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by Betty Wilson Beamguard
There's nothing like spending a week with your grandparents when you're a child. I have fond memories of one summer in '59 when my sister and I were 10 and 12. We gladly sacrificed air conditioning and indoor plumbing to spend a week with our mother's parents near Chapel Hill, Tennessee, in a sagging house with a patched roof and mismatched furniture.We loved waking each morning to the crowing of a rooster and the smell of coffee and bacon. Scrambled eggs and clabbered-milk biscuits were standard, and those luscious biscuits were loaded with butter and Karo corn syrup.
After breakfast we headed outside to pull the rope on the dinner bell (lightly because a hard pull equaled calling 911) and work the screeching backyard pump handle to draw water. On the back porch sat a pan of water for hand washing and a bucket of drinking water with a dented aluminum dipper.
Our grandparents let us try our hand at milking. Although we never got the hang of it, I cherish the memory of sitting in a sweltering barn next to a cow while she stomped around in the dust and switched me with her manure-gunked tail.
One morning after chores we watched Granddaddy dig earthworms out of the manure pile next to the barn. With worms writhing in a rusty coffee can and cane poles sticking out the rear window of the car, we rode to a neighbor's pond where I caught one four-inch sunfish.
The next day, Mom E. made us slather bacon grease around our ankles, knees, waists, and the tops of our legs—the places chiggers love to settle, and we set off through waist-high weeds to pick blackberries. Mom E. didn't fuss if she caught us eating the berries since some of hers never made it to the pail. We returned to the house hot and itching, but our grandmother's tangy blackberry cobbler made it all worthwhile.
At night we listened to country music on the radio while we played Authors and Old Maid or cut up Spiegel catalogues. My sister and I slept on a featherbed that folded down from a huge mirrored cabinet. The mattress billowed around us, bringing unwanted warmth and the occasional prickle. The window fan roaring next to our bed neither cooled us nor drowned out the racket made by hordes of katydids and crickets.On Friday, grocery day, Mom E. dashed to her bedroom after morning chores, pulled off her dress and stood in her petticoat, patting herself with a puff loaded with perfumed dusting powder. After putting on a fresh dress, she ran a comb through her hair and smeared on bright lipstick. Then she grabbed her pocketbook and called, "Y'all ready?"
The four of us piled into their "oven on wheels." Mom E. cranked the engine and roared off, barreling smack down the middle of those narrow, rutted roads, creating a cloud of dust. While Granddaddy slumped on the passenger side with his straw hat pulled over his eyes and his elbow stuck out the window, she leaned forward, squinting into the sun. Even on blind curves, she held a steady speed, chattering away while my sister and I bounced around on the back seat.
When we met a pickup, Mom E. yelled, "Move over, you danged fool!" She mashed the horn and ran along with two wheels in the ditch.
Granddaddy yanked his arm inside as briars, limbs and weeds raked the side of the car. He told Mom E. what he thought of her driving, pulled a can of Raleigh tobacco from the bib pocket of his overalls, and rolled a cigarette to settle his nerves. My sister and I just looked at each other and grinned.
Betty Beamguard freelances and writes women’s fiction, poetry and essays. She published the novel, Weej and Johnnie Hit Florida, and serves on the board of the South Carolina Writers Workshop. She lives in the Bethany community of York county, South Carolina.
Beamguard recently published the inspirational biography, How Many Angels Does It Take: the Remarkable Life of Heather Rose Brooks, about a young woman who drives a horse-drawn carriage with her feet. For more information or to order the book, please visit this web site: Heather Rose Brooks.
Dragging the swimming pool
Hanging out at the tienda
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