FEBRUARY 25, 2015.... "ATTIC DAY"
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That Saturday morning, in February, three weeks
ago, we woke up to nine inches of snow. I
immediately declared "ATTIC DAY."
In stormy weather I liked to slip off upstairs---
think, read, write, watch an old John
Wayne movie on the little TV/DVD player,
and get a nap on my GI bed under Grandma's
quilt, vintage 1925.
(Our Beloved English house-helper had seen a
good bargain on a set of 25 John Wayne movies
at Walmart and gifted me...er..well, okay, I gave
her $6.97.)
So I bounded up the stairs, (well, maybe NOT
exactly "bounded"), and threw several small 12"
logs into the little wood stove. That stove got hot
fast!
BE was sound asleep from a tough week of home-
improvement events, such as having the whole
exterior of the house painted, screen repair, carpet
cleaning, and throw in several meetings.
Anticipating maybe a day-long-stay upstairs on this
Attic Day---and much hunger--- I slipped quietly back
downstairs and made an iron skillet full of my favorite
recipe--one I figured up---myself!
Yes! I was making a skillet-full of "Smokey Baked
Beans and Little Weenies!"
I whipped it up fast, sautéing finely-diced onions and
celery. Then I dumped in two cans of Van Camp's
Pork 'n Beans, half cup of catsup, 2 TBS of sorghum
syrup, 1 TBS of brown sugar, 2 TBS of mustard,
3 squirts of Worchestershire, a light tsp of Kitchen
Bouquet, 1 tsp soy sauce, 1 TBS vinegar, and 1
TBS of Claude's Smoke Sauce. (Claude's is the key
ingredient.)
Then I added a half sack of little cocktail wieners
(chopped) and some water and left it on low to
BLURBLE awhile. I added a little water.
Upstairs again, I sat down to relax, and as I sat there,
my eye wandered to the top of the 6' tall raw pine
bookshelf---up there was my last "farm straw hat," from
circa 1949. It looks like the oldest hat in the world...
and it well may be!
Somehow, my Mother had stored it somewhere and
given it back to me in later years.
That old straw hat had many tractor miles on it and
had sheltered my face and eyes from the sun many
a hot unpleasant, dusty afternoon. It knew about gnats,
from experience!
You could buy 'em--those hats-- there in my home
town of Clovis, at second hand stores, feed stories,
farmer's veggie markets, the Country Store, or even
at Anthony's.
Now my memory had gone back to farming days
when I was a teen-ager and it was further tweaked
as my eye roved around the attic through old
memorabilia and it stopped on my last farm water
bag, hanging on a sixteen penny nail, over in the
corner. Wow, did it look shriveled and old!
Friends, please don't poo-poo this memory until
you have ridden a big hot tractor, your shirt fading
from the sun-- flies and dust in your face, all the
while getting thirsty every ten minutes.
A water bag was your best friend. I haven't seen
one in years. Maybe it's one of those things they
quit making because they were so good.
You'd fill it up at the windmill, washing it off good
and proper. then hang it somewhere on your tractor.
(within reach)---It would seep a little water around
the seams and this, in theory, gave you cool water.
It also gave you a muddy bag!
You were always glad when big thunderheads and
a rain storm boiled up about 3:30 or 4:00 p.m.
You needed to get out of the field due to lightning
and you'd head for the windmill which, by then, was
turning like mad---you could hear it clanging from a
long way off.
You'd dump a couple of straw hats full of water from
the faucet, over your head (a drink could wait a
minute!) Then you'd wash the bag and get all the
mud off, fill it up with the best water in the world,
drink plenty of it...and run sit in the pickup...for after
all, the windmill could also get hit by lightning, with
you under it!
I regret leaving my thoughts and you, my reader in
mid-stream, but we have all day to talk, you know,
and it is still spitting a little snow outside.
The smell of those "smokey beans," is enticing me,
and you probably started some beans too, when I
described mine. Let's stop and have a snack and
then I'm going to tell you about quaint little country
stores, as they were around the countryside,
and also how we rented Bobby Joe's dad's farm!
I hate to tell you this, but I've got a carton of NEHI
grape sodas in bottles! YUM--YUM! Were THEY
hard to find!
(continued....)
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BY MIL
3/22/15
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