Life of Nobody

[Adios]

Granny smoked a corncob pipe and dipped snuff.

[BadBeast]

Granny smoked a corncob pipe and dipped snuff.

My Nan was just about the only one in our family who didn't smoke.
She died of Lung Cancer. 

[Adios]

Granny smoked a corncob pipe and dipped snuff.

My Nan was just about the only one in our family who didn't smoke.
She died of Lung Cancer. 

My grandparents dies of cancer. From living in the sun.

[BadBeast]

Granny smoked a corncob pipe and dipped snuff.

My Nan was just about the only one in our family who didn't smoke.
She died of Lung Cancer. 

My grandparents dies of cancer. From living in the sun.

I never did quite trust the Sunlight.
If it was so great, then why does the shade seem like such a good idea when you're out in it?

[LMNO]

Because in the sunlight, we sparkle.





LMNO
-I had to.  Because I am a bad person.

[Adios]

Because in the sunlight, we sparkle.





LMNO
-I had to.  Because I am a bad person.

Butthead.

[BadBeast]

Presuming this is some reference to that Vampire book, Gaslight, or Limelight or something.

Kids today!
When I was a kid, we knew they were Vampires, by the trail of empty, ex-sanguinated husks they left in their wake, not because they sparkled in the sunlight!  Godamnit, is nothing sacred anymore?

[Adios]

On the farm in Georgia we had 3 houses. The big 2 story the family lived in, one for farm help and another in case some of the family needed a place to stay.

This last house holds a lot of memories for me. I stayed with my aunt there for a while and even my daddy and his wife lived there for a while and I stayed with them as well.

We had electricity but it was minimal and lighting was just bare bulbs with pull strings to turn them on and off. There was even running water in the kitchen sink. We had an outhouse and baths were taken in a #10 washtub in the back yard. The house wasn't painted but had a great front porch with honeysuckles growing up on all the posts. We would sit there in the evening and watch the hummingbirds feed on them.

There was no television but we did have a radio and we would listen to The Green Hornet and some other shows after the day was over. Sitting on that porch was family time. After dinner we would all go out and talk, clean guns, shell peas or whatever needed doing. Sitting and rocking. Those were easy days that floated by in a gentle peace.

There was a big black walnut tree in the front yard and to this day I still love black walnuts. At the big house in the chicken yard there were apple trees, peach trees, persimmon trees, pear trees and even a fig tree. Blackberries and blueberries grew wild everywhere, come to think of it so did strawberries. Granny would tell us kids to go pick blackberries and we ran to get this done. It meant we were going to get blackberry tarts and preserves and pies. The same with blueberries.

What sweets we ate came from Grannys kitchen. Oh that woman could cook. Even her biscuits were made from a starter that had been in her family for unknown years. We bought very little from the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. We would have our corn ground for meal, our own flour was ground too. I remember sitting in the kitchen while Granny was cooking so I could churn butter. See, when you milk the cows you put the milk in a jar in the refrigerator with cheese cloth over it. The cream would rise to the top and she would skim it off. This is what we used to make butter. I have never tasted milk or butter ever since that was as good.

Most of the meat was either from the chicken yard or what our shotguns put on the table. Once a year we would butcher a pig and in the old syrup kettle we would make cracklins. All of our vegetables came from Grannys garden which was about an acre all by itself. Today they say greasy food is bad for you. I don't know about that. We always ate fried food. But at the same time we always ate fresh fruit and lots of vegetables. On top of that we were active. We worked hard, played hard and rarely ever just sat around during the day. There were no fat people.

Once in the other house there were 2 old guys living there. One was named Joe, never knew his last name, and the other was Purkle Hall. Old Purkle taught me a lot. Shooting a shotgun is a lot different than shooting a pistol or a rifle. A shotgun has the scatter effect which makes a miss kind of hard, a rifle or pistol has one little bullet that has to hit the target. Purkle had a .22 rifle and as long as I bought the ammo he would work with teaching me to shoot. He also taught me to sip moonshine and how to roll cigarettes. Joe didn't like people so he hardly ever said anything but for some reason Purkle took a liking to me. Papa said Purkle didn't like too many people either. They lived there a couple of years I guess then one day they were just gone. I missed Purkle.

[Adios]

Something is off in my writing on this last story. I am working on a rewrite.

[P3nT4gR4m]

All the rest made a point. Last one seemed more of a scene setter? If you're planning a compilation of these you'll probably need both.

[Adios]

Good point. I'm new to this writing thing.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I'm shit at critique so don't take my word for it. Just the overall feeling I got from it is all. All the others seemed to tell a particular story. The last one seemed like it was the setup to a story. Probably about Purkle. There was nothing wrong with it. I'm not saying it wasn't as well written as the rest, just that it left me waiting for the next part. Which is a good thing, btw.

[BadBeast]

Nothing in there that needs a re write. Like P3nt said, it's a descriptive piece, rather than an account of a particular event. The style is the same, the quality is the same, and it works well. The scene it creates is honest, and vivid. (And "Purkle" is the coolest name I've read all day)

[Adios]

Old Purkle sure taught me a lot that summer. One of the best things I learned is about Black Racers.

For those out of the know a Black Racer is a black snake, completely harmless and good mousers. Granny always told us to leave them alone because they ate mice.

One day Purkle and I were just sitting and a black racer was crawling through the grass. Purkle told me to chase it. I asked why and told him Granny told us to leave them alone. He just grinned and told me to chase it.

Well I got up and started running after it and it took off. Those snakes are sure fast, there was no way I was going to catch it. Then Purkle hollered for me to stop and run from it. I skidded to a stop and the snake stopped and had his head in my direction. I took off running and that snake came right after me. I knew it could outrun me but it didn't, it just stayed right behind me. I stopped and so did it and I took off after it again and it ran from me. This went on for about an hour and I was having so much fun. Finally I got tired and sat back down and the snake just wandered off. Old Purkle just sat and chuckled. I think at some time there were kids in his life and he kind of missed them.

The rest of that summer there was a brand new game called chase the snake and I taught it to all my cousins too. They were all afraid of Joe and Purlke so they never went over there. I thought they were silly but I didn't mind, I didn't have to share Purkle this way.

It's a funny thing, silence. So many people feel like they have to fill it up with some kind of noise. Purkle and me could sit on his porch drinking sweet tea for hours and never say a word and it was comfortable. Even Joe finally started sitting with us. Just sitting, sipping and rocking. Man and boy can study a lot of things in their minds on days like that.

You can hear everything going on around you too, a mouse scurrying, a bird call, a squirrel digging, all kinds of things people just never take the time to hear.

Purlke taught me this too.

[Adios]

I don't think Papa was a rich man. I mean we had plenty but everything was well used and kept in good repair. I saw a lot of others buying new things all the time but not Papa. I never questioned any of this. If we needed something it was there. Papa always bought a new Chevrolet every 2 or 3 years and a new Chevrolet truck about the same.

Out in the cow pasture we had an outhouse. It was real tough in the winter because it was built on a slope and the back at the bottom was open so the hogs could keep it all clean. That cold wind could make it hard to do your business sometimes. Us kids would always try to poop on the hogs heads because they always ran under the outhouse as soon as somebody went in it. We got them a lot too.

The outhouse was a bit of a walk from the house, about 100 yards I think. At night us kids would just go out in the yard. I guess Granny used a bedpan. I never knew for sure though.

I think Granny kind of got tired of it one day. Papa called some workmen to come add an inside bathroom. They closed off the back porch real nice and added a shower and a toilet. They drained out to the cow pasture through a pipe. Any time we needed worms to go fishing with this is where we got them after that.

Well the workmen got all done and showed Papa and Granny what they did and how everything worked. After they left Papa went to the toilet and flushed it and just grinned. He did it about 5 times and I got the giggles so hard I had to run hide. Now I'm not saying Papa had never used an inside toilet but if I had to guess I would say that was the first time.

The bad part of this was they closed up the top of the old well. I guess it was going dry anyway but we couldn't play echo with it anymore.

Granny seemed a lot happier after the bathroom was put in too.