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New Year’s Fixin’s – A Lesson in Being Neighborly

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It was a blustery cold morning as Kitty and Pearl began their walk over to Maudie Pearson’s house. They carried tins full of green collards, black-eyed peas and ham hocks and some cornbread.
“This seems like an odd meal to take Miss Maudie,” Pearl said.
“It’s News Year’s Day fixin’s,” Kitty said.
“If she eats these she will have all the luck and money she needs in the next year,” Kitty said.
As they walked across the field to the tenant shack where eighty year-old Maudie lived, their steps barely marked the frozen ground which months before would have allowed them to sink a foot deep with each step.
Kitty’s walk was long and gated since she carried the extra weight of another family member inside her.
“Momma, when will the new baby come,” Pearl asked.
“When its ready,” she said. “I feel it should come any day now.”
Maudie welcomed them at the door and asked them to sit a spell.
“You folks sure surprised me coming on such a cold day,” Maudie said.
“I knew you wouldn’t feel up to cookin’ much, so we wanted to bring you blessings for the New Year,” Kitty said.
“And it looks like you will have a new blessing soon,” Maudie said as she placed her hand on Kitty’s belly.
The threesome sat near the warm fire and shared some hot cider as Maudie showed off a quilt top she was working diligently to finish.
Kitty said they best be getting back.
“The men folk will be home from hunting soon, and they might think we run off,” she said.
Kitty and Pearl took small steps on the way back. Kitty’s pace became slower and slower as she fell on her knees to the ground.
The pain doubled her over.
“Momma,” Pearl called to her, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s time,” Kitty exclaimed.
“What do I do?” Pearl asked.
“Help me and let’s get back to Maudie’s,” she said.
Pearl helped her up, and the duo made their way back to the tenant house.
Maudie said, “Land sakes I knew it would not be long.”
She helped her into the bed and told Pearl to fetch some water from the well and put it in the fire to boil.
Pearl did, and then she placed a damp cloth on Kitty’s head to ease the sweat rolling from her brow. Every few moments intense pain brought Kitty’s shrill scream of agony.
“What can we do?” Pearl said.
“We are doing all we can; the rest is up to God and the little one,” Maudie said.
After a while the screaming stopped, the pain subsided, and in Maudie’s arms was a brand new baby boy.
“Well it looks like the blessings of the New Year have arrived,” Maudie said.
Maudie reached over, picked up the new quilt she was making and wrapped the boy inside, laying him beside Kitty.
“He’ll get it a little early,” she said. “I was hoping to finish it before he came. I’ll do the rest a little later. He needs it more now.”
As the little baby looked up at Maudie and smiled, a shared grin was passed to Kitty and Pearl.
Kitty looked at Pearl and said, “Sharing blessings goes a long ways, little one. Just look what a few greens, peas and cornbread gave to us today.

From the book “A Mountain Pearl: Appalachian Reminiscing and Recipes” and available at www.RandallFranks.com/Store

WISHING ALL A BLESSED AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Christmas Doll

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The winter of ’34 in the valley below the Gravely Spur was an especially hard one. A Christmas snow had blanketed the valley, making travel through the mountain passes treacherous, even if taken by foot.
With one false step, even those who knew the routes by heart could find themselves slipping into a snow drift hiding a potential fall.
However, for most of the children of the valley the snow turned it into a winter wonderland. Pearl, Ruby and the Wood boys were finding whatever they could ride to go sledding down Turner’s gorge. At the bottom of the gorge lay a pond formed from Frog Leg Creek which was covered in a thick coat of ice almost strong enough for skating. No one had any skates so they would simply slide across on the soles of the new shoes they received when the crops were sold.
While the children were unaware, most of the parents of the valley knew that the reality of the year had left them all in dire straits.
Toys at Christmas were largely a luxury in the valley. Even the well-to-do families were having trouble this year. The customary apple, banana or piece of peppermint stick candy that most of the children found in their stocking might be missed this year.
Pearl had sensed the concerns of her parents and with six children and four share-cropping families to help, she knew her father was doing all he could that year.
The unexpected snow however made it difficult for anything not already on hand to be brought into the valley.
Still Pearl hoped that she might find a little something for her Christmas morning that she could call her very own.
As she was sliding on the ice, she listened as the Wood boys laughed about what happened to what they got the year before.
“I can’t believe what George did to our present last year,” Woody said. “We got a whole string of firecrackers to split between us boys and he nearly run us out of the house with them.”
“He got up early Christmas morning and found them. They had this long string running through connecting them, so he took that loose and was counting them and splitting them up so we all had the same amount,” he said. “He threw that long piece of string in the fire. That thing jumped back out right in the middle of his pile. You should have seen George when those firecrackers started going off in every direction. They even jumped up in the bed with the rest of us and got everybody up in the house.”
But in spite of the snow, Santa would be making his usual stops at the Gravelly Spur no matter what. Because of the terrain, this year he would only make one stop in the valley and all the neighbors would go by Christmas morning and pick up what he had brought for the valley children.
Santa’s helper in the valley was Rev. Ben Smathers, who waited patiently Christmas Eve for Santa’s arrival. As the families came to Big Lick Church Christmas morning, he would then, one by one, distribute the gifts and the community would then gather for a celebration of Christ‘s birth.
Christmas morning, Pearl was up early, anxious for the trip to the church. In her stocking she found an orange and a stick of candy. When the family arrived at the church, she joined the other children in line at the tree and stepped up to Rev. Smathers. He placed in her arms a little blonde doll in a woven basket lying upon a blue cotton pillow.
“It is so beautiful,” she said. “Is she really mine?”
“Yes, just for you my dear,” he said. “So you take good care of her.”
As she looked in the eyes of her new friend, Pearl beamed with the joy of Christmas.
It was not stacks of gifts which made her eyes glimmer and her face shine with the light of the season. It was one simple gift of her very own given by the heart of a pastor who knew without his help many children would do without that Christmas.

An Appalachian sight in time – “A Mountain Pearl”

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It is amazing how a sight, a sound or a smell can carry you in your mind’s eye to some distant place and time.

I came upon a patch of white daisies this week as I was walking along the back road in my hometown.
All of a sudden I was four years old again walking along the dirt footpath that led by my grandparent’s farmhouse. I bent over picking the very best flowers from the patch to create three bouquets, one each for my mom – Pearl, my Grandma Kitty and my Aunt Norma Jean.
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