Turnip Patch, Honey Bees and Bicycles

Next door to Uncle Aubrey’s house was Big Momma and Big Daddy’s house.  It was the same house where my Momma lived when she was going to school.  Just down the street in front of their house, was Big Daddy’s blacksmith shop.  On the next street, sort of behind the blacksmith shop, was Uncle Waitus and Aunt Margie’s house.  I remember both houses having privies out back,  complete with Sears Roebuck Catalogs. I also remember the joy of the added indoor bathrooms.    

Big Daddy died when I was eight years old so I didn’t get to go to his shop too many times but I do remember watching the bright red iron as he hammered it and being afraid he was going to get burned.  He was a giant of a man, and always had a sweet smile on his face.  Tommie and I would go over to their house and sit around the little wood heater in their bedroom where they had two wooden rockers and a couple of straight chairs for us.  We would put our feet on the heater until the soles of our shoes would almost burn!   We’d listen to Amos and Andy on the radio.  Big Daddy loved Amos and Andy! 

Now when the Scott clan got together for anything – weddings, funerals, Sunday dinner, Preacher visits, or just because, they did it with a flourish.  I’m talking about a food flourish.  Big Daddy raised some chickens in the back yard just for such occasions.  I remember peeking out there when he would somehow manage to shake a chicken just the right way and that sucker was out.  Then down on the chopping block and without a second thought he’d axe that head right off.  Yep.  There was our dinner.

Now, Big Momma was an artist at cutting that chicken up.  I didn’t know there were that many parts to a chicken!  I still can’t find one in a store today with a pulley bone!  We kids would ALWAYS fight over that pulley bone.  Sometimes, there would magically be more than one!  But there were never enough pulley bones for all the Scott children.

Big Momma, we called her “Biggie”, made fruit cakes in dishpans.  She made huge nut cakes.  That was Uncle Aubrey’s favorite.  She always had a nut cake available for him.  Pecan pies, check.  Sweet potato pies, the best.  Potato salad, butter beans, tomatoes, squash, turnip greens, whatever vegetables in season, she had on the table, and plenty of it.  Oh, and a big pan of homemade biscuits and tea to drink.  Don’t say “sweet tea”?  There’s no such thing as unsweetened tea! 

Big Momma had a brass bell which she rang from the back door to announce that dinner was ready.   We kids always begged to be the one to ring the bell.  She probably based her choice on whichever one of us had the loudest mouth at the time.  I don’t think there was a pecking order.  I was the lucky recipient in the family of the bell and have passed it on to my daughter, who has a collection of bells.  It was among my most prized possessions.

I used to love to go down to Uncle Waitus and Aunt Margie’s house.  Their niece, Gail who was near my age lived with them and we were “almost” cousins.  Gail joined me in many a wash tub swimming and in many a sand lot ball game.  In turn, I spent many a night at their house.  Uncle Waitus was actually the one who “taught” me how to swim.  He threw me in the water at Brown Springs and I had to swim.  Brown Springs was a local swimming hole out in the country with water so cold your lips would turn blue and it literally bubbled up out of the ground so fast that you wouldn’t sink.  I guess Uncle Waitus knew what he was doing but it scared me to death.  I’ll never forget that experience but I learned to swim that day.  In a hurry.

Uncle Waitus was also good for a Dixie Cup on a lot of Sundays.  He would pile us in the back seat of his Ford and we would go “splurging”.  That was a phrase he coined for taking us for a ride on Sunday afternoon and spending some extra money.   So, I always tried to be around when he felt like splurging. 

To get to their house, you had to go through his turnip patch and pass the bee hives.  More than once, I had a swarm of bees chase me through the turnip patch with me screaming my head off.  Uncle Waitus would say, “just don’t run and they won’t bother you”.  Yeah, right. 

I got my first bicycle when I was about eight years old.  I didn’t know how to ride it without holding on to somebody though and that wasn’t very cool.  Tommie already knew how to ride a bike.  My cousin Donnie, who was a couple of years older and lived in town, also could ride.  So I was forced to learn how to ride my bike.   Big Momma’s car was always parked in her back yard right outside her back door.  It had a running board.  Perfect.  I would get my shiny green bike up to the car, stand up on the running board, throw my leg across the seat, get on, push off, and wheee, away I’d go -  about six feet.  Then fall over.  Then back up and start over,  and over,  and over.  Each time I’d get a little further and a little further.  Finally, I made it and around and around Biggie’s house I’d go.  I was so bad!  I could ride my bike!