As I told Ole Clyde, my dad fathered 21 children, and they were probably
2-3 years apart in age...
We had a big table with an oil-cloth for a tablecloth...when we came to
the table to eat, my Dad sat at the head of the table, and my Mom was at
the other end of the table..on one side were chairs for the older
children to sit in, and on the other side, the smaller children sat on a
bench which was kept pushed under the table after meals...Dad played the
fiddle a little bit, and when he sat down at the table, he laid his
fiddle bow across his lap, and if you got out of line, he would reach
down the table and crack you on the head with
his bow..now, with all those kids, when the bowl was passed around, you
had better get what you wanted, because the bowl never made it around
the second time..
When one of the older ones (in the chairs) would marry, and leave home,
the oldest child on the bench "graduated" to a chair that was left
vacant, and moved to that side of the table..
My Mother and Dad both chewed "Browns Mule" tobacco, and it looked to me
like they really enjoyed it a lot....Now, there were some teen age boys
in our neighborhood who also chewed, and they would stop by our house
and "bum" my Mom for a "chew"...being poor like we were, and never
wanting to lie..my Mom
came up with a way to keep from giving away all of her chewing
tobacco...
She wore an apron with two pockets in it, and she always kept her
tobacco in her apron pocket, so she decided to name one of the pockets
..so she named one pocket
"the world"...NOW, she kept her tobacco in the OTHER pocket, and when
those boys came by and asked her for a "chaw"
she would say "Honey, I dont have a bit of tobacco in the world"..which
kept her from lying, as she had it in the other pocket, NOT in "the
world" pocket..
We had an old clock which went bad, and we could not afford to buy
another one at that time.all us kids would run home from school to eat
lunch, bot Mom did not know what time to get the food ready since the
clock was broke, so I remember Dad going out on the front porch which
had a railing around it like a picket fence, and one of the "pickets"
was missing..he took a tack and drove it in the floor at exactly the
time the sun cast a shadow on the floor where it would hit the tack, and
he said."when that shadow is on the tack, it is 12 o'clock"..as he had
set it by his pocket watch, and Mom used that to tell when to have our
food ready.. (dont know what she did when it was cloudy)
My Mom always said that the old timers believed in "Old Christmas" which
was,
(I believe) in January..they said that animals would talk and pray at
midnight on that date..One night on Old Christmas, we all sat up until
midnight, and our Mom took us kids up to the barn where we had a cow, to
see if she would talk and pray..
We had a coal-oil lamp (kerosene) and we all tip-toed up into the
barn..the old cow was standing there and it was close to midnight, so we
held the lamp and stayed very quiet...in a little while, she opened her
mouth, and Mom whispered, "she is going to speak!"...we were all scared
to death, and then the old cow kneeled down on her front legs, with her
mouth still open and we thought she was going to pray, and we panicked
and started to run and my brother dropped the lamp and set the hay on
fire..we had to put out the fire quickly, and scrambled to get out and
ran back home scared to death..
Anyone knows that cows have to kneel to lay down to sleep, but we were
too scared to realize that she was sleepy and just yawning, I
guess....hee, hee..while my older siblings were still living, we all got
together and made a video of our experiences "back home".. we called it
"Collins Tales" I have more for another time..
Any one else have any old home stories?

Ole Paul
keep the mail comin' to Ole Paul

pogoat2@webtv.net