January 2012

Volume 41

How can it be the beginning of a brand new year! What happened to 2011? Time really flies by when we are having fun! We are having fun? Right? Right?

We find ourselves here at the dawn of 2012, ready or not; a new tablet to write upon, as it were. Even as an old guy, I can still remember what a joy it was to get a new writing tablet and a brand new yellow number two pencil. I wanted to keep the pages so neat and clean for the entire year; however, sometimes on the very first page there was the smudge of an erasure. Isn’t that like life? We get a new sheet to begin the year and often it is smudged before that first day is completed. As the rodeo crowd would say, "We messed up right out of the chute!" Something got tangled in the gate, and alas we did not ride the eight seconds, and did not pass go, nor did we collect the two hundred dollars. We got a smudge there on the very first page.

But, just as the graphite is sharpened and ready to do its writing on one end of that yellow staff; there is a soft pink eraser on the other end. The eraser, a symbol of love and caring, is there for when we stumble. Our Creator has made the eraser so we can recover; we may fall but we do not have to stay down. Sometimes a knee is cut, and mom comes along and cleans, medicates, and covers the wound. The wound heals and we forget about it, but there is sometimes a scar left in its place, an erasure, if you please. As we look back over the pages of our lives we see many erasure marks, scars of failed endeavors, scars of lost loves, scars of hurts that took much too long to heal.

Let us go into 2012 knowing full well that there will be set-backs, heart breaks, sorrows, and the like; but let us look to the other parts of the page where there are no erasures. Let us dwell on the "Sunny Side of Life." Let’s look to the good things that come our way, like new grandbabies and great-grandbabies; and good things that happen in our lives each day. Let us be thankful for eyes that see the beautiful blue sky with white fluffy clouds, ears that hear the laughter of children at play, of mouths that taste delicious home-made goodies, and noses that can smell the beautiful flowers along the way. Let us take time to enjoy the trip and not just the destination.

Let’s decide here and now to make a special effort to consume the finer things of 2012, the lasting things, the eternal things, to focus on things that enrich you and not so much about me. Let us hold a baby in soft and loving arms; play with a child on his level; be a buddy to an awkward teenager; befriend an adult when they hurt; and assist an elderly person as they struggle to make sense of this mixed up world. May we be consumed, rolled up, infatuated, and bull-dogged determined to put others before ourselves. For in doing so, we will find true happiness well within our reach in this New Year.

If we would have a good, fulfilling and Happy New Year we would serve our Lord by serving others. Once, Jesus Himself said to his followers, "…inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto Me!" Matthew 25:40

We here at the Bodock Post hope you have a wonderful New Year!

May God bless you, and may God bless America

~By Ralph R. Jones, Editor

The first cool spell of fall always brings to mind "hog killin’ weather." The reason the weather dictated hog killin’ time was simple. It had to be cold enough to keep the meat from spoiling but not cold enough to freeze the carcass, so that usually meant a weekend somewhere close to the first real cold spell in our corner of Southeast Texas.

When I was growing up in the East Texas country, daddy would pick out a couple or three shoats around the middle of August and we’d put them in a pen away from the other hogs to begin their "fattening up" regimen.

There wasn’t anything particularly special or esoteric involved in fattening the pigs. They got essentially the same diet as the others, just more of it, plus once a day they got a ration of a gallon apiece of soured corn mash mixed with clabber. In addition to adding fat this was supposed to finish them off and give the meat a good flavor.

It was my job to care for the shoats being fattened, and let me tell you there are very few things in this life that smell worse than sour corn and clabber, so I always looked forward to hog killin’ time for that reason, if nothing else.

Daddy kept an eye on the weather forecast and when it looked like a good cold norther was on the way, he’d have me start making preparations. The first job was to round up all the knives, utensils, buckets, and barrels needed for the boucherie. Next, I made sure there was plenty of firewood gathered up for the fire to heat the water in the old iron wash pot which we used for scalding the hog. Then I’d, clean the scalding barrel and scrub down the scraping platform, neither of which had been used since the last hog killing.

Hog killin’ day always got started before daylight. We’d build a fire under the big iron wash pot and everyone would gather around to keep warm while the water heated for the scalding barrel.

When the sun was high enough to provide some light, we’d commence with the slaughtering. The hog was usually killed with a single .22 caliber long or long rifle bullet between the eyes, as a larger caliber bullet would tear up the brain which was a prized delicacy to many. This job was usually trusted only to an expert hand because a misplaced shot could just injure the animal and a 180 to 240 pound wounded hog can be very dangerous.

Immediately after the hog was shot, it was bled by laying the animal on its back and inserting a long knife at the base of the throat, severing the carotid artery. This was to insure the meat was the proper color and not dark and strong tasting. Sometimes people would request that we save the blood for them to make blood sausage or boudin rouge, however it was too much trouble so we very rarely did.

After the hog was properly bled it was moved over to the scraping platform and the water in the scalding barrel was prepared. It needed to be just the right temperature, from about 165 degrees to just below boiling. If it was too hot it would set the hair and make it almost impossible to remove and if too cold the hair would not slip and could not be scraped...we always started out with four buckets of boiling water and one bucket of cold in the barrel. The scalding was accomplished by dunking the hog head first into the hot water until the hair slipped or came loose easily, then it was turned around and the process repeated on the hind end.

When the scalding process was deemed satisfactory, we set about scraping the hair from the hog until soon it was mostly hairless. Small places where hair remained were removed by pouring hot water on it and scraping. You didn’t want a very sharp knife when scraping, the idea was to scrape the hair and remove it, roots and all, not shave it. However, after scraping we sometimes used a very sharp knife to shave any hair which may have escaped the scraping.

When the scraping was complete, we’d hang the hog by its hind legs from a singletree, remove the head, and gut it. Then we’d cut it into halves and quarters in preparation for butchering into hams and pork chops and sausage meat, etc. plus the fat for rendering lard and making cracklins.

We had to set everything up to get ready for butchering, so many times we’d go ahead kill 2 or 3 hogs and frequently friends and neighbors would bring their hogs, too, and we’d make an all-day affair of it.

Now, although it has been almost 50 years since I last butchered a hog, each fall when that first real blue norther blows in and drops the temperature to near freezing and the faint smell of wood smoke teases my nose, I grow just a little bit nostalgic. Soon my memory kicks into gear and transports me back to a simpler time, a time of hog killin’, back when much of the food we ate was the food that we raised. Back to the time when the world was simple...and good.

I became interested in drawing sometime in my pre-adolescent years. I remember Billy Carl Austin, a family friend, had taken art lessons prior to my family’s return to Pontotoc in ’53, and I thought it would be wonderful to draw or paint scenes as he had learned to do. But, for my family, art lessons were beyond the constraints of the family budget as were art supplies. Consequently, I drew with the aimlessness of a child scrawling on a wall with a crayon, but I did learn to draw better by watching Tommy Lilly sketch aerial dogfight scenes in high school.

Billy Carl Austin taught me enough about shadow lettering to keep me fascinated with lettering for the remainder of my high school years. I spent hours penciling block letters of friends initials and completing them with shadows, which made the initials have a 3D appearance.

But, it was another Austin boy I must credit for taking my budding artistic talents to the next level. Now, at this late point in my life, I do not remember where or how Tony Austin was exposed to drawing with charcoal and using a stubbing pencil to create soft shadows on artist’s sketch-pad paper. We were both at Ole Miss at the time, and I don’t think he was taking an art class.

I remember the day he shoved a drawing of a person’s face under my nose and asked me what I thought of it. Tony knew me well enough to know, I’d tell him what I really thought without sugar-coating it.

"It’s really good, Tony," I stated, "but, I think I can do better."

Never one to let me get ahead and stay ahead in our friendly banter, he responded, "Well, I’d like to see you do better."

Tony was kind enough to tell me what supplies I would need if I really intended to produce something as good as he had done, and I went in search of a black and white photo of a pretty face to draw. I found one in the Ole Miss yearbook. Patsy Puckett was but one of the many lovely faces to choose from, but as hers was better known among our peers, I chose to sketch a portrait of Patsy. I knew it turned out better than Tony’s first attempt, but it was nice of him to admit it.

I suppose it was my next attempt at drawing portraits that convinced me I could draw fairly decently. This time I chose a black and white picture of Mary Travers in a Peter, Paul and Mary songbook. It was a head shot with strong light striking her long, straight, blonde hair from above and set against a black background. Wow, did that sketch stun me. It also stirred a desire to draw portraits of people I knew, such as my junior high math students when I taught at Ripley High School, Ripley, Mississippi.

As word spread that I could render a good likeness if I had a black and white photograph from which to work, I had more requests than I could handle. Those pictures were labors of love, in that I didn’t charge for the artwork, and each took about eight hours to complete.

Later, I would draw two portraits of the girl I eventually married. Only one of those portraits has survived our many moves, but today it hangs over our mantle alongside my self-portrait from 1971. While, I did several more in the seventies of notables around Pontotoc and many of these are still proudly displayed, it is the two above the mantle in my living room that I consider my best work.

I don’t remember doing any more charcoal and pencil portraits after the seventies. I’m not sure why I stopped drawing, but I think it had to do with my working at retail and later as a meat supervisor and simply not having the time to devote to drawing.

D uring the nineties, I developed a hand tremor that has grown worse each year and is now at a point where my signature is about the only thing I can write that’s legible. I’ve not tried to draw any more portraits, as I doubt my shaking hand could work the details needed. Instead of drawing, I find contentment in writing (typing) and remembering the way things used to be, like when I could draw.

Addendum: The portrait of Patsy Puckett was found a few years ago folded inside an artist’s sketch-pad book in a box in my closet.

Sometimes Christmas gifts come at the most unusual time and place; often they are unexpected and not what we would ever imagine. Out of the blue they come and spread their joy and happiness to those who need it most. Then in a brief moment it is all over and we realize that we have just experienced a gift from God. So was the case at Christmas time in 1969.

We lived in the Whitehaven area of Memphis and Mother had come to stay with us to help with the children as Carol, my wife, had taken ill that summer.

At first the doctor thought it was just a virus of some kind, then it was believed to be hepatitis. We were all inoculated with the gamma-goblin shots and we felt all would be well in just a short while. In the meantime Carol was admitted into the Methodist Hospital in Memphis to get over whatever had come upon her.

Days and weeks went by and no improvement was seen. Although she could move about on a limited basis and her mind was still sharp and clear, her condition was deteriorating. At first we were told that a heart valve might be the problem and we began to think in terms of a heart valve operation. But as time went along and that was not mentioned any more we wondered just what was the problem.

Only later did the doctor tell me that her heart was swelling and he could not seem to get it to stop.

Soon I would find out that the virus that we thought she had originally was real, only it had not taken a normal path, it had attacked her heart. Instead of giving her a flu-type virus, or pneumonia, or some other similar thing that probably could have been treated; it latched onto the heart muscle and there was no cure or treatment.

The physician told me later that when this scenario happened there was no cure. The heart gradually swelled until it was no longer pumping efficiently. Valves were opening and closing but because of the enlarged heart they did not allow the blood to pump properly. He said if the heart did not fail in the process, the liver or the kidneys would soon shut down because of lack of blood and death would occur.

The only thing that could save her was a heart transplant. However, this was 1969 and such a thing was only a dream in some physician’s mind. Dr. Bernard in South Africa had developed an artificial heart, of sort, but it was far from ready.

Needless to say, many prayers went up for her. Our church stood behind us and offered all the help possible. Our friends were there with us and offered support and comfort. The physicians tried everything they could think of to relieve the situation, but nothing was helping.

We prayed. Oh how we prayed for God to work a miracle.

Christmas came and we celebrated as best we could from a hospital room. I bought a very small Christmas tree, only about eighteen inches tall that would sit on the shelf in her room. Because of oxygen being used on the floor, they would not let us turn the lights on, but it was our most beautiful little tree. It was about the only visible thing in the room that said "Christmas."

We made lists of presents and a family member or friend would do the shopping. Dad came up for Christmas and was there with the kids as Mom and I swapped off staying at the hospital.

The holiday came and went, we kept thinking our prayers would be answered, medicines would work, and she would come back home to us. On New Year’s Day, the doctor came in and said we were being released. We had not really expected it, but who were we to argue. We gathered all our things and headed home. The hospital sent a box of medicine home with us and a list of instructions as to what to do in case this or that happened.

What a belated present, just to be home once more! Although she could do little, she could motivate around the house and be with the family. Mother stayed on and cooked and took care of me and the children, Joey age ten and Jan age seven.

What a wonderful time we were having. We figured since we were allowed to come home everything was getting better. While Carol had been in the hospital I had a breakfast room built on the back of our house. She and I had planned it and it was finished by the time she came home. It was a lovely room, light, cheery, and just what we needed. She enjoyed it so much.

God gave the children and me a gift of three months. It did not come in a package tied with ribbons; it was given one glorious day at a time, all ninety of them. We were given a gift too large for words, too magnanimous for comprehension, a gift beyond measure.

In March of 1970, our Lord called Carol home.

The doctor had done all he could do for her, had given her every medicine known, and had used every technique available, but nothing worked. He said he treated most of the patients with this ailment in the Memphis area and that none had survived more than six months. He told me that God had been good to us and given her three more months, not just to live, but to be well enough to come home and enjoy her family.

A most precious gift was given by God Himself to us.

I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas Day and had a good time with family and friends. I, for one, really enjoy Christmas, but then I live with Mrs. Christmas, and she really decorates our home. This year she added three more trees to bring the total to sixteen in the house. The sales are on and she’s looking for that special shaped tree to buy so that it will fit in just the right spot. It is a festive place to live.

I can’t think of anything pressing to do in the garden this time of year, with the exception of general clean-up or the building of new beds. The best thing going on in the garden is bird watching out the rear doors of the house while sipping on a good cup of coffee or a delicious cup of hot chocolate. Please don’t forget our feathered friends and make sure to keep their feeders filled so that you can enjoy the non-stop action and color that they provide for enjoyment.

As the New Year approaches, we Southern folks celebrate with a New Year’s Day feast. I did some research into this holiday and found some interesting observations. For instance, it is the oldest holiday that we celebrate. It is first thought to be celebrated by the Babylonians around the first day of spring. It was associated with the planting of new crops and the rebirth of the growing season and usually lasted for eleven days.

Hey, what happened to that tradition? It was first moved to January 1^st in 153 B.C. by the Roman Senate, but not until the reign of Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. and the establishment of the Julian calendar did this date actually become a tradition.

Speaking of traditions, the establishing of a new born baby as the symbol for the New Year was started by the Greeks. They used to parade a newborn baby around in a basket to celebrate the rebirth of the "god of wine". Other traditions were New Year’s resolutions, with the most popular being to lose weight or to stop smoking.

On to the feast, black eyed peas, greens, hog jowl, sweet potatoes, and cornbread. The black eyed peas are considered to bring good luck and prosperity when eaten on the first day of the New Year. Some believe that you should eat 365 peas on this day, one for each day of the year.

The greens are considered to bring wealth in the New Year because of their green color and are associated with the color of money. The hog jowl or pork is considered to bring prosperity because a pig always roots forward and never backwards. It is also thought to guarantee good health because a pig is usually always fat and healthy and happy.

Sweet potatoes were thought to symbolize the coming of gold because of their gold color. Cornbread was always cooked in a round black iron skillet. The gold color of cornbread was considered to bring prosperity into the household also. The round shape was said to resemble the shape of a coin and often a coin was cooked into the bread and the recipient was said to get an extra dose of prosperity in the coming year. Some people eat rice because some paper is made from rice, thus the relation to paper money.

Some say there are foods that you should not eat also. It is said that you should never eat lobster on New Year’s Day because he always moves backward. It is also said not to eat chicken, because chickens scratch backwards and they can also fly and some think that your luck will fly away if you have chicken on New Year’s Day.

By the way, another tradition that came about in the

last one hundred years, more or less is oh yeah---FOOTBALL.

Whether you believe any of this or not is up to you, but it has been an integral part of my raisin’. Our family will gather this January 1^st just like always and have a huge feast and visit and have a grand old time.

Tradition is a big part of all our lives and we hope to instill these traditions in our children and grandchildren. Do you have a New Year tradition in your family? If so, drop me an email at colorsbytim@hotmail.com.

Have a great day and keep digging in the dirt.

Growing up in Pontotoc, rambling around and looking under all the rocks, as it were; you’d think most of us kids would know all the secret, mysterious places, and unusual things that were associated with our growing up days.

We did know many of these, but it surprised me to realize how many were not known, or remembered, by the general public.

Being kids, we sometimes may have pushed the limits a little. No, we were not bad, just inquisitive. Now at a much older age, I’m still nosy to find out what is behind that wall, or what is inside an old building, or why no one uses that place any more. The old "Ghost Towns" out west really intrigue me, and one day I hope to get out there for a visit.

I hope some of these places will bring back fond memories of your childhood, when and wherever you were growing up.

Each of the next several issues will contain one of these short stories about our hometown of Pontotoc.

Note: Ralph has written a handful of these that we will be sharing. If you remember such a place of wonder and mystery from your childhood, why not jot down the details and send them to the Bodock Post.

Thinking about the promise and prosperity of a "New Year" is something I have not always done. My mother is responsible for planting that seed though, in my tiny, little, Pooh-Bear-sized brain.

Regarding one’s prosperity in a New Year, let’s consider the time-worn legend of "peas, greens, hog jowl, and cornbread" to ring in the New Year. I suppose the first time I remember hearing Mother fret about being sure to have her black-eyed peas cooking by New Year’s Eve was about 1972. The only reason I remember this is because she and a guy-friend of hers went to the Pontotoc Country Club New Year’s Eve Party every year, and this particular year she came home with a couple of decorations that had the year on them...’71 and ‘72. She had her peas ready so we could eat them while we watched the New Year’s Day Rose Parade on television.

I already had an affinity for "good food" like peas and greens, cultivated from an early age. If ever you get a chance to examine me and my "girlish figure," you will fully appreciate my adoration for what we call good food. I was never, ever, a picky eater, unless the dish included firm onions (the only edible aside from licorice that I hate).

The only time I ever "picked" at my food was indeed when I spied firm onions. They always made my stomach ache, so out they came. However, white, yellow or purple onions roasted with a nice Boston Butt, carrots, green beans, and new potatoes until they’re soft...ooooooooooo...is so very fine.

As a matter of fact, when I was in my formative pre-school years, my mammaw taught me to drizzle the juice from a pork roast with the roasted vegetables over my cornbread…mmmmmm. Likewise, my pappaw taught me to drown my cornbread in the juice from black-eyed peas. We all used to laugh recalling how pappaw stressed the importance of a cook leaving plenty of juice behind for the cornbread when she made the peas! There was a sweet-spot, in his opinion, between the watery juice and the thickened, gravy-like base left from well-seasoned, tender-cooked black-eyed peas.

Having become quite a connoisseur of good soul food over the years, thanks to the many great cooks who fed me as a child and later as an adult, there is a legacy to these luncheon lessons that doggedly hangs just over my belt. Unfortunately for my weight, I was an excellent listener and adapted well to my elder’s suggestions about what to eat.

But I digress...we were speaking specifically about peas, greens, cornbread, and hog jowl...mmmmm...hog jowl...ahem...beg pardon...

The New Year can start at different times for different people or things. States and businesses have "fiscal (or monetary) year" or as some idiot politicians continue to call it "physical (which has nothing to do with money) year." Egad, we trust these people to run our business! A fiscal year monitors financial successes & failures. Every person likewise has a birthday that falls somewhere during the calendar year. Only precious few persons actually get to celebrate their true birthday on the same day the calendar changes.

For instance, I have a cousin who is a real "New Year’s Baby." You know what? I have never asked him if he enjoys greens, peas and hog jowl with his birthday cake! I’ll bet he does because he is a very successful financial analyst. As an adult, Jim lives in Jackson, Tennessee where he was born, but he has travelled all over and lived an exciting life in Colorado for many years, so there may just be something to this "peas, greens, and hog jowl" thing after all!

Mother told me one year (when I became curious enough to ask why we cook that special meal each New Year) what each item meant in our path to prosperity.

"The black-eyed peas," she said, "represent all the coins you will get in the New Year. The greens represent all your new dollar bills. The pork represents your good luck."

As I recall, when I was a child we never had jowl or hocks on New Year’s Day. It’s funny...I don’t know why and I never asked her. It was like one of those "out-of-sight-out-of-mind" situations. Because she didn’t cook it, it wasn’t there to encourage me to ask why. I can only speculate, but maybe she just didn’t care for the thick, tough rind on the jowl.

It’s hard to admit that I was sheltered, but I learned only as a newly moved, independent adult shopping for my first New Year meal that ham hocks and hog jowl actually existed!

No. Really. It’s true. Until 1989, I thought those were just remembrances of a long-since forgotten past, because the only reason I had ever even heard of them was courtesy of re-runs featuring Uncle Jed, Granny, Elly Mae, and their "Bodine- Eating-Machine," Cousin Jethro. "The Beverly Hillbillies" introduced a whole culture, folklore and vernacular into my young, spongy, developing mind. To say the least, I was stunned to see that grocers actually cut and sold those parts in the meat market of Modern America! On one hand, as a Southerner, I ought to be ashamed not to have known those were there all along; on the other hand, you don’t see what you don’t buy, and we didn’t buy any jowl or hocks.

So, this New Year my wife Deana and I will once again fire up the crock-pot and slow-cook a half-gallon of black-eyed peas seasoned with a few slices of hog jowl and a hambone thrown in for good measure (we stick these in the freezer during the year for just such an occasion). We will top it off with a mess of greens cooked in a pot just like Mammaw used to cook them, with a couple of tablespoons or more of bacon drippings and a little salt and pepper.

As usual, I will cook a #10 skillet of plain cornbread for the sedate, and, for the daring, a #10 skillet of Mexican Cornbread with cheese, whole kernel corn, and diced jalapeno peppers!

Surely, all that celebration will bring in many coins, greenbacks, and much luck into the "Palatial Campbell Compound," However, I realize that for the rest of the year I must get about trying to pound off this legacy just above my belt so I can try and improve my girlish figure!

Here’s to a fun and productive New Year! Cheers!

The Mardi Gras season begins on January 6, the Feast of Epiphany, and lasts until Fat Tuesday, February 21^st, the day before Ash Wednesday and the onset of Lent. One popular way to celebrate the Mardi Gras season is to throw a party and serve your guests a King Cake. What's a King Cake? Well, that requires a pretty involved story to fully explain. Since I like to answer a question right off the bat, rather than dance around it with obscure facts or non-pertinent information, let me first dispose of the question, and then I will give you a few important facts.

A King Cake is similar to a cinnamon roll, but it is fashioned in the shape of a giant donut, iced, and then decorated with purple, green, and gold crystals of colored sugar. The color purple represents justice, green represents faith, and gold represents power. These three colors are the official colors of the Mardi Gras festival. King Cakes may vary from those with unfilled centers to ones with cream or fruit filled centers. Size may range from a few ounces to a few pounds.

I suppose one could bake his or her own King Cake, but there are plenty of businesses that sell them. Along the Gulf Coast, they are so popular you can find them in the food shops of self-service gasoline stations as well as in mass merchandisers like Wal Mart and K Mart. Every supermarket with a bakery has multiple sizes of King Cakes for sale. However, the further north of New Orleans one travels, the less likely it will be you'll find a King Cake.

The Internet offers numerous sources from which one may order a King Cake online. One site is Paul's Pastry Shop, "The Biggest Little Bakery In The South.". Paul's is located in Picayune, MS. At Paul's Pastry Shop you may choose King Cakes from several flavors of fillings and toppings, as well as sizes of medium or large. Additionally, Paul's will ship a fresh cake to you overnight with prices from $55.95 to $65.95.

King Cake parties are one way Coastal and Deep-South folks celebrate Mardi Gras. A small group of friends gather on a given night, usually during a weekend, and guests are served a slice of King Cake.

Once upon a time, folks preferred to have a tiny, plastic baby Jesus imbedded in their cake, something usually done by the bakery. The thought behind this tradition is the guest who finds the Baby Jesus in their slice of cake has the honor of hosting the next King Cake party, usually the following weekend.

Ever since the Delchamps’ grocery chain was sued in the 1990s almost no bakery hides the tiny icon inside the cake. Delchamps was sued because somebody swallowed the tiny plastic baby. I’ve seen these plastic objects and I’m betting whoever swallowed the baby Jesus was unfamiliar with the King Cake tradition and would have to be either a glutton or a drunkard to have mistaken the plastic baby for a piece of the cake. So if you want to conceal Baby Jesus in the King Cake, you have to do it yourself.

If you’re looking for a way to shorten the long winter’s nights of early 2012, what better way to do so than to invite friends over for a time of fellowship and refreshments? Might I suggest a King Cake party?

As my wife and I were out driving the other day, the price of gasoline on a marquee made us sigh. It’s well over three dollars a gallon now, and we are told that by next summer it will be "significantly" higher. Another nearby sign showed a savings of twenty-five cents on something. I commented that I could remember when gasoline was only twenty-five cents a gallon and a dollar would buy three gallons of gasoline and a quart of oil. My first car; shall we say a slightly worn out 1937 Plymouth, would use the oil almost as fast as the three gallons of gasoline.

While fueling my vehicle the other day a fellow about my same age was pumping at a nearby pump. We talked of how gasoline was really expensive these days. I mentioned that we both could probably remember when it was significantly less than fifty cents a gallon. He said he could, the only thing was, back then we did not have the fifty cents. He was about right!

Those days are gone forever; even the memory of those days will fade considerably, if not altogether, with the passing of this generation.

Flip back with me about sixty years or so….

"I remember one night my lights would not change to bright when I stepped on the floor dimmer. As I stopped the car it was too close to the curb there in town and the curb feelers made an awful grinding sound, but at least it saved my new fender skirts that I had just bought and had painted. The switch turned out to be faulty, so I drove on home with the low beam illuminating the gravel road. I’ll go over to Western Auto tomorrow and get a replacement switch. I can put that on myself, it only has two wires to connect.

You’ve probably noticed that I’m trying to fix up my ’51 Mercury to look real sharp. I plan to order a Continental Kit from Montgomery-Ward for the back; of course, it will have to be painted to match the car. Sam Wages, down at the Gulf Station, told me he’s let one of his men lower the rear end of the ole flivver to give it a better look, and Lane Lemons at the welding shop will put on the twin exhaust with Smitty mufflers as soon as I can save up enough money to buy the materials.

Western Auto has lots of lesser expensive things that would help make it look good, and as money permits, I buy some. I’ve bought those air deflectors that clip onto the vent windows; they blow cool air down at the floor in summer. They also have a nice selection of steering wheel spinners. Some even have pictures of naked women on them, but mom would kill me if she found one of them in my possession. I’ll probably just settle for a pretty one with a rose impression.

Some of the guys are getting fuzzy dice to hang on the rear view mirror, but they bother me while driving. Steering wheel covers are nice, but they are too bulky and slide around too much. They have some very good looking seat covers that I’ll probably get before long, at least for the front.

Oh, did I tell you? I did get an outside clip-on mirror for the driver’s side door. I would have gotten two of them but they are nearly two dollars apiece. Have you seen the double mirrors they are offering now? It lets you see around a car or truck in front of you without getting too far out in the on-coming lane. What will they come up with next?

The flat head eight is running like a top, never misses a beat and can outrun most of the cars in Pontotoc County. I’m getting better at speed shifting these days since I’ve started dragging more. The clutch is still O.K.; I try not to slip it any more than I have too.

The drag racing may have to stop because I’m burning up too many tires, and the wide white walls aren’t cheap these days. Clay Benjamin had a special price on a couple of Firestone 500 re-caps the other day. They are ones that came off his big Imperial. I don’t think he has had them capped but three or four times, still mighty good tires.

The ole Merc will really run, we had her up to one hundred and ten the other day coming home from work in Houston. There were five of us in the car at the time and she was just as smooth as could be. Those two new tires were just what was needed. The speedometer has gone out since then and I’ll need to stop by the junk yard and see if I can find a replacement. There are a couple of knobs for the dash that I need to look for while I’m there. It needs a new clock, but all the ones that I found would not run either, so I’ll just have to make-do. It is a fine car as she is, but just needs a little sprucing-up. I’ll be taking her off to college this fall and I don’t want those Texas boys to think Mississippi cars are trashy.

Last year at school a guy told me he knew someone who would "bull nose" and "deck" the "Bear Cat" (her new name) and re-paint the places so that it looks like it came from the factory that way. WOW! Wouldn’t that look great, but I’ll have to save up some more money. My part-time job at school does not pay much; eleven dollars one week and twenty two dollars the next, where does all that money go? I’ll be glad when school is over and I can make some real money. I’ve heard that some guys are making a hundred dollars or more a week! WOW!"

Except for a cloudy memory, those days are gone forever. I suppose our kids and grandchildren will have as many fond memories only with different cars and situations. We all like to reminisce, don’t we?

I am pretty sure there is something humorous about the following, but for the life of me I cannot find it. Never mind the humor; it’s bound to annoy a Liberal.

Free Stuff

The folks who are getting the free stuff, don't like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff, can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff,

The folks who are paying for the free stuff, want the free stuff to stop, and the folks who are getting the free stuff, want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting!

The people who are forcing the people who pay for the free stuff have now told the people who are receiving the free stuff, that the people who are paying for the free stuff, are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.

So, the people who are getting the free stuff, have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff, and giving them the free stuff in the first place.

 We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than paying for the free stuff.

Now understand this. All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded.

The reason? The voters figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them money from the treasury in exchange for electing them.

Our nation, The United States, became a Republic in 1788, 223 years ago. The number of people now getting free stuff outnumbers the people paying for the free stuff. We have one chance to change that in 2012.

Failure to change that spells the end of the United States as we know it.

 Bounce Fabric Softener Sheets

Purportedly…the U.S. Postal service sent out a message to all letter carriers to put a sheet of Bounce in their uniform pockets to keep yellow-jackets away.

Use them all the time when playing baseball and soccer. I use it when I am working outside. It really works. The insects just veer around you.
1. It will chase ants away when you lay a sheet near them. It also repels mice.

2. Spread sheets around foundation areas, or in trailers, or cars that are sitting and it keeps mice from entering your vehicle.

3. It takes the odor out of books and photo albums that don't get opened too often.

4. It repels mosquitoes. Tie a sheet of Bounce through a belt loop when outdoors during mosquito season.

5. Eliminate static electricity from your television (or computer) screen.

6. Since Bounce is designed to help eliminate static cling, wipe your television screen with a used sheet of Bounce to keep dust from resettling..

7. Dissolve soap scum from shower doors. Clean with a sheet of Bounce.

8. To freshen the air in your home - Place an individual sheet of Bounce in a drawer or hang in the closet.

9. Put Bounce sheet in vacuum cleaner.

10. Prevent thread from tangling. Run a threaded needle through a sheet of Bounce before beginning to sew.

11. Prevent musty suitcases. Place an individual sheet of Bounce inside empty luggage before storing.

12. To freshen the air in your car - Place a sheet of Bounce under the front seat.

13. Clean baked-on foods from a cooking pan. Put a sheet in a pan, fill with water, let sit overnight, and sponge clean. The anti-static agent apparently weakens the bond between the food and the pan.

14. Eliminate odors in wastebaskets. Place a sheet of Bounce at the bottom of the wastebasket.

15. Collect cat hair. Rubbing the area with a sheet of Bounce will magnetically attract all the loose hairs.

16. Eliminate static electricity from Venetian blinds.. Wipe the blinds with a sheet of Bounce to prevent dust from resettling.

17. Wipe up sawdust from drilling or sand papering. A used sheet of Bounce will collect sawdust like a tack cloth.

18. Eliminate odors in dirty laundry. Place an individual sheet of Bounce at the bottom of a laundry bag or hamper.

19. Deodorize shoes or sneakers. Place a sheet of Bounce in your shoes or sneakers overnight.

20. Golfers put a Bounce sheet in their back pocket to keep the bees away.

21. Put a Bounce sheet in your sleeping bag and tent before folding and storing them. It will keep them smelling fresh.

22. Wet a Bounce sheet, hose down your car, and wipe love bugs off easily with the wet Bounce.

Our loveable friend, Cuzin' Cornpone, appears only in 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. 

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