The memories that I write about are not only in my mind but they flow in my bloodstream. Some pictures are vivid as bright colors hanging on the trees of Pisgah. Some memories are muted and faded and I must close my eyes to see them more clearly. They are there. And if I tell of a 3 foot tall ginseng plant, or of catching spring lizards, or shooting marbles for keeps you can be assured it is a true memory. A lot of folks who were in these musings are gone on home. But we leave a mark just as they left their mark. Perhaps in the love of farming in a grandson. Perhaps a love of the woods in a daughter. Perhaps a knack for growing beautiful flowers to a niece. Maybe a love of reading to a son-in-law. Perhaps a mother’s love of cooking or quilting or crocheting to her daughters. A pastor’s son may follow in his father’s footsteps and share the gospel with all who will listen. Perhaps a father leaves a trade skill to their sons and businesses are passed on. We all leave something. Our Mark.
I carved some marks on the trunk of beech trees and circle them with a heart. Carved initials of love is one mark I leave behind. I know not everyone likes the same things. Some folks love farming. They have a huge garden even if only a half acre of ground is available. In spring something goes off in a lot of us and we want to grow something. Never mind that most of what we grow will be given away, there is satisfaction in that. My Dad loved the huge garden and of course in the 1950’s a garden was a necessity. He would pull strings and make the rows straight and uniform. He was also particular about who dug and hoed in his garden. Of course with a creek just down the hill from the garden, I really didn’t care if I got in the garden or not. My dad always included a large patch of Irish potatoes. He always bought Kennebec. He was convinced they were the best. He said they kept better in the ground under leaves and straw or in the basement better than any potato on the market. He always fussed if anyone cut one while we were digging them. “One bad tater will rot the whole bunch,” he always said. Oh, my pop he knew about Taters, that’s for sure. He always grew a tremendous crop of good Irish potatoes. He always planted several rows of green beans. He planted the sweet corn that grew tall. It wasn’t field corn but some type of sweet corn. The ears were big and juicy.
When the corn had a good start he would plant beans beside the corn. The beans would run to the top of the corn and back down. They were clean and easy to pick. I remember he put either mineral oil or something similar on the small roasting ears to keep the worms away. I dreaded picking beans in the corn because of pack saddles. A pretty worm with a vicious sting. Mom always said for us to watch out for copperheads in the garden. She said, “If you smell cucumbers back away.” Whenever I went to pick cucumbers or to gather squash you could hear me sniffing for a long way. My mom was an expert on canning, quilting, and keeping me clean. She put up our summer supply of food in Mason jars for the winter ahead. We canned beans, tomatoes, peaches, corn, sausage and made blackberry jam. My pop always looked for Alberta peaches because he said they were the sweetest and best for canning. We had our hog, or two some years, and when it was cold enough we would butcher the hog. Of course you scalded them with hot water heated in a barrel, scraped the hair off and used about everything else. The fresh tenderloin and biscuits at dinner were the best I had ever eaten. Dad would lay the meat out in the smoke house; the ham, shoulders and side ribs. He would salt it down thoroughly and hang it in tow sacks for curing. In wintertime he would go out to the smokehouse and cut off whatever kind of meat mom wanted to cook. Of course, liver mush was made from the liver, heart, head and other things. A sweet smell at breakfast time was sausage frying and sausage gravy with fresh biscuits.
My dad only got to go to the third grade. But he was smart in ways lots of college people are not. Make do with what you got or do without. No need to borrow. He loved the Lord and lived it. I miss my dad. I regret the fact that I didn’t talk to him more. I should’ve asked more questions. He got hired at the American Enka plant in Enka, North Carolina. He was taught how to take care of the air conditioning units. Some of them would get behind the units and pray every day. He loved that part of work. He said they had church behind those boilers, and he retired after 40 plus years.
My dad never passed the baseball with me. He never waded the creek with me or help me dam it up. He never helped me make a bow and arrow out of a hickory sapling. He never helped me make a bean shooter, except to bring me the rubber used for the slings. My dad only whipped me a couple of times. It was like a hanging when he did because he meant business. But I tell you what he did do, he drug me to church. He let me watch him shave. He made me build fires in the stoves and cut kindling and wood. He set the example of going to work whether he felt like it or not. He brought me five real honest to goodness Eagle Claw fish hooks from work. He had told a friend about me pin hook fishing and they had given him the hooks to give to me. Oh, I was in heaven then and so happy. He gave me a Barlow knife that had lost the handle. He brought me some red rubber. It was the very best for bean shooters. He showed me how to split kindling with a double bitted ax, I was 7 years old. He showed me one time how to fill the woodbox. You see, you could not just throw it in there. You had to stack it straight. The wood box would hold more, plus it looked better to him and eventually to me. It was my job from that point on. And I didn’t do my job but once or twice because he gave me an attitude adjustment. With his belt. Never hurt me then and might do me good now. At around 10 years old he trusted me with the only gun that we had in the house, a 12 gauge American gun. He gave me one shell to begin with. When I was careful with it, he gave me two. I contributed to the family and it made me feel good.
Dad liked squirrel and gravy. I didn’t care for it much, but I enjoyed hunting. He never told me that he loved me, but he showed me that he did by example. I can still see those fish hooks wrapped up in a piece of brown paper poke when he unfolded it. They were a treasure for me and a most wonderful memory. I miss my dad. One of my first memories was before I started school. I had walked down the hill to meet Laura and Leta, my two sisters, when they got off the school bus. We lived in a brown small house above White Rock Church in South Hominy. Anyway, I remember coming back up the hill and hearing mom screaming for Charlie, my dad. Before we got there the shotgun went off. Mom had reached up on the top shelf in the shed and when she tilted the box a copperhead just missed her face. No wonder she screamed. Dad took care of the snake in the easiest way. Shoot it. The little house had a tiny kitchen and living room with two small bedrooms. I had a cot in the hall. I got the whooping cough and mom went into the hospital for a hysterectomy. My Aunt Dewey came for a few days and stayed with me. And all I remember about that is that she made some cornbread and told me to chew it 60 times. And I did, but I never figured out why. Unless she wanted me to just keep my mouth shut. I also have a distinct memory of pushing a lawnmower and cutting off the end of my sister Leta’s forefinger. She said it was my brother Clarence, but mom said it was me and I remember doing it. I can see me doing it. She wanted the lawnmower and stuck her finger down there so I would give it to her. So I gave it to her. Sorry, Leta.
I went to the first grade in a one room school house that is now a church. Glady Baptist Church was the name and Ms. Cora Medford was my teacher. I loved learning the ABC’s on that brown lined paper. I was five years old.
Dad found a bigger house on Davis Creek that belonged to Hollis Roberson. It was the most wonderful place in the world to grow up. There was a mountain that came down to the back of the house and a creek just down the hill. The opportunities for adventure was endless. I made my guns, bows and arrows and Superman capes because there was no money for toys or tools. So I made my fishing poles out of saplings and sewing thread and pin hooks. I used an iron nut sometimes or rocks for sinkers. I made wooden six shooters and wooden cars. I remember there was a well just outside the back porch with the pump mounted on a concrete pad. There was room to set a drinking bucket on the pad while you pumped the water. Sometimes you had to prime the pump by pouring a little water down into the pump. Then it was plain old work to pump and pump some more, especially on wash day. But I love the summer feel of sheets and blue jeans washed outside, rinsed in the tubs and hung to dry on the clothesline. I remember taking down the clothes and how stiff the blue jeans felt. Mom would sprinkle them down with water and put them in something before ironing them. Oh she was magic about everything to me. I had a most wonderful time there. Memories of solid gold. I was thinking how many times I heard my mama say, “Quit slamming the screen door,” and “Shut the door, you wasn’t raised in a barn.” As much as I love old barns I don’t want to sleep in them. I want to sleep under a beautiful quilt my mama made. There is one on my bed and I think about my mom and dad almost every time I look at it. I wish I had asked more questions. I miss my mom and dad.
OUR DADDY
LAURA IRENE BURRIS TRENT FEB 28, 2020
Charles Monroe Burris, Son of William Fuller Burris and Louise Anne Anders Burris from Madison County, North Carolina
The one thing I want to tell you about my daddy is that he was a Christian. He was saved when he was 17 years old. He soon became a messenger for the Laurel Branch Baptist Church. Then he began to testify and later preach. He had a radio ministry at Marshall for years. And Leta Clark and I and our brother Clarence played guitar and we sang. He believed in the Missionary Baptist Church doctrine. There was a Church of God in Chandler close to where we lived. We were all kind of afraid of them because they talked in tongues and shouted their hair down. We only saw them at singings and special eating meetings. Mama helped make and sell quilts to help build a small church in upper South Hominy. That was where we attended church, Glady Missionary Baptist Church. But daddy got real sick and he fell out of a tree on his daddy’s farm when I was about three years old. He had to wear a brace on his back and he had a big board under his mattress on his bed. And, he got an ulcerated stomach and had begun to eat baby food and milk. He got very weak. There was still four kids at home and he was working at the American Enka plant. So, he knew that those holiness people prayed for the sick and he went to visit one Sunday night. They anointed him with oil and laid hands on him and prayed for his total healing. God totally healed him and mama fried him pork chops the next day for his supper. Therefore, he hungered to know more about these people. He began to go to their meetings and study healing. I remember people coming to him to be prayed for healing as long as he lived. He was a good, gentle man that believed God’s word meant what it said. He also saw angels, but that is another story.