Beech Tree News Network

We went to Alabama on Friday of Thanksgiving week to see Garey’s mom, Aggie.  Her big freezer had gone out mid-week, and it fell to Garey’s sister, Charlotte, to get a new freezer and save what food she could.  Aggie even paid extra to have the old one hauled off, which is out of character for the Hughes bunch (there’s still an old one on my back sidewalk), and I’m so proud of Aggie for getting rid of the old appliance.

                Charlotte tossed what food she couldn’t save into five big bins in the basement floor—she had to get back to work—and Garey told her he and I would cart the stuff off to the dump when we got to Aggie’s on Friday.  We got there around noon, and Aggie told us instead of taking the stuff to the dump, she’d rather us just dump it out in the back field on the farm.  It’s a lot easier to do what Aggie says than to argue with her, so we loaded the ruined food into the back of the pickup and made our way down the bramble path between the trees and out into the terraced field behind her house.  Garey drove to the back of the field and backed the truck up near some sweet gum trees.  That’s where we began opening packages and freezer cups of berries, vegetables and meats, labeled with dates that told a family’s life story.

                Okra, 1981, the year my oldest daughter, Natalie, was born.  It would have been summer of that year when Aggie gathered and put up that okra, waiting for the birth of her first grandchild in October.

                Corn, 1985, the year my youngest daughter, Nikki, was born.  The corn would have been gathered and put up after Nikki was born in May.  I always helped Aggie with her corn, but I wouldn’t have that year, because I did very little traveling the first five months of Nikki’s life.  She had colic, and she screamed every time she had to ride in a car.

                Quail, 1990, the package slipped from my hands and the slimy carcass landed on my left tennis shoe.   “Gross!” I yelled, but as I stooped to pick it up, I remembered Garey’s dad, J.D., standing in the kitchen saying, “I skunked ole Sonny Boy.”  It would be one of the last times the two of them would hunt together, J.D. would be gone four years later from cancer.

                There were freezer cups of strawberries, picked from Aggie’s own berry patch.  I remember how she saved and saved money from the sale of those berries in order to buy herself a diamond ring, something she hinted to J.D. for years she’d love to have, but he didn’t or wouldn’t take the hint.  The strawberries splatted as they hit the ground, and soon began to draw yellow jackets, so we had to move swiftly.  I gave Garey a look of disapproval as he dumped a bag of corn, the ears still wrapped individually in aluminum foil. 

                “I figure if a squirrel can chew the hull off a nut, a piece of foil won’t give him any trouble,” he said.  (I hate when he uses common sense tactics on me.)

                We took all of the bags and containers back to the house, where we threw some in the trash and washed up what could be saved.  It made me sad for Aggie that she had lost all that food.

                People of Aggie’s generation worked so hard to raise and gather and preserve food.  Many of them did so because they had been hungry as children, and they never wanted to be that way again.  Abundance wasn’t something they had grown up with, so when it came their way, they sure weren’t going to waste it.  They learned how to can and freeze and salt cure everything they could, and they passed on those skills to my generation.

                I understand that many people of my generation and younger don’t see the necessity of learning how to grow and preserve their own food.  In this country, food is so readily accessible.  I still feel the importance of raising and preserving food for a couple of reasons. First, I am a student of history, and I know that countries rise and countries fall, but people will always need food.  If everything goes to hell in a hand basket around you, you can survive if you have food.  Second, I have seen over and over again the importance of working together as a family.  There is something about suffering and succeeding together that brings people closer.

                I am sad that Aggie lost all that food, but she didn’t lose the time she had with us as we helped her grow it and put it into that freezer.  Now, if I could get her to talk Garey into moving that old one off my back side walk, it would feel like a win-win situation all around.