Beech Tree News Network

“If I ever make it back to Kentucky, I’m going to pack up at least half of what’s in my storage rooms and donate it to the poor.”  That’s what I told myself at the end of a day of sorting through a gazillion little things in Garey’s mom’s house.  Aggie, like others from the depression era, kept everything—and I do mean EVERYTHING!  I tossed five pounds of bread ties and at least thirty pounds of rusted canning rings in the trash.  Garey and his sister, Charlotte, plan on having an estate sale after we’ve gone through everything, which will be around the year 2035.

We spent a lot of time asking, “what’s this?” while coming across things from a bygone era, and parts and pieces of things we couldn’t identify.  There were keys everywhere—in old purses, in sugar bowls, in cans and jars.  Of course, none of them fit the locks on the big storage trailers—the same trailers Garey had to cut his way to with a chainsaw.  

Garey’s cousin, Neal, asked about the old Road Patrol that had belonged to their grandfather, Grandaddy Hughes.  A Road Patrol is a road grader that was pulled by horses, then later by a tractor.  Back in the day, there were no taxes for road maintenance.  Instead, all the able-bodied men helped with the upkeep of the roads by serving a few days each year with the county.

Neal used to help their grandfather grade the road up the mountain where Grandaddy and Mama Hughes lived.  Neal asked Garey and Charlotte if he could buy the old Road Patrol from them.  It was down in the field by Aggie’s house.  They told Neal he could have it and to come get it.  Neal and his son drove down into the field to look the situation over and discovered a tree, about two feet in diameter, had grown up through the middle of it.  Neal decided it was a job for another day.  

While looking through the bedroom drawers, Charlotte found a box of old pictures.  There was a school days picture of their dad and his sister, Johnnie, from their time at New Bethel, a one-room schoolhouse near where they had lived.  There was another picture of Aggie’s dad’s family.  It was the first time either Garey or Charlotte had seen a picture of their great grandfather.  There were two professional photographs of Garey that his mom paid to have taken right before he left for Germany (this was during the Vietnam War).  

“I guess, she wanted to have a picture of me in case I didn’t make it back home,” Garey said.  “I was really a good-looking guy,” he said, then laughed.  

We continued to pack boxes and labeled boxes till I was nearly blind.  Charlotte and I divided canning lids and rings—that weren’t rusted—between us.  We each got some glasses and mugs and pans that reminded us of Aggie.  I got the old round biscuit pan, missing part of the handle.  Aggie would make homemade biscuits for all of us when we came to visit, and she always used that pan.  We also set aside an iron skillet for each one of the four grandchildren.  

I offered to buy the old Boston pencil sharpener attached to the door frame near the kitchen.  They go for $20 on eBay.  Charlotte said she was just going to throw it in a box of miscellaneous stuff, and for me to just take it.  Garey searched the basement over for a flathead screwdriver, then took it down for me.  I took it immediately to our truck.  It is hands-down the best pencil sharpener I have ever used in my 67 years on this earth.

This whole process of sorting and packing and throwing away is grueling, but the pictures and the items we found evoked memories of the lives that were lived in this little house in Corner, Alabama for years and years.  I hope the next owners have good lives and good memories.