Beech Tree News Network

Recently, a customer came into our shop with a Valvoline reminder card in his hand.  (Valvoline sends the cards out to remind customers when their next oil change is due.)  The card was addressed to the customer “or current resident.”  When the man showed the card, he said, “I guess I’ll have to be the one who pays for this oil change, doesn’t look like the other current resident is going to show.”  I laughed, but it made me think about how much mail I get addressed to “current resident,” and I realized the day will come when I will no longer be the current resident where I now live.  There were others who lived here before me, and there will be others who live here after me.

Our house was built in the early 1970s, but there was another house, built much earlier, that stood on the same spot.  It was torn down in order to build this house.  The former house was a four-room white frame house, built by the Costello family.  Last week, I visited with Erdine House.  Erdine’s mother, Hettie, married Thurman Costello after her own husband, Ray Allen, passed away.  Thurman’s wife, Flossie, had passed also.  Hettie and Thurman lived on this farm with Thurman’s mother.

Part of our farm was strip mined around the same time the current house was built.  The land was reclaimed, but the lay of the land was changed from its original state.  I showed Erdine pictures of our house and the fields on either side, as well as the view down our driveway.  She described for me the former contour of the land, as well as how the road (Woodbury Loop) had taken a different path from the time her mom lived here.

The same barn we use today stood on the old site, but the chicken coup and tool shed that stood down the hill behind our house are long gone.  The tobacco field that was on the left side of my house is now a cattle pasture.  Erdine made a comment about how much work tobacco is, and how her mom and Thurman spent many hours there.

“They never hired anybody to help them,” She said, “They did all the work themselves.”  

“That sounds like Garey and me,” I laughed.  (There must be something about our farm that brings out the independent spirit.)

I asked Erdine if the stories I’d heard about how there had been an infestation of copperheads on our place were true.  She said they were true.

“But Mama was never afraid of a snake,” Erdine said.  “I remember one time we were in the garden, and we saw Mama start chopping away at something, and we yelled, Mama, what are you doing, and she said, I’m just chopping the head off this snake.” 

“I would have been screaming and running away myself,” Erdine laughed.

Someone told me the Costellos eventually got rid of the snakes by bringing in a bunch of hogs to take care of the problem.  I don’t know how they did it, I’m just glad they did.

The big maple tree in my front yard, where Garey put Sabria’s tree house and I hung my swing, was also a favorite of the Costello family.  They would gather there, as my family does, although the well from which they drew water, beneath the tree, is now covered over by a huge rock.  Often, when I’m in my swing, I think about the generations of families that big maple tree has seen, and I ask God to allow it to stand for many more generations.

Sometimes, I wonder if the future will bring inventions that will make the way I live now seem primitive.  But that consideration is for another day.  Right now, I am the current resident.