RAY DEAN JAMES - My Life chapter 2

This is the 2nd installment of my Dad's life story from about 30 or so pages that he wrote in 1999. He lived until 2015 and added a few more tidbits over the years. You might see me chime in here and there, offering some context in red italics.

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My grandparents had a farm three miles from town and we often walked that three miles to get there. My grandmother always had snuff juice on her mouth when she would pick me up and kiss me. Today I would probably say, “No thanks Granny. A handshake will do just fine.” Ah, but Granny was the world's best cook and baker. She always had my favorite, sweet potato pie, waiting for me when I came to visit. They were both very stubborn people. I don't remember either one ever laughing. But back then just surviving was tough and there wasn't much to laugh about. They had two sons who were 17 years apart, the oldest being my dad. My uncle Edwin was not well educated and had a serious speech impediment which I picked up from being around him. Everyone thought I was going to end up talking just like him but I didn't. There was no such thing as speech therapy back then and he sounded the same until age 29 when he was killed in a car wreck leaving a widow and two children, my Aunt Flonnie and cousins Earl and Elaine. Grandpa was injured in the same wreck and eventually died. Grandma had died of a stroke at the age of 49. Their farm house burned down years ago. But I can close my eyes and visualize every inch of it. I have a million memories of that place.

I didn't think about it until I was older, but my grandfather's farm must have been the only one in the state of Tennessee that didn't have an outhouse. No, I didn't say they had inside facilities either. There were none at all. You answered nature's call behind the hen house or in one of the barn stalls, preferably an empty one. I can only assume that my grandfather was ignorant or lazy or both. How degrading it must have been for my grandmother. Another reason why I never saw her smile.

They got their drinking water from a spring about 500 feet behind the house, through the garden and across the creek. This natural spring was a classic piece of God's artwork. At the spring everything was the same 365 days a year. Milk and butter were kept in containers in this spring and they never spoiled. It was surrounded by flat rocks where you could lay on your belly and drink cool water straight from the spring. My brother and I would come years later after we had moved to the city and heat water from this spring over an open fire and bathe in a tub out in the woods on the hillside. My grandparents' house had a dirt floor cellar where they kept onions, potatoes, and canned goods, equivalent to a small supermarket. I spent hours in their attic where they kept everything they had ever owned, especially the toys my dad had played with. I remember vividly a horse on wheels...

A good deal of my grandparents time was spent in canning or otherwise preserving foods to get them through the winter. On the back porch was an old handmade table where the water bucket was kept with the community dipper that everyone drank from. Somewhere near that table as a child I had written my name on the wall in crayon and they left it there for as long as I can remember. Under that table was the oversized wash pan that my grandfather and uncle used to wash themselves after a day in the fields. I'll never forget going with them to a neighbor's farm for a hog killin' where all the farmers spent the day butchering each other's hogs. The wives fixed a meal and made sausage. Me and the other kids got the illustrious job of scraping hair off the hogs.