One Christmas season I was traveling and played a couple of
Christmas CD’s. One was by Elvis and the
other Burl Ives. As I listened to Elvis,
I reminisced about Christmas Past and my mind carried me to a place that I
sometimes long to be. I keep thinking
that momma is going to wake me. Is today
real or am I having this long nightmare?
Am I dreaming of the future?
Sometimes I wish I were only dreaming.
Boy, do we live in a messed up world today or what?
I usually ride for miles without listening to the radio or
CD’s. I usually take that time to think about the
past, the present, and the future. It is
my meditation time.
As Elvis sang of Silver Bells, Blue Christmases, and Red
Decorations on Green Christmas trees, I thought how nice it would be to be home
for Christmas. Only problem is the home
I long for only exists in my mind. I am not
speaking of a house, but a time long gone.
As I traveled, I thought how momma made dinner for
Thanksgiving and Christmas. These were
very special meals and family time. She
was a very good cook, except for fried hamburger, fried chicken, and fried
fish. Everything else was really very
delicious.
Most of what she cooked, we harvested and gathered ourselves. Mom was an impatient gardener. I can see momma headed to the field with a
fork and basket in hand going to dig “taters.”
We never had big potatoes. Mom
would dig them too early. She loved new
“taters” and gravy.
Daddy always made a bed for sweet potatoes. He would plow them up and we would store them
in a bed he made in the ground. Momma
would start baking them and making sweet potato pies before the sweet potatoes
cured. It was the same with green beans,
sweet peas, okra, butter beans, corn, and peas.
She never let them mature, or as she would say, especially about sweet
corn just off the blister, “Get too hard.”
Boy, those tender fixin’s were sure delicious.
Mom made a wonderful pecan pie. In fact, we loved any thing that had pecans
and loved the pecans raw. One time I
tried to eat a pecan that was not ripe.
It tasted bitter. Don’t
laugh. I remember a Yankee that came
south to show us dumb country rednecks how to run a cement plant and he had
never eaten a raw pecan.
My friend Keilan brought a sack full to work. All the men got two pockets full to eat
during the day. Pecan hulls were
everywhere. This know-it-all Yankee
asked what everyone was cracking and eating.
Keilan gave him a handful, showed him how to crack them, and started to
walk away. He had never seen them in the
hull and cracked by hand. The word
pecan means nut cracked by rock. The
Yankee cracked the pecans, removed the pecan haves, and started to chew. Suddenly he spit the pecans out complaining
they were bitter. The dummy did not know
to remove the pith lining between the halves.
One time momma made a hickory nut pie. It was very good, but it was very hard because
the nuts were hard to crack and the meat hard to retrieve. Hickory Hickory
One time daddy wanted a persimmon pie. Persimmons need to be ripe before enjoying. Each morning I walk to work I pass a
persimmon tree that is almost in front of the office. I have watched with eager anticipation, as
they are turning from green to orange, hoping to beat the possums to them. I have been tempted on several occasions to
pop one into my mouth. Dad taught me a
valuable lesson long ago when he had me taste one. I remember my lips puckered for a long
time. Mature persimmons and persimmon
pie are delicious.
Picking time for the fruit of the land is crucial for
consumption and enjoyment. Growing,
cultivating, and harvesting good fruit is a labor of love, yet a challenging
task. Growing up in peach country, I
know the difference between a peach picked to eat and one picked for
market. Ain’t nothing sweeter than a
fresh peach.
Momma had a different view of new potatoes as opposed to
peaches. She wanted the peaches
ripe. I will miss her peach cobblers and
fried pies again this year. There is
nothing compared to the home grown and home cooked fruit of the land.
Jesus used the analogy of fruit to teach about spiritual
growth:
I am the true vine,
and my Father is the husbandman. Every
branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that
beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I
have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I
in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine;
no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I
am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same
bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing (John 15:1-5 KJV)
And, how about Jesus’ birth?
The world was ripe for the coming Messiah.
But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent
forth his Son . . . (Galatians 4:4a KJV)
Merry
Christmas and Happy New Year
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