In Southside Va. for the most part we flue cured tobacco, which is heat curing without exposing it to smoke, slowly raising the temperature over the course of the curing which usually takes about a week. This produces cigarette quality tobacco that is high in sugar and has medium to high levels of nicotene. 95 to 100 degrees would yellow it, this is gradually increased to 165 to 170 degrees over the remainder of the week to dry the leaves and stems out and produce the rich yellow and orange coloring. We usually got five to seven barns during a harvest season taking a week to cure. Curing tobacco was an art form, my Grandaddy Gholson, my Mamma's Daddy as well as Grandaddy Reese were both gifted at it. Grandaddy Gholson ran a little one room store at Barnes Junction during the Spring, Summer, and Winter. The Fall he spent in Canada curing tobacco, leaving his second wife Annie there to tend the store alone, for months. Grandaddy Reese practically lived at the tobacco barn once pulling and curing started. You went to the house for meals, but slept at the Tobacco Barn in homemade hammocks. We often took tater cakes, (fried potato pancakes) hoe cakes (fried cornbread pancakes) and whole tomatoes in an old Fruitcake tin back with us, to snack on, as well as an iced Mason Jar of water. We usually burnt a fire to keep the 'skeeters' at bay and I was especially glad to have it on really dark nights. The nightime "orchestra" of insects was something else. Tree frogs, Cicada's ( "bacca flies" as we called em) Crickets, Whip-or Will (which I loved to mouth call almost as much as Bob White). I think those sounds must ingrain in your subconscious, because often when I am in a big city hotel and can't sleep. I turn all the lights off, turn off the window unit (air or heat) and lay there in darkness and silence....and without fail....the barn comes to me... and I can again hear and identify em all... an I will drift right off...

Cafeteria Ladies

I don't know how you feel, but I think we were blessed as kids to have some of the best Cafeteria Ladies in all of the Public School system. When I walked through that serving line the first time, in the first grade... I thought I had most truly died and gone to Heaven. A quarter in my family, especially a quarter a day...was a lot of money, and I didn't always have a quarter for lunch. I always came to School with something to eat when I didn't have one...maybe a biscuit with some Damson preserves, or a slice or two of Fatback, sometimes a tomato and some salt in a napkin...but something. Someone in mid year First grade or early Second grade, I can't remember, managed to get me a job in the Cafeteria at lunch, and this enabled me to be able to eat every day. I don't even remember what all I did, I remember cleaning tables after lunch, sweeping and mopping and carrying out trash...little else. What I do remember was the way the ladies treated me. They always made me feel like I was something special...having that job throughout most of Elementary school was one of my fondest memories. We always ate last, and we got ALL we could eat and then some. There were always extra rolls and they were like the famous Lays Potato Chip commercial. "Nobody can eat just one" Seems like to me they would let you choose how many you got...but no one could get over four. I think the ladies sneaked me five or six every day before I even went through the lunch line. They were protective of you too...someone made fun of me mopping the kitchen floor. "Do that again and I'll pick up the phone and call your Mamma" came a quick reply form one from one of the ladies, and not only did I never hear another snicker there, I heard much less of them on the playground. I ate my first Pizza, Sloppy Joe, Pimento Cheese, Lazagna....even Fudge Striped Vanilla ice cream there. I remember going home and sitting around the table at Supper and feeling guilty about what all I had to eat that day at school. When asked what lunch was, I always said "I don't remember, couldnt been much to it I don't reckon" But my First grade classroom (Mrs. Ellington) was just down from the cafeteria and when the smells started wafting into the classroom when we had the door open...my morning was over...you could have asked me my name and I wouldn't have known it...I was like Homer Simpson thinking about a doughnut....hmmmmmmm
   

Family Reunions

Family Reunions...what a mixed blessing. I loved going to em for the most part...mostly cause I liked to eat if the truth be known. I kinda liked the "hello's" and seeing how much the other kids had growed and listening to Grandma or Daddy sayin "Jimmy passed his grade agin this year, all A's,B's and C's too, I think! Seemed like there was a "D' in there....usually in English, but if they was willin to forgit so was I. Everybody brought a covered dish, so you got to eat food you otherwise might not have been exposed to, and in some cases make fun of it later! "Did ya'll try that Chocolate Pie Ethyl brought, I didn't taste much chocolate in it, did you? She musta just drug a chunk of chocolate over it and saved it for another pie! Landsakes, I thought it was a waste of good piecrust." "Them Pork Chops Lila brought musta come from a hog that died of natural causes....I've eaten leather shoelaces that was mo tender and had a betta flava!" Everybody was encouraged to bring "Pepsi Cola" but two liter bottles weren't around then, and a 12 oz. bottled drink cost a nickel....plus you needed ice to cool it....so everybody brought Kool Aid or Flavor Aid for the most part. Potato Salad, Deviled Eggs, and boiled Hot Dogs were standard fare but sometimes there was BBQ chicken, Fried Chicken, and Hamburgers. Sometimes a little Deer meat but usually not much in the way of game. They quite often took light bread and mixed it in with the hamburger to make it go farther. "you cain't tell no difference" they would say....but they was wrong! Pasta Salad won't around then and I don't think carrots had been invented yet. There were snap beans, butter beans, sliced tomatoes, fried and creamed corm, mashed potatoes, boiled red potatoes, fried and pickled okra, all fresh garden vegetables! Plates of "tater cakes", baked sweet taters, pork sausage, and fatback. We had a "pecking order" did you? The men ate first, then the kids, then the women....I never really knew why. I always thought the kids should eat first myself! The men got all the good stuff, and the kids made a mess, so the lady's who made the meal had better have eaten before they came....if not they had slim pickins. Desserts was where I headed first, usually straight for the Chocolate Pie, Lemon Chess Pie, and Sweet Tater Pie. Not having eaten any of the 'real food", I was normally scolded and threatned with a "whuppin" for traipsing by with three slices of pie, a slice of cake and fudge if there was any...dangerously hugging a paper plate thin as any napkin. "Boy other folks got to eat, I ought to stripe them legs." I didn't care, "stripe em" I thought,.....I'll be eating pie while you do it!
   

Popeye was right....

Early on in my career, I had a Division President take me into his office and tell me he thought I had a bright future with the company we were employed by, which was a food wholesaler and at the time the largest in the US and second largest in the world. I needed to be "willing to change" he said. "Of course", I immediately replied. In my mind I viewed his comment "willing to change" as possibly changing the way I approached problem solving, the way I prioritized my thinking concerning objectives, or maybe he meant willing to change location. "You need to spend time with a speech coach" he said. "I know you are intelligent, you have proven that with your steady progression through the ranks, and your work ethic is excellent" "However if I send you to the Midwest or the North to do projects for me that would undoubtedly include public speaking to large groups in the Distribution Centers, Boards of Directors of Retailers,....well...with the accent you now have...I don't know any other way to say this so I will just say it...they will look upon you as ignorant. Your accent makes you sound less than intelligent, at best." You don't have to give me an answer today", he said. I had a two hour drive home and all the way there I thought about what he had said pretty hard. I saw the opportunity in front of me and I realized the consequences of saying "No". You don't get promotions to corporate positions without a "sponsor" and this man was telling me he would be my "sponsor" At a small store near my house, I stopped to buy a beer, and when I put it on the counter I said "gimme five on regla too, ain't got enough gas to make it to the hoese" "Man you from Virginia" ain't you, the clerk quickly replied. "Yep, South Hill, I said smiling. "Sophia?" he asked. I suddenly realized I said "Southill" together as one word and I said it  so fast it did indeed sound like "Sophia" I also realized I said "dere" (there), "oat" (out) "doeg" (dog) "hoese" (house) and I could understand for the most part now what my boss was saying. I went home and "slept on it" and decided the next day that I was very proud of my "ignorance" I was who I wanted to be. I liked the fact that a man who had never seen me could hear me talk and know I was from Virginia. I told my boss the next day "I preciate what you offerin me but like Popeye says, "I am what I am and thats all what I am." "Reese", he said, I respect you for that, I don't think I could make that decision that easily, it's going to cost you dearly career wise". One of my co-workers got the job and it would take me close to ten years hard work and changing jobs to another grocery wholesaler before I was given a similar position. But...no longer than last week I was in Minneapolis, Minnesota when a man I was talking to said "you and Kevin are from the same place, you have to be, you both talk alike". Turns out he was right, Kevin was from Norfolk, Va. and works for MDV (one of our military divisions, we are the largest supplier of food to the military worldwide) I realized finally that I did the right thing years ago...now I'm going to take my doeg Oreo oat for a walk...he's tired of being cooped up in the hoese all day"

Messin with the Kings English

I got an email letting me know about all my misspelled words and punctuation errors. The misspelled words are on purpose, I try to write the same way I "talked" as a kid....now as to the punctuation errors...naw, thems just bad English on my part. Every year I do the R.T. Arnold Holiday Bazaar Show in South Hill, Va. and I sell my homemade jewelry. I usually ask just five bucks for a pendant in a gift box.....but I enjoy the show and I make some folks happy. I feel like I'm "giving back" to the community. Not every person could afford to wear jewelry in my neck of the woods growing up, and I been trying to change that over the years. One of my favorite things about the show is the chance to get a bowl of "Brunswick Stew" Brunswick Stew is a big part of Southside, Va culture. We have in my opinion, the best Stew Masters on the face of God's green Earth! My Uncle Page used to cook Brunswick Stew from time to time, his was heavy with game, Deer, Rabbit, Squirrel, as well as Chicken....rarely much, if any Beef. He used the standard old Cast Iron Stew Pot you see in so many yards now holding flowers. They are beautiful....but them pots need to be put to better use! I hope the tradition survives the next generations to come. Uncle Page would start before Dawn and the whole family would come and bring a covered dish and enjoy quite a day. Just the smell from the hickory fire, the sight of the stew bubbling in the pot, the laughter from the men as they "passed the bottle, or Mason Jar" around....was added excitement. Uncle Page used an old hand carved boat paddle to dip in at an angle and remove bones as the meat slowly cooked down and garden vegetables were added towards the end. We always got a "quart" or two to take home and usually made "Cream" (Ice Cream) Aunt Juanita made fudge using Hersheys Cocoa....I never figured out how....but I did figure out where she hid it...ONCE....you guessed it..."whuppin" not from her, from Daddy...I was a "whuppin" magnet...but I earned em, every one! In fact looking back...I can honestly say I most certainly deserved em all...but I shore had fun causin em! Good thing he never knowed about my English!
   

Did you ever eat Mustard sandwiches? I would often get home from school still hungry, we never had "leftovers" most of the time there was barely enough "overs" much less anything to be left. Hunger makes you creative! Grandma would let me fix a Mustard sandwich, French's mustard spread so thin you could barely tell the bread was yellow....on "light bread", our name for store bought bread. Anything over just a thin film was "wastin mustard" so I always put a little salt and peppa on it to spice it up!. Sometimes as if by miracle a piece of Fatback had made itself through both breakfast and lunch....but usually with a reason... most times it was a piece with a rind so thick and tough you would just get tired of chewing it and toss it to the dog. I swear I think I remember even Bob the bird dog giving up on a few of them and just leaving them in the grass in disgust. "Mater" (Tomato) sandwiches slathered with Dukes Mayonnaise were the best. Grandma peeled her tomatoes, seasoned them with vinegar, salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar. Lay them boys (tomato slices) on "light" bread with Dukes, a couple pieces of "skint" (cut the rind off) Fatback or Middlin (Streak of Lean) and a big slab of aged sharp "Rat Cheese" (Hoop Cheese) and "Haaaaw" (sorry, couldn't contain my excitement, even today) you had somethin fittin! I ate them until Grandma would finally say "that's enough, other folks got to eat too" and take the bread away from me. Usually then I would sneak the salt shaker out and go to the garden and just eat them off the vine. I ate twenty three hours a day, and didn't weigh forty nine lbs. when I was twelve years old. As Grandma told me, I just "run it off." Today, I ride the bike ten miles, drink a twelve oz. soda and somehow gain four lbs. Just don't seem right.....
   

Red Wasps, they built nests under the eaves in the Barn, the Strip Room, the Pack House....and they were relentless. If you even eyeballed the nest they would attack you...and outside a Japanese Hornet nothing I had been stung by hurt as much. White Faced Hornets packed a wallop, as did one Bumblebee, one type didn't sting, but one did. I always got the two mixed up, and catching them with my hands cupped and then lettin em fly was high entertainment when you added in the "don't remember which one stings" factor. I had a baccer stick (tobacco stick) that we used to string tobacco on and then hoist on the rafters in the two old log barns. Our "baccer sticks"were older than dirt itself, one of my Great Grandfathers, Great Grandfathers or something along that line had hand split them, and they were shock full of splinters. When I wasn't nursing bee stings by putting chewed tobacco on them I was cuttin splinters out of my hands with a rusty "Old Timer" pocket knife that had been taken away from me a hundred times and I had "found" again a hundred times. I evidently had a built in antibody for "lockjaw" (tetanus). Baccer sticks were good used as "horses', just put it between your legs, hold on to the end in front and "run" letting it buck and jump under you like a pretend horse. There were dangers in this but we won't go there. I had seen the nest early that morning hanging on the Pack House and it was big as a mans hand and loaded with Red Wasps. The baccer stick could reach it if I stretched, I would knock it down and do a big service for the family, and then I could fish with the undeveloped wasps in the nest. Bream loved em! I walked up slow and nonchalantly, didn't eyeball the nest but just as I was almost within swinging distance I felt what must have been a six inch stinger enter the back of my neck. Undeterred I slowly made the next two steps, looked up and hit a home run, right across the nest, it fell, I felt the stick break, I had misjudged the distance and a big splinter pierced my palm just as the wind brought the bulk of the Red Wasps into my hair and chest. I had got their home and they made me pay. They ate me alive, I dropped the broken stick, mussed my hands through my hair only to get stung on the head and hands and swiped em off my chest. Running like a mad man I stopped at the Strip Room to catch my breath. I was on fire, Red Wasps were all over the broken baccer stick, I could see em. I could also see the Sweet Gum tree that I knew I would be coming back too very shortly to "pick' a switch off of. I had broken a baccer stick and gotten stung doing what I won't sposed to...a whupping was coming, won't no doubt...I could tell growing up was gonna be a test for me....

I lay on my back in the cool green grass of the Mule pasture, chewing on a piece of broom straw and looking at the blue sky, dotted with powder puffs of snow white clouds. I had too much on my mind, too many decisions, choices that were much tougher than I could handle. Should I go behind the mule shed and dig some "red wigglers" and grab the Cane Pole and head on up to Gails Pond? The thought of my red and white plastic bobber suddenly disappearing in a loud "pfloosh", my line zinging across the water as a fat Bluegill tried to head for the safety of a deep hole was a hard call to resist. But then I had dammed the branch the day before and the hole I had stopped up was almost waist deep. Uncle Bo had told me to make sure the water never stopped flowing because animals downstream depended on it to drink, so waist high was all I could get. But skinny dipping in waist high cool water on a day like this was tempting....but then there was the Water Moccasin...I had seen him only once but somehow once was enough. I had a nickel, I could go up to Bad Eye's Store and get some BB's...I had finally gotten use of the old Red Ryder BB gun that had belonged to most everyone in the family. You could shoot a BB from it and watch it all the way till it dropped. It was pretty much "played out" but I had shot some old beer bottles the week before, then stepped barefooted on the glass and cut my foot. I wasn't sure if the "whuppin' was for the broken glass or the cut foot. I told you I had hard decisions. As I grabbed the pitch fork to go dig worms, I remembered there was leftover biscuits, fatback and a big chunk of rat cheese from breakfast. I could run it all through my mind again I figured...over a biscuit....
   

When I look back in time, especially viewed from the hectic lifestyles that we lead today, I think I am most amazed by how we used to just "drop by" someone's house. We had no phone nor did anyone else....except maybe Aunt Rachel but I'm not sure even about her. On Saturday or Sunday we would sometimes sit on the porch and just decide to "go see Uncle Page and Aunt Juanita, Or Aunt Rachel and Uncle Bob. I guess who we hadn't seen in a while made the decision for us. The fact that you were "dropping in" with no warning.....and the time of day didn't matter either. If they came to Grandma's house or if we went to their house at Dinner time or Supper time they welcomed you with a smile, and said "ya'll talk a little while so I can throw a little more on the stove." I can't imagine "dropping in" on anyone today...especially at mealtime. Food, like crops was always better at someone else's house as well. Cept for biscuits...Grandma made a biscuit....everyone else just tried to make a biscuit. Aunt Juanita made the best wild game...Raccoon, Rabbit, Squirrel, Deer...she made it "fittin" to eat and game is hard to cook....but she was a master. Aunt Rachel made the best Potato Salad, Lemon Chess Pie, and Chocolate Chess Pie. Aunt Sis made the best Deviled Eggs, Potato Soup and Sweet Potato Pie. Grandma, she made the best Raggedy Coconut Pie (I named it that because she grated her own coconut and used the milk in the pie as well.....and the strands of coconut were long and raggedy) But truth be told....her biscuits were a dessert in themselves, everyone else just tried to make a biscuit...."Bless their heart"....

"Homemade Cream, (Ice Cream)  was a treat so special it's hard to put into words....I had heard the grown ups talking bout Strawberry, and Peach and Pineapple....but all I ever remember was Vanilla. Then again if any of the others was better than Vanilla it's likely best I never had em...I probably couldn't have withstood the excitement anyway...Vanilla alone could set me to shaking. The churn was old....I think it most likely came over with the Mayflower, or possibly was here when the ship landed. The wood was stained dark from rock salt, spilled milk, grease for the handle and gears, fingerprints, sitting out in the Pack House year round....you name it. The handle on the crank was slick from use and the stainless steel drum for the mixture was dented and dinged, the gears oily and rusted but she still turned and she still worked her magic. We would sit around like it was a campfire....staring in awe at all that it was....while taking turns with the crank, dropping in ice and rock salt as needed, and waiting....Waiting,...best I can remember it took around 17 hours of continuous cranking, if not it sure seemed like it. We tried to turn it at rpm's that would make a race car proud, but the old folks would make us slow down.."makes better cream when you turn it slow" they would say. "Yeah, but we will die of old age waiting to git some" we would chide back. After what seemed a lifetime, someone would "decide" it was ready. The line that formed to get some was random, but I was nearly grown before I finally figured out being the last to crank also meant being last in line. I would stand there, bowl in hand....hanging by my side in despair, absolutely in misery...just knowing it would run out before I got any. Somehow though magically there was always enough and usually enough for seconds. It was never hard like store bought cream....always a little slushy but it gave you "brain freeze" still....and it was so good...there it goes....the shakes....what did I tell you!

In this photo, (May 1969) left to right are me, Uncle Bob, and his son Bubba Hawthorne. The impressive stringer of Bream, Bluegill, and Sunfish we are holding came from a farm pond near Kenbridge. Uncle Bob has since passed away but I am sworn to secrecy to this day. All I can tell you is we did have permission to fish it, and you had to go through two gates in two cow pastures to get to it.....and the thing was loaded for bear! It had Bass, Crappie, and Bream. We caught these during bedding season using another "secret' Uncle Bob taught me. Bream usually will not bite when they are bedding EXCEPT for this one situation. Did your family fish? Did they have favorite ' fishing holes"? We had Gails Pond just above the house, Roy Perginsons Ponds, the Meherrin River at Elderberry Rock, The Nottaway River off #1 and of course "The Dam" or "Buggs Island" "Gordon s Lake"...The Dam could refer to any one of many places, Palmer s Point, Custawilla, Robins Creek, Ebeneezer Creek. I liked "The Dam" because you could catch anything...you just never knew what was moving your cork...Bream, Crappie, Gar fish, Striped Bass, Catfish. It could be anything and any size! Grandma never fished that I remember and she always cooked Navy Beans and "Tater Cakes" (potato pancakes fried in the cast iron pan.....made from leftover mashed potatoes) just in case we got "skunked." That way we were either safe on Supper or they could be saved in the "fridgerator", (refrigerator) for the next days meal...I will give you one good secret though...make about a quarter inch deep slit along the fins on each side of the backbone before battering and frying. When the fish cooks the meat will "curl" along this slit...a gentle pull on the "curl" and the meat will come off in one piece....leaving the pesky bones there. When you are done it will look like a fish skeleton in a cartoon..... 
   

There probably ain't many people that know where this place is, we gonna talk about it a little more one of these days....was it just me or did you like dirt roads too? Since I lived in the country, all roads were "Country Roads" for the most part, either "Black Top," "Tar," or "Gravel" roads as we called em....but it was the plain Southside Virginia red dirt roads that the whole family catered to I think. Anything other than a dirt road was referred to as "out on the main road.' Kinda spoken in a tone that suggested you "couldn't trust" main roads. Dirt roads you could drive on at any speed, heck most of the time you were the only one on the road anyway, and any side road or logging trail had to be explored....drive it till you can't go no more (ruts or mudholes) and then finish it by foot if need be. You had to see "where it went". Strange as it seems at almost sixty years young, I still find myself doing this and I am happy to tell you, "it ain't lost none of it's magic." Many a Sunday we spent riding around looking at other folks crops. Crops is like grass, everyone else's always look better than yours...why is that? You could pull over and stop to admire a field of "Bycca" (Tobacco) or "Cawn" (Corn). There was no such thing as "Deer" there was only "Deers"...."you can tell them Deers been in here eatin up the "Soldier Beans" (Soybeans). The River was full of fish that no one has ever heard of today, "Red Hoss", "Horney Head" "and Suckers" Red Hoss was a favorite fish for Uncle Bo even though he admitted they were too bony. He had his own secret "honey hole" where he caught them until one day he mistakenly gave out too much information. "It's right dere where de creek joins de river." Once you factored in that there were only two river crossings anywhere near the house and only one of them had a connecting creek.....the secret was no longer a secret. Know what though....even though we knew where they were....only he could catch them, even then. I think it was the "sweet doughballs" Grandma made for him and Grandaddy to fish with. Funny thing, that was another "secret"....what she put in the doughballs....I know they had vanilla flavoring but that's about all I know....

It's funny what can jog a memory. There were two deep, stump filled, Fish Ponds across the road from our house that belonged to Roy Perginson, they were full of Big Bass, Bream, and Snapping Turtles. So what did a Snapping Turtle remind me of, why Softball what else? Every Sunday for the longest time we played Softball. The whole family and extended family, all the way to second and third cousins would show up at Grandma's house. There was no method to choosing a team, everybody just played with the people that they liked for the most part. Funny thing is now looking back, the whole family participated. You either played or sat around in chairs or on the ground and cheered. Roy Perginson had a big field in front of our house, and when nothing was planted there we could use it to play softball in. We never drank tea, I just realized that for the first time, Coffee for Breakfast and Grandma and Uncle Bo sometimes drank it for Supper....Uncle Bo saucered it somehow magically spilling just enough over the rim into the saucer...both held in one hand...blowing it cool before noisily sipping it down. The rest of the time we just drank well water...and luckily we had some of the coldest and best I have ever tasted. We just had one Cow and all the milk went to cooking or making Butter, Grandma made butter with an old wooden churn and decorated the top of it with one of my old wooden spoons in her unique design. Sunday would find Quart Mason Jars of well water filled with ice, laying under the shade trees. There were no Dixie cups, you just took a sip and passed the jar on...and the next person turned the jar the imaginary quarter turn to a new place to drink. Younger kids played Hide and Seek, Red Rover, Checkers...jumped rope, or just chased Chickens, what is it about chasing a Chicken that made it so much fun anyway.....

I saw a Barn Swallow perched on the bridge rail today, it had been busy darting and diving for insects. Kinda got me thinking a little....Outside of the house I would guess we stayed at the Tobacco barns more than anywhere else. There were four big White Oak trees there, and the tobacco bench was built under them so we could hand leaves and tie tobacco in the shade during harvest. Grandaddy had a couple of hammocks made of Guana bags which is what we called fertilizer bags made out of burlap, hanging there. We sometimes slept there during the heat of summer just for the heck of it....and a lot during tobacco curing season to keep the wood fires going and keep the heat in the flues needed to cure tobacco. A big thermometer hung in the barn and watching it told you when you needed to add wood. We'd burn a tire sometimes in the Summer to keep the skeeters away. I learned to count and say my ABC's under those trees at night. Fall would find me picking up White Oak Acorns to feed the pigs....Grandaddy paid me a nickel a wagon load. I had an old hand me down Red Flyer Wagon and it had to be filled to the rim to get that nickel. Feeding the pigs acorns was not a good sign, it meant they were being fattened up.....and with colder weather approaching that was not good news.

I was raised to say "Yes Sir and Yes Mam" to anyone that was grown. Race or gender did not factor into it, it was "Yes Sir or Yes Mam" regardless. It was a lesson that "took" and I still do it today to anyone that is "grown" really.  I had to go out of town this week to Minneapolis, Minnesota for a work related training seminar. As I checked into my hotel the young man at the Front Desk asked "Last Name", "Reese" I said. "Jimmy" he replied. "Yes Sir" was my immediate reply. He eyed me a little suspiciously. "I need to print your invoice out" he said, "We are a little behind, it has been a busy day.". "No problem, take your time" I told him. "Take my time" he said. "Sure" I replied, "I got no where to go and plenty of time to git there." "Man, where you from" he laughed. "Brooklyn" I said. "Figured you'd pick up on my accent". He busted out laughing. "Brooklyn, North Carolina" I teased. "I thought you was from the South" he said. "I wish everyone was that laid back" he replied. Later at my training seminar in the hallway during the break a lady who was in my class came over, extended her hand and said, "I'm glad I got to meet one in person". "One what," I asked her. "A Southern Gentleman" she stated. "You opened the door for me earlier, My Mom was from the South and she had told me about the customs there, but I had never experienced it", I liked it actually". I had never really thought about it, but I guess I am a little "hokey" and you know what, I don't mind. It is where I am from, and what I am...somehow I think Grandma would approve... and that's good enough for me.....
   

My best friend was my Grandaddy, I spent all my time with him, I was his shadow. He taught me everything that ever mattered in life and all before I was 10 years old. When I wasn't underfoot with him, I remember playing with sewing thread spools made of wood that Grandma gave me, left over from her quilting. Stacking them up like Pyramids, making fence rows with them, twirling them on the end of tobacco twine. Corn cobs with three chicken feathers stuck in the end...curved side pointed toward center, with a small wood screw threaded in the other end that twirled back down like a Helicopter when you threw it skyward. I made fighter jets out of notebook paper, and if I was lucky on occasion got one of the Balsa Wood flyers that came with a rubber band attached to the propeller that cost you a dime at Ben Franklin. I often bought and continuously lost the Japanese Handcuffs as they were called at the time. A woven tube that only tightened when you stuck a finger from each hand in it and pulled outward. I could work a Yo Yo with the best of them, and 'Walk the Dog" do the "Sleeper," "Around the World," "Rock the Baby," "Skin the Cat." I had a diamond shaped "Spinning Top" with the pointed metal end, but our rooms were too small....I almost broke the screen out of the TV when it bounced once, and Grandaddy had told me if I used it inside again I would get "The Razor Strap." There were three methods of punishment, "a whupping" which usually meant an open palm on the backside or thigh, "a switch" which was a skint Sweet Gum Branch usually, except for just the tip that was used against bare legs and sometimes against the bare butt, but the worst by far was "The Razor Strap." It was exactly what it sounded like, a worn out razor strap off a Barber Chair that the Barber used to whet or sharpen his straight razor. It was a punishment made infamous by legend...my Daddy, and all my Uncles always warned me "you better hope he never whips you with that "Razor Strap". Looking back I can't honestly say if "The Razor Strap" was ever used. In my later years when I asked about it....the legend was relived....but no one could truly remember, having it used on them or even seeing it used. Just the threat of "The Razor Strap" would instantly bring a halt to anything! "Jimmy, you stop that now, or your Grandaddy will get "The Razor Strap" when he comes home". It froze me in my tracks, centered me back in reality and guided me to manhood.....maybe it was the threat, maybe it was because I respected and loved him so much....If only it were that simple today.....

This particular Sunset photo reminds me of a ground fire...and any fire always reminds me of how a little four foot eight inch, eighty five pound woman liked her food......hot! I don't know how I made it to adulthood  sometimes, I have never liked milk in any form other than cooked in recipe's. Grandma said as a baby I was always sick because all I would drink was water. I was drinking coffee for breakfast somewhere around age five because I remember drinking it before I started school. Grandma used Luzianne Coffee with Chickory because it cost less. Breakfast for me was always about two cups of coffee, and two to four of her homemade buttermilk biscuits with some mixture of fatback, home churned butter, black strap molasses, sausage and when in season a slice of home grown tomato. I got whipped more than once for eating all the ripe tomatoes right off of the vine. I would take a salt shaker with me and eating a tomato heated by the afternoon sun soaked with salt....man that gives me shivers now. I loved it! I just rubbed the sand from it, took a bite so the salt would stick and I was off....I was an absolute "materholic" When we killed hogs we would get the sausage seasoned "hot' and Grandma would hang it up in white cloth bags that probably held about two pounds and were about a foot or so long that she stitched together from old bed sheets. She cooked it well done almost to the point of burning it and man was it ever seasoned hot. She add just a "smidgen" as she called it of red Cayenne pepper at the end and the result was fireworks in your mouth...she liked it hot! It was at this time when we had "middlin meat' or streak of lean as most folks called it. Really nothing more than fatback with a little lean streak in it, much like today's bacon but smoked along with the sausage and hams in the smokehouse. She would go cut a big chunk off the slab of smoked pork belly and slice it about a quarter inch thick. If there was an uneven chunk left she used it along with some red pepper pods to season the nightly meal of Navy beans. Middlin meat sliced thick and fried in the cast iron pan on the wood stove...there ain't no taste like it. Add a slice of tomato, a big spoon of hand churned butter to that middlin meat on a hot, hand sized buttermilk biscuit and the Bus can wait out there in the dirt road! I'm finishing breakfast....
   

I put the picture of the Church on here because I know it will make her smile. She was devoutly religious but she was also private in her beliefs. She never tried to force them on anyone. "You need to read the word and make your own mind from it" she would tell me. She would tithe and I know the sacrifice she made by doing that but Church meant that much to her...I spent every waking minute at Grandma's house and ate every meal there. After Grandaddy died we would play checkers at night... but only after I had done my homework..or at least said I had done it. I always did some of it... so I wouldn't be lying when I asked her to play checkers and she asked "you finished your school work"...my reasoning being this ain't school work, it's homework so yes I did finish my school work. My homework I usually did on the bus ride in every morning anyway. The main reason being it usually kept me from being messed with. I got a few wise cracks at first, but they usually quit and moved on to someone else... and I had the best of both worlds. She was a master of checkers and I don't remember anyone ever beating her. You could talk about anything and everything while playing...it was fine with her.... because she only responded with "yep" or "naw" all the while jumping about a hundred and seven of your checkers at once it seemed. Heaven forbid once she got a King...she would jump so many backwards and forwards I couldn't keep track of em and would often ask her to replace the checkers and show me what she had done, which she could with ease....smiling broadly every time. I never knew....and never thought to ask why she was so relentless at checkers but she seemed to take a lot of pride in her prowess and to tell you the truth I got enjoyment from constantly being beaten like a drum...and whining about it. I think now looking back it was because of her smile...most every minute of every day was hard back breaking work for her and I liked making her smile. In fact making people smile is, and has always been my secret enjoyment in life. I spent most of my classroom time not listening to the lesson but trying to think of funny comments I could spin off of what the teacher had just said and make the class laugh. It was better at home though.....especially with her. Somehow her smile was so genuine, so sincere. I guess because the times were so tough, the days long and hard...maybe that was what made it special...but when she smiled it lit the room....and somehow it made my life all the better.
   

I will turn 60 this year...in those sixty years no one has ever come close to being the complete person that she was. She, like many of her generation were lucky if they even got any education at all beyond home schooling. She did get a little grade school...and yet she had an intelligence that far surpassed most all that I have ever known. She did not judge people, somehow she understood them.....and she forgave their weakness and indiscretions, and not only wished them well, if she could help any person in any way she never hesitated...and she never spoke of them in any terms beyond praise. "You cain't judge other folks" she always said.. .."because you don't know what they are dealing with or lived through." She was my Daddy's Mama, so technically she was my Grandma, yet realistically she was also the only Mother I ever knew. My birth Mother suffered through a lot in life, not many folks could have dealt with the hand she drew.....but she lived life, and did the best she could, while she could... She had nothing to be ashamed of. Grandma was always working, up at Dawn everyday cooking breakfast on the Wood Stove, washing clothes in a large galvanized wash bucket and scouring them clean on an old corrugated wash board that removed skin as much as it removed the red clay topsoil of Southside, Va. She ironed with a flat iron you put on the wood stove to get hot first, and pressed and folded everything...right on down to pillowcases and handkerchiefs. She worked the tobacco fields into her mid 80's handing leaves all day while traipsing back and forth from barn to house... to cook dinner for up to ten folks on a wood stove. She managed all this with no running water....all water came from the well. The wood stove had a reservoir on the side that helped warm water in addition to that she warmed in a cast iron kettle on top of the stove. Washing dinner dishes afterward one by one, in an old beaten up stainless steel wash pan, drying them and putting them up as she went along. When Barn day was over and we were all bone tired, she was shelling beans and getting ready to cook supper. Usually Navy Beans, my DNA is most likely mainly Navy Beans and Potato Soup. But.....if I were given a choice of a last meal....and anyone to eat it with...I would sit down with Grandma one last time and I would eat the best meal with the most wonderful person.... this heart can remember   Sarah Thompson Reese 1898-1994
   

Pepsi Cola was a nickel a bottle and you got one cent back if you returned the bottle. We scoured the red clay ditch banks along the dirt road for cast outs.. but you found very few and like as not when you did find one, they had hit a rock and dinged the rim and were worthless. We took em to the store anyway in the hopes that whoever was working would be too busy to look real good... but it didn't matter. This was small town living....even if one got by someone, the next time I went to the store, almost as if by magic whoever was working would bring out a bottle with a dinged rim and say "this was in with the bottles you brought yesterday Jimmy....give me a penny back or go find me another bottle. Karma...I had never heard of it.....most likely no one in Southeast Virginia had ever heard of it. Heck transistor radio's, and calculators hadn't even been invented yet, and we still used an abacus at school to learn mathematics on for goodness sakes. I was close to ten years old....which as I said earlier meant I was nine years and one month old...therefore ....close to ten! I didn't realize how lucky I had been, I hadn't experienced a death in the family yet, not even the death of a pet..but I knew I didn't like death from hog killins. When you feed them all summer and they come to you when you call or whistle at them....it's a cold, cruel thing to see them killed. I never liked killing of any kind really...I found that out early. Fishing was, and is one of my favorite sports...but even today I find myself hoping they are dead when I open the cooler. When I clean Blue Crabs I dump them in ice water to quickly do the deed...I don't have any anti-hunter convictions, if you enjoy it that's your right to do it...I can't truly say where that came from...my dislike to killin....I can truly say I used to be ashamed of it....but not anymore. This is a memory brought about by the picture above...the duck was nested right up near shore under a Cypress knee..I took a couple of photo's and then tried to stalk closer in for a better one, as I always do. It let me get far too close.. and never moved. A closer look revealed it was dead, I hope it died a peaceful, natural death at a ripe old age....the same thing we all wish for.
   

Springtime was always my favorite time of year...it was the perfect time to sleep with the windows up....there were holes in the window screens but the mosquitoes weren't bad yet and you got the best of both worlds. The wonderful orchestra of the nightime insects and the cool breeze and springtime scents of flowering plants. We lived in a two room, white weatherboard house, with a small porch and tin roof...without running water. This photo is my Grandmother Sarah Thompson Reese and my Daddy, William Reese Jr. He had no middle name.....so he added the Jr. to it. The rusted roof adorning the small building behind them was my house. We did have electricity but only a refrigerator and two incandescent lights dangling from cords hanging from the ceiling in each room were the only users. I remember Daddy saying if the monthly bill went over $6.00 again we were going back to kerosene lamps. We had a wood stove and a wood heater. I lived with Grandma during the day, ate all my meals with her and only stayed at our house at night. I remember Springtime thunderstorms being a real treat living behind just the thin uninsulated walls and tin roof. The house actually moved and shook and it was so scary.....especially if there was wind or hail with the storm that it was actually fun in a strange way. Life was day to day, hand to mouth, but oh the freedom I had to wander the woods, the branches, fishing them and the pond with a cane pole and worms....venturing down to the river where I was told never to go because of the obvious danger and the fact it was almost two miles behind the house through the woods and swampy bottom....but naturally where I always headed...

Maybe childhood is just destined to be a rapidly changing, mixed bag of emotions. At the time, I thought I was the only one who had trouble with school yard bullies, who feared the sight of the School Bus, and those awkward few seconds straining to recognize a friendly face signaling "it's OK to sit here with me." I tried to reason just what it was that caused them to focus on me. I had a big set of ears, I'll give em that one. It looked like I had been born just a set of ears and I somehow grew around them! Thank goodness Satellite Dishes hadn't been invented yet, they had enough good taunts as it was....but it wasn't ears and it wasn't just me. At first I thought it was because I was poor, maybe because my clothes while always clean and pressed were old and worn from generations of being handed down. It was only very late in life that I found out school yard bullies for the most part did not discriminate. Not until one of my earliest FB Friends and i actually exchanged a few messages did I realize...The same ones who made my life miserable made the lives of others miserable as well.....and it ran across all economic spectrum's. The poor, middle class, even the rich were not immune. We all it seems faced the same growing pains, alcohol and the abundant tribulations that come with it also influenced the lives of more people than anyone would care to admit. Nothing bad mind you, at least not at my house.....but I would sit at the window and wait sometimes....worried that maybe Daddy had been in a wreck because he was so late coming home. Very few people or places had phones back then so there was no way to know what was going on. Grandma always told me "He's just up at Claude Daniels drinking a beer, he'll be here shortly"....and she was always right on both accounts. I was always a little afraid around people who had been drinking, even family....they just didn't act the same...and it scared me. I told Grandma I would never drink....I had seen too much of what it did to folks....then I became a teenager and I did what teenagers do....few times in my life have I ever felt the shame I felt when Grandma said "I thought you said you would never drink"...

We had one old  mud chinked, log tobacco barn and one old faded, grey weatherboard sided tobacco barn. Both had large rusty piping or "flues" big around as a man....running from the stone firepit under the shed in the front throughout the barn. We used the firepits to cure tobacco with 'outsides." When the lumber mill cut the bark off of trees it usually contained about 3/4 of an inch of wood along with the bark. The outside of the tree....hence the name. A load of them delivered usually ran about $4.00 to $7.00 depending on whether it was Hardwood or Pine. You got what they had, no preference. I would look for small pieces that were mainly wood and little bark, that were easy to carve, usually Poplar. Some folks called em "Sawmill Slats." I had an Old Timer pocket knife so dull it wouldn't hardly cut hot butter and I used it to carve big wooden spoons and forks. Grandma still had one of them in her kitchen when she died. Nothing fancy but good for stirrin stews and soups. Mrs. Baisey must have bought ten or more from me over time.....at a dime apiece. She would buy it and just put it in a drawer with the others. She bought all my Blackberries and Dewberries, for 25 to 50 cents a quart. Blackberries brought the most money. I would pick berries all day....and scratch the next three weeks because I would be wrapped up with chiggers! She made Cobblers with em using biscuits she sweetened with sugar and homemade butter. She always made sure I got a taste...might be a small one but she always somehow managed to save me a taste....
   

The only thing electronic we owned was a Radio back then. Black and White TV's were out but we didn't have one. Every night we sat on the front porch and shared our day with each other while the house cooled. Grandma hand stitched quilt squares until daylight died. Grandaddy and Uncle Bo talked about how folks crops looked, the weather, the fact Bream would soon be "beddin" giving us a rare opportunity to eat fish...and the fact that ticks was everywhere. Grandaddy was the master of mouth calls, he could call Crow, Turkey and Bob White using just his lips and lungs.
Bob White was what we called em, Quail I guess, was their given name. Grandaddy taught me to call em up just using my mouth as a whistle......and I spent many a cool evening sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair doing just that.   What a feeling it was to see a Bob White pop out into the open....turning in circles often...looking for the other bird it had been "talking to" for so long... only to look up and see me sitting there. I would scratch Bob's head and rub his side...I have always had a special fondness for dogs, probably because we always had Bird dogs for long as I could remember. Then as now "dogs was family" I don't get upset at too much but mistreat a dog and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. Rattler was Granddaddy's dog and Bob belonged to Uncle Bo. Bob was a pointer of local legend, he would stop and raise his right front leg, his paw hanging at a ninety degree angle when he "found" birds at the command "Find em Bob, Find em." Although Uncle Bo would lend him to folks......he wouldn't hunt for everybody.......Bob didn't like mean people and like most dogs.... he was a good judge of character.