RRN Online Volume 359

April 19 '03

Volume 359

Vegetable Gardens A Springtime Memory

I have never Taken A Bit Seriously been a gardener, and though I learned to appreciate the life of a farmer, I had the good fortune of not becoming one. I hated the task of working the ground with a team of mules, but when my dad bought a small, one-row John Deere tractor, I had a change of heart toward plowing the earth and actually enjoyed it thereafter.

The gardening to which I refer is not related to home beautification through flowerbeds and shrubs, rather I am referring to the art of growing vegetables. I suppose I might have developed a different attitude toward vegetable gardening had my family been subsistence farmers, yet they were not, and I did not appreciate the vegetables of my youth.

Most of the food Mom placed on the table during my childhood was store-bought, and I don't remember our family having a vegetable garden until we moved back to Pontotoc the year I started the sixth grade. At some point in my youth, I discovered I was a carnivore, a meat eater. Vegetables were always on our table, but I held a strong preference for meat.

When my uncle purchased the "old Owen's place" around 1957, my parents and my grandparents moved into the same house for the first time during my lifetime. My grandparents had farmed all their lives and while my dad was raised a farmer, he found a better standard of living as a grocer.

It’s been my observation that farmers farm until they can't farm, and once they get too old to farm they continue to plant vegetable gardens. Sometimes, they have trouble scaling the garden back to a manageable size, so they sell or give away half or more of what they produce. So it was with my grandparents, though they moved from the country to the city, they continued to farm, particularly, the approximately six acres under cultivation and an additional quarter-acre garden plot on our newly acquired land.

Both my grandparents died in 1960. Dad, with my help, continued to plant cotton and corn as Granddad had done. With me in college and Dad managing a grocery business, he usually hired others to pick the cotton and corn, though I remember helping to some extent. During the next several years Dad slowly got out of the farming business, but he and Mom continued to "have a garden."

I remember helping them get the ground in shape for planting, and one year I bought a tiller to help with the upkeep of the garden. Sears sold it, and it did a good job of keeping me thin by vibrating and shaking my every step behind it. Its tines were in front, not at all similar to the rear-tine tillers that are popular today and are advertised as capable of being controlled by one hand. The Sears' tiller took a lot of my strength to handle it.

While I have considerable experience in planting gardens and I really don't mind that part of the work, I have only limited experience in harvesting vegetables. Oh, I most surely can tell a ripe tomato from a green one, a "filled out" butter bean from an undeveloped one, and I know which purple hull peas are ready to pick, I still don't want to fool with any of the harvesting aspect of gardening. If the vegetable crops didn't "come in" when the weather was so hot, I might feel differently about harvesting vegetables, but then I never liked shelling butter beans and peas, or shucking corn, either. Getting the finished product canned or frozen was "woman's work," and I was never involved with it.

My mother would can or freeze enough vegetables to last the family for far more than one year and would end up giving part of it away in order to make room for the next crop. Thus, there were not many meals served at our house that didn't include vegetables we had raised. Mom fed us so many peas that I took to inviting my good friend Tony Austin over to eat, as often as possible, just to cut back on the leftovers. Tony "could ever more lay back" some peas and cornbread, whereas, I ate peas if there was little or no meat to go with the vegetable fare.

Even after Dad died, Mom continued to have a garden each year. My younger brother James saw to it the garden was planted each year and Mom toiled away keeping old newspapers around the base of the tomato plants to control the grass and hoeing out middles in the early morning.

My daughter was still a teenager when Mom died, but Rayanne remembers the garden. Rayanne has embraced those aspects of gardening that I never came to enjoy. She fondly remembers helping her grandmother pick butter beans and peas and, to this day, enjoys shelling both. I recognize that as a trait she may have acquired rather than inherited from me. Neither did I pass to Rayanne her enjoyment of fresh-from-the-garden vegetables, so if it is an inherited trait, then she got it from her mother.

Rayanne has spent her life in a mode most would describe as "on the go." She's never been content to stay at home and was so conditioned to going places as a child she would salivate (figuratively speaking) at the mention of the word "go." Thus, it was with mild skepticism on my part and great scoffing on Sarah's part when, at the dinner table last weekend, we heard Rayanne share her desire to have a garden.

"I don't know if it's the springtime or what," she began, but I’ve been wanting a garden. I miss all those vegetables from Grandma's."

Her comment sparked a brief discussion that left some of us wondering where we'd gone wrong with her raising and others pointing out the less than prime real estate she had for a garden plot. Why, there's so many trees in her yard, grass has trouble growing, let alone vegetables. Yet, she did not seem discouraged by our lack of enthusiasm for her newest idea.

It was then Rayanne reminded all of us how much she enjoyed eating vegetables and also how she actually enjoyed gathering and preparing them as well. Who knows, perhaps she'll plant a garden this year, though I don't know where it would be. As for me, I think I shall just close my eyes and try to remember all the labor involved in gardening. Even now, I can see the pea seeds dropping from my hand into an open trench…wooden stakes being driven beside small tomato plants…blisters on my hands, the result of hoeing without gloves…it’s all too familiar. Maybe Rayanne will have a bumper crop of vegetables and share them with her family.

More Sandwiches Belated Memories

There are some folks I practically never see except at church. That's not so much their fault as it is an indication of how little I'm involved in the affairs of the community. I don't attend ball games or other sporting events, which means there's a whole slew of folks with whom I have no contact. There's not been a prayer rally on the Square that I thought I should attend. I'm not in town when the civic clubs are meeting, and there's only so many folks at the grocery store at any given time. Thus, church attendance is an important part of my social life, not to mention my religious life.

I'm truly thankful for those who regularly attend the worship service hour that I attend. I feel good in my surroundings if I'm surrounded by familiar faces, and on those Sundays where we sing from the hymnal and the pianist plays from the hymnal and not from an "arrangement," all is well with my soul. If the pastor is in the pulpit, well, that's just icing on the cake.

Betty Austin, wife of Charles Austin, usually sits a pew or two behind Barbara and me. A few months ago, when I was soliciting "favorite sandwich" stories, I had asked Betty about hers and explained my reason for asking. She's not a regular reader of RRN, but she knows about it.

A couple of Sundays ago, prior to the morning worship service we were chatting and she asked, "Did you ever report on your favorite sandwich?" and when I responded affirmatively she continued, "I didn't hear about it."

I must have misunderstood her question, because as I started to elaborate, she interrupted, "No, I'm saying I didn't hear what sandwich was the most favorite in your survey."

"Oh," I replied, "I believe the top honors went to peanut butter and banana."

I felt better about my response when Billie Jean Sewell, nodded approvingly to confirm my answer.

Ruth McCullough, seated on the row in front of me, upon hearing our conversation, glanced my way and in a softly muted tone commented, "No one mentioned my favorite sandwich, and I never got around to sharing it with you."

"And what is your favorite?" I pressed.

"I love a pimento cheese sandwich with a slice of tomato in the center of it," she revealed, "but only if it's my homemade pimento and cheese."

I quickly asked what type of cheese she used, but in my mind I was calculating just how far down on my personal-choice list the pimento cheese sandwich stood.

"I buy the Cracker Barrel brand sharp cheddar cheese," Miss Ruth explained.

Personally, I've never found a homemade pimento cheese to my liking, but then I've not knowingly had any of Miss Ruth's homemade variety.

"I like the sound of it, except for the slice of tomato in the middle," I replied with a wince. "That sounds like something my mom would have eaten. She liked thickening gravy on a tomato."

I've never tried gravy on a slice of tomato, and if I ever get a taste of Miss Ruth's homemade pimento cheese, I hope it comes with the tomato on the side.

In an earlier article titled, Parole Party, I mentioned meeting Margaret DeMoville for the first time. Margaret apologized for not having penned her favorite sandwich memory, but I was glad to hear her story anyway.

"Years ago, when I was in New York, some friends took me to the restaurant that made the Reuben sandwich famous. I found out later the health department condemned the restaurant because of conditions in the kitchen. You just never know, do you?" she stated.

It so happened the above two sandwich memories from RRN subscribers were shared within a twenty-four hour period. I thought it unusual at the time, and that's probably why I still remember those conversations so well. So, if you've a favorite sandwich and haven't submitted your memory, it's not too late.

Bodock Beau Laughter Central

Seen by the editor in the rear window of a dilapidated auto driven by a black woman in Cleveland, MS, April 15^th, 8:30 p.m.:

I STILL MISS MY "EX"
But my aim is improving

POINTS TO PONDER

Now that food has replaced sex in my life, I can't even get into my own pants
I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt with "Guess" on it. So I said "Implants?"
I don't do drugs anymore. I get the same effect just standing up fast.
Sign in a Chinese Pet Store: "Buy one dog, get one flea..."
I don't approve of political jokes. I've seen too many of them get elected.
I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
I am a nobody, and nobody is perfect; therefore I am perfect
Everyday I beat my own previous record for number of consecutive days I've stayed
How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?
Why is it that most nudists are people you don't want to see naked?
Snowmen fall from Heaven unassembled
Every time I walk into a singles bar I can hear Mom's wise words "Don't pick that up, you don't know where it's been!"

Submitted by Bing Crausby

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