My daddy died on October 31st many years ago after an agonizing battle with cancer.
My daddy was a farmer. One thing I remember about him is that he always wore bib overalls working around the farm. The pants leg of these overalls had a loop on it to hold a hammer. I didn’t know it was for a hammer until I was grown. I always thought it was my special little handle just for me. You see, Daddy had long legs, and it was hard for a little girl that followed him everywhere he went to keep up with him. So, I’d hook my little fingers inside that loop and hold on tight! We walked over that farm many times like that!
Another time I remember is one Sunday morning. It had snowed during the night. A big snow! Very unusual for North Carolina! I liked the snow, but I was very upset because we weren’t going to be able to go to Sunday school that morning. I was upset because my church gave out Sunday school pins for everyone with perfect attendance. The first pin was round and every year after that there was a rectangular pin that attached to it. I had several hanging underneath that little round pin, and I didn’t want to miss getting one that year! I was crying so hard, as little girls do, that Daddy finally said, “I’ll get you there if I have to take you on the tractor!” I don’t know which I was more excited about, getting to Sunday school or riding the tractor there! Well, we got to church, but not on the tractor. When we got to church there were only a handful of people huddle around the old heater. (It wasn’t a wood heater. I don’t know what kind it was, just big and tall.) I remember thinking, “Where is everybody?” Even as young as I was (5 or 6) I couldn’t help believe people would miss church!
When you live on a farm everyone works, little to big. And I was LITTLE when I had to start helping put in tobacco. I hated it! But one special thing I remember is that when Daddy would go to the store to get snacks for the farm hands, he’d always bring me back a little round carton of vanilla ice cream. Momma would share her “nabs” with me. (For those who don’t know, a nab is what country folk call the orange crackers with peanut butter inside them.) I’d put two nabs in my little carton and chop them up and eat my ice cream. I knew I was special to my daddy because he only brought me ice cream! I still like peanut butter crackers in my ice cream to this day!
Another thing I remember isn’t as pleasant. I hate working in tobacco because it has worms on it! Horrible, green, monster-looking worms! One day, Daddy told my sister and me to go into the tobacco patch and pick off the worms and smush them! Uggh! If there’s anything I hate worse than a worm, it’s smushing one! I “pitched a fit” as we country folks say! Well, Daddy would have none of that! But I’m a determined girl, so the battle was on! Daddy, ingenious farmer that he was, came up with a plan. He put kerosene in a coffee can and gave me a clothes pin and told me to pick the worms off with the clothes pin and put them in the can! I didn’t like that much either, but at least I didn’t have to touch them, and I didn’t have to smush them! Well, I can’t really figure out who won that battle, but I think Daddy did! (lol)
Every year around the middle of October when the leaves start falling and the air turns crisp, I start feeling sad. I think, “What is wrong with me?” and then I remember. Oh, October 31st is coming up. I remember now. So, today I will be outside with my husband and son raking leaves, and I will remember.
