If any of you have lived long enough, you have heard about “The Good Ole Days”. My grandmother used to talk about the days when she was a young girl and her memories seemed fond. I guess, as I begin to age – just getting past 29 you know – I am gathering a sense of what in heck “The Good Ole Days” are/were.
But when I think back about what it must have been like around the turn of the century (20th) or maybe even the end of the last one (19th), I, like probably lots of other people, become a bit romantic in imagining just how nice it must have been. Of course we don’t have a clue as to what life was really like a hundred years or so ago and you can bet that if any of us were suddenly thrust back in time, we probably would struggle to survive. At least many aspects of it we wouldn’t like much.
Growing up a country boy, I might have a bit of an advantage over some, as I recall growing up with an outhouse, carry water in a galvanized pail, growing and caring for a vegetable garden, bucking up firewood with a bucksaw (what in the heck is that, right?), splitting that hand-sawn wood with a double bitted axe, and of course we can’t forget walking to school…..up hill…..both ways!
I have to admit though that at times I dream about that “simple life”. I enjoy occasionally sitting down to an old black and white movie and setting my mind into imagination mode. Ah, the good ole days!
The reality is, I probably couldn’t hack it, nor could most of you. Or maybe more accurately said, we could survive but it wouldn’t be as easy or as romantic as some of us may think.
I got a brief taste of life in “The Good Old Days” about a week or so ago. My wife and I stopped in to visit an elderly couple who used to be our next door neighbors until will sold our house and moved. We have remained in communication with each other which is good for both of us and I’ll explain a bit what I mean.
Bill is 86 and his bride just turned 80 – we attended her 80th birthday party. They are a rarity in that they are both Florida natives. Nearly 50 years ago, they left northern Florida, realizing they couldn’t make it as watermelon farmers, and moved to Clearwater in search of work. They have been here since.
On a couple of occasions, we have traveled with them back up to Live Oak in the area they both grew up and have met many of their family members. Bill shows me where he grew up on the Suwanee River. He points out the spot where his house used to sit about a 100 yards or so from a big spring that bubbles up crystal clear water from deep underground and spills into the slow moving Suwanee. “That used to be my bathtub!” Bill exclaims. “We would come down here in the evening to skinny dip and take our baths. If we heard someone coming, we ran and hid in the bushes.” (This storytelling becomes so much more enjoyable to listen to with a thick Florida Cracker accent.)
When we arrived at Bill and Jesse’s home, they had just returned from “up north”. They were sitting at the kitchen table, shelling pecans. Before them sat a large brown-paper bag full of pecans. I watched as they both, with aged wrinkled hands, picked and prodded at the shells to get the choice meaty nut from within.
My wife and I joined in the fun. What I discovered was the nuts had already been cracked. Jokingly I asked them if they had set the bag down in the driveway and run over it with their car. “I’ve tried that before,” replied Bill and then they told me that nowadays, you can take your pecans to a place where they dump them into a machine that cracks them for you. Sweet!
As I began to pick away, my thoughts were, “Seems silly to pay somebody to “pre crack” your nuts.” After about 20 minutes of picking and prodding, I began understanding the advantages of having a machine crack the nuts.
Of course all of us kept a pretty fresh chew of pecan nut going in our mouths while we talked and shelled pecans. It wasn’t long before my hands began to cramp and fingers got sore.
Bill and Jesse are from the “old school”. Even now each trip they make “up north” they usually return with evidence of whatever is being harvested at the time. They bring it home, process it and freeze it or can it for future use. Their freezer is usually quite full with an assortment of fruits and vegetables.
The pecans would be no exception, as what they shelled would be packaged into about 1 – 2 pound bags and frozen.
The brown-paper bag seemed to get bigger and full of more nuts than I thought. I think it took the four of us a good hour or so to finish off the nuts and clean up. I would never have mentioned this in front of that “elderly couple” but my hands were very sore and cramped badly. Neither of them complained. It just seemed like a part of the everyday for them.
I can’t imagine being a boy, coming home from school and being given a bag full of pecans and told to go outside and shell them. They used rocks, hammers or whatever they could come up with to break the hard shells of the pecans and then pick them clean.
Just one tiny aspect of “The Good Ole Days”!
Tom Remington
