RICH: The hands of hard work

Published 9:33 am Sunday, October 20, 2024

Back in the days when work was bone-deep hard and money was so scarce that people often bartered for necessities, Mama recalled many stories of that time.

Like most teenagers, I half listened but asked questions to be polite.

“Down this road,” Mama pointed at worn-out asphalt that had once been red dust in summer then ankle deep in mud during winter, “I’d walk miles, with a basket of fresh eggs or a crated chicken, to take them down to Grizzles’ where I traded them for the items we couldn’t grow: like coffee and chewin’ tobacco. Daddy called it tobaccie.” 

From the passenger side of the car, she looked down a steep cliff at the beautiful hardwood trees and the waterfalls that rush hastily from the top of the mountain.

She continued on.

“Grandpaw owned the land where the Appalachian trail starts. About halfway up, the water sprung out of the mountain. Just as cool and clear as you ever seen. Daddy sent the boys to climb that roughed trail, each toting buckets in one hand as they pushed aside briar bushes — most blackberries — that came to bear fruit in June after a Blackback winter.”

A cold snap after  the beginning warmth of spring, knocked off the small, white blossoms which turned them into tiny red berries that grew to scrumptious black berries.

“We young’ins were so happy because we’s gonna have blackberry cobbler then can jams and jellies for the winter time.” 

She smiled. 

It was a pleasant memory so pure in form and much more meaningful that the jars that can now be bought for an arm and a leg.

“Fresh tasted different,” she commented “and it was healthy, not filled with preservatives.” She watched an eagle soar over the top of a tree. “People lived longer then or, leastways, they didn’t suffer painful deaths.” She thought a moment longer. “Perhaps it’s what we eat in the food.”

I believe I could agree with that. Mama dropped dead all a’sudden, three months before her 89th birthday. It is fair, even important to say, that she never met a drop of lard or Crisco that she didn’t like nor a speck of salt that she let blow away into the wind. 

In the grocery store several months ago, I compared the price of lard to Crisco (lard makes fluffier biscuits), and lard was much most costly. I checked the other day and now, they are closer in price.

As my car twisted around the snaking mountain roads, Mama continued, using words of King James beauty to describe the beautiful days of her youth in a nostalgic elegy.

“I’ve always hated cotton wood trees,” she turned up her nose and turned down the corners of deep-pink painted lips. She was quiet for a moment. “Or perhaps it was the cotton that’ turnt’ me against it.”

“Cotton wood trees and cotton bushes have nothing in common,” I replied. “The trees have huge leaves and the other has tiny bolls of cotton.”

“See that dirt road up ahead? To the right?” She pointed. “Daddy used to tenant farm there. Anything that would grow. Mostly cotton.” She shook her head and looked at her hands. “Thorns tore my hands to pieces and 50 years later, they ain’t recovered.”

We both fell into our own thoughts for many miles up the road when she saw another remembrance of a depression-plagued mountain life. “Sugar cane.” She closed her eyes and dropped her head. “Hardest work you’ll ever do in your life.”

I looked over to a field that looked like cornstalks with no corn.

“Oh, it was rough on our hands. Tore them to pieces when we stripped the cane and squeezed out the sugar. Then boiled it in a big black pot over fire ‘til it cooked to molasses.”

I pulled the car to the side of the road then took her hands in mine and examined the toughness. I smiled somewhat sadly. “Hard work never erases itself, does it?”

—Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of the Stella Bankwell mysteries. Visit www.rondarich.com to sign up for her free weekly newsletter.