I was pleased and surprised this past weekend when I went out shopping for the first time in a year, walked into one of my favorite boutiques, and saw a door wreath decorated with cotton bolls. That’s not something you see every day out here in the wild west. Looking at those little fluff balls brought back many childhood memories of our annual road trips through Texas where we’d see miles upon miles of cotton fields on our way to visit my dad’s family in the 1950’s and 60’s. And when I say miles and miles, what I really mean is half the state of Texas. Those cotton fields were never-ending.
If we traveled early in the summer, we’d see big ‘ol cotton bolls basking in the hot sun, ready to harvest. If it was later in the year, like December, we’d see the fields after harvest, but still with a little of the cotton clinging to the dried-up husks. Dad would pull over to the side of the road sometimes and let my sisters and I out to stretch our legs, and we would pluck a few stems with cotton on them to bring back home.
I saved mine one year and took it to school for show and tell when I was in the second grade. I think my teacher was enthralled to see something besides a giant marble, a rattler’s tail, or a live black widow spider in a jar. She actually beamed when she saw my cotton boll and asked me to carry it around to each of my classmates as she admonished them to look and not touch, and then told us all about growing cotton in the south. I was a little blasé about the whole thing since I’d seen so many, but it did make me feel important, even when a cootie-infested boy snorted and muttered ‘big deal’ under his breath when it was his turn to look.
I’d heard many stories from my dad and other members of his family about all the summers they spent picking cotton. It wasn’t an easy job, very back breaking and hot. I usually heard these stories at my great-grandparent’s farm in East Texas outside a town called Blackjack, population forty-seven.
I’d sit on the front porch swing and listen to everyone talk while we shelled some kind of peas – purple hull, crowders or black-eyed. I spent many an hour in that swing on the porch, the coolest and shadiest spot in the house, and the most fragrant because of all the Honeysuckle vines that covered everything. My great-aunts would pick peas in the morning, we’d shell them in the afternoon, and then eat them for supper, along with tomatoes, green beans, corn, butter beans, okra and new potatoes, all fresh from the garden. I loved shelling peas, but I’m sure if I had to do it all summer long it’d get old and I’d hate it. But for the short time we were there it was a fun chore.
I didn’t realize then, but I do now, how blessed I was to grow up eating all those healthy and organic vegetables from the Texas gardens; the cobblers made from the wild blackberries growing by the creek in the back forty; the fresh churned butter from the milk cow, Ol’ Bessie; and the crisp, chicken fried quail provided by my grandfather, dad, and his brothers from their hunting trips. (I never would eat their fried chicken after watching one of the great aunts chase a hen across the yard with an axe in her hand. I didn’t know the quail personally so eating those didn’t bother me.)
The next best thing to shelling peas was listening to my southern relatives talk. I’d been around them enough to know what everything meant, but it was always fun to hear their expressions in that Texas drawl. Besides ‘ya’ll’ and ‘all ya’ll’, I’d hear, ‘I think I’ll go pick us a mess of peas for supper’, or ‘I reckon I better go milk ol Bessie’, or ‘don’t get your feathers all ruffled’, or ‘you’re gettin’ too big for your britches’, and my personal favorite ‘bless your heart’. Everyone’s hearts got blessed to the max in Texas, and it could mean anything. Like, ‘bless your heart, you knocked over my milk pail’ (I’m really mad), or ‘bless that mailman’s heart, he delivered the wrong mail again’ (I’m really frustrated), or ‘I hear Millie Louise got herself in the family way, bless her heart’ (I’m really gossiping).
I don’t remember much about my great-grandparents, William Samuel and Carrie Morris Anderson, because they passed when I was a youngster, but I do remember their old farm house and all the family gatherings held long after they were gone. You can see the old awnings in the picture below, which was why the front porch was so shady. That, and all the Honeysuckle vines, the Loblolly Pines and Live Oak Trees that surrounded it.
My mother brought a Honeysuckle clipping home one year and managed to keep it alive and found a place it thrived at our old home place. Last year I got a clipping from it and I’m happy to say it’s alive and well and growing in my backyard.
Hopefully, this summer my Honeysuckle will grow big enough to bloom, and I’ll get to enjoy that wonderful fragrance while I sit on my back patio. With the honeysuckle and my new wreath filled with cotton bolls decorating my front door, I guarantee I’ll have many happy Texas memories floating around in my head while I relax, sit back on my swing, and sip iced tea.
Now, bless my heart, if I can just find some peas to shell.
Carolyn Anderson Jones 