Facing Northeast - Remembering When We Were All New Yorkers, We Were All Americans

Every Barn, Every House, Every Street, Every Block, We All Stop and Remember

Our Liberty Requires Vigilance

Thank You for Giving Your Sweat, Blood, and Lives for Our Freedoms

Southern Fried Chicken

I never told Bayno when Mama was going to make fried chicken. If I didn’t say anything, then all the cracklings in the pan would be mine. When the chicken was brown and crisp, I would take the spatula and press it against the bottom of the skillet and scrape the cracklings out of the grease, and when they were cool enough, I’d pour them into my mouth.

That summer was different from other summers even though the garden was the same. All its blooming and growing meant a good harvest along with back breaking work. Sometimes I’d stand in the middle of a row with both hands pressed into my back, my hands making a V and I would bend backwards and listen to all the bones popping and feel the muscles stretch so much they hurt. But with the sun beating down, I’d set my jaw and finish the row no matter if I was weeding, hoeing, or picking.

One day I thought about how many times I’d gone over those rows. Probably I’d been at each row at least 7 or 8 times. I multiplied that in my head, and then doubled it for the extra rows outside the fence and added some for when I’d be picking off bugs, and figured I’d been up and down those rows near to a thousand times already that summer.

But that was the first summer I’d spent without father coming home after work. It was easy to remember how it started. We had got up for school, and a man in a tractor came and plowed back the snow as Mama peered out the window, and when the driveway was clear we put on our coats and went to wait for the bus. When we came home father was already there, waiting for us outside the house. He told us to get in the backseat of the car while he got in front, gripping tight to the wheel as though he had somewhere to go, and I watched his face in the mirror as he told us he loved us, but he couldn’t stay where we lived, in the new house he’d built. And then he told us to get out of the backseat and go in the house by our mother, and we did.

The way we’d lived life had been thrown off schedule what with nothing to mark time the way scheduled work did. Father had always come home from the factory at 4:30 and we’d eat supper at 5 o’clock. I liked how every Tuesday we’d had tuna fish casserole, and every Wednesday, Mama had served pizza along with a shot of Black Label beer for everyone. I longed for a family that sat down to eat meals at 5 o’clock, eat them off Mama’s pretty Melmac plates, when Mama was happy and father was happy and brother smiled all the time and there was enough good food to eat. Mama would scold Bayno for eating her mashed potatoes with her fingers. I had realized that summer it was only just pretend and if anything was real at all, it was the pretty Melmac plates.

But that was all done now because father had taken all the money. We ate whatever was in season, what we could grow in the garden, along with eggs from the chickens. Lots of eggs. Lord knows how many times Mama gave thanks for those chickens. Only the old ones went into the fry pan, the oldest in the stew pot. And we had popcorn. It had been awhile since we’d had any bread, but we had popcorn, which last fall we had shelled by hand until our fingers bled.

Sometimes Mr. Kirby would bring a snapping turtle. He would nail it to the light pole by the thick part of its tail and brother would wave a stick in front of it until the turtle tried to grab it with that pointy hook tooth at the top of its mouth. And then Mama would lop off its head with an old machete she had just for that purpose. The turtle would dangle headless with its legs all jerking and moving while the blood drained out and pooled on the ground, sometimes still jerking at the end of the day even if Mama had cut its head off in the morning. Once I looked in the pan after Mama had cut it all up into cook-size pieces and some of the pieces were still moving.

Snapping Turtle (Picture from SESC)

Summer was near to end when Mr. Kirby came with another turtle, unusual for the time of year, as most of them came in the Spring. I stood next to Mama, standing with her back to the pole. I could never watch Mama swing. I stared at the grass waiting for the sound that would let me know it was over, and

“Aren’t you going to…”

“That turtle’s a she, and she’s crying. A tear just rolled down her cheek.”

I looked at Mama shaking, and then I looked at the turtle, and those sad eyes connected with mine. Sure enough, there rolled another tear, plopping in the sand below. I felt like something had reached all the way in from some deep dark far-away place and took hold of my heart and squeezed it dry. Mama took a breath. She pulled the nail out of the pole and hanging on to the tail of the turtle she walked across the road with it swinging upside down, swinging far out from her body so it couldn’t snap at her. With her strong arms she set the turtle down, pointed it toward the water and walked away without looking back. Mama came past me. “Go on and get your pole.”

I knew what that meant. If a fish decided to bite your hook and take your bait, well that was a whole lot different than lopping something’s head off when it didn’t want its head lopped off. Sometimes there was only so much a good woman could do.

This post was submitted by Julie Eger.

My Brother Making a Fort

We lived on four acres. Not large by country standards but a whole universe to a child and her dog.

My father worked in the city but wanted his children to have the country experience that he had growing up in a small town in east Texas.  So, braving the commute, he moved us out into the “boonies” where we would have the opportunity to build forts, create mud pools, maintain an aviary, and know what it feels like to run bare foot through the field that you, a child by others standards, mowed with your John Deere tractor that morning.

My siblings and I loved tramping through the woods claiming forts and tree houses that the other gender was not allowed to cross.  The girls made homes with rolls of toilet paper and transplanted cacti.  The boys made watch towers with tire swings and snake skins.  A paradise of wood and mud – and we loved it.

1997 Jarrell Tornado News Coverage

Little did my father know that the creature he would most influence with his desire for open air would be a little dog that my sister brought home from work one day.  It was 1997 and there were a string of tornados that tore through the Central Texas hill country.   One of them had been the F5 that killed 27 people in Jarrell, TX, just 7 miles, as the crow flies, from our home.

One of the smaller tornadoes in the chain, however, had managed to throw a newborn puppy from her litter into a stranger’s backyard while sparing its life. The owner of that backyard found the pup cowering in the bushes the next day and brought her to the Anderson Mill vet clinic where my sister worked as a technician.  They bathed the three inches of mud, fleas, and leaves off of her and determined she was less than 24 hours old and would need to be hand-fed.

That evening my sister walked into our house with a sly smile.   “It will only be until she is weaned.  We can put her up for adoption after she can eat on her own.”  She pleaded with my father as she revealed a silent, little puppy underneath her sweater.

“Annie,” as we dubbed her, won an eight week reprieve.  Of course, little orphan Annie ended up staying with us for over 12 more years.

With such a traumatic beginning Annie grew up with a few quirks of her own.  She didn’t speak until she was three months old and when she finally found her voice it’s strength scared her back into silence .  Never a fan of too much noise she decided that she would try not to use her voice unless absolutely necessary; choosing visual and physical communication over barking.

Annie was prone to other neurotic behaviors.  She knew a storm was coming before any of the TV networks did.  Always our little guardian, she would herd us inside, away from any danger when the clouds grew dark.  She would pace, pant, and cry for the duration of every storm and then sleep like a baby when we all got through it alive.

The first Sunday we let her stay outside while we went to church she decided to explore one of our many woodpiles and wound up with a bump on the head and a runaway eye.  Annie now had a cone collar and a new nickname, Popeye.

Despite these traumas at such a young age, Annie discovered a love for nature that few humans can really grasp.  Forgiving the lumber, wind, and clouds for their abuse of her, she would set out for an adventure in the woods every afternoon.  Sometimes I would follow her just to see if I could catch a glimpse of the alternate reality she embarked on every day.

Of course, as a girl with a rampant imagination, I would create all kinds of stories behind her daily disappearances.  She had meetings with the woodland creatures about current issues in the ecological climate.  Her best friend, a deer, would wait for her in a thatch behind our neighbor’s fence.

She taught a pack of wild wolves about living with the humans.  What I couldn’t understand at that age was something more than a fairytale.  It was the beauty of a scented wind that spoke of mice and crickets.   A crackling of leaves that told the story of an escaping squirrel.  The luxury of lounging on a bed of soft, decaying grass and leaves beneath the awning of an ancient oak tree.  These were the adventures our dear Annie enjoyed every day that the skies allowed it.

Rattle Snake (Click Snake to Enlarge)

Annie’s entire life revolved around the next time she could escape to her private universe.  One day, when the winds had changed and the world was starting to cool down, she escaped for an adventure and met the creature no man wishes to cross paths with, a rattlesnake.  She came home with two puncture wounds on her nose.

The vet said that she would be fine thanks to some anti venom they had given her with their annual shots.  We breathed a sigh of relief and forbade any more outdoor adventures.  As the months went on we noticed her joints starting to stiffen.   She began drinking more water and her fur took on an oily, clumpy appearance.   Her gait was slower and she no longer jumped up and ran to the kitchen with every crinkle of her treat bag.

The poison had done its damage.  One Sunday, a year after she met the snake, she didn’t get up for breakfast.  Her legs could not support her anymore. My family, all of the children now adults with houses, families, and careers, gathered at our parent’s house to share our last moments with our sweet, neurotic adventurer.  We did what any true country family would do; fed her some great barbeque and took her outside for one last adventure.  We sat with her in that big, soft field smelling the mice and listening to the escaping squirrels while we watched the clouds scuttle by – whispering their thanks for her gentle friendship over all those years.

She may not have said much in her twelve years but she managed to show at least one little girl the simple beauty of a bright, windy day.

Annie

This post was submitted by Beverley Strong.