Laura Dean Bennett
Staff Writer
Probably like a lot of our readers, I was raised listening to the old-fashioned language of “the old people” here in Appalachia.
Our grandparents and all the folks hereabouts spoke a peculiar dialect peppered with an endless supply of colorful expressions.
And stretching the truth wasn’t lying – it was a competitive art form.
My grandfather was known for his tall tales.
He was so good at it that it was hard to tell when he was pulling your leg. My mom was pretty good at it, too.
In the spirit of those stories, I offer one of my mother’s yarns, written in the language of our ancestors.
I leave it to you, gentle reader, to judge the veracity of the tale, but I promise it’s plumb full of expressions I learned at my mama’s knee.
One day after I’d finished my chores, Mama sent me to take some vittles to Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Lester’s.
I took a short cut down the mountain and across the fields and was just a trucklin’ to beat the band. And bein’ as how it was the month of June, naturally I was barefooted.
We wasn’t expectin’ such weather, but all a’sudden a cold wind came a’blowin’ and before you could say Jack Robinson, there was a skiff of snow on the ground.
That cow path was crooked as a dog’s hind leg and bad to have ice in the low spots.
And sure ‘nuf, it was freezin’ now.
I’d been tryin’ to run, and slippin’ and slidin’ right smart, so I was plumb tuckered out and ‘bout froze half to death when the house finally hoove up in sight.
With my hair was standin’ on end and I must’a been lookin’ rode hard and put up wet when I knocked on the door. Aunt Lizzie opened it, squinted at me over her specs and shoo’ed me in right quick.
“Oh, child, what are you doin’ out gallavantin’ in this weather?” she cried.
Now, my Aunt Lizzie was as old as the hills, deaf as a post and taken to misrememberin’ most of our names, but she remembered me.
I showed her the basket full of Mama’s slumgullion and rhubarb pie, which was now stone cold.
“It was hot as blue blazes when Mama packed it,” I managed to get out through chatterin’ teeth.
My belly must have thought my throat was cut, cause I et all Aunt Lizzie had on the table and was start-in’ in on the chow-chow and light bread when Uncle Lester come in and said, “Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise,” he’d get me home before the snow got too bad.
“Before you light out of here, you’ll need a get-up for this weather,” said Aunt Lizzy.
She switched around and found me a topcoat, a wool cap, gloves for my “poor hands” and we pulled a pair of old clodhoppers over my shoes.
Then she handed me a bumbershoot to keep the wet off.
Like always, she pinched my cheek and gave me some advice ‘afore I got out the door.
“Now, little missy, don’t you be getting’ too big for your britches. Just you remember, pretty is as pretty does!
“And you tell your mama and your grandmom, ya’ll need anything, you just holler!”
I was tucked up in the pickup as snug as a bug in a rug, or rather, a quilt.
We were makin’ tracks down the Williamsburg Road, in snow layin’ a few inches deep, when Uncle Lester stopped to collect an old rag picker, just ‘a settin’ on a stump.
He called the old fella Ol’ Jim – said he knew him since Hector was a pup – and that we’d better carry him up to his camp.
Ol’ Jim climbed aboard and started in to tellin’ about the time it snowed all of six feet, one time in July when he was floatin’ logs down from Cass.
I was plumb interested, especially as Ol’ Jim was gettin’ to some colorful details about life as a woodhick. Wouldn’t you know it, right then, without so much as a by your leave, Uncle Lester’s truck just up and quit.
Well, there we were, some pretty sad sacks, sittin’ there in the snow, ‘til ‘round the bend, here come Granddaddy lickety split with the team and the wagon.
He said Mama had sent him to fetch me.
“Climb in you all and wrap yourself in that quilt, youngin’,” he told me.
We’d done made it to the foot of the mountain when I looked up the steep track and asked, “Will the horses make it up the top in this snow?”
Granddaddy just spit out his chaw of tabaccy and said, “Aw, that ain’t no hill for a climber!”
We dropped off ‘Ol Jim at his camp and finally we made it home. There was Grandmom and Mama, waitin on us, fit to be tied.
I watched through the frosty window as Granddaddy turned the team around to take Uncle Lester back home, the snow showin’ no sign of lettin’ up.
Grandmom was sayin’ she’d been out coverin’ her kitchen garden with blankets, tryin’ to save some of her vegetables.
“My land! Did you ever see such a thing?” she cried. “Snow the tail end of June!”
My Mama fussed over my cold hands and feet, set me by the wood stove and fed me hot milk toast ‘til I was about to bust.
And that’s that story of how I like to froze to death one day, the tail end of June.
At least that’s the story my Mama told, and she swore it was true… well, mostly.
It may be such a thing as you have a few tall tales of your own to tell. If you do, don’t sit there like a bump on a log.
Polish ‘em up and bring ‘em out in company whenever you can. You’ll be reviving a time-honored tradition.
I say, set your cap for a good time, and if you’re bound to go, go loaded for bear!