Peas Beans and Other Goodies

by

Billy Whitehead

Dad always had a garden. He often said that he could not stand to look out and not have something growing. When we moved back from Indianapolis in 1953, we moved into a house on North Street. Just up from the house was plenty room for a garden.
Dad knew Tex Sergeant and knew that Tex had a mule and plow. One Saturday he went to check with Tex about borrowing the mule. Of course he came home with the mule and plow. By Saturday evening he had the ground broken for a garden. By Sunday evening we were planting the garden. He had purchased tomato seed earlier and started young plants in a tub so he then set tomatoes.

Later that summer the young plants were up, as well as grass. We older kids then learned that the grass could be removed. We also learned who was going to remove it with a hoe. As the beans and peas grew dad said that we were going to cut some bean sticks. With an ax and some string we headed off down a country road stopping close to some young saplings. Dad cut every sapling of about 1 inch, trimming all the limbs. It was Willie and my job to get those sticks to the car trunk. After he had cut about 100 sticks he tied them down then tied the trunk lid and headed home.

Somehow dad had some galvanized wire which he tied from several post along the bean rows. To this wire he put a stick from the bean and pea plant then tied the stick to the wire. As the plants grew he would tie the vine. By late summer there were bean and pea plants over six feet high.

The next summer there were to gardens, one up from the house and another down from the house. A couple years later there was another spot behind house.

Across the ditch was Mr. Will McGee who worked for the Mississippi State Highway Department. Mr. Will had a garden much like dad’s except that he grew Cushaws. Mr. Will explained that the cushaw was much like a sweet potato except that it grew on top of the ground rather than under the ground. We learned to love cushaw and know what? It was like sweet potato, which we loved!

When the garden was ready for picking we had peas, beans, corn, eggplants, okra and all other good vegetables to eat. We ate well too!

Then there was canning to do. Much of the garden was canned in quart jars. Mom and dad would put peas and beans in a large hallway then when school was out we had to get out lessons done then shell peas and beans. Mom would wash then fill the jars. The jars were then placed in a large pot which we learned was a pressure cooker. It sat on the stove to cook. When it was heated the steam would start whistling. After a time it the stove was turned off to cool. When the jars were cooled enough they were removed to the table to finish cooling. New jars were placed in the cooker and the process was repeated. This was a lot of work but we learned that come winter when no garden was growing, we had great food to eat and us country chillen loved to eat!

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When late fall came around dad cleaned out the early garden and made ready for a fall garden. In it there would be turnip greens, collard greens and cabbage as well as late beans and peas. These peas and beans were called bush beans with no sticks.
Dad loved to give the neighbors a mess of vegetables from time to time.

One time we were gone to Sturgis to visit overnight. When we returned Sunday morning there on the kitchen table was two large grocery bags of turnip greens.

Oh, you wonder how they got into the house. They got in through the door! In those days it was not unusual to leave a door closed but not locked. Many times no-one even had a key to unlock the door if it were locked. Later, if we were going to be gone overnight we would lock the door. Once mom closed the door and realized that the key was in the lock, inside the house. How was she going to get the door open? She checked all the other doors, but they were all locked. I had read a comic book where the star got the key. I took a newspaper, slid it under the door then, with a pencil, I pushed the key out of the lock! I was a proud boy now.

For meat dad had a pig growing for the fall but his main resource was fish and other game. Rabbit, squirrel and deer were common fare for the Whitehead table.

For milk he kept a cow behind the house where Mr. Paul Graham and a lot which he allowed dad to use. There was a shed he could use to store milking feed. Later, I learned how to milk the cow. In a bucket we put warmed water and carried it to the milk lot. We would wash the udder with the warmed water. With a process I massaged the teat to get the milk to come. I did not care for milking the cow because she always slapped me in the face with her tail.

When the coffee plant closed in 1958 dad had to sell his cow so that we could move to Sturgis where he worked for Grandpa Kent in the saw mill. We lived in a house off the Sturgis Maben Road. There was running water, outside. Dad made a crude shower by building a small room about 5X5. He then fastened a garden hose over the top. It worked well even though it was cold water, even more cold in winter but we had it to do. The water came from a spring about 200 feet behind he house in which a pump was placed.

We did not have a refrigerator at this house. Instead, there was an icebox. An icebox has no electricity to keep it cool. At the top there was a box in which a 20 or 30 pound block of ice was kept. Once a week the ice man would come by so Mom would buy ice. The man would put it in the icebox. If the ice melted before he came by dad would go to the ice plant and buy more ice.

Dad loved to kid mom’s younger sister. One day he came in from work. Seeing Bay Doll he walked by her, grabbed her and kissed her right in the mouth and ran out the back door. Only she was right behind him, with a mayonnaise jar which she threw. She hit him square in the head. The jar broke cutting him in the scalp. She cried saying that she did not mean to hurt him but she was mad at him for kissing her. I think it took several stitches to sew his scalp.

One week Clyde, dad’s /12 brother was there. Mom’s brother, Sam, was over playing cards. They played cards until 11:00 or so when Sam decided to walk home which was about 1 ½ mile down the gravel road. Clyde and Dad knew that Sam had to walk to the “Y” then turn toward his home. They ran through the woods where they hung a white sheet with a lantern inside on a limb. Dad had a wooden keg with a deer hide stretched over it making a drum he called a “dumb bull.” With a cotton string set in the hide. When he pulled the string it sounded like a bull. As they pulled the string Sam heard the bellowing of the bull. However he was confused with the white thing there shining. He realized that someone was messing with him. He tried to sic his dog, Pluto, but Pluto was afraid too! Soon he walked into the field and around Mr. White’s house. Back on the road, he promised to be back with his shotgun. Later, Sam found who had tricked him. He said “I knew it was yall all the time.”

Dad worked for Grandpa Kent until fall when he found work at B&W Boiler Works in West Point. We then moved back to the same house. He first time we lived there, we lived on the west side of the two apartment house. This time we lived on the east side. Mr. Butler lived in the west side now. Dad still used the garden spot.

Over the years we moved back and forth to that house five times. We finally wound up with the whole house.

Being some older now I would use the yard mower. After mowing our grass I would go to Miss Betty Holman to mow her grass. She had a little grass but had Magnolia trees in front. After mowing the grass I had to rake the magnolia leaves to the street. This mower was not one with a motor. It is a rotary reel type mower. When it was pushed the reel would spin. As one pushed the mower over the grass the rotor would clip the grass.

Later Miss Betty told me that we could pick up pecans on halves. That fall we were there picking up pecans. After the dividing we had a burlap feed sack full of pecans which we would shell the following winter. Many we would eat as we shelled but some were set aside for cooking treats such as a pecan pie!

Come winter when no garden was growing, pecans were all gone from the trees and it was cold outside we would be inside. Sometimes we would watch TV, which was a new thing for us. On Friday nights the TV was off. The old Mallard radio was turned to the Grand Ole Opera. Sometimes one of mom’s brothers would show up to play cards while listening to the Opera. If it was dry weather we might have to pour water on the grounded end of the antenna wire.

At other times we would drive to Sturgis on Saturday morning. I loved to go to Grandma and Grandpa Kent’s. There I would romp about with Charles and Cotton. We would go to the barn where they kept Pall Mall cigarettes and Days Work Chewing tobacco. They seemed to love it so I tried it. I then never saw how they liked its so much. One time they showed me a whirl-a-jig. Someone had sawed a tree of about 8 inches off about three feet high. Into that there was a large bolt or nail. On the bolt they then balanced the rest of the tree without the limbs. Someone got onto the ends of the pole. You rode it round and round like a merry go round. The problem came when the guy on one end jumped off. The remaining one had a rough but short ride to the ground! !

Grandma Kent dipped snuff. She kept two or three bottles of Garrett Sniff in her bedroom. On the table she kept a small can of Tube Rose. When visitors came around she would sit the Tube Rose out. If they wanted a dip, yep, they got Tube Rose. She would let only Granny Ford use her Garrett’s.

Several times dad was laid off at the B&W plant. He went to work in the saw mill until he was called back. Later he found work at the American Bosch plant in Columbus. He and mom worked there for about 12 years being laid off several times. In about 1970 Mr. Will McGee helped get him on with the highway department. This job would likely not lay off as a plant did. Mom kept working for Bosch where she worked for 36 years.

Dad loved working for the highway department. He soon bought a home on Hale Street where we moved in 1961.

This house was across the street from Mrs. Jones store. The yard was rough with a big pecan tree in front. I do not remember that tree having one pecan so it was soon cut down. To make the yard better dad would bring dirt from ditching and dump it to fill in the yard. He spent many an hour leveling the dirt until he had a nice yard.

In about 1962 he built another room bedroom and bath. There was no air conditioner in the house so he found a large fan which he put on the east end of the house. In the late evening he would turn on a sprinkler on the west end. With the fan pulling air from the east and the water sprinkler on the west end the house cooled easily.

At this house on Hale Street dad had room for a small garden so he had to find more ground. He found that ground south of the house near a stream which was also behind the garment factory. He fenced a large place in for a cow. For water he dug a place for a bath tub. This was in a small ditch which drained the steam from the garment plant. This warm water kept the cows water in winter. For summer water he had a large tub which he filled by carrying a bucket full every day as he milked the cow.

Dad gave up the milk cow when Mr. Allen Paterson decided to build more houses. The cost of milk from the grocery store was now more affordable now that he and mom were working without the fear of layoff. He now had time for his garden and hunting dogs.

Dad kept several dogs. Usually there were three or four blue ticks as well as five or six Beagles. The blue ticks were generally for deer but would run a rabbit. The beagles were for rabbit but some would run a deer.

When the girls were old enough they got jobs waiting tables at a Havey’s restaurant. Dad made a deal to remove the food scraps. Every evening he would stop by the restaurant to pick up the scraps. He would then go across the railroad to his pig pin. When the pigs heard the truck they would be waiting by the trough. Many times when he opened the top of the can there was a package wrapped on top. The cooks would have a steak or perhaps shrimp were inside.

He would raise the hogs to kill and freeze when he first cold weather came on. He had a house out back where there was a freezer. There he kept vegetables, fish and other meat he had prepared during the summer. They still canned some vegetables but not as much as before. Some vegetables were simply better when canned. Sometimes he would cook up a large pot of soup with vegetables left over. He would freeze this for later use. When he caught fish there were always some he froze. He loved to use ½ gallon milk cartons. He would pack as many fish in the carton as possible. Then he would fill the carton with water then put in the freezer. To use he set the box out, usually in the kitchen sink to thaw.

In 1967 built my house where the cow had been kept. Dad planted a garden nearby. This garden was about ¼th acre. After his heart attack he did not work his beloved garden for about a year. He finally told his doctor that he was going to work his garden. The doctor grudgingly approved however I think he knew he was going to do the garden anyhow. Dad paced himself and did well. His strength returned and he did well.

Very soon he was back at his earlier routine. Up by 4:30. feed the dogs, work the garden. After the girls were off to school he would head out for his six mile walk. Sometimes he would walk out hwy 14 to Mr. Patterson’s which was about four miles. Or he might go west to Lanky Tensely. At both places he would sit and talk for an hour or so then head back home. Likely he would work in the garden some more then off to catch a mess of fish. One day I stopped in to find dad and his brother in law, Charles Oliver. They were making pepper jelly from jalapeño peppers. They had tears in their eyes from wiping sweat off their foreheads but laughing all the time.
One day dad went to Patterson Grocery for chitterlings. He cooked up a gallon with peas and fixings.

One time, the Masonic Lodge ask him to make his Brunswick Stew, which he pronounced “Bronical Stew.”. He made 15 gallons at the time. He needed two bottles of Bull Hot sauce however Mr Patterson did not have any. He told dad that he had some Tabasco sauce. “Gimmy two bottles.” The Masonic Lodge served the Brunswick that evening but was soon out of tea. The stew was really hot !

One weekend he told neighbors that they were invited to Freddie’s place for stew. Freddie’s place was a place on the river that dad, Fred Rigdon, Buddy Auston and some others had cleared off for a small park. There was a brick barbeque pit and a large table.

Dad had all the ingredients together and was cooking early Saturday morning. All knew that his meat would be whatever he had including wild game. Peggy Patterson said she did not want any of that so dad made a smaller pot for those who did not want the game. As I remember, he had there was a quart of lima beans, peas, corn, potatoes and two or three onions. Then there was five pounds pork, a whole chicken, a couple rabbits. Then there would be five pounds of beef or deer. To that he added enough water to cover by about four inches. That would simmer for four or five hours in an open fire of pecan wood. Near the end he added two bottles of Bull Hot Sauce. To that there was an abundance of stories. Rabbits were hunted, squirrels were treed as were coon hunts talked about.

Dad was about family and friends. He always had time to idle the day away talking to friends, telling stories, talking about how this one is doing or what he was going to plant next year.