Figurin' and Rurned Meat....

This is the kind of story that Dad just reels off... Love it...

"Daddy never had a sharecropper. He had a bunch of people moved on our place. The kind of people he got didn't want to sharecrop. All they wanted to do was to be laborers. If they worked all day, Daddy would pay em for a laborer all day or if they picked cotton they would get so much a pound. I had to keep up with all that. That was one of my jobs. Daddy was not good with figures. I kept up with that. I knew how much they owed us and how much cotton they picked. I did all the accounting. I helped Daddy.

See, Bill, Cliff, Dan, and CB all at once they got jobs at Wolverine. Wolverine at that time was the best place around here to work. And they worked all the overtime they wanted. It was a pretty good job....And all 4 of 'em got jobs one after the other. And Travis, my brother that was older than me, was goin' to UNA, or Florence State...as it was called then. Travis wanted a career in the Army. He was takin ROTC. He wanted to be an officer, and he did, and was very successful in doin it. So, that left me as the "Tall Hog at the Trough". I was Daddy's "go to" man. He trusted me, and course I was good in figures. Daddy asked me sumthin', some kind math problem, and I could do it in my head. I was just good in figures. I didn't have to write it down and divide it out. I could do it in my head, and that amazed him, and that would please me. He'd say, "Son, I need this and I need this...", and I would rattle it off. Then I would go back and divide it out and make sure I was right.

You remember that list of stuff that Daddy was listing on that bank note? See, he had to have money to buy seed and fertilizer. See, the only things that they bought was cloths and shoes, flour (cuz we didn't raise wheat), sugar (cuz we didn't raise cane), and coffee. And everything thing else came out of the ground. They raised it. He cured his own meat... Killed hogs. Daddy knew how to cure... I used to fuss about country ham. We had it all the time. Now I go out here to Cracker Barrel and pay $10 for a piece like 'at right there.. I used to fuss and cuss about havin' it. I used call it "rurned meat". It was cured meat.

I couldnt ever figure out.... Momma and Daddy used to love to give people stuff. They would go out to the smokehouse and slice em off some country ham, and it would tickle everybody to death. I'd think, "Man, they crazy as a bessy bug...Why they want that kinda stuff" They would give 'em produce, and that just delighted Daddy and Momma both to be able to give stuff to friends and family. They were amazing..."