Back to School Anthology

 



This back to school story is an anthology of sorts that begins with my father, Donald Smith.

My dad grew up in a very rural area of Southeastern Kentucky. His parents had a small farm in Owsley County and the family basically depended upon what they raised in order to survive. They grew most of their foodstuffs and they grew a small base of tobacco for a cash crop to purchase what they could not supply themselves.

Now, in neighboring Clay County was a boarding type school called the Oneida Baptist Institute. Dad’s three older sisters had all gone there and two of them had graduated from there. So in 1952, when it came time for Dad to go back to school and enter high school, he packed up and followed in the footsteps of his older siblings and went away to Oneida Baptist Institute.

 

Oneida Baptist Institute did have tuition but students from the surrounding area worked at the school to offset that tuition. The students all had their different jobs and Dad’s duties included milking the cows. Dad did not have a problem with milking the cows but he did have a problem. You see, supper began being served well before the milking was finished and by the time the milkers came in for their supper, most of that supper was gone!

Now, Dad’s parents never had much money, but they knew how to grow a garden and they knew how to raise hogs and chickens for eggs and meat. They also had a couple of cows for dairy products. They had no extra cash but they never went hungry and they always had my grandma’s delicious meals to eat so this going to bed with a measly supper was just not going to cut it.

Dad lasted for a couple of weeks at Oneida Baptist Institute. After that, he returned home where he attended the local Owsley County High School. He went to school on the bus every morning and returned home in the afternoon. He probably even had to help with the milking when he got home but he always went to bed with plenty of Grandma’s delicious but simple home cooking in his belly! 

My second back to school story involves my mother Loretta Nolen Smith.

My mother’s mother died when Mom was only nine. When Grandma Rachel died, she left Grandpa Boyd with seven children ranging in age from ten months to nine years old.

Grandpa Boyd loved his children but he had farm chores and he worked away at the mines. He tried for a while to do it all and keep the kids together, but in the end, he just couldn’t. He found family members for all of the kids to go live with, at least temporarily. Mom, the oldest, and Uncle Johnnie, the youngest, went to live with their mother’s sister, Alta’s family in Dayton, Ohio.

Now, Aunt Alta’s brother John was married to my dad’s sister Hortense, and they lived very close to each other with only a field separating their homes. Somewhere along the way, likely while both were visiting Uncle John and Aunt Hortense, Mom and Dad met. Their families had lived less than a dozen miles apart in Kentucky, but it took visiting mutual kinfolk in Dayton, Ohio for the two to meet.

Well, they met, fell in love, and when Mom was 16 and Dad was 20, they married. When Mom and Dad married, Mom had to drop out of high school. Mom had always loved school. When she was younger and still in Kentucky, she had read every book in the one-room schoolhouse, even the math books. Having to drop out of high school was not easy, but she loved Dad that much.

 

After my brother and I were born, Mom did go back to school; she went to night school in order to get her high school diploma. It probably was not easy for her to go to night school, study for her classes, and still do her household chores with two young children. With support from family, she was able to do it. Mom received her high school diploma in 1965 right about the time I graduated from kindergarten with my Bachelor of Rhymes degree! 

 

In the 1970s, Mom felt a need to go back to school again. She wanted to become a registered nurse and wanted to attend the local community college. For some reason, Dad was not too happy with this, but Mom was determined. Eventually, Dad quit resisting as Mom was going back to school, regardless of any resistance. Mom enrolled at Motlow State Community College and went back to school yet again.

So from having the desire to return to school to actually doing it, it was not easy for Mom. Mom studied hard and she learned many things, including the fact that getting a “B” instead of an “A” can be a blessing! Mom became a registered nurse in 1975 and she treated her patients with a caring heart, knowledge, and diligence until she retired. I do not believe that a patient could have ever received better care than that they received from Mom!

Now, the last part of my back to school anthology involves my daughter Roxanna Hajjafar McCommon, who teaches German in a Memphis, Tennessee area school.

This year, Covid-19 reared its very ugly head. The last school year ended virtually due to the pandemic. Many seniors graduated either virtually or in drive-by ceremonies. The faculties and students at schools across the nation adapted and thought outside the box to continue their educations in spite of less than optimal circumstances.

I was hoping that this school year would remain virtual, as the pandemic is still going strong with new cases and new fatalities happening every day. Alas, in spite of not having this virus under control, and in spite of many people refusing to follow logical guidelines in order to get it under control, Roxanna had to return to in-school teaching. The students could opt for a virtual or in-person education but the teachers have to be there for those students who opt for the in-person method of education.

Four weeks ago, my daughter went back to school to teach. She has worries about the safety of herself, her family, her students and their families. She is trying her best to make sure that all guidelines are followed. She says that her students have been pretty good about following guidelines but some have to be reminded to pull their masks up to cover their nose and mouths. Regardless, there have been some Covid-19 exposures.

 

So this year back to school has not been an eagerly anticipated event for many. Instead of making back to school purchases of paper, pens, backpacks, notebooks…, teachers and students are searching for hand sanitizer, masks, disinfectant cleaners…

The joy of students being able to see their friends, to hug, to high-five, to fist bump, to enjoy extra-curricular activities, and the joy of teachers to see their kids back after an even longer than usual absence will be overshadowed by the necessary precautions of fighting an invisible yet deadly foe. May God protect them all.    

Preserving Food and a Way of Life

 

        

 Summer sampling; frozen fried corn in front; canned green beans, liberty pickles, canned tomatoes, smoked apples in middle; shuck beans/leather britches in back                                   

In the past, our Appalachian ancestors had to be very adept at coaxing their sustenance from the land they lived on. They knew how to garden and oft-times they did this by the signs. The hillsides around their homes provided additional plants that were foraged to eat, as well as for medicinal uses. Those ancestors raised animals for eggs, milk, and meat to provide nourishment for large families. Hunting and fishing supplemented their families’ food supplies.

Now back in those times, folks had to know, not only how to provide sustenance, but how to preserve it. They had no refrigerators or freezers except those provided by nature. Milk and perishables could be kept in spring houses where cold water could let the family keep these things a bit longer. They would usually butcher their hogs when the weather was cool so that the fresh meat might last longer. They could cure meat with smoke, salt, sugar... so that it might keep ‘til the leaner times. They could can meat. My dad says that Grandma would make balls out of ground sausage, fry the balls and then place the sausage balls into canning jars, cover them with grease and store them for a delicious sausage, gravy and biscuits meal in the future.


                                      

                                           Public domain photo                      

Fruits and vegetables were canned outside in large water-filled tubs that held the produce-filled glass jars. They would keep the water boiling for hours over a wood-fueled fire in order to properly preserve the canned foodstuffs.

Food could also be dried. Pumpkin could be sliced into rings which could be draped around string and hung up in hot attics or outside until the heat from the sun dehydrated them. Green beans could be pierced by a needle and strung on strings and dried also. Some folks call these dried beans shuck or shuckie beans; others call them leather britches. I call them good.

                   Public domain photo; Pumpkin rounds drying

                                        

  Public domain photo; Green beans drying to become shuck beans.

Produce could be pickled. Corn, beans, cucumbers, cabbage were a few things that might be preserved by pickling. I asked Mom and Dad why anyone would pickle green beans or corn when they were so good canned. This pickled produce could be stored in large crocks. Dad said that maybe folks ran out of canning jars and could not afford to buy more and thus they pickled the produce so it could be stored in crocks. Lye could even be used to convert grains of corn into hominy which could be stored in crocks also. Past folks had to know how to preserve the harvest of the feast time to provide sustenance durin’ the hunger of the lean times.

Now Dad, Mom, and I had gone to an orchard one Wednesday last fall to pick up a bushel of Arkansas Black apples. Past family members might have preserved them in any number of ways. Some apples were simply stored in the coolness of a root cellar that had been dug into the cooler ground. Some were dried. Grandma spread out clean sheets onto sheets of tin out in the yard. Then she would carefully spread the peeled and sliced apples on top of the sheets. There they would lie in the hot sun until they were completely dry. After dry, they would be placed into muslin bags and kept for future use in a stack cake or to make fried, dried apple pies. Grandma might have peeled apples and cooked them over a low fire with spices to make apple butter. She would even use the peelings to make apple jelly.

                              

                    Public domain photo; Apples drying outside

                      a mountain home in Jackson, Kentucky. 

The apples could also be smoked. Dad calls it smoking apples but some folks call it sulfuring or bleaching apples. Whatever you call the process, they sure are good!

So one fine day last fall, Dad, Mom, and I spent the morning peeling and slicing apples so Dad could smoke them.

 

I think that fried smoked apples, seem to have a hint of a sorghum taste and that gave me the idea to start putting a bit of sorghum in apples that I am frying instead of adding sugar. Fried apples AND sorghum... that is a tasty combo!

So, anyhow, we got the apples all peeled and sliced. We had a 16-quart pressure cooker full. Dad put half of the peeled apples into one clean cotton pillowcase and the other half into another one. He tied the two pillowcases together with some twine and took it outside to the garage. 

Dad has a whiskey barrel in the garage that he smokes apples in. He has the barrel wrapped in plastic sheets to keep the smoke in. Dad puts some charcoal into a small shallow pan, lights it and when the charcoals are glowing, he carefully puts it into the bottom of the barrel using pliers. 

He places a little pouch, that he makes out of a square of cotton fabric or paper towel, filled with three to four tablespoons of sulfur powder on top of the coals.

 Then he drapes the two apple-filled pillowcases over an ax handle that he places across the top of the barrel. He covers the barrel with an old quilt that he fastens around the top. 

The apples are saddle bagged in clean cotton pillowcases over the ax handle over the coals.

 
                                  

Dad smokes the apples overnight and then places the apples into sterilized quart jars with lids. We put a little piece of wax paper between the disc and the jar. The sulfur tends to rust the lid, making it hard to take off and the wax paper makes it easier. Then they are ready to store until you are ready to eat them. After they have been smoked, they look like you just peeled and sliced an apple. Overtime, they do shrink up a bit as they lose some of their moisture but they still sure taste good with a homemade hot and buttered buttermilk biscuit! 

Smoked apples the day after smoking.

Smoked apples one week after smoking.

I cooked these this morning 9/3/2020, nearly a year after they were smoked.

They fried up nice.

I love that sound; almost like rain falling!

                           

                                   And they went down good!

So one fall day in Middle Tennessee, my family carried on a bit of Appalachian culture that family members have probably done for centuries. There may have been some minor differences in what we did. I can’t help but think in spite of those minor differences, Grandpa and Grandma and family members that passed long before we were even born were looking down and recognized exactly what we were doing. I also can’t help but think that they might just be a little pleased that we were not just preserving apples, but also a little bit of their way of life.

The Old Country

 

When I read that phrase, “the old country”, I think of a feeling of longing, I think of a sense of loss. Even if that old country was left for good reason, even if intolerable circumstances were left behind, even if beautiful dreams drew folks away from that old country, I believe that it is still yearned for in some deep and haunting way. 

For in leaving the “bad”, surely so many “good” things were left behind. Many people that had played a part in the making of sweet memories had to remain behind; Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, cousins… For certain the places had to be left behind; the familiar kitchen where the smell of grandma’s cooking made one’s mouth water, the home in which children took their first wobbling steps, the tree under which the magic of a first kiss occurred…

So in my mind, the phrase “the old country” signifies a place that was left behind, but not without feelings of loss and a yearning that goes with one to the grave.

Now, in centuries past, I have had family who left an actual “old country” to cross a seemingly endless expanse of water in vessels which I equate with a collection of large toothpicks. I am a landlubber and have no desire to be on the ocean in a modern-day cruise ship with modern technology and weather tracking. No, I have a difficult time imagining the desperation or the glorious dreams that would make taking that journey a viable option. So, I will write of my own “old country” which is not even another country.

I was born in Dayton, Ohio. Both of my parents had been born and spent their early years in rural Eastern Kentucky, so both sides of my family had long histories there in Eastern Kentucky. Many of those family members had migrated to the Dayton, Ohio area. The automobile industry had several factories or related factories in that area and the jobs were good with good pay and good benefits.

Several family members who did migrate to the area ended up living very close to each other. I suppose that it was nice for these rural Kentucky folks who had moved to the big city to have familiar faces around and so they set down their roots close to other family members. 

Now, by the time I was born; my parents, the families of two of my dad’s sisters, and my great-aunt’s family lived within a few blocks of each other in our little corner of Dayton. My great-aunt and her husband had raised my mother and her brother Johnnie from young ages, so they were more like grandparents to me than great-aunt and great-uncle. My great-grandmother Granny lived with my great-aunt so I had her with me in my childhood too.

So, I grew up with all of these family members around and saw them all on nearly a daily basis as they were all within a short walk of each other. When I was born, a cousin who was eleven and a half years older than me, we all called her Kookie, claimed me as her own. She told Mom that I was her baby and so she often walked to our house to pick me up and carry me on her hip to her house to visit with Aunt Alta, Uncle Bug, Granny, Cousin Dale, Cousin Denny and Uncle Johnnie. Sometimes we would walk across the field to visit with Aunt Hortense and Uncle John and we might even see Aunt Davilee and Uncle Sherlock. For certain we would see boocoodles of cousins of every kind! 

                                Cousin Kookie and Me

I know that I have many memories in my actual childhood home, but such was my nomadic life that I seem to have as many sweet memories in the homes of family members.

            My home on Knox; Aunt Lola holding Cousin Kathy

                           and Granny holding Brother David
  

                    Inside our living room on Knox; I'm standing,

                          Uncle Johnnie holding Brother David

                 Kitchen on Knox; Dad with my brother and me

I recall sitting on Aunt Alta’s front porch, waiting in anticipation for Granny to slice open a huge and perfectly ripe watermelon. I also remember waiting on that same front porch for one of the grown-ups to bring a gallon jug of cold, sweet root beer from the root beer stand up at the end of the road.

        On Great-aunt Alta and Great-uncle Bug's Calumet porch;

               Uncle Johnnie, Great-aunt Alta and Aunt Lola
 

    Celebrating birthdays at Great-aunt Alta and Great-uncle Bug's on Calumet; Me and my brother in front; Granny and Uncle Johnnie in back

          Great-aunt Alta and Great-uncle Bug's Calumet kitchen;

                               Great-uncle Bug and Granny

                        Great-aunt Alta and Great-uncle Bug 

                        in their Calumet Lane living room

I remember waiting anxiously for Granny to open the cardboard box with holes along the top and a cacophony of peeps emanating from therein when a new order of baby chicks had come in! 

                    Great-Aunt Alta at her Calumet Lane home; 

               Granny's chickens and chicken house is to the right; 

                Uncle John and Aunt Hortense's Maeder Avenue 

                                  home can be seen in the distance.

I remember visiting Aunt Hortense and going upstairs to visit with Cousin Glenna who had a grand collection of horse figurines and could tell the spookiest stories! Her room was in the attic and the roofline went low on one wall and there was a small attic access door. She told me that she kept her dead people behind that door after filling my head with stories of spectres! 

    Uncle John and Aunt Hortense at their home on Maeder Avenue;

               With children Glenna (in front), Gerald and Sissy.

           Uncle John and Aunt Hortense's Maeder Avenue home; 

                   Me in Glenn's room with her horse collection.

I remember visiting Aunt Davilee. Her kitchen was arranged with a “U” of cabinets that looked over the dining area. For some reason, her kitchen always reminded me of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Maybe that was because she had a microwave oven. I had never seen a microwave before except as prizes on game shows. I guess that I figured that a microwave was so technologically advanced that there had to be one on the bridge of the Enterprise! 

     Aunt Davilee and Cousin Larry at their Maeder Avenue home.

So, that is the way I spent my first eight years of life; in Dayton, Ohio surrounded almost constantly by a welcoming and loving family.

My idyllic childhood changed in my eighth year. In April of that year, my dear Granny died. I had been around Granny nearly every day of my life. When I wasn’t shadowing Kookie, I was shadowing Granny. She took naps in the afternoon and I often lay down beside her and took a nap as well. Any other time, I fought off taking a nap like Van Helsing fought off vampires!

Granny had been perfection on Earth. I reckon that she was human and had to have had some imperfections, but I never saw them and I have never really talked with anyone who had anything bad to say about her. Oh, she did expect young’uns to listen and if they didn’t, there were consequences, but I do not consider that a fault. In my mind, it only increases her perfection.

So in the spring of my eighth year, my young heart was filled to breaking with the cold dark winter of the loss of my angel Granny. As I was dealing with the loss of Granny, a couple months after her death, my family moved from Dayton, Ohio to a farm on the outskirts of Wartrace, Tennessee. Today the population of Wartrace is a little over 700 and supposedly, it has been growing. My graduating class had less than thirty and that included the kids from nearby Bell Buckle also!

So, I was transplanted from the city of Dayton and the center of boocoodles of family to a farm a few miles from the town of Wartrace, Tennessee with only an aunt, an uncle and an older cousin that lived a mile or two up the road. That cousin was a couple years older and my brother and I were too immature to be good company for him.

We lived on a farm with acres of our land to the fore and aft. We had neighbors to either side, but they had no young children and you couldn’t even see their houses unless they had their porch lights on at night and you searched really well through the trees.

I had lost Granny; and with the move, it seemed that I had lost most of my other family as well. 1968 was a very bad year.

Now, we still went back to Dayton to visit Aunt Alta and Uncle Bug, Aunt Hortense and Uncle John, Cousin Kookie and other family members as often as we could. It was about a seven hour drive and if you have ever driven from Middle Tennessee to Ohio, you likely have passed over the I71/75 bridge that crosses over the Ohio River. It is just after crossing over this bridge that you pass under the “WELCOME TO OHIO” sign as you enter Cincinnati. As we passed over that bridge, I knew that “home” was just a few miles up the road. I knew that I was going home and a sense of contented exhilaration would fill my soul! I suppose that that bridge was like the ocean taking me back to my own “old country”. For years, every time I crossed over that bridge I experienced that same wonderful feeling of being home. 

Unfortunately, the years have been accompanied by the loss of so many of those family members that I grew up around. Aunt Alta, Uncle Bug, Uncle John, Aunt Hortense, Aunt Davilee, Cousin Kookie, Cousin Sissy, Cousin Denny, Uncle Johnnie…are all gone. With their loss, the familiar homes where sweet memories were made were sold to others.

Now, when I do go back to Dayton that sense of returning home is no more. I still have family there that I love and love to see, but my “old country” is gone. I cannot revisit the actual “old country” but in my mind, the “old country” with its people and its places lives on. When I see a baby chick, I remember my sweet and perfect Granny. When I sit on a porch swing, I remember a similar swing on a porch where thoughts of juicy watermelon and cold glasses of root beer made my mouth water. When I slice a delicious homegrown tomato, I remember the tomatoes grown in the gardens of aunts and uncles.

So my “old country” is not even a real country and perhaps it has never even been a real place. Maybe it is a state of mind where even if people and things there are not perfect and even if they are not actually there anymore, they represent an immortal, beautiful and familiar sense of home.