other interests of Nancy include genealogy and visiting cemeteries.
Bubba Bodock From Video Recordings Reportedly, these are actual comments made by Police Officers.
Cuzin’ Cornpone A Bodock Post Exclusive Our loveable, often laughable, friend appears only here in The Bodock Post.
Our Mission Purpose - The Bodock Post It is our desire to provide a monthly newsletter about rural living with photographs of yesterday and today, including timely articles about conservative politics, religion, food, restaurant reviews, gardening, humor, history, and non-fiction columns by folks steeped in our Southern lifestyle.
Copyright © 2010 ~ The Bodock Post. Return to home page. Open This Issue with MS Word
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As years went along, the watch became just a timepiece around
my arm. I worked in it, played in it, through thick and thin, and it went
everywhere I went. With college completed, a new wife, new job, and now in
a new town, the watch was faithful and accurate.
I worried that our talking and grunting, not to mention the clanking
of metal on metal in trying to get the trampoline over the fence, might possibly
awaken my sleeping children. Perhaps, the wind gave us an advantage and carried
the sounds away from the house. Maybe the two children were as tired as the
three of us were and would not have awakened had the roof blown off the house.
Whatever, the reason the commotion outside did not disturb their slumber
or so we presumed.
In the back bedroom, which in most Decembers was as cold as the
refrigerator, she would have stored all the sweets, which she had baked during
the days preceding the holidays. The cakes prepared might depend on which
family members would be present, for each one had a favorite.
On April 1, 2010, some 40 years after his disappearance, Peggy,
my wife was searching for something in the very bottom of their cedar chest
and came upon a small bundle wrapped in gold colored aluminum foil. Upon
opening the cushy little package, there was a little red suited guy with
a white cotton beard; the long lost Santa. Although much worse for wear,
he was, more or less still intact. The facial markings that had been made
with crayons were dim and blurred. His suite was still as red, but the cotton
used for trim about his coat sleeves, coat tail, and pants legs, was loose
and missing in places. The stitching was loose and coming undone; seventy-two
years had had its toll.
