Memories of Anglin Branch

                                                Memory Lane AKA Anglin Branch Road


The buildings lie in ruins now. Family members have passed on and others have been born; still, in my memories: insects drone, leaves rustle in the breeze, water tumbles down the stream.

A tin-roofed, white frame house nestles in a narrow ribbon of creek bottom.

A sense of quiet and peace seems to soften all sound, even the slamming of the screen door. Smoke drifts silently from the chimney in winter, hollyhocks and moss roses bloom in the yard in summer. Red dust in the lane seems to anticipate its transformation into mud pies by cherished grandchildren.

                                                                   Makin' mud pies.

Cool crisp water is drawn from the well and sipped from a communal tin dipper. In this magical place, salt is pinched, not shaken.

Uncle Gayle is geeing and hawing to the mule as the plow overturns dark, rich earth. Hens cackle indignantly as Grandma gathers eggs. The cow munches hay while milk whish whishes into the pail. The cream will later become butter when Grandma rocks it in a gallon jug over her knee.

 

Grandma coming back from feeding her chickens.

 

                                                                    Grandpa milkin'.

Grandpa sits on the front porch on a woven-bottomed chair. He takes out a gray, soap bar-sized sharpening stone, knicked on the corner and worn thin in the middle. He sharpens his pocket knife and whittles away at a cedar stick. Curling, aromatic shavings gather at the base of his chair. Mist is hanging over the hills and he tells me that he has a giant that lives in the hills. The mist is smoke from his giant's pipe.

                                                                        Porch sittin'
 

                                                Catchin' crawdaddies in Anglin Branch

Grandma is in the kitchen. Her hair is pulled back in a bun and she wears her ever-constant cotton house dress and bib apron. She makes a lemon pie. She gives me a metal Bob White syrup lid and a small ball of dough so I can make my own miniature version. I know it's gonna be good 'cause it's just like Grandma's.

 

 
Grandpa puts on his old fedora hat and Dad drives him to the general store in Booneville or Manchester where he buys the necessities; flour, meal, sugar, coffee, bib overalls, and, of course, a box of Bob's candy sticks.
 

Later the adults play a friendly game of rummy. I think that Grandpa loves to play rummy. His blue eyes twinkle as he tries to pull in the discard pile to count as his points.

                                                                        Playin' cards.

It's bedtime. We sponge off in a tin basin and then lay under piles of handmade quilts on old iron bedsteads. We listen to the pop and crackle of the coal in the grate and hope that during the dark of night we don't have to brave the cold to use the chamber pot.
Our family is not very often exuberant in vocalizing feelings. Nonetheless, we go to sleep knowing that we are well-loved.
And still, on Anglin Branch; insects drone, leaves rustle in the breeze, water tumbles down the stream.