The Disappearance of the “Shade Tree Mechanic”

When I was growing up, I learned of a special breed known as “shade tree mechanics.” These men and women (mostly men) were endowed by their creator with exceptional mechanical skills which they applied in their back yard, side yard, and, sometimes, in their front yard. They were called “shade tree” because their work usually found them laboring under the shade of a tree. Often times that tree became useful in the mechanics works. A low hanging limb was used to support a “chain fall” in the pulling of a car engine. “Chain fall” is old school for a chain hoist or even a “come-a-long.”

Of course, back in the day, motor vehicles and, especially, engines, were much less complicated.

My late father once told me, that in the days of T-model Fords, you only needed 3 things to keep a vehicle going – a box of tire patches, a tire pump, and some baling wire.

Shade tree mechanics did most of their work in their spare time. Many worked at a “regular job” and freelanced at home. They were known for helping a neighbor, sometimes working into the night and on Saturdays to finish a project. Most were invaluable resources on “how to” uncomplicate engine issues that had another mechanic or neighbor “stumped.”

Many perfected their skills by learning from a father, grandfather, or uncle.

But alas, the motor vehicle landscape has shifted … radically. The computer has changed everything. Now we have vehicles without ignition keys. Compress the brake, push a bottom, start the car. What happens if the car doesn’t start? Have it towed. A trained technician will hook it up to a computer and the computer will tell him what is wrong. You pay the bill.

I recently spoke with a manager in need of hiring young men and women to work outside. Part of the job involved truck driving.

“I can’t find one who can drive a “straight shift,” he said.  “What is the world coming to?”

A skill set is being left behind. I well remember the first time my father put me behind the wheel of a pickup truck to drive in a hay field. I looked down at the floorboard and saw three (3) pedals only to realize I had but two (2) feet. I was ok until the first time I had to stop on the side of a hill.

I have made a vow I will teach my granddaughters and grandsons how to drive a straight shift. You never know when necessity will demand a skill.

When our sons were growing up, one listed the qualities he looked for in a young lady in whom he might be interested. He specified three things.

1)     Be able to “pull” a calf.

2)     Be able to field dress a deer.

3)     Be able to change a tire.

I would have added to that list – able to drive a straight shift.

Many years ago, my father had the opportunity to purchase an “irrigation outfit” in a distant part of the state. It included over 5000 feet of aluminum irrigation pipe and a six-inch pump driven by a “straight-8” cylinder Chrysler engine. The problem was the engine had not been started in over two years and the starter was missing. My father was undaunted. It was the “shade  tree” in him.

Today those shade tree mechanics are hard to find. If you happen upon a good, older vehicle worth saving, best you track down a mechanic of the “shade tree” variety. It will be well worth your time.

Copyright 2024 by Jack McCall

Unsung Heroes

In celebration of Black History Month in February, here’s a story that needs to be told. Hartsville, TN, once a farming community like so many others in our great a state, has experienced sweeping changes in recent years. But unlike many small towns, Hartsville has managed to hold on to three very important entities – a weekly newspaper (The Hartsville Vidette), a local radio station (WTNK), and a hometown hospital (Trousdale Medical Center.) This story is about the hospital and a man named Robert Calhoun.

Trousdale Medical Center, once known as Hartsville Hospital, was built in 1962. Dr. E.K. Bratton, one of the founding physicians, was instrumental in creating a marvelous culture of care which still exists today. (Employees who have been there for years vow that his ghost still walks the halls.)

Shortly after graduating from high school in 1966, Robert Calhoun came to work at the hospital as what was then called a janitor - a position later called “housekeeping,” - even later known as “environmental services.” He, along with his brother Larry and a number of cousins, saw to it that the hospital was immaculately cleaned for years.

George Harris, who served as maintenance engineer at the hospital for over 40 years, said he had worked under 19 different hospital administrators. In 1999, I became that 19th administrator.   

Over a span of 60 years, you can imagine all the changes a hospital might undergo.  Trousdale Medical saw changes in ownership (some good, some bad), changes in physicians, changes in management. All the while, the hospital building continued to age. Robert Calhoun and his staff continued to clean.

Then, through a fortuitous series of circumstances near the turn of the century, the hospital was purchased by Carthage General Hospital, at that time a part of the Covenant Health System. Under the leadership of Hospital Administrator Wayne Winfree, vast improvements were made to the interior of the hospital – new flooring, new wallpaper, new paint. Under Robert Calhoun’s watchful eye, the hospital interior sparkled.

In a few short years, it appeared the hospital would be up for sale again. Contacts were made. The big question became what do we have to sell? Two things – culture and clean.

At the same time, Trousdale Medical Center was being surveyed by Joint Commission. The leader of the survey team was a pediatrician from Virginia, a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School. At the end of the survey period, on the day I was to take him to the airport, he walked with me to my car. As he sat down in the passenger seat, he turned to me and said, “Mr. McCall, I see about 50 hospitals each year, and I have been doing surveys for years. And this hospital is, without question, the cleanest hospital I have ever seen.”

I rode that horse for all it was worth. The cleanliness of the hospital was the single most important factor in placing Trousdale Medical Center in what would turn out to be capable hands. The driving force was a man who had cleaned the hospital for over 50 years. His name was Robert Calhoun.

In 2013, Robert Calhoun received the Meritorious Award from the Tennessee Hospital Association for his outstanding accomplishments as a Departmental Manager. Each year he actively supported a health fair at his church. The first time I attended that health fair my first thought was, as I entered the church fellowship hall, “Robert Calhoun has been here!” “Pristine” is the word that came to my mind. It is defined as “pure, in perfect condition, fresh and clean as if new.” That is the way Robert Calhoun kept things.

Could one man have that much impact on a church, a community, or even, the future of a hospital?

You bet your life!

 COVID took him in 2022. But not before he had made his mark.

Copyright 2024 by Jack McCall

Gunsmoke

In my quest to find TV worth watching I have settled into viewing Wagon Train and Gunsmoke in the evenings. Ward Bond, John McIntire, and Robert Horton, along with a strong supporting case, make the old West come alive on Wagon Train. There are cowboys, Indians, good guys, bad guys, strong men, strong women, crooks, cheats, cowards and heroes. The storylines on Wagon Train provide unique insights into the human condition.

But my favorite is Gunsmoke. Premiering on CBS in September 1955 and completing its network run September 1975, Gunsmoke is the longest-running dramatic series in the history of TV. And there is little wonder. The foursome of Milburn Stone as “Doc,” Amanda Blake as “Kitty,” Dennis Weaver as “Chester,” and James Arness as “Matt Dillon” are unmatched in television history if you ask me. I know that “Festus” and “Newly” came along later, but the four originals made the show great.

I noticed in the earlier episodes that Matt and Miss Kitty were more open in showing their affection for one another. As the series evolved though years their relationship took on more of a mystique. The chemistry between them proved to be both intriguing as well as refreshing.

And, of course, Doc’s and Chester’s “jawing” with each other is priceless.

I suppose Chester was always short of money, but “Marshall Dil-lern” never seemed to run out of patience.

As the story begins to unfold in an episode I viewed recently, Chester comes upon a young cowboy who is breathlessly close to being horse whipped. A “religious” man has tied the young man to a tree; and, with whip in hand, is ready to proceed in “purging” the young man’s sins to save him from eternal damnation.

Chester intercedes, stops the horse whipping, and unties the would-be victim. This raises the ire of the religious man who vows Chester will pay for “interfering with the Lord’s work.”

Later in the story, Chester is captured by the religious man and his two sons. Their plan is to cut off Chester’s hand for his misdeed. Fortunately, they put it off until the next morning. During the night, one of the son’s comes to realize his father “has gone ‘round the bend” and rides to Dodge City for help. The next morning, he and Marshall Dillon arrive at the scene just in time to save the day. In the course of the ensuing gun battle, Chester – and his hand – are saved and the religious man is shot dead. (As it turns out one of his sons fired the fatal bullet.)

Of course, the turn of events leads to questions and philosophizing at the end of the show.

“Mr. Dil-lern,” says Chester. “I just can’t understand why a man would try to do something like that.” (Or something to that effect.)

“Well, Chester,” says Matt, “The Bible says ‘And what does God require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.’ I guess that man never read that.”

I could not believe my eyes and ears. There was Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshall and federal government employee, quoting Micah 6:8 right straight out of the Holy writ. And he was on the job, mind you!

In today’s world where the founding fathers’ concept of “separation of church and state” has been so misinterpreted and so misapplied, Marshall Dillon would have been in some real trouble.

The conversation would have gone something like this:

“Why, Mr. Dil-lern, you can’t quote the Bible while in the line of duty. You work for the federal government and that’s a violation of the separation of church and state. Why, you could lose your job!”

Matt, always straight forward and practical, would answer, “Chester, did you say separation of church and state? It doesn’t say “separation of state and God.”

If Matt were around today, I’m afraid he would be sadly disappointed.

Copyright 2024 by Jack McCall   

Brim Hollow Revisited

I visited The Brim Hollow recently in hopes that I might see him. I stepped up on the big footstone and entered the old house where no one has lived for 60 years. Inside the workroom I looked for his faded denim jumper which always hung on a big nail. It being winter, his weathered, felt Stetson should have been hanging on that nail, too.

Next, I stepped into the kitchen where the boom of his laughter used to echo among the walls. In the bedroom I once sat beside him as we popped popcorn over the flames of an open fireplace.

Peering out a window, the windowpanes dimmed by the passing of many years, I hoped to see his hulking figure coming from the sheep barn and crossing the rock-bottomed creek.

I tried another window, my gaze lifted towards the feed barn where I often saw him sauntering down the hill with a pail of warm milk in the late afternoon. Just beyond the little, dry branch lay the rocks where he once salted his goats. He could “called them down” with ease. In a rich baritone, he would call, “Diddy, diddy, diddy…come on diddy!” (His pronunciation of “billy.”) I could almost hear him calling.

I made my way to the back porch and looked up the hollow where he once parked his truck in a little shed covered by a shake shingle roof. It had crumbled long ago under the weight of time.

As I left the hollow that day, I walked down a shady lane with which I am too familiar, and caught myself listening for the “chug, chug, chugging” sound of his 1952 GMC half-ton. Only silence met me.

I decided to give it one last try. Driving up main street in the little town of Riddleton, I looked where he once sat in a straight-back chair in a ditch formed by a low, rock wall and the edge of the pavement just across the road from Leonard Carter’s General Store. By late afternoon he would have been knee-deep in cedar shaving he had whittled all day long. He was not to be found.

Long ago my grandmother gave me some of his personal effects. She said he would have wanted me to have them. One is particularly dear to me. He called it his billfold. Actually, it was a little coin purse he carried in the bib of his overalls. I’ve kept it in a lock box at the bank over the years just the way I received it. It contains his drivers license, a few tarnished coins, a “Lincoln” folded up the size of a postage stamp, and a few odd receipts.

Not too long ago, I visited the bank to “get into” my lockbox. As I thumbed through several documents, I came upon the “billfold.” I opened it, removed its contents, and traveled back in time. Before I returned it to the lockbox, I closed my eyes, held it to my chest, and I thought of him.

As I breathed in deeply, I suddenly I felt a whiskered old face up against mine! My eyes flew open as I thought someone had gotten in the back vault with me! No one was there. Just a memory.

In the late fall of ’63, my brothers and I arrived home from school to be met by our Aunt Rebecca McCall. That seemed very odd. She let us know that our grandfather Brim had taken ill, and our father and mother had gone to the hospital with him. He had been placed in a straight-back chair and rode out of The Brim Hollow in the back of a pickup truck to meet the ambulance. He was then rushed to McFarland Hospital. He had dealt with a bad heart for years. This was his third “spell.”

That afternoon he was resting comfortably in his hospital bed with my mother, his only child, at his side. She was holding his hand. My mother would later say he thought he was going to pull through again.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes as if he were surprised.

“Honey, I’m dying!” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“Don’t you hear that death rattle!” he said.

“Yes, sir,” she answered, again.

She whispered a silent prayer. “Lord, please don’t let him suffer.”

He closed his eyes, breathed an easy breath, and he was gone.

Gone, but not forgotten.

  Copyright 2024 by Jack McCall

February 24

 As I have written in previous columns, my late father was a tobacco man. If he were not working on his current crop he was thinking about next year’s. For my father and our family, February 24 held significant meaning. First, it is my older brother Tom’s birthday, and second, it was the target date every year for my father to sow his tobacco plant beds. I like to think he chose that day in recognition of the birth of his first son, but I suspect he also used it as a reason to get started a week before March arrived. This year’s soggy weather would have had him is a “tizzy.”

Come the first warm day of February, my father would begin preparing his tobacco beds. In some of the earliest years I recall, I can remember his burning off the plant beds to kill last year’s weed seeds. In later years, he gassed the beds under heavy plastic. Whatever his secrets were to starting healthy, thriving tobacco plants, or slips,  largely remained his secrets. There were some jobs he seemed to enjoy doing alone. Preparing plant beds was one of them. By the time he was ready to sow the tobacco seeds, he had worked the soil until it was as soft and supple as powdered sugar. If by chance there were any small clods of dirt left, he would remove them with a hand rake.

When the seed bed was prepared to his satisfaction, he worked on getting the seed ready for sowing. He took ashes from the fireplace and wood stove that he had saved in various containers over the winter and began the process of sifting them, much like you would sift flour. When he had sifted out enough to fill a two-and-a-half bushel galvanized wash tub, he was ready for the envelope of tobacco seed. He would add the seeds and mix them thoroughly with the ashes by hand until he was satisfied the seeds had separated themselves sufficiently. Then, he would fill a five-gallon bucket with his mixture and, to use his word, “broadcast” the seeds on the plant bed. Back and forth he would go, seeding and over-seeding until all the seeds were sown. I can see him now in my mind’s eye, carefully walking down the middle of the plant bed sowing seeds and ashes from side to side. The grayish-white dust from the ashes would rise steadily from the ground like smoke from a slow burning fire.

When the seeds were sown, he tramped (some people called it “tromped”) the entire plant bed. Tramping a plant bed involved putting your shoe sole down on every single inch of the plant bed. Tramping accomplished two things. First, it forced the tobacco seeds into the soil and second, it compressed the soil so it would hold moisture better. My father tramped the bed from end to end and from side to side. I have vivid memories of seeing the first plants coming up inside a shoe print. After the bed was tramped, he called in help to set the plant bed poles.

My brothers and I have picked up the small end of many a plant bed pole in our time. They could always be found nearby lying in the tall weeds from last year. When the poles were in place down both sides of the plant bed and across the ends, we were ready for the plant bed canvas, a pocket full of small-headed nails and claw hammers.

Working in unison, we would drive nails in the plant bed poles, carefully lining them up with the eyelets in the border of the plant bed canvas, as we pulled the canvas taut across the plant bed. Greater care had to be taken if the canvas was old, as it tended to tear if pulled too tightly. Finally, everything was in order. My father smiled with satisfaction as we surveyed the finished work. But all was not finished.

In a few days he would begin to watch those plant beds like a hawk. After the first tiny tobacco plants began to make a showing, he would monitor the evening weather forecasts, observe the sun each day, and watch over those plant beds like a setting hen fussing over a netting of eggs. On sunny days he would pull back the canvas and let the sun warm the earth. If the weatherman spoke of a hint of frost, he would double the canvas to protect the plants from the cold.

In the days that followed he would bring daily progress reports to the house. “I’ve got plants coming through the ground,” he would beam. Speaking of the size of the leaf pairs, he would report later, “I’ve got plants the size of a thumb tack.” Then later, “I’ve got plants as big as a dime!” he would declare.

He especially loved to report to the farmers who gathered at Dewey Manning’s General Merchandise every spring. “Boys,” he would say, “I’ve got tobacco plants as big as a quarter!” He would be the first to make that brag every year. It had something to do with February 24.

My father sowed tobacco plant beds every spring for over fifty years. Every single one of those years he produced plant beds teeming with strong, vigorous tobacco plants.

Every year he had plants to give away. He was a tobacco man.

On February 24 I will celebrate my brother’s birthday. And I will find reason, again, to celebrate my father’s life.

I was down on the old home place a while back. I strolled out in the back yard and looked down on the field where we once raised tobacco. A west wind was stirring gently. My gaze was drawn to the western edge of the tobacco patch, just inside the tree line, where a plant bed once lay.

Suddenly, I was caught up in a dreamy fog. For a few fleeting seconds, I am almost sure I saw the dust from ashes rising slowly from the ground.

Copyright 2024 by Jack McCall

A Meat and Three

I suppose anyone who has eaten at a country style restaurant knows what a “meat and three” is.  It, of course, refers to a meat entree and three vegetable selections. There are still a few places where you can get real country cooking, but they are few and far between. Cooking is sadly becoming a lost art.

A generation ago it was not uncommon for someone to walk into the house and ask, “What’s cookin’?” Those days are long gone, it seems, because nothin’s cookin’ in most homes today. It’s thawing, or being tossed in the microwave, or being delivered, or waiting at a fast food restaurant to be picked up, but it’s not “cookin’.”

Some health advocates asserted in years past that “you are what you eat.” If that is true, those following the baby boomer generation will be largely made up of pizza, chicken strips and ranch dressing.

I contend that those women of the World War II generation and before were great cooks because they “cooked”…a lot…everyday. Repetition is the mother of skill.

Of course a few women never mastered the art of cooking…even back then. My mother’s great-aunt, Martha Brim Bowman, was the least talented of five daughters when it came to the kitchen. Once, her brother - my great-grandfather, Richard Jackson Brim - visited his sister Martha’s home for a meal. As she put the food on the table, she declared, “Eat it as you love it.”

Her brother would later comment, “You had to love it to eat it!”

In the house where I grew up we usually enjoyed a meat and three at least once a day, usually at dinner (that’s what we called the noon meal).

My mother always considered her mother to be a great cook, but was less complimentary of her own ability. But she would often say, “I can keep plenty of good ‘grub’ on the table.” And she did.

I often think back to the days when we had hired hands join us for “dinner.” On those days we usually had “two and eight - or nine or ten.”

By that I mean two meats and a table filled with vegetable plates. The meats could be roast beef, fried chicken, meat loaf, fried tenderloin, pork backbone, pork roast, or fried country ham. The vegetables included, but were not limited to, green beans, pinto beans, pork n’ beans, butter beans, field peas, fried squash, okra (boiled or fried), mashed potatoes, stewed potatoes, fried corn, corn on the cob, boiled cabbage, coleslaw, candied sweet potatoes, and cucumbers in vinegar.

Finally, my mother would open two cans of Franco-American spaghetti to make sure there was, what my father called, “planty” (plenty).

Then she would top that off with two skillets of cornbread and a sheet of biscuits.

Of course, we drank enough sweet iced tea to float a boat.

I often speculated that the high school boys and men who helped us at tobacco cutting and hay hauling time would have worked simply for the chance to eat at our table. Spirits were high, the conversation was lively, and the “grub” was always good.

My great-grandmother Ida Bradford, who raised her family in New Middleton, had four sons and three daughters. She said, “To be a good cook, you had to stay in the kitchen.”

Her boys were constantly bringing their friends home after school and after ball games. Toward the end of her life Ida Bradford was heard to say one day, “I hope when I get to heaven to have a good cook stove and a bunch of hungry boys to feed.”

Great cooks of the past put more than their talent and energy into their cooking. They put their hearts into it. Because cooking consumed so much of their time, it gave them time…time to work out problems…time to lovingly think about those for whom they cooked…time to meditate and pray….time to be thankful.

Speaking of being thankful, as I considered all the great cooking I have enjoyed over the years, it dawned on me. In all my years, I have never…once…gone to bed hungry…not one time. Millions upon millions have lived and died who could not say the same.

That alone should give one pause to have a grateful heart.

Copyright 2024 by Jack McCall

A Mouse in the House

When I was a boy spending carefree days in the Brim Hollow, I use to lie wide-eyed at night in the safety and security of a feather bed; and listen to mice racing up-and-down inside the walls of the house, and then hear them scurry across the attic floor. My grandmother had her ways of “mouse proofing” her kitchen to keep the food supplies safe. So, I have never been threatened by the tiny creatures.

My wife, Kathy, on the other hand, is very mouse averse.

I have observed through the years how mice usually seek shelter in the fall by attempting to come indoors. Regardless of where we have lived, every year I have had to deal with a mouse…or two. In the house where we now reside, the mouse’s favor abode was a vanity in a half-bath. Fortunately, the vanity doors remained shut, and when mouse “evidence” was discovered, a trap would close the deal. I finally resorted to steel wool which eliminated the annual invader.

In the past two-or-three years, mice seem attracted to our bedroom. (We discovered why this past fall.) I am usually alerted to the intruder’s presence each year when Kathy cries out from the bedroom, “Jack, a mouse just ran under the bed!” This signals a call to action. Since I am not threatened by a mouse, I will admit getting rid of a mouse is not high on my priority list. If Kathy sees the mouse a second time, it is best I make haste.

And so, it was this past fall when Kathy saw a mouse run under the bed. I responded in a day-or-two with a standard mouse trap baited with chunky peanut butter. The first night he “stole” the bait. I countered by forcing a piece of peanut inside the metal curl where the bait goes. The next night he got that, too. I came to realize I had a formidable foe. The third night I got him! (One down.) And all was right with the world.

Two nights later, I heard the call again. “J-a-c-k! A mouse just ran under the bed!” This was getting serious. I set extra traps. Two mornings later I was awakened to the sound of “clic..clic…clic.” Experience had taught me that was the sound of a mouse caught, but not caught. I arrived at the scene to find a country mouse (big eyes and ears) caught by his tail. At the sight of me, his adrenalin kicked in, and with a herculean effort, he pulled his long, sharp tail free, and scampered to the safety of a closet.

Desperate situations call for desperate measures. I knew this mouse would never go near a mouse trap again. My next move would be mouse “sticky pads.”

To make a long story short, the mouse situation was only intensified on the next morning when Kathy went to her closet to retrieve a favorite pair of shoes only to find one shoe filled with dog food. (The mouse had moved in and was storing up for the winter.) That did it!

The next night I strategically placed sticky pads on every possible mouse run. The following morning I was again awakened to the sound of “clic..clic…clic.” (That’s the sound of a mouse trying to free itself from a sticky pad.” (Two Down.)

Two nights later, I heard this sound coming from the bedroom, “EEEEEEEEECH!” It was not a mouse. It was Kathy! I raced to the bedroom.

“What?” I asked.

“Another one!” she cried.

“Where did he go? I asked. She pointed.

“Under that bureau?’ I asked. She nodded.

He was found stuck securely to a well-placed sticky pad. (Three down.)

I hate to admit it, but one week later I found a cup of dog food in one of my dress shoes in a nearby hall closet. I carefully surveyed the situation and brought in more sticky pads. Two days later, I got my mouse. (Four down.)

I am pleased to report that we have not seen “hide nor hair” of a mouse in our house for the past two months. But Kathy and I, both, remain on guard.

Copyright 2024 by Jack McCall

Hot Tea and Fried Fish

I’m not a big coffee drinker. A half-cup will usually do me. Sometimes I make coffee at home, but not very often. So, I was not surprised when I found the coffee canister empty a few days back. What to do on a frosty morning when I needed a warmup? I opted for hot tea.   

I tracked down a family-size tea bag and set a pot of water on to boil. Soon I had a strong cup of tea. A long-forgotten pleasure had me adding sugar and what my mother use to call “sweet milk.” Why? Memory is a funny thing.

My father took special pleasure in taking my brothers and me fishing. His favorite fishing spot was found on Indian Creek at Center Hill Lake. In the spring when crappies were biting, he would be there. He loved to fish the treetops and would occasionally sink a square bale of red clover hay to attract the fish. We used cane poles cut off the riverbank and “pencil” floats. Today, I think they call it “straight lining.” My brother and I called it heaven on earth. There is hardly a more beautiful sight to me than a big “slab” crappie lying on its side after being brought to the water’s surface.

Among the classic lines my father uttered over the years of our fishing excursions are these:

As we were departing for the lake, he would tell my mother to “get the skillet hot!” We rarely came back home emptyhanded.

If someone asked him where we were catching fish, he would smile and say, “In the mouth!”  Then, he would chuckle.

When fish weren’t biting, he would accuse us of “not holding our mouths right.” I tried all kinds of facial expressions to get my mouth right so the fish would bite.

Sometimes he would ask, “Are you boys spittin’ on the hook?” I have spit on many a hook.

When we were fishing for bass and casting into the bank, an errant cast would often send our fishing lure into a tree.

“Are you boys fishin’ or squirrel huntin?” he would chide. My father was a man of unlimited patience, but if the miscues continued, he would say, “do it again and you are putting your rod and reel in the boat!” We learned to cast side-arm.

We were never very successful at fishing for bass, but we caught our share of crappie. Which brings be back to the cup of hot tea.

When I made that cup of hot tea with sugar and sweet milk, I was suddenly taken back to my boyhood days. We never drank hot tea at our table except when we ate the fish we had just caught. So, I recalled the “sweet” taste of fried crappie. And bones? Our father didn’t fillet the fish, so we had to be careful about bones. As I recall, our meal consisted of fish, mashed potatoes, and light bread.

At every meal our mother would caution, “If you get a bone in your throat eat a big wad of light bread. It will take the bone down.” No one at her table ever choked on a fish bone.

I think I will go crappie fishing this spring. And I think I will start drinking more hot tea.

Copyright 2024 by Jack McCall