The country was cool and green as we wound our way down the state and county roads. The green of the trees is starting to fade but no color has yet appeared. The road sides are graced with the brilliance of the fall flowers’ yellow, white and sprinkles of purple. We followed the country roads both paved and gravel until we turned into the drive of the Blessed Acres Farm. The right side of the lane leads you past a garden of keepsakes and flowers nestled among the trees. It grows more beautiful every time we come. The lane leads over the hill and down to the home of the Hale family. Pam has worked hard to make the park beautiful and today’s sisters day celebration spectacular. We gathered in Pam’s cozy kitchen. Betty West, Lucy Branson, Mary Jo Crider, Linda Crider, Pam Hale our hostess, and Susie Kleffner were in attendance. Shirley and Bob Huffman were attending a Bluegrass Festival so Shirley had to miss this one.
The table was set with an array of antique looking plates of farm scenes in brown on white, each one different. The coffee and tea were ready so we each got our preference and moved to the table. Shortly the table was laden with fresh danish and doughnuts, fresh cantaloupe, Denver scrambled eggs (that’s cooked with peppers and onions) bacon and toast. Darrell, Pam’s husband, joined us for breakfast. It was delightful to have him there. He’s a fun guy and Pam almost has him trained for company and it only taken her 48 years. We love that old man.
Mary Jo has a new great-grandson, 4 lbs 8 ozs, Blaze Joseph. Betty got her second great-granddaughter 3lbs 4oz, Addie Rae. They were both so tiny but everybody’s home and doing well.
We talked about auctions around the area. Some little things bring big money and big things go for practically nothing. But isn’t it always that way with auctions.
The subject of buying and selling houses came up. The seller spends a lot of time and money to prepare them to sell and when the buyer moves in the first thing they do is start changing everything to their tastes.
We Crider sisters grew up eating wild meat, Mary Jo not so much. One of Mary Jo’s sisters won’t eat meat at her house for fear it will be wild meat. We all remember how Leo loved to hunt and fish so chances of having wild game on the table was pretty high. It was one of the things I wished for when I went there to eat. We don’t get much wild meat in Jeff City.
Lucy learned to pick wild greens from our Mom, Anna Crider. Lucy continued to go our every year to collect them. Some time even enough to can. This year, all things considered she decided not to go. One of her neighbors called and asked if Lucy would like some of hers. If you saw someone dancing on Mill or 10th street it was probably Lucy. She really loves her poke, lambs quarter, square dock and all the rest.
That lead to talking about how few people there are left who could live off the land if they had no other resources.
Lucy told about when she went with our Dad (Sam Crider) to get some fish for supper. They went down through Uncle Joe Buschmann’s farm to the Maries to the Buschmann Eddy to seine for fish. Lucy walked out in water about chest deep and daddy walked on the gravel bar at the edge of the water. They made one pass and emptied the seine into a five gallon bucket; it was way over half full. Daddy said, “I think that’s enough,” so they went back home. They went to clean them and Grandma, Missouri Crider, came out to help. She brought a teaspoon and really made the scales fly. Lucy still remembers how slick that spoon worked. When they got them all cleaned they had 99 fish from 3 inches to as big a daddy’s hand. What a wonderful childhood memory this is for Lucy and now it’s a memory for all of us.
While we are on the subject of memories, it came up that back in the day almost every small town had a tavern usually within walking distance of the church. After Mass the women would gather on the porch or sidewalk outside church to catch up on the local news while the men walked over to the tavern for a beer. No woman would go to the tavern for fear of being labeled a “floozies.”
Pam came in with a bag of dice and a hand full of quarters. We don’t’ know the name of the game we played but Pam had the rules. We rolled 1 die and followed the directions. Roll a 1 or 2 and pass one coin to the right, roll 3 or 4 and pass one coin to the left, roll a 5 and you keep your coins or roll a 6 and put one coin in the pot/middle. The last one with any coins gets the pot. Susie was the winner of the money game. We wanted to play more so we passed out dried beans. You can use almost anything that comes in multiples; buttons, matches, fat quarters (small pieces of fabric), dried corn, beans. We laughed and joked and had a ball. As we played along Betty was trying to count her beans and started laughing. I said what now, Betty said those aren’t beans they’re knots in Pam’s beautiful wooden table. That’s when we all laughed. Lucy won the bean game and wound up with a handful of beans, about enough for one serving after they are cooked.
We still didn’t want to quit so Pam brought out bag of dice and pulled out a set of six and we played Greed. Katie’s name came up all through the game. She loved to play this game and was a real gambler because she kept rolling when anyone else would have stopped. If you don’t know how Greed is played, you roll all six dice. You have to get a 1 or a 5 to keep rolling, you have to set aside at least 1 die after each roll and then roll the rest. You can stop any time because if you roll and don’t get a 1 or 5 you lose all the points you’ve accumulated to that point during that roll. If someone got a bunch of points they’d say, “What Katie would do” the rest of us would shout ROLL. Pam won Greed but all she got was braggin’ rights. Another memory was when Mom, Anna Crider, would play. She was very lucky. She would roll and get up to 2 or 3 thousand points in one roll and look up all sweet faced and smirk and say, “That’ll do.” That went around the table a few times today even though none of us got 2 thousand points.
Lunch finally rolled around. It had to roll after all those dice.
The table was set with the pretty dishes again and loaded with delicious food; a veggie tray with broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, and celery with ranch dip. Bowls of shredded cheese and Fritos, a platter full of hotdogs baked with onions and cheese, and a big pot of chili and crackers. Darrell came by for lunch too. It appears he didn’t get the memo about it being pick on Darrell day. He ate fast and graciously took every thing we could dish out to tease him. He made some lame excuse about having to cut hay and left. Now I ask you “What kind of an excuse is that for a farmer to use to escape a table full of Aunts?”
The Virus came up. There are a lot of inconsistencies in the flow of information when you have it. One person had it and got a call from both the county and her doctor. Another person had it and the county called but the doctor never did. Come to find out the doctor wasn’t notified by the county. The odd part of this story is they were both tested by the same county and both used the same doctor. I don’t know about you but it makes me question all the other procedures used in this pandemic. I’ve heard of several people who were not even tested getting called and told they tested positive. It’s enough to make you want to stay home.
With the corona rules, the fall suppers have to be revamped for drive thru serving. It’s a whole new program calling for different procedures to make it work. Brinktown has one of the best quilt auctions in the area. This year it all has to be done on the computer. The Guardian Angel Parish website has not been set up yet, so the quilts will displayed for viewing on Facebook. As effective as this might be it will still be limiting their audience and could affect the sales. For one thing the quilts will be priced, no bidding. So many established procedures are obsolete this year. At least by having drive through dinners people will be able to eat someone else’s cooking.
Take care and be safe. Hopefully we are on the backside of the Pandemic.
Thought: When life gets hard and you’re faced with defeat, remember somewhere in the world a flower is popping up through concrete.
Advice from an old farmer: When you wallow with the pigs expect to get dirty.