The porch was wide with white columns and a plain tongue-and-groove floor. The house was a blue house painted white! There was a one-car shed out back behind the woodshed, where I spent many an hour splitting kindling and stove wood for the cookstove and the heater. The car shed held Dad’s ’50 Chevy, which he was proud of…but not so proud that he wouldn’t use a piece of tape on it most anywhere he thought he needed it. Down the hill behind the house was the outhouse. I was a frequent visitor except when Mom wasn’t looking. Down below that was the hog pen with a nice Duroc in it being fattened up for winter. There was a creek just down the hill called Curtis Creek. I had torn up one muskrat’s leg trying to trap them, and I gave that money-making venture up out of sadness at seeing his leg.
Sometimes, my sweet mom could light up a Christmas tree with just a look. I was easing my Schwinn bike that Dad had sacrificed to buy me for this past Christmas out from inside the woodshed. She just looked at me through the kitchen window, and I had enough sense to put it back. And man, it was a Schwinn: chrome fenders and a light and a horn on the side and whitewall tires. I had added little squares of pasteboard attached with clothespins to the braces on the fender, and it sounded like a Harley. I was wired to go!
But you know what my sweet dad had done this gorgeous Saturday morning? There was four, that is 4, FOUR, bushels of half-runners sitting out on the front porch, and on a Saturday morning! There was the swimming hole where we gathered and prayed some girls would show up and go skinny-dipping with us. There was baseball in the cow pasture or down at the field at Pisgah Elementary, just a couple miles below the house. There was fishing and running in the woods and tagging after Walker Hinson and his hay baler. And there was that sang path I was keeping an eye on and three big four-prongs that needed looking at; Lordy, didn’t Dad know better!? But beans?? What an insult to my imagination. No doubt Roger would ride by on his JC Higgins from Sears and toot his sorry little horn. He knew not to laugh ‘cause I had a good arm and could flat hum a rock or a baseball. Until I threw it away pitching for the Junior Deputies. They didn’t know little fellas need to warm up and shouldn’t try throwing curveballs. Ruined my dreams of playing for the Yankees. But we sure had a lot of fun hitting rocks with baccer sticks and playing baseball in the pasture.
Well, nothing to do but swallow my pride and swell up and get on the porch. I had me two pots and some Grits papers, and I usually sat with my back against the wall and drug over a bushel of them sorry beans. It usually took me an hour or so to unswell and join in the talk that always went on… My sister Laura had already moved to Georgia, and for the life of me, I can’t remember my other sister, Leta, on the porch. One thing I am sure of is if she wasn’t there, I gave Ma an earful of “Why ain’t she out here?”
Now with half-runners, you string them with the grain, then break them in short snaps. All evidence of strings had to disappear or Mama fussed. I remember her making me fill the woodbox over full. She always had an apron on and she sat in an old straight-backed chair and broke beans at about the speed of light. When she had enough for a run, she went in and put them on, and when they had cooked enough, she packed them in jars and put the lids on. Then between times, she was back on the porch. Dad had no right thumb, but that did not slow him down either. But mostly I remember the silence. Just the sounds of beans breaking and being thrown into the pots and pans. Somehow or other, doing those kinds of things together gave you a sense of pride and accomplishment. I always had to get more wood and carry the strings and such down to the hog pen, stack up the baskets and put them in the shed in the dry, and I remember sweeping the porch off. I suspect Leta was busy with Mom. But somehow, it taught me to finish what I start and to clean up my mess. And there was even satisfaction hearing those jars pop and seal.
Four bushels that day; four of us. On a porch in the mountains. Ma and Pa and Leta and me. I forgot about the bike and swimming and even baseball for a while. I was looking for the bottom of those bushel baskets. Keep in mind, sometimes I would be the only one out there – Dad usually lifted the cookers and chunked up the wood, and Leta washed jars ahead and helped Ma some. Dad could take his time when he chose to. You know what? This is one of my favorite times right here. It wasn’t many years until I was a freshman and we moved to Woodfin. I guess it may seem funny to some that when I go back up there and the house is still there with the wide front porch, I stop across the road and I can still see us laughing and talking and pouting and breaking them stupid beans on Saturday…
When the time came and Mom had stewed potatoes and some of her delicious slaw and an onion with cornbread, and she broke the seal on those half-runners with a chunk of fatback, I was so proud that I had had a part in fixing them…especially when I took a bite. I guess for all of us, when things happen we don’t like or even in really hard times, there are lessons to be learned. I want my half-runners broke short and with no strings. But if you bring four bushel here on a Saturday or any other day, I will personally send you up to Hickory to my sister Leta and Vernon’s house. I still don’t think she did anything…