Grandma’s rooster crowed again, waking me up after a night of sleeping deep in the feather bed covered with blankets and a comforter that kep
t
the heavy chill away during the cold night in the Ozarks. The old farm
house where Grandma and Grandpa lived was originally a two room log
cabin, but through the years it had been covered with lap siding, extra
rooms added and modernized in some small way, but still pretty crude and
rough. The only heat was from the big wood stove in the living room,
with some help from the wood cook stove in the kitchen. Still, the
bedroom where I had burrowed into the feather bed was so cold that frost
was on the inside of the windows. I had stayed the night with Grandma
and Grandpa, as I did frequently in my young years, just wanting to be
around these people who I loved and explore the farm where they lived.
Sleeping in your long johns in the winter cold was a matter of survival, adding heavy wool socks for that extra edge, so I jumped out of bed and into my clothes as quickly as I could, heading for the kitchen and the smell of breakfast cooking on the wood cook stove. Grandpa was sitting at the table in the kitchen, saucering his coffee, that is pouring a little hot coffee from his cup into his saucer, holding it up and blowing on it a little and then sipping the black liquid, smacking his lips and putting the saucer back down on the table. This style of drinking coffee has passed with a lot of other customs of that generation, but it seemed to be in common use in our part of the Ozarks. Grandma had made biscuits, sausage gravy from the home made sausage they made every year from the young hog they would raise and have a hog killing with every late Fall when it got cold enough, scrambled eggs from her laying hens and hot cocoa from the milk they got every morning from the milk cow up at the barn. She was a master chef on her old iron cook stove, stoked by small split oak logs and kindling that it was my job, as a 10 year old grandson, to split up and bring in to the wood box sitting behind the stove.
I loved the warmth and companionship of their kitchen, Grandpa listening to the early morning news and farm market reports with his coffee, Grandma busy at the stove and me just soaking it up. Life was good for a 10 year old boy in 1946.
Grandma looking up from her cooking chores said, “Stanley Edward, get the water bucket and go out and draw me some water, son.” I picked up the bucket and went to the door, not even bothering to put on coat or hat, even though the weather was bitter cold, unusually so for this time of year in the Ozarks. The well and pump was about 30 foot from the house in the back yard. As I hurried through the cold to the old metal hand pump, I was noticing the heavy coat of frost that covered the handle and body of the pump. Shoot, it looked just like the frost on a Popsicle. I got up to the frosted pump, still studying the situation, hmmmm…wonder if it tastes like a Popsicle? Hooking the handle of the water bucket over the holder on the pump spout, I leaned down and stuck my tongue on the handle to taste it. Well, it actually didn’t taste like anything except a pump handle, and my tongue was solidly frozen in place and I wasn’t going anyplace unless I wanted to leave my tongue there with the frozen pump handle. Yelling bloody murder was not easy with your tongue stuck in place…”Wooooommmmph!!!” “Wooooommmmmph!!!”….”Uggggllllllpppppooooooooooo!!!” By now my tongue was throbbing right smart and the cold had reached through the long johns and outer clothes to a degree that felt about like -50 below zero, although I have never actually felt -50 below but I always had a good imagination. I don’t know if my frozen tongue yelling did it or if she just looked out the window and saw what was happening, but here came Grandma hurrying out of the house with a pitcher of warm water to pour over the handle and defrost me instantly. I ran to the house, leaving my bucket for Grandma, sniveling and shaking with cold and a new found lesson learned…..Lesson # 25, Uh huh, do not stick your tongue on a pump handle in the middle of Winter. I don’t care what nobody tells you….it ain’t fun…and it don’t taste like no Popsicle!. Back in the kitchen I warmed up and sucked on a piece of licorice that Grandma thought might make my tongue feel better.
The kitchen in this old house was always the warmest spot in Winter and this room was more the family room than the living room was. On the weekends, the grown kids would come in to visit and they would sit at this table and play Pitch by the hour, all the while listening to Grandma’s little radio, sitting on the kitchen counter, tuned to WSM’s Grand Ole Opry. This radio, and the old upright piano in the living room, comprised the entire outside entertainment available in this house. The rest of the entertainment was home made. Pitch was played, along with other card games….but, this was the era when people did a very unusual thing….it was called conversation. I would sit and listen to the talk about Roosevelt and Truman (Grandpa was a die hard Democrat) as it got lively on a Saturday, over a game of cards., My Aunts and Uncles and Parents, some of them just back from the World War, or working in Defense jobs were developing differing views of the Political scene in America. This War was the turning point for enlightenment of the many farm boys who came back, educated by the horror that many witnessed, of mans inhumanity to man. Uncle Don came back from the South Pacific Islands where he had crawled into caves and tunnels, in the Jungle, to drive out the Jap soldiers who were hiding there, fighting hand to hand combat in the dark of the tunnels….and the horror of the experience never left him, I don’t believe. He would never talk about his time in the Jungles, but he suffered from bad nerves the rest of his life.
Times were so different in these growing up years, but the challenges of life were just as real, whether you were seeing life through a coal oil lamp or today’s curly Q light bulbs (that seem to give out about the same amount of light). Every generation has to face their own demons, find the strength to follow opportunities, and secure their family’s future in any way they can. My sons and daughters face such different times, but I hope they have learned the hard lessons of life that I have tried to pass on to them….Lesson #25 Never put your tongue on a frozen pump handle….hmmm, course, where they gonna find a frozen pump handle today? So, we can probably scratch that Lesson and move on to the next one. -Stan
Sleeping in your long johns in the winter cold was a matter of survival, adding heavy wool socks for that extra edge, so I jumped out of bed and into my clothes as quickly as I could, heading for the kitchen and the smell of breakfast cooking on the wood cook stove. Grandpa was sitting at the table in the kitchen, saucering his coffee, that is pouring a little hot coffee from his cup into his saucer, holding it up and blowing on it a little and then sipping the black liquid, smacking his lips and putting the saucer back down on the table. This style of drinking coffee has passed with a lot of other customs of that generation, but it seemed to be in common use in our part of the Ozarks. Grandma had made biscuits, sausage gravy from the home made sausage they made every year from the young hog they would raise and have a hog killing with every late Fall when it got cold enough, scrambled eggs from her laying hens and hot cocoa from the milk they got every morning from the milk cow up at the barn. She was a master chef on her old iron cook stove, stoked by small split oak logs and kindling that it was my job, as a 10 year old grandson, to split up and bring in to the wood box sitting behind the stove.
I loved the warmth and companionship of their kitchen, Grandpa listening to the early morning news and farm market reports with his coffee, Grandma busy at the stove and me just soaking it up. Life was good for a 10 year old boy in 1946.
Grandma looking up from her cooking chores said, “Stanley Edward, get the water bucket and go out and draw me some water, son.” I picked up the bucket and went to the door, not even bothering to put on coat or hat, even though the weather was bitter cold, unusually so for this time of year in the Ozarks. The well and pump was about 30 foot from the house in the back yard. As I hurried through the cold to the old metal hand pump, I was noticing the heavy coat of frost that covered the handle and body of the pump. Shoot, it looked just like the frost on a Popsicle. I got up to the frosted pump, still studying the situation, hmmmm…wonder if it tastes like a Popsicle? Hooking the handle of the water bucket over the holder on the pump spout, I leaned down and stuck my tongue on the handle to taste it. Well, it actually didn’t taste like anything except a pump handle, and my tongue was solidly frozen in place and I wasn’t going anyplace unless I wanted to leave my tongue there with the frozen pump handle. Yelling bloody murder was not easy with your tongue stuck in place…”Wooooommmmph!!!” “Wooooommmmmph!!!”….”Uggggllllllpppppooooooooooo!!!” By now my tongue was throbbing right smart and the cold had reached through the long johns and outer clothes to a degree that felt about like -50 below zero, although I have never actually felt -50 below but I always had a good imagination. I don’t know if my frozen tongue yelling did it or if she just looked out the window and saw what was happening, but here came Grandma hurrying out of the house with a pitcher of warm water to pour over the handle and defrost me instantly. I ran to the house, leaving my bucket for Grandma, sniveling and shaking with cold and a new found lesson learned…..Lesson # 25, Uh huh, do not stick your tongue on a pump handle in the middle of Winter. I don’t care what nobody tells you….it ain’t fun…and it don’t taste like no Popsicle!. Back in the kitchen I warmed up and sucked on a piece of licorice that Grandma thought might make my tongue feel better.
The kitchen in this old house was always the warmest spot in Winter and this room was more the family room than the living room was. On the weekends, the grown kids would come in to visit and they would sit at this table and play Pitch by the hour, all the while listening to Grandma’s little radio, sitting on the kitchen counter, tuned to WSM’s Grand Ole Opry. This radio, and the old upright piano in the living room, comprised the entire outside entertainment available in this house. The rest of the entertainment was home made. Pitch was played, along with other card games….but, this was the era when people did a very unusual thing….it was called conversation. I would sit and listen to the talk about Roosevelt and Truman (Grandpa was a die hard Democrat) as it got lively on a Saturday, over a game of cards., My Aunts and Uncles and Parents, some of them just back from the World War, or working in Defense jobs were developing differing views of the Political scene in America. This War was the turning point for enlightenment of the many farm boys who came back, educated by the horror that many witnessed, of mans inhumanity to man. Uncle Don came back from the South Pacific Islands where he had crawled into caves and tunnels, in the Jungle, to drive out the Jap soldiers who were hiding there, fighting hand to hand combat in the dark of the tunnels….and the horror of the experience never left him, I don’t believe. He would never talk about his time in the Jungles, but he suffered from bad nerves the rest of his life.
Times were so different in these growing up years, but the challenges of life were just as real, whether you were seeing life through a coal oil lamp or today’s curly Q light bulbs (that seem to give out about the same amount of light). Every generation has to face their own demons, find the strength to follow opportunities, and secure their family’s future in any way they can. My sons and daughters face such different times, but I hope they have learned the hard lessons of life that I have tried to pass on to them….Lesson #25 Never put your tongue on a frozen pump handle….hmmm, course, where they gonna find a frozen pump handle today? So, we can probably scratch that Lesson and move on to the next one. -Stan
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