Life’s evening sun is sinking low
A few more days and I must go
To meet the deed that I have done
Where there will be no setting sun.
I watched my mama cook so many times. I never learned anything, but I always knew something good was about to happen. Mountain folk know how to cook taters in so many ways that you don’t even realize you ate them for two weeks straight. I’ve seen her take a bowl and put flour in it and I think some Crisco and milk and knead it up and pat out biscuits. She always took a finger and depressed the center a little bit. Now what else she used, I don’t know. But it hurts me to say that those frozen Grands are really good biscuits too. I was behind the cookstove if it was winter and usually reading whatever I could find. I loved getting back there. Of course, it was my job to keep the wood box filled, and I did.
Mama’s gone on home now, and I can’t remember when I ate her last biscuit. Her and Dad had bacon, an egg, jelly and butter, and black coffee saucered every morning along with canned biscuits in their later years. You know you and I don’t ever think about losing loved ones when we are you and know everything. One day, I awoke and it hit me that if we live long enough, we get old. Now, getting old is better than the alternative, for sure; at least, most times. Part of aging is burying loved ones. Not only do we lose those we love; we lose a way of life, we lose history. We seldom realize that they had dreams and wishes that they didn’t achieve either.
I didn’t think of Mom and Dad courting, falling in love, their first kiss, the hard work and sacrifice of dreams to raise us. Now, here I am, the old man. Ma and Pa and brothers and so many already gone; why in the world didn’t I ask more questions? Anyway, those homemade biscuits were the perfect place for a slice of termater and mayo, or honey and butter. If I knew where a wood-burning cookstove was, I would go crawl in behind it. And I would smell those biscuits.
I am reminded today of another time, a simpler time when kindness, caring, and helping our fellow man was much more evident than it is today. During times of sickness and death, neighbors came with food, support, and lending a hand to the chores. Fresh baked bread and homecooked food filled the tables; fresh butter and buttermilk, made in an old-fashioned churn and cooled in the cold waters of a nearby spring. Old-timers used to say, “Give me a tater salit and a nanner pudding, and we can have a wedding or a funeral.”
There was one-roomed schools, a rare automobile, pulpwood trucks held together with baling wire. There was always churches, lots of times with a wood heater in the middle of the room. Every woman probably had a quilt to stay warm ’cause you might as well have hung a lightning bug up by his legs for all the good the stove done. There was quilting bees, barn-raisings, homecomings, and music. Shape note hymns in church and bluegrass everywhere. These folk worked so hard for so long that the music was an outlet – a getaway, a time of rest. So many great songs, ballads, and gospel music came out of the hills.
See the outhouse in the picture? Not a rarity in the mountains. I was in the ninth grade before we had an indoor bathroom. This outhouse is near a cemetery in Shelton Laurel. There is a small family cemetery there. Some of the graves have a rock with no name on them. There is a shelter there, and I suspect it’s used at Decoration Day and perhaps other times each year. Most of those old-time mountain folk were loved and respected. They preached their own funerals with their hard work, giving ways, and honesty. And the folk just do not forget, year after year after year; graves are cleaned and flowers put out.
Nowadays, we can’t wait to get the ashes and dump them somewhere and get on with living. And I do think funerals are way out of need – expense-wise and rules. If I could get one wish, I would be rolled up in Mama’s quilt that I use and dropped into a pine box and dirt shoveled in. Flowers before I die: I have made this request, but she acts like she can’t hear me. These canoe rides down the rivers of my memory are not always “pleasant,” but I am “old.” And I wish sometimes I knew what and when it is going to happen… It don’t really matter. But something is coming, and what happens is predicated on an encounter with Him one Easter Sunday morning.
I died once for 18 to 20 minutes, and my wife and friend saved my life. Next time, no one may not be around. So, if one of you would, come over here to Statesville and steal me, build me a pine box, roll me in Mama’s quilt, and sing “Go Rest High on That Mountain.” I’ll write you a check – you hear me?