When Pigs Flew

When I was younger, summer meant running through my Crazy Dazy sprinkler or attempting to build the most epic fort ever in Kimberly Carnes’ back yard, which was really like a forest compared to the few pines in my back yard. Selling sour or overly sweet lemonade at the end of the driveway with crappy store bought oatmeal cookies happened a few times. I don’t know what I ever spent my “earnings” on; I think it was just feeling the weight of the loose change in my pocket that made me so happy.

“An honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work” is what my Bigdaddy always said. I guess the honest part is what makes the pay so good.

Every other Sunday afternoon, we’d go out to Granny and Bigdaddy’s, and even looking back now, there was something magical there. Maybe it was the hot dirt in the garden, or the old see-saw, or the creek, or the old wells, or maybe, it was that old, black bell; I can still hear that iron bell ringing under the oaks, calling us out of the pastures to the corn bread, and butter beans, and fried chicken and yellow squash sitting on the table- just like it was yesterday.

It’s funny. Sometimes, even now, when I eat fried squash, it’s like biting into that little brick home and those rolling pastures; like I can taste Repton: the carpet that you could dig your hands into, and that couch with all of the fuzzies, and grannies white powder, and the encyclopedias, and that white afghan in Uncle Mark and Uncle Carmel’s room, the cookies in the bread box, and the dust on that worn record player. Even all of those hand sized bells on that shelf, I can taste them too.

And I can smell Big Daddy’s hair, and his chewing tobacco, and his plaid shirts. I can’t remember exactly what he smelled like, but thinking now, I imagine something like the saw dust from his shop, and the wet dirt from his garden, and his leather belt with that bass buckle, and even a little bit like the chair he always sat in there by the window, just next to the kitchen.

He’d let me stand on his shoes while he danced to some song from that record player, and if I sat on one, and hugged a knee, he’d carry me there for awhile. He taught me how to play “Jack in the Bean Stalk”

“Jack in the bean stalk” he’d start
“Cut him down” I’d say
“How many licks?” And I’d look him right in the eye, and try to see the number in his hand in the white specks, just like he had taught me to.

He taught me how to fly a kite, to walk on stilts, to catch tad poles, to plow a field and plant the seeds, and he taught me how to turn that wheel on the pea sheller when it was time to shell the peas that the boys, and him, and daddy, and mamma, and granny had picked and put in white buckets. He taught me how to make corn dolls, how to see-saw, how to make a wasp sting better, how to put watermelon in buckets on hot days for eating later, and how to mix cornbread with pea juice. He taught me how to dig up potatoes, and how to know when crops were ripe for picking. He taught me about the bluebirds, and that if wind turns leaves upside down, it’s going to rain. He taught me about honesty, and integrity, and hard work.

“If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” and “ a man is only as good as his word,” are thinks I quote or think of often.

I remember running through the garden having dirt clot wars with my brothers, and playing hide-and-go- seek in the corn rows with my friends. One of my favorite past times was to irritate the birds that lived in this really tall birdhouse that was right in the middle of the garden, and if you did it right, they’d dive down at you, and you’d have to huddle close to the dirt to trick them into thinking you were gone, or maybe to convince them that you were harmless; either way, it worked, and they’d circle overhead a few times and then return to that bird house.

One of my favorite memories of Big Daddy is the way he would eat. He’d huddle over his food; his left arm stretched out and curved around his plate. And he’d mix his food so much that you couldn’t tell the peas from the roast or the potatoes. And he’s lean over, close to the concoction he had created, and after taking a huge bite, he’d just laugh, and chew, and talk, and take another bite, and laugh, and chew, and talk. When you could see the yellow flower pattern again, he’d put his hands behind his head, and kick back his chair, and just talk to you. We’d all sit there for an hour or an hour and a half, or more, and just eat, and chew, and talk, Bigdaddy leaning back in his chair, and Granny asking him not to because she was worried that one day he’d fall over.

I have so many good memories of him. I have memories of my granny too, but unfortunately senile dementia changed her so much, even early on, that it’s really hard for me to remember her before. And I think I remember Big Daddy more because, even though my mom says I’m like granny, I always felt like Big Daddy understood me more. He loved the earth on his hands, and the sun on his face, and the tractor’s hum in his ear; and I did too. I may not have been loud like him, or chewed like him, or eaten like him, but I’d have to say, that I feel like I’m more like him.

He carved these birds out of wood and painted them, and they are some of the most beautiful carvings I’ve ever seen. He’d draw cartoons and portraits. I’ve never carved, but I got sketching from him. And where he preferred cartoons, I preferred portraits. And I hope that I look at life the same way he did. And I hope that I have that spark that he did. There was just something about him, the way he always seemed to be smiling or laughing or talking, like life was bubbling up inside him somewhere and then gushing out.

Repton holds so many dear memories for me that I wish that you could have gone with me. I wish you could have seen the branch before it dried up and the pasture where the grass looked almost like wheat, and the hills, and the garden, and those beautiful flowers by the garden gate. I wish you could have seen the mud castles we built, and the games we played, and those stilts, and the kites, and that old, black bell.

Looking back now, Repton wasn’t a dream or a fictitious childhood I created, it really was that wonderful. And maybe it seemed magical because it was.

I like to refer to those days as the days when pigs flew. Interpret that as you like, but it’s a title I hold dear to my heart.