Appalachian History

"Oh, to return once more to the days when they made real country sausage and souse meat! Where grandpa and grandma smoked their long-stemmed clay pipes and would light them by dipping a live coal from the old fireplace.

"Let's go into the big house and sit by the fire and see the old-fashioned dog-irons and the wrought iron shovel and tongs made in the country blacksmith shop. Did you ever see your granddaddy heat the old shovel on a bitter, cold day and hold it in front of the old clock to thaw out the oil in the old timepiece so it could go on tickin' off the hours?

"I would like to help grandma fill the lamps with oil or ile carried from a country store in a can with an Irish tater stuck in the spout, and watch her trim the wicks so the lamps would glow more evenly. I want to eat some food cooked on an old step-stove, sweet taters baked in an oven on the hearth over hickory and red-oak coals. It would be a welcome sight to see some of the womenfolks swing the fly brush to keep the pesky devils offen' the table. Right here, it might be said that a family rated according to the kind of fly brush it had. The very poor used a limb, cut from a mulberry tree, and the middle class had one cut out of newspapers, and the upper crust had one made of peafowl's tail. That family rated, and rated high, brother!

"I want to go back where all the common, everyday towels were made of salt sacks, and where there was only one store towel which was put out only when the preacher came. I want to see the man of the house take his table knife of chilled steel and whet it on the tines of his fork before he carved the sow-belly that had been cooked with the beans. Did you ever eat any lye hominy or shuck beans? If not, you have never really lived...you have merely existed!

"I want to see the housewife reach into the salt gourd and get a pinch or two or salt to season the beans and taters, which were usually cooked by hanging on a hook in the fireplace to conserve stove wood. And who has not seen the home-made soap in the terrapin's shell soap dish on the wash bench just outside the door?

"I want to go back to the time when all the shoe boxes were saved to make splits for the womens' bonnets. Remember 'em?

"I would like to once more watch apple-butter being made in those huge old, brass kettles, where the long handled stiring wooden ladle never stopped, and that bubbling pot of apple-butter gave off an aroma that I haven't smelled since, nor can it be expressed in words on paper.

"I want to spend Christmas in the old way once more and get from the Christmas tree, one stick of candy, one orange, and one penny pencil. The rich ones gave their children a French harp and the night was filled with music and the cares that infested the day folded their tents like Arabs, and silently stole away.

"I want to go back."


See I want to go back [part 1]


--excerpted from
Too Late For Flowers
Never Too Late For Tears
By Roy L. Sturgill

Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia, published by the Historical Society of Southwest Virginia, Publication 12, 1978
http://vagenweb.org/scott/HSpubl72.html



appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history Historical+Society+of+SW+Virginia Old+Christmas

"I would like to go back and carry a few lap-links in my pocket, just in case the hoss busts a trace chain. I want to tie the rawhide ham-string once more and adjust the back-band til it is just behind the hoss's withers. I want to tie my shoes again with laces made of groundhog hide.

"I want to go back where the ducks and geese are picked every month; where corn and taters are planted, and soap is made by the signs of the moon; where "warnits" and hickory nuts are gathered in the fall for the winter mast; where the folks still dig roots and herbs to buy their winter boots and shoes; and where these same boots and shoes are greased with sheep or beef taller; where the peggin' awl is still in use; where Arbuckles coffee is parched in the stove and ground in a mill held in grandpa's lap; where some of the menfolk tied the brooms with home-grown broomcorn; where they make popguns out of elders and shoot paper wads in them.

"Yes, I want to go back where they drink sassafras tea in the spring-time to thin their blood; where they churn with the old up and down churn-dasher; where they turn the churn of cream around as it sits by the fireplace in the big house, so it will get in the right form for churning; where goose quill toothpicks are still in use; where they still boil the clothes and use bluin'; where they refill the straw ticks right after thrashin' time and where they wear long flannel drawers.

"Yes, I want to go back to the country and get my fill of cracklin' bread. I want to see the people eat again and shovel it in with their knives. I want to go to the neighbors to borrow the gimlet. I want to go back where they eat three meals a day...breakfast, dinner and supper...and the word "lunch" will never be heard again.

Antlion larvae, or doodlebugs

"Yes, I want to go back and make another corn-shucker out of locust. I want to strip some cane and top it and dip the skimmin's offen' the bilin' molasses. I want to go to the neighbors for a bushel of seed corn, or shell a 'turn' of corn and take it to the mill for bread and watch as the miller measured out his toll for the grinding. I'd like to call a few doodlebugs outen' their holes, but I want to avoid the spanish needles, the cuckleburrs, and the chiggers that make life unbearable, and to avoid stone bruises forever.”


Too Late For Flowers
Never Too Late For Tears
By Roy L. Sturgill

Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia, published by the Historical Society of Southwest Virginia, Publication 12, 1978

http://www.rootsweb.com/~vawise/HSpubl72.htm


Roy+L.+Sturgill Historical+Society+of+SW+Virginia appalachia appalachian+culture appalachian+history appalachia+history history+of+Appalachia