memory

pat sublett · Mar 14, 2014

Use to tell my kids "Be responsible, life is just Plans and Memories, Now is gone". My life is mostly memories, not much time left for plans. It is strange how a memory will jump up, that you haven't had in years, some good, some bad some funny. Had a funny memory today.--When I was about 8 years old. That's been more than 70 years ago, my Dad let me go down the creek with him to look at a horse he was thinking about buying. We got to this place about noon. One of the kids yelled to come in. They lived in a log cabin with a dirt floor. That was before log cabins were popular, you only lived in one if you had to. Anyway, the family was sitting around the table eating, The old man, a big old man with a long beard invited us to eat. My Dad declined. I wondered why , I was hungry. Well they continued to eat and in a little while the old man turned around in his chair to a little table behind him and yelled "Nanny! Nanny! Nanny" An old goat jumped through the open door and hopped upon the table. The old man began to milk into his tin cup. There weren't many modern conveniences in those days but I guess you could call that a convenience.

gtractorfan · Mar 14, 2014

That would be something you wouldn't forget!

IrvIA · Mar 14, 2014

Priceless!

Goose · Mar 14, 2014

My dad told once about when they still threshed wheat with a thresher.

As a lot of ya'll probably recall, it was a group effort with a half dozen or more farmers going from farm to farm until everyone's wheat was threshed. Naturally, they ate the noon meal at whoever's farm they were working on.

My dad said at one farm when noon came everyone had an excuse to run errands elsewhere. One man would need to go home to check his cattle, the fellow who owned the thresher would have to go to town for parts, etc. Only a few brave souls ate at that farm.

Harold Hubbard · Mar 14, 2014

My father told about going to dinner at a farm where they were threshing. The farmer spent some time with a maybe not very sharp knife, fighting with some kind of a roast. Finally, he gave up, "Lottie, get the meat grinder!!" They clamped the grinder right to the dining room table and took turns cranking it.

Ultradog MN · Mar 14, 2014

Nice story Pat.
Thanks.

Wheat Farmer · Mar 14, 2014

My two Granddads lived about 15 miles apart. One on the valley and one on the table land. Both had threshers. Started out with teams on the bundle wagons, then tractors which I drove about 7 years old. That is when I learned to read the sun, and stick a straw in the ground for a noon shadow.

JMS/.MN · Mar 14, 2014

Dad did a lot or custom work with the AC 60 combine and Roto-Baler in the 50s. One dinner at a messy place, they had raisin pie for dessert. With all the flies around he wasn"t sure if it was raisins or flies...

Gene Dotson · Mar 14, 2014

I have visited in Virginia and learned that to decline a dinner invitation was an insult to the lady of the house. Even if you had just eaten you better sit down and eat what you could. I never did get a bad meal there.

IaGary · Mar 14, 2014

Went in for lunch at a older neighbors house after working all morning. As we got to the door the wife was chasing a young pig off the porch. Giving the pig heck for drinking out of the bucket of milk.

As we finished eating I watched her dump the milk in a pitcher and put it in the frig.

Never drank milk there again.

Gary

Gambles · Mar 14, 2014

Just a few decades ago, there was a local family that had a serious problem with cockroaches in the house. The roaches were so bad...that they brought all their geese in the house to eat the cockroaches.
My dad also told the story of a local family that had bad water. It didn't bother the people living there, but if you drank their water, you would have bowel movement problems the rest of the day...if you know what I mean. He told me that it would hit you within 30 minutes.

PJH · Mar 14, 2014

Making hay, the farmers would always feed us good. Old Lawrence didn't have any teeth, but he loved corn on the cob. Elsie had a heaping platter of corn, along with roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, black eyed peas, and a choice of three or four different kinds of pie. Lawrence dug in his shirt pocket, produced a set of false teeth, stuffed them in his mouth, and tore into an ear of corn, making all kinds of interesting noises. It was a real treat watching him devour that ear of corn, but all at once he'd stop, drag them teeth out of his mouth, turn them upside down and rap them on the table to clear the kernels out of them. Then he'd stuff them right back in and take after that ear of corn again. It must have been a common sight, because his wife and kids didn't seem to notice, but all of us visitors were awestruck.

ShadetreeRet · Mar 14, 2014

Good story, Pat. And the thing about it is, people lived like that and survived! Kinda makes you wonder about "modern medicine" doesn't it?
I remember one summer I helped some folks harvest tobacco and one of their fields was about half mile from the house, there was a spring at the bottom of the hill, but a frog had taken up residence in it. We figured if he could drink the water and survive, we could too! Drank from that spring all summer.

Dr. Walt · Mar 14, 2014

JMS:

Are you sure that wasn't "Shoo-Fly-Pie". LOL!

bison · Mar 15, 2014

(quoted from post at 21:57:53 03/14/14) JMS:

Are you sure that wasn't "Shoo-Fly-Pie". LOL!

ot called out to fix a haybine for a guy one day, when supper time came around he invited me in to have a bite to eat, i said OK cause i was hungry.
The table looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a year, then his wife plunked the food on the table. 2 dirty pans with cooked carrots and taters,..both as black as coal and a pan with some kind of grossly looking more fat than meat, i almost puked at the sight of it
I couldn't care less if i was gonna hurt any one's feelings when I stood up and walked out while said sorry bud but i ain't eating that chit, i ain't THAT hungry,.. and i ain't a pig.

bison · Mar 15, 2014

I walked in on a bachelor neighbor one morning when i had just bought my farm.
Guy was cooking a pan of oatmeal, when he was done he took it and a spoon to the table, he sat down and put he pan on the floor.
His big dog stood up and started eating out of it.
We were chatting while he kept watching the dog.
After a bit he said OK that's enough and grabbed the pan and put it on the table he grabbed the spoon and ate the rest of the oatmeal.

Dick2 · Mar 15, 2014

We were balng at the neighbor's place in a hayfield right next to the farmyard that had a well that didn't produce much water. Everyone on the crew saw the old lady outside scalding chickens that morning, so they knew there would be chicken for lunch (dinner back then).

When they sat down for lunch, everyone became quickly aware that the old lady had re-used the water from scalding the chickens to boil the potatoes. The old lady kept telling the men to eat potatoes, but nobody would take any as they smelled so bad!

Dr. Walt · Mar 15, 2014

Bison:

What you just described is why I carried a small
camp stove, a coffee pot, some grub, pots & pans,
& cooking and eating utensils in one of the
compartments on my service truck. Never had it
THAT bad, but I've had some pretty nasty looking
stuff served to me a time or two.

Doc

HillsofTn · Mar 15, 2014

When I was a little kid (way back!), we had an old country store that kept dried beans in a large barrel to sell by the pound. The old woman had a cat that had the run of the store.

As a joke, one of the old farmers squeezed a little bit of toothpaste right into the middle of the barrel. When the old storeowner passed by the barrel and happened to notice the toothpaste, he yelled "Irene, Irene! Get me the big spoon - that darn cat has sh!t in the beans AGAIN!" (Now, fun and games is ok, but when he said "AGAIN", all the old farmers took note and his sales of dried beans were drastically less for many months!)

Come to think of it, I don"t know why the farmers had a problem with the cat droppings. After all, the old man also ran a funeral parlor in the back side of the store and he did the actual embalming himself in the attached enbalming room. He also hand-sliced the bologna he sold from a long bologna stick - and he was very adept at (and took great pride in) his ability to slice the bologna into whatever thickness you preferred. As a kid, I always wondered how he got so good with that butcher knife. Now I think I know.............even if I really don"t want to think about it.

RBnSC · Mar 15, 2014

Dad loaned Me and My brother out to help a friend of His to help cleanup around a farm his friend was caretaker. When lunch time came we went to his house and ate when I got up to get seconds the Guy asked how I liked the Raccoon hash I told Him it was delicious and help myself to some more thinking he was joking. He assured me later that it was raccoon. I have never had it since but it was good.
Ron

8N'r--WI · Mar 15, 2014

Visited a friend at his farm late afternoon and they invited my wife and me for dinner. I had told my wife about how good of acook this woman was, so we eagerly accepted.

My wife helped with the cooking and set the table with mashed taters, roast beef, cooked carrots, homemade bread, and both apple and pumpkin pie.

When we were called to eat, their giant saint bernard beat us to the edge of the table to check things out. He then shook his massive head and saliva ladened jowels all over the food that was just placed on the table.

That was back in 1972, and my wife still tells that story. She sais it looked as if someone was spraying a garden hose.

Pass them taters please!!

Tim

Pitch · Mar 15, 2014

Old guy at work had no car,so I picked up a toilet for him and delivered it. He pulled the old one off, pulled a knife our of his pocket and scraped the flange clean with it. Wiped it off and put it back in his pocket.
Day or so later at lunch he pulls the knife out of his pocket cuts a slice off an apple and offers it to me.

My fathers aunt and uncle had the old slop bucket instead of plumbing under the kitchen sink, summers in that kitchen got rank. They never did modernize, used an outhouse,hand pumped cold water from a spring house. never did give thought to how they bathed

El Toro · Mar 15, 2014

When I was teen our neighbor had a 15-30 McCormick-Deering tractor and a thresher. He also did custom threshing for the local farmers that didn't have a combine. I would follow it as they always needed extra help. They fed you like a king too. In 1950 we were at the last farm for the day and they were blowing the straw into the straw mow. A lit light bulb started a fire and they lost the thresher. The tractor had solid rubber wheels and wouldn't pull the thresher
out of the barn. There wasn't many dry eyes around there and several cows were lost. Hal

Cas · Mar 15, 2014

When I young we rented a small farm from an old fellow that had a hand dug well. Every time I went up there the owner always made you come in the house and have a cup of coffee with him. One day I went there and he asked me to help him with the well. It wasn't pumping very well. He thru off the some of the planks covering it. There were rats, snakes, and quite a few unrecognizable animals floating in it. Needless to say never ate or drank anything there again.
On the plus side I never got sick from his water.

JMS/.MN · Mar 15, 2014

"Spose he ever wondered why he was still a bachelor?

Tony Vidlak · Mar 15, 2014

When I was a youngster I would go to my Father's parents house Grandma would send you to the hen house to collect the eggs. Beings the refrigerators were small Grandma would hard boil the most of the eggs. In the coffee pot them eggs would go I never realized till later in life Grandma never washed them eggs before putting them in the coffee pot. The coffee pot was a huge pot that Grandma just would put the coffee grounds in and boil.

valleview · Mar 15, 2014

Very funny memories.
Dad and Uncle were walking over to the barn along a driveway that frequently saw manure spreader traffic. For some reason, uncle bent over to check something and his false teeth fell out of his shirt pocket into the mud and dirt. He picked them up, wiped them on his pants and stuck them in. Dad always wondered about that.

Steve@Advance · Mar 15, 2014

I've got too many gross food stories to tell...

Like the time I went to a fast food fish place for lunch. Ordered a large tea, drank it, refilled it, took it back to work, filled it with water, drank that. The ice was about gone and saw something in the bottom... There was about a 1/4" of hair, dirt, pieces of whatever would have been swept off the floor in the bottom of the cup!

Then once eating at a greasy spoon, waitress came by and refilled my tea glass. Took a drink and gagged! About that time several others also got a taste of the same thing. They explained it away as someone mixed coffee with the tea. To me it tasted like stale cigarettes. I still think someone emptied an ash tray in the tea pot!

One more and I'll quit... A fellow coworker many years ago kept inviting me to come eat his wifes cooking. I finally accepted, went to their house. It was filthy beyond description. I hung out a few minutes, went to the fridge, there on the top shelf was a cardboard flat of tomatoes. They had been there so long the rotted tomatoes had dissolved the bottom of the box and were dripping down through the shelves onto everything. I told him I forgot I needed to be somewhere else and left!

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