HOW IT USED TO BE

I have had occasion to buy a new jar of the old, tried and true Vick’s Vapor Rub recently. I found it has changed it’s packaging but it’s still the same wonderful stuff. 

I, along with everyone I know, have used Vick’s at least once in their life. Growing up in Pennsylvania the winters were cold. Like they are this year. Cold and snowy- lots of snow!  Families didn’t make it through a winter without someone getting a cold. That’s when the little, dark blue bottle came out of the medicine cabinet. Your mother, father, or big brother would tell you how it made all the difference in their cold recovery. It was either slathered on your back or chest or put in boiling water for you to breathe the menthol steam. Smelling the stuff now makes almost makes me nostalgic.

There is a new use for the stuff -still helping us get through a cold though. If you have a cough that is keeping you awake at night. Drag out the old Vick’s in it’s new jar and slather it on your feet. Yep, your feet! Then put on an old pair of socks and snuggle down in the covers for a good night’s sleep. Isn’t it marvelous that this over the counter remedy has a new application?

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The other day I was having a conversation with some folks and I found myself saying the word “pecan.” As soon as I said it I was reminded of my first few years in the land of Dixie.

Growing up in Pennsylvania I never saw a pecan tree. I did see pecans though and I was pretty sure how to pronounce the word. But then I moved south and discovered I didn’t.

A lot of my continuing education in language arts came from simple observance. For instance, I noticed that everyone greeted me by raising their arm and saying, “Hey!” (I was used to hi or hello.)

I found it charming. I mean I was really charmed. I had never lived anywhere that everyone who saw me acknowledged my existence and then gave a friendly “Hey!” and a wave. How could I not like it? And it didn’t take me long to join in. I found myself raising my hand and saying hey with the rest of them. I was really enjoying living in the South.

There were lessons every day and I enjoyed learning them. The most interesting came unexpectedly from a lovely little southern lady who was in her seventies. And it was all because I pronounced the word “pecan.” I said “pee can.”

I remarked how lovely the pecan trees in Mrs. Washington’s yard were and when this little “Steel Magnolia” heard me, she turned on her heel, put her hands on her trim little hips, looked me square in the face and said,

“My dear, Pee Cans are in the bathroom! The correct way to say it is pecans.” (it sounds like pecons)

I always say it like a southerner now, along with hey, cut it on, cut it off, the power bill (electric bill), and a whole lot of other pronunciations that are distinct to the southern region of the US.

Ya’ll should come visit to see what I mean and bring Me Maw, Pe Paw, Sissy, Bubba, and the younguns. I’ll carry ya’ll to visit this wonderful part of our country.

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We just harvested our pitiful crop of potatoes. Problem is we planted about as many as we grew. I know the math isn’t good but we haven’t had the rain we needed. Now when our family was growing up we managed to do a much better job. And fortunately everyone loved the spuds in our house, even the dogs!

One year our oldest son wanted a Golden Retriever for his birthday. I think it was the 12th one but I claim a senior moment and don’t really remember. We scoured the AJC (Atlanta Journal Constitution) classifieds and found a puppy that filled the bill. The dog was100 miles away but a kid only turns 12 (I think) once. So we headed off to get the birthday dog. He was sweet and cute and I still remember (no senior moment here) Jay sitting in the back of our station wagon (before mini-vans were invented) holding that dog with the biggest grin on his face. He was happy with his present!

He named him Sam. Good name for a puppy and great name to grow into. Sam was doing fine, learning the ropes of becoming a dog. And Jay was enjoying being a dog owner. And then we got the phone call that changed Sam’s life and ours.  Sam’s parents needed a home and we lived in the country so we agreed to take them. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We would have 2 adult Goldens that would eventually produce a litter of puppies. We’d make a little money and have lots of fun too. Great theory but the reality was a whole lot different.

Mom and Dad dog had never been out of a fence and we didn’t have a fence. So these dogs thought that until they hit the fence wall they were free to roam. Obviously this mentality gave them a very large area to roam in. Like the entire known world. We tried to use a chain to keep them confined but the old saying ‘How are you going to keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Pariee’ describes Mom and Dad dog perfectly. They weren’t giving up their freedom for anything. And no little, ole chain was going to stand in their way. And when mating time came around no little, ole chain was going to stand in their way.

So we soon had 12 Golden Retriever puppies, 2 adult maniac Golden Retriever dogs, and sweet, little, half-grown Sam. Our son AJ wanted to keep one of the puppies and we thought it was a great idea. He chose one that had white on his forehead because that white wasn’t a desired trait in show dogs. He named him Lion. The other 11 puppies were to be sold as soon as they were old enough. I learned ’soon’ didn’t eactly seem like soon when it came to puppies getting old enough to leave home.

We found ourselves chasing Mom and Dad dog all over the neighborhood. I guess one good thing was returning the items they picked up and brought home gave us a chance to visit with our neighbors. We eventually found homes for these poor, crazy animals before my family had to find a home for me (I mean mental institution).

That left 13 dogs still roaming around finding things to get into. I loved the puppies but they were a handful. I found myself getting up in middle of the night to feed the runt. I called him Rusty. He thought I was his mother and I guess I felt like I was. Fortunately the feeling passed quickly.

The pups were just the right age to roam when it was garden planting time. To keep an eye on them, I took them to the garden with us while we planted potatoes. They had a great time in the dirt, moving up and down the rows, tumbling over each other and getting a taste for potatoes too. The little critters would nibble on the potatoes in the row before they were covered up. We thought it was great fun to watch them help with the planting. I just never realized they were developing a taste for the spuds. But they did.

One by one the little darlings found their way to new homes to have new adventures. Rusty was the hardest to see go but we gave him to an older man who needed a great dog for companionship. Like Sam did, Rusty filled the bill.

Meanwhile as the potato plants grew and produced potatoes, Sam and Lion would stroll to the garden and dig one or two up whenever they wanted a snack. Several of the other pup’s owners told us how their dogs would dig potatoes in their garden.

Good thing we have a poodle now who doesn’t care a thing about potatoes (’cause she’s French not Irish, I guess). Frankly, the harvest this year just isn’t large enough to share with a dog.

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The other morning my little granddaughter became acquainted with a box turtle. It was passing by and decided to stop on her patio and visit. Seeing a photo of it brought back memories of our youngest son and his turtles.

AJ was 6 years old when we arrived in Georgia. We bought an old fixer-upper (it may be compulsive or a form of self-torture). At any rate it was an old farm house and we managed to get 5.5 acres with it. It was about 3 miles from a small town in the North Georgia mountains. A great place to raise children with lots of space for them to roam.

We had cats, dogs and horses for a very brief time. And in no time at all our youngest child had an assortment of turtles.  He started out with one that he found somewhere in the yard. It was little and cute and fit nicely in a shoe box. He named it Jack. Jack stayed in that confined space for awhile and then he found another little turtle. That gave him the idea to create a space for both turtles outside in a more natural setting. He worked hard at getting a nice place for them to live in. It was under the old apple tree in the back yard with enough grass, dirt, and roots for his turtle buddies to hang out in. The problem was confining the little creatures. It wasn’t like they were looking for a place to rent. He’d put them in his turtle resort and the next day chances are one or both would be gone. Fortunately it’s true that turtles don’t travel very fast so he would round up his guests and start all over again. As you can imagine this became a frustrating way to have pet turtles. But he still enjoyed them and lots of little turtles came by to visit. One day he came up with what I think was a brilliant idea.

He decided that every turtle that came to visit he would name ‘Jack’.  And he wouldn’t try to confine them. He figured out you really couldn’t do that if you wanted them to live naturally. The first year we lived in that house the majority of the turtles seemed to be all very small box turtles. I don’t know if those turtles simply grew up or future little ones found another path but it was mostly bigger ones that came by to visit as the years passed.

Since each turtle that found it’s way to our place was given the same name, our son wanted a way to keep track of them. To help, his dad gave him a material that is used to mark metal in fabrication. AJ would number each Jack that passed through. Number one came by when he was just over 6 years old. There were well over 20 Jacks proudly carrying a number on their shells by the time AJ found other interests. Because he had marked them he realized that some of the same turtles come to visit him several times.

Every time I see one I wonder if it has a number on it and thanks to AJ I’ve come to call any box turtle Jack.

And now our granddaughter is entertaining her own turtle visitor. Who knows maybe this is just the beginning of a long friendship with the little critters.

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I was watching a TV show on my computer the other day and I actually paid attention to the commercial (embedding is disabled, hence the link). At first I was amused by it, then I was amazed, and then I was downright mad about it. It was a commercial from the US government encouraging children to get physically fit. The buzz phrase was ‘go outside for an hour a day to play’.

As I was a child, when I wasn’t working the rock pile or helping around the house, I was playing. I was too busy playing to see a television commercial to tell me to play.

In the summer, the neighbor kids, my brothers and I played horseshoes. The shoes were actually from some horse that had been re-shod. When the horse was done with them they gave them to the children to play with. Re-cycling at work again.

It was easy to set up for a game of horseshoes. We’d drive 2 pieces of pipe in the ground about 15 feet apart and we were ready. We’d decide beforehand how many points you got for a ringer, how many for a shoe that leaned on the stake, and how many for a shoe that was close enough to the stake that it could be measured with the opening of the shoe. We learned all of the ways to garner a point by watching the adults play. The goal of course was to ring the stake (pipe) with the shoe. Believe it or not, it takes some skill to make this happen. The shoe is heavy, the opening on it is small, and 15 feet can be pretty far away for a child. Sometimes the less even tempered among us could be downright dangerous during a game. One kid in particular had a hard time losing and sometimes he’d fling the shoes at his opponent instead of the stake. I’m sure this wouldn’t be allowed in government encouraged playtime. And truth is sometimes our horse shoe games lasted way more than an hour. I guess we were really physically fit.

When our own children were growing up they never needed a TV commercial to encourage them to play either. It was amazing but they seemed to take to it as naturally as I did. Maybe playing is a gene thing and my kids got it from me. They played baseball, hide n seek, put on plays in their playhouse, flew kites, and a few dozen other activities that I consider play. And they still managed to work around the house like I believe growing children should. Another generation of kids who were physically fit. And they didn’t even have a television to watch commercials on!

And now the next generation is taking up the idea of play (and work). Our granddaughter is always running, dancing, jumping, singing. She loves to play in water or sand. She thinks walking to visit her grandparents is a great way to get here. The kid just knows how to play and exercise naturally.

Knowing how to play just has to be inherited. I’m darn near convinced that if you don’t have the play gene to get physically fit you better watch TV to see how it’s accomplished. I’m so glad it came naturally to me and mine.

I know I have made fun about the physical fitness of the children of our nation but it is a serious problem as can be seen by the statistics below:

• Since 1980, the number of overweight children has doubled
• 1/3 of young people in grades 9-12 don’t regularly engage in vigorous physical activity.
• Out of overweight 5 to 10-year-olds, 61% have one risk factor for heart disease, and 26% have two or more risk factors.
• Hospital costs related to treating overweight and obese children and adolescents more than tripled from $35 million during 1979-1981 to $127 million during 1997-1999.  (http://www.adcouncil.org/default.aspx?id=389)

As my dear old dad said at nearly every evening meal, “You’ll never get fat if you go away from the table a little bit hungry.” Following this advice, along with lots of work and play has worked for my family fit for 3 generations!

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My father grew up on a farm and for some reason disliked a lot of things that are part of farming. One of those things was a garden that grew vegetables. This meant I did not grow up with a vegetable garden in the yard. The funny thing is that 3 out of dad’s 4 children as adults have all become gardeners.

I was 18 years old and wanted to try my hand at growing something to eat. Anything would do. I went to my uncle who was a big time (in my mind) vegetable grower. I asked him for help and he agreed. Knowing what I know now, I realize he did not expend much thought or effort but I was so excited and grateful. He came to our house with his rototiller and prepared a little patch of earth for me to plant. At his suggestion I planted onions!

My growing onions gave me a wonderful sense  of accomplishment. I checked their growth every day and could not wait till I could put one in my mouth. I know it was only onions but for a girl who wanted to grow something I was completely delighted. I also learned that sharing your produce was nearly as rewarding as growing it.

The first place my husband and I lived had about 12 acres. With this much space I eagerly awaited spring so  I could have my first honest to goodness garden. I purchased seeds in the late winter, carefully planning what we would plant. What I didn’t realize was I had married a man who did not share my enthusiasm for gardening. So spring and summer passed and the seeds remained in their packets. I thought, O well! I did plant onions once.

Little did I know that my gardening fortunes were about to change. It was probably the economics of it, after all you can save a lot of money if you produce your own food. At any rate, after waiting nearly 5 years my husband decided a garden was a really good idea. I have never done a cartwheel but I wanted to! We were going to grow stuff we could eat. My husband comes from a long line of farming and gardening folk. His paternal grandfather had a truck farm, his maternal grandfather a dairy farm. His father had a degree in Horticultural and loved to garden (both food and flowers). So I guess it was inevitable that my man would wake up one day and say, “Let’s plant a garden.” And I thank God he did!

Our first garden was not big but quite adequate. We decided on the usual things- tomatoes, lettuce, onions, peppers, beans, and corn. A trip to the feed and seed store was exciting. So many varieties to choose from and I knew so little! What I never knew was the knowledge that this man I married had on the subject. It was amazing and comforting to know that only one half of the garden team was a greenhorn. He walked up and down the aisles like a pro. He picked out bush beans, not pole. He wanted a butter and sugar corn.  He didn’t forget the fertilizer either and he knew what kind to get. O Yeah, this guy was a gardener after all!

Next came the soil preparation. We borrowed a rototiller and worked the ground. Back and forth, tearing up the grass and weeds and softening the earth to lay our seeds in. It was hard work because it was a new garden spot.  We had to rake out the clods of grass, rocks, and roots. Once it was clear of these things we smoothed it all over. Our next big decision was what went where. Again this guy I married happily surprised me. I was just going to take the hoe and carve out a line in the soil but he showed me the way real gardeners accomplish this task. We took string and tied it between two stakes. Then we positioned the stakes where we wanted the row to be. We pulled the string tight and that created a nice straight line to follow. I was impressed.

We dropped our seeds in, spaced according to package directions. Next we put fertilizer right down the side of the rows after the seeds were covered with soil. We were busy as can be.

Meanwhile our children were right beside us. Not only were they helping, they were learning how to garden. That is how my husband learned so much. He was with his own father from the time he was a child and now he was the father.

Our children thought it was a great adventure. They understood clearly that we were going to get the things we wanted to eat from planting the seeds of those things. To make it more special we set aside a little space for our daughter and son to plant their own seeds. They were allowed to choose what seeds they wanted to put in their little patch. Our daughter wanted to plant beans. We found the bean seeds and she carefully placed them in the ground, gently covering them with dirt. She was the oldest and had already put some of the seeds in for our garden.

Meanwhile, our son was busy going through all the seed packages trying to find the one he wanted. He was not able to read but he was looking at all the pictures.  When we asked him what he was going to plant he looked at us with exasperation asking, “Where are the hamburger seeds?” I think he understood the concept of having a garden to feed your family better than we did.

He never did find hamburger seeds.

Since that first little garden we have had many more. And my husband has worked very hard in every one of them. All of our children have gardens of their own. Our granddaughter (age 2) helped her mom and dad plant theirs this year. And so it goes.

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Early this morning my husband and daughter went out behind our house to go blackberry picking. One of the blackberries favorite places to grow is along the perimeter of a field. You can pretty much always find some nice picking if you look in a place like this. They were gone about 2 hours and came home with 4 gallons. Considering that’s enough for 12 blackberry pies it’s not a bad return for the time and effort spent.

I grew up picking berries in the summer. First there were the wild strawberries. We picked them in the field beside the small airport that was up the road from our house. There were always enough for 3 or 4 strawberry shortcakes. When they would quit bearing we would move to the huckleberries.

Huckleberries are the wild cousin of the domesticated blueberry. Most of the time they are smaller and     black. The taste is pretty much the same but they grow on bushes that are low to the ground. (perfectly suited for children to pick) We would pick our huckleberries at a place we called “The Cuts” it was an old strip mining area not too far from our house. It had hundreds of bushes and my brother and I and other neighborhood kids would pick gallons of these berries. My mom would make up pies in aluminum pie pans and freeze them. Then all through the fall and winter we would have huckleberry pies. It was a great feeling knowing there were pies waiting to be baked. When these berries played out we moved on to blackberry picking.

Blackberries were picked at a place called “The Pits.” It was a very large area with a huge, deep hole in the middle of it. A factory used the place to dump garbage in when I was a kid. I don’t know what the original purpose was. It had tons of blackberry bushes. The berries were usually big and juicy. We would pick gallon after gallon of blackberries. My mom would repeat the pie process with these berries but she would also make jam. I still love blackberry jam but with less seeds than my mom made. The last berry to ripen was the elderberry.

Elderberries grow on small trees or large bushes. You can find elderberry bushes just about anywhere. They have a very sour taste on their own. (No problem getting all you picked home with these berries.) My mother used the elderberry exclusively for jelly. They are easy to make juice from and the jelly has a wonderful taste.

All of these berries have a limited time to be picked before they dried up or critters would eat them. That meant when the berry picking season began you could not procrastinate. I guess as kids we felt like it was our responsibility to get the berries while we could. And it felt good to know we had contributed to the food supply. Especially the one that answered the sweet tooth cravings.

Berry picking continued to be a big part of our children’s lives as well. While my husband was at work, I and our children would often go blackberry picking. Because my husband loves to use jelly on hotdogs, hamburgers, and other sandwiches, this meant using every available berry around for making jelly. One year we managed to pick enough berries of various kinds to make 100 jars of jelly. Now that’s some serious berry picking!

No matter where we have lived we have managed to find berries to pick, and with those berries make wonderful desserts, jellies, or pies.

Berry picking is not only how it used to be but how it still is.

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