Tobacco and Jerky (anniversary repost)

I recently wrote about my family's summer of corn.This post is about another powerful food memory. I have not had Dad's special venison jerky recipe since we left Tennessee, but I hope I may have it again. Someday...

I think about Tennessee in the fall of the year, and I can smell the pungent odor of tobacco wafting from barns along country roads. I can still remember a certain barn on Greenwood Rd where it met Spann. Its timbers were various shades of weathered gray, and they looked brittle and dead in the languid afternoon sun. But riding the bus home from school, the smell of the tobacco emanating from between them was robust, intoxicating as I watched its smoke rising to rendezvous with the gray skies above.

In the fall of the year when the smell of the tobacco barns hung thick on the air, Dad piled wood on the front porch. The trees had became so bare near the creek that we could see our neighbor's pigs across the stream and their home over Spann Road, and we felt less secluded in our little world. Reuben, our lab, carried Dad's axe around in his mouth so Dad would have it to hand when he was out gathering wood. When they returned Dad spent many long minutes kneeling by the old woodstove in the living room in the evening, shoving logs onto the coals and blowing into them, his cheeks pink first from the cold and then mottled from the heat as he attempted to coax the ashes to life. The stovepipe behind the old stove would start to glow pale red with the heat and the escaping coals.

But that stove was good for more than just providing heat. It was excellent for smoking jerky. And Dad's jerky...well, it was the meat equivalent of Mom's blackberry cobbler - something never to be forgotten in culinary experience and something which still grabs my senses if I pause to recollect the taste and smell of it.

In the fall, you see, hunters would begin to appear on that piece of land we rented. The woods on it were substantial, but they also bordered the woods of our neighbors to either side and the back. They were lured, too, as the years wore on by the regular exchange of a tale about an enormous and elusive buck with an incredible number of points on his antlers that roamed the property.

Sometimes, they came to the house first to let us know they were there. At other times we'd find their vehicles parked in the field at the turn-off just past the creek.

Our landlord didn't think to set limits on who he allowed to hunt the property. So occasionally we knew there had to be three - maybe four hunters in the woods. Dad forbade us to play in the field most autumn days, because some of the hunters seemed to defy safety (their own and others) as a matter of pride. The rifle blasts could be heard from the house, echoing through the trees and the hills.

But from where did Dad get the meat for jerky? From those same gentlemen, of course. Dad himself is not a hunter, but he always graciously accepted the meat offered to him by those who were. Usually, they helped him dress the deer. Some of them, though, just dumped the carcass with a, "There you go, Dan!" and cheerfully left with the head or the antlers in the bed of their truck.

The proffered deer was hung on one of the Walnut trees in the side of the yard where daffodils flourished in the spring, its poor head limply pointed toward the ground, the eyes wide with their last expression. It was sad to see, but the venison was a boon to us throughout the winter.

Nate, when older, helped Dad dress the deer. And it was the rib meat and the front quarters to which Dad assigned the great destiny of becoming jerky. The hind quarters and backstrap were cooked in his Swiss Steak, salted and hung in the basement, or frozen for later in the winter.

Once the appropriate meat was apportioned into thin strips, it was seasoned deliciously with salt, pepper, sage, oregano, thyme, basil and cayenne. If any of these were missing, Dad rooted through Mom's spice cabinet for some other pungent spice (but don't mistake it, when I bring that lovely, chewy deer meat to mind, it always, always tastes the same; its ghost smells the same, and I wish I had some now). Thus prepared, the meat was spread beneath the top grate on our wood-burning stove to slowly cook.

In the morning, we'd wake, and the odor of the meat and its spices was there. We kids would open the door having come home from school after a long, chilly walk down the lane, and the incredible smell was there to draw us in and drive us crazy with temptation.

Dad had a strict rule about his venison jerky; it had to cook for three days on that old stove. We were forbidden to touch it or taste it before that. Still we'd lift the grate and stare at it longingly for a few moments each afternoon.

Then, at last, one evening he would come home from work, lift the grate and carefully examine the puckered slices of venison - testing its texture with his fingers, smelling it, and taking a small bite from the end. We'd watch in fascination as he slowly chewed with an intense expression in his pale green eyes. I invariably hovered by his side, eagerly waiting.

Suddenly, "It's done!" he'd announce, and my hands seemed to jerk forward of their own free will, looking for that sweet gift of jerky that made a mockery out of the variety so falsely named at the convenience store.

We had deer meat most years. Sometimes a good deal of it, and when that was the case Dad would use all kinds of cuts for his special recipe and give jerky to many of our neighbors and friends. At any rate, it was not a good year until Dad placed meat on that wood-burning stove that provided heat, the secure feeling of home...and jerky!

Fictional freewrite

"I hate my life."

I made this profound utterance as I set my beer on the bar by Gus, a mangy mass of an old fellow who only ever responded to anything I said with an "erm" or an "eh now" or an "uh-huh". These responses could have been made in his sleep, and for all I knew he was sleeping. His head was always hung so low over the glass it looked as if his unkempt beard would take a dunk in it at any moment and he'd begin to snore.

Still, he was probably the last person who wouldn't walk away from me in that rundown, punky old joint. He never moved until closing time. So even if he wasn't actually listening, it still made me feel like I had someone to talk to.

"I'm never going to be anything," I continued as I gazed down into my Moose Drool. "My stepmom told me that a long time ago. Not in so many words really, but I got the gist, you know."

"Uh-huh," said Gus.

"Everybody hates my stuff," I continued. "Can't even get it into the small galleries or podunk gift shops. And I've been trying so long...I do good mountain scenes, you know. Really like painting the ruins - the Well the most, I guess. Even do justice to these stupid red rocks round here."

"Hey now!"

This was a new noise for Gus that whipped his face up into full view as he pointed to the beer glass I'd jostled when I'd swept my arm round with the last sentence. Ted, married to the old gal who owned the place, came over to mop up the mess with a rag that gave off some funky odor. I moved my elbows off the bar, and Ted walked away with a grunt.

"And I'm feeling so anxious lately," I went on, finally sitting down with my back to the bar to stare at the jumble of empty tables. "I'm having some strange dreams..."

Ted made a noise of disgust. I turned round to look at him. His back to me as he watched the little TV suspended above the bar, he muttered crossly, "Get outta here with your dreams, Don. Nobody cares about your stupid dreams."

"Eh, now," said Gus, but I couldn't tell if that was a reproach aimed at Ted or an affirmation of the sentiment just expressed, so I soldiered on.

'Last night I dreamed there was this blocky iron-haired guy trying to kill me. Kept trying to get me alone, so no one would see. I was looking for a hiding place (at this Ted gave another grunt of disgust which I ignored). So I kept attempting to climb up into one of the air ducts, but every time I removed a vent cover, I'd find a bundle of nasty old rags. You know, like people were hiding stuff up in the vents - maybe homeless people's clothes, maybe somebody's murder weapon, or maybe a bundle of stolen goods. I don't know, because I was so disgusted by the look of them, I never unwrapped them."

Gus made an indefinable noise. Maybe he'd gone off at last. Ted switched off the television, and walked over to us.

"Sweet dreams tonight, Don," he said with a leathery grin like that of a lizard. "Now get out of my bar. Closing Time."

Gus seemed to rock back and forth on the stool to gain momentum, but he finally succeeded in shifting his weight off the stool, leaving behind his meagre nightly tip for Ted. I never saw where he pulled it from. Maybe it drifted down from beneath his beard.

"I only have a bit of change," I said, and I dropped it above the bar, letting the coins roll off in both directions. Ted didn't bother to pick them up; he simply waved his foul rag in front of my face as if that hocus-pocus could make me disappear. I reached the door just after it'd swung to behind Gus.

I stood on the wooden planking outside a moment, letting the dry, hot air envelope me. Nighttime, when the malignant orb was hidden, was the only time the summer heat was tolerable here. It felt like a warm embrace. I looked back and up at the half-lit sign over the bar door, I Killed the Horse With No Name.

I bet Ted wished I was that horse, I thought. I felt like that horse as I stepped off the planking into the dust to start the long lonely walk to home.

Summer of Corn

My husband served his family grilled corn and worshtishire/lemon pepper-marinated pork chops for dinner. The pork was very good, but the corn was special. Very special and sweet.

I bit the kernels off the cob with relish, digging my teeth into memories, and then I rested my mouth against the corn as I chewed, breathing in the pungent scent with joy and closing my eyes to see a field of corn behind a little square blue house in Tennessee.

I did this until My Man's odd looks cast my way across the table clutter were hard to ignore.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "It's that good, huh?"

Yes, indeed it was. But as for what I was doing? I was taking my mental raft down a familiar stream to my childhood home, and I was gazing into the wide cornfield just over the yard fence, shimmering in the evening humidity.

For many of the years I spent growing up in that house, Mr. Wellins, a neighbor and farmer, had our landlord's permission to grow corn for his cows in that field, and the stalks spread out like sentinels to the very edge of the woods beyond. The corn grew faster than more traditional varieties, and though it was meant for the cows, it was excellent people food, too.

And people food it had to be. There was one hard summer, our summer of corn, when things were not going well for our family. Money was a precious and elusive commodity, so my dad swallowed his pride and asked Mr. Wellins if we might take some corn from the field for our family.

"Of course. Of course," was the reply. "Take as much as you want."

And, so, the summer was defined by that early ripening corn. When Dad had gone to work, our mother sent us kids out each day to pluck ears off the stalks. We sat afternoon after afternoon on the decrepit back porch littered with its disused appliances, and we shucked the corn. That job was approached with apprehension, because you never knew what you would find at the end of an ear of corn. You pulled down the husk carefully, and then breathed out with relief when you saw the tip of the golden kernels. If, however, you found a head and silk blackened and gruesome with creeping worms, you screamed and pitched the corn as far as you could out into the grass of the lawn. That is, unless you were my brother Nate; then you would leap to your feet and stick the head of corn under a sister's nose, goading her into running across the grass and shouting in desperation, "Stop! No! Drop it, Nate! Gross!"

Mom stood just inside the back door at the kitchen counter, taking the corn we had shucked and precisely shearing the kernels off their cobs with a long knife. Her mouth tight, the expression on her face determined as she then pushed off the corn into bags to freeze for the fall and winter. I snuck in periodically and grabbed a handful of fresh kernels and shoved them in my mouth. Corn for cows? No, no - it was too delicious, like consuming genuine bursts of sunshine.

What happy cows to eat it fresh like that, my favorite way. We humans had it creamed with toast, sometimes roasted from the cob, in cornbread and often cooked in some larger dish. And we had it nearly every day that summer and often twice in a day. Then we had it come fall, and then in the winter...

And so, you see? It's odd that the simple pleasure of eating corn from the cob should be a pleasure for me at all. One might suppose I would turn up my nose at any type of corn, since it was a tiresome staple of my childhood, one summer in particular. Yet, it brings me joy. Not from the can, of course, but from the cob - oh, yes!

It sticks in my teeth

And it sticks in my brain

And I welcome the stroll 

Down memory lane

I want a clown van and three bikes for our 10th, baby

"Twenty years is not long enough."

My Man and I had just finished watching Young Victoria when I said this, misty-eyed. Albert and Victoria - it's one of those high-profile romances of history. Queen Victoria lost Albert after 20 years of marriage, and they say she still laid out his clothes every day til she died. Unfortunately, I have not read enough about the history of British monarchs to know if the tale I'm presented with is true, but it still makes a great story on film.

As the credits rolled at the end of Young Victoria, I added, "And ten years....that seems like so little time. Maybe when you're first married, it might seem like a good chunk if you thought of it, but looking back - it's no time at all."

My Man nodded as we gazed at each other. We were sopping up our love for each other, and we were plotting what we would do with the rest of our evening.

We've just celebrated our 10th anniversary, you know. I look back on that young woman who married a man from Albuquerque, and honestly, I don't know what she did with herself. She certainly had far too much time on her hands.Yes, she wrote each day on a couple books she hoped to have published; she sent out manuscripts which got rejected (does anyone even flog around a manuscript anymore?), but she slept in to ungodly hours and actually went out alone with her husband without a gaggle of children in her wake as if that were the most natural thing in the world. The woman who grew out of that new bride is a human being so much more well-rounded and interesting. Also, thanks to her four children, she is daily reminded of her faults and strengths and never has to go anywhere alone for the next sixteen years at least.

The most enchanting thing is this: she is still madly in love with her Man. That is why ten years...well, it's a paltry amount. Yes, we've achieved so much in that time - mainly the introduction to the world of four children whom we guard as they grow, discipline, play with and talk to about life's challenges and adventures. They're a little army of goodwill set to improve the world, because we damn well care about how they turn out. My Man and I love each other, and from that sprang our fierce love for all of them.

There wasn't much of a to-do on our anniversary milestone. We had a doctor's appointment for our youngest, and swim lessons for the older kids. Then we took our kids to Wal-mart and on a whim bought them each a new bike (except the baby). I giggled for the rest of the day about that - what an appropriate way to celebrate your 10th: take your young uns and treat them to spankin new bikes, let them test them out in the store aisles until an irascible old lady scolds you, the parents, for letting your offspring run amuck. Then haul the bikes out to your van and try to solve the greatest problem you're ever attempted to use your little gray cells on. Namely, just how on earth can you fit six people and three bikes into a minivan?

Well, the easy answer is, you can't and it's foolish to even attempt. But we were determined to turn our minivan into a clown van, despite the fact that I think I saw it trembling from fright. After some tears and some near-hysterical laughter, we had one bike in the back under the hatch, one bike wedged in front of the two youngest's car seats, and one bike looked like a contortionist's mechanical apprentice in the front passenger side. This bike I examined with some chagrin, because I was told by My Man that it was possible to sit between it and the chair back, which I had grave doubts about. I began to bob and weave, duck my head to and fro, fold up my arms in bizarre formations, but I could find no way to squeeze myself in.

After watching this fool's spectacle for many moments, My gallant Man pulled me out of the way and said, "You drive."

"But..."

"Just drive. I'll fit!"

I'm sure the fact that he has considerably less curves than I explained his ability to glide easily into position, though his head was bent at a decidedly alarming angle. I drove home like a slug, because I had no desire to invite a collision of any sort with that much loose metal surrounding my family.

Safely home I took a picture of our children by their gleaming new bikes, so I could remember just what My Man and I did to celebrate our 10th and just where we were in our lives on that significant day.

Big-footed Cinderella (anniversary repost)

This anniversary repost needs no introduction; it's about my big feet....oh, and other equally attractive features, and how my husband loves me just because, or in spite, of them. Alright, and I'll admit here that I'm being incredibly lazy not writing new stuff lately, but I am the mother of four young children, and it's summer. Anyhow, I'll be damned if I let my old stuff drown to oblivion in the wide pool of blogosphere. Besides, many of my readers have never seen these posts, and by that, I mean two, maybe five people - haha! Seriously, though, thanks for reading. A writer writes to be read.

Once when my husband and I were newly engaged, we had plans for a big date on a friday night. But when he came to get me, I could tell by the look on his face he was too tired to go anywhere. So being dressed up with nowhere to go, I decided to amuse myself the best way I knew how. I asked him a provoking question inspired, as we women sometimes are, by a foolish magazine article I had read earlier in the day.

"Which feature of mine do you like the best?" I asked him, eager to hear the reply.

I give him points now for not groaning aloud.

"I don't know. What do you mean?" he responded wearily.

"Well, do you like my hair? My mouth? What?"

"I don't know," he repeated.

At this point, I became exasperated. "How about my eyes," I said, pointing him in the right direction. "My eyes are nice, right?"

His answer could only have come from a very, very weary man.

"You wear pretty eye make-up sometimes," he said.

"You have got to be kidding me!" I fumed. "You like my eye make-up?!"

"I like all of you," he answered hotly. "It's not any one thing. It's the whole package."

I was mad at him for the rest of the night. Matthew, however, never crawls for forgiveness over a simple honest statement. He just let me get over it.

And I did. Because he was right, of course. Some women have a special feature that really stands out-like beautiful vibrant green eyes or a plump mouth or a sweet dimple. I don't. The most I can say for my eyes is that they are intelligent eyes. My mouth is not like "the red, red rose", and I have a lopsided smile. And though few people will admit it to my face, I have a prominent nose, and it's crooked to boot. If you take each feature separately, they're nothing special, but together, in some mysterious way, they make up an attractive woman - the one my husband fell in love with.

I'm not overly sensitive about my imperfections, though I did tell everyone when I was a teenager that I would marry a man with big feet and rough hands. That was simply because I had already at that time destroyed my hands by working and cleaning with them, and my feet were a size 81/2 which I considered to be on the big side for a female foot. Unfortunately, I've come a long way since, my friends. After being pregnant with four children, my feet have stretched themselves to a size 10. That might be bigger than my husband's, but I don't know; he won't let me do a comparison.

He has no problem having a little fun at my expense, though. Like the time he pretended to get a running start just to get my foot into a sneaker - at the shoe store! Or the time when I was shopping for new socks after my third child, and I couldn't find socks for my shoe size. Until I did. That's when I discovered I was now wearing the extended sizes. That evening I laughingly asked my husband what I would have to do if my feet continued to grow - buy the extended, extended sizes?

"No," he said. "We'll just cut the toes off." Then he laughed himself silly.

"I am not a wicked stepsister!" I shouted after one of his little jokes.

"No, you're my big-footed Cinderella," he responded gallantly.

I can just picture how that fairytale might have played out if I had been in Cinderella's shoes. The King would have adjured the Duke to find "the big-footed gal who wears these size 10s!" And my stepsisters would have been petite little things with size 6 1/2 feet. When the Duke showed up they'd be trying to stuff the toe of my slipper with tissue when he wasn't looking just so they could claim my Prince. But no dice. I'd have my other glass slipper stashed in a duffle bag over my shoulder. Besides, my Prince Matthew would know his big-footed Cinderella anywhere.

Oh, and he doesn't have rough hands either. They're smooth as a baby's bottom. But don't get me wrong; there are times when I love those smooth hands. I don't, however, think he equally enjoys me rubbing my guitar callouses down his spine.

The Creek Floods (anniversary repost)

This story is based on actual events. It arrives here in semi-fictional form.  

A broad old tree leaned over Johnson Creek just upstream from our family's swimming hole. A precarious position, perhaps, but the healthy oak seemed so stout and sure that if it fell in a storm, at least half of the creek bank must surely go with it. Its roots twisted out from the dirt of the bank through the air above the water. Beneath that mass of roots, Indigo snakes liked to hide in summer and glide out into the creek to surprise us.

The most marvelous thing hung from a sturdy branch of that stout tree, something that would provide years of childhood pleasure to my siblings and me. It was a rope swing, a thick braided barge rope Dad had found while he and Mom were rolling wreaths near the Cumberland River. He brought it home, used old powerline equipment to climb high into that beautiful tree, and suspended it carefully to dangle above the clear water of the creek. In understanding the potential of that rope with its large loop at the end to bring his children happiness, Dad gave us a wondrous gift.

Every spring and summer we four were there to pull the loop overhead and under bottom to swing gleefully across the water, giving each other a push, leaping over the water to retrieve it if it lost its momentum in the middle, or using it as a base to climb as high as possible toward the tree's branches. On really hot days we'd swing out with feet and bottom free and drop into the water before splashing out to the pebbly beach opposite.

So one year when the creek swelled with a massive amount of late spring rain to overrun its culvert and wash away the stones from the dirt road, you can see why, despite the danger of it, we ended up there - Annie, Nate and I.

Dad had stictly forbidden us to go down by the creek to look at the flood in the couple days of unending rain when the creek broke its borders. But when the sky cleared at last and was its normal hazy humid blue surely, yes surely, we thought he would let us look at it. It'd already receeded to rush beneath the culvert. Dad had said as much when he'd returned home from a walk down the lane that morning to check its level, so there could be no harm in us kids standing and gazing at it from the road, too.

Annie and Nate approached Dad. I wasn't allowed to do the talking in delicate business such as this for fear I'd wreak our chances of adventure by being too honest or giving up too easily.

Annie hovered near his weathered brown recliner for a few moments as he perused a book over a morning cup of coffee. Finally, he looked up, sensing childish enthusiasm compressing the atmosphere around him.

His pale green eyes planted themselves with all their strange intensity on Annie's face as he said, "Yes, Annie?"

The creek's not over the bridge anymore, right, Dad?"

"No. But it's still flooded. Why?"

"Well, we were wondering...I mean Nate and me...and, uh, Hoo-doo..."

"I hope you kids didn't think you were going swimming?" Dad said sharply.

"No! We knew we couldn't go swimming. But we were wondering if we could just, you know, look at it. From the bridge."

Dad put down his book.

"It's still high - and fast. Why do you kids want to look at it? You can't play in it."

"Oh we didn't want to. We just wanted to see it. We promise we'll be careful. You said it's not over the bridge..."

Dad examined Annie's face, directed his piercing gaze at Nate for a moment, and then turned back to Annie. He didn't even glance at me.

"Be careful, and stay on the bridge. The path is gone. Do not leave the bridge. Understand?"

"Yes sir."

Is Hoo-doo going with you?"

"Please can I, Daddy?"

"Yes. Be careful, all of you. Stay on the bridge. And watch out for your sisters, Nate."

"Alright, I will, Dad."

As she turned away, Annie rolled her eyes at this; of course she could take of herself without Nate's help.

Hurriedly we put on our sneakers. After a few days of being boarded up in that small square house, we were raring to go out into the big wide open. Vinca declined to join us. She was reading, and a good book was more alluring to her than scrambling around outdoors.

As we started out down the driveway, Rueben, Dad's labrador, began to trot beside us. We didn't think to tell him to stay; he probably wouldn't have anyway, so we turned past Nate's and my favorite climbling tree near the mailbox and headed down the lane with the large black dog by our side.

The lane seemed shorter than on school mornings when we were forced to trudge its considerable length to catch the bus. This morning, instead, the trees that bordered the field to the left and the fencposts that hid beneath them flew by. We were skipping or half-jogging without being fully aware of our speed. In a few moments we could hear the creek.

The sound was like a tribute to the white water of the great western rivers, a rushing that did not resemble Johnson Creek's normal bubbly nature. Annie, Nate and I looked at each other with glistening eyes and started to jog earnestly toward the noise.

We could have keeled over into the water with shock when we came to a halt seconds later, because the creek was there, just inches below us where we stood on top of the culvert; it was scraping the two wide tunnels underneath our feet while emitting a ceaseless roar, and the road bore the evidence of its recent passage. We stared down its length in silence for several moments before Nate bent down in the mud, leaning over the torrent. I peered over his shoulder as he dropped pebbles into the rushing water.

"Careful," said Annie, coming closer herself.

"Look at it," said Nate, sitting on his haunches to turn his gaze back upstream.

"Wow," I added.

"It's really fast," said Annie, and already a familiar tone was creeping into her voice.

"No kidding," said Nate, and his voice, too, carried the same tone - something that rang of speculation and a lust for adventure. "It's deeper than I've ever seen. Can you imagine how much fun it would be to swim in this?"

I think that's when I caught on and sharpened my ears as I tore my eyes from the spectacle of a little stream on steroids to my older siblings' faces. Yep, I recognized those looks, alright.

"I wish we could," said Annie, but her words had more the seed of suggestion in them than the sigh of wistfulness.

"It's too fast, and Dad said we couldn't, anyway," I spoke up.

Annie looked to the side where our path to the swimming hole used to be.

"Our path's all flooded out."

"We'd have to walk along the higher part of the bank, " responded Nate. "We could use the trees to help us. But I'd like to see our swimming hole."

"Me, too," said Annie.

"What about what Dad said?" I asked fearfully.

But Annie was examining the hill above the creek. "It's pretty steep, but it's not too bad. We could make it. You want to?"

She and Nate stared at each other.

"Let's go," said Nate.

"Won't we get in trouble?" I asked. It was a rhetorical question; I was already following them off the bridge into the wet, loose soil above the flood water.

"Don't worry, Hoo-doo," said Annie. "We'll be real quick. You want to see the swimming hole, right?"

Well, duh. I was scrambling on the side of a hill above a rushing stream behind my adventure heroes, using tree branches as life supports.

A tree whose trunk stuck out from the bank like a sore thumb usually curved several feet above the creek. On normal days we ducked under it where it overhung the path, but this day we were climbing over it and hanging onto its spindly branches for as long as we could. A few feet ahead of it the spring that flowed from the rock of the bluff joined the creek. Its crystal clear waters were muddied and rough. We'd have to jump it.

"I'll go first," said Nate. "Give me some room."

We girls backed up as Nate did so. He paused and crouched with muscles tense before running full force to leap across the breach. He didn't stick his landing; the water-logged soil slid beneath his splayed feet, and he went down on hands and knees.

"You're dirty now, " said Annie in exasperation. "Dad will know."

Nate merely shrugged and brushed at his jeans, serving to mark them all the clearer.

"Watch out, Hoo-doo," said Annie as she in turn backed up for a running leap.

It must have been her long legs or ballerina classes, but she landed with more success then Nate.

"C'mon, Hoo-doo," said Nate impatiently.

I tried to imitate their form but ended up ankle deep in the mud of the spring.

"I'm wet!" I cried in dismay.

"Oh, let's go," said Nate as I waded out. "Hurry!"

The path was now clear of any encumbrance, because we were on the little peninsula that dissected the creek from the spring and bog that resided beneath the bluff. At times the path wound close to the aggressive water, but there was plenty of dry land. We could now make out the dying tree that pitched dangerously over the stream just above the dam we'd made in the summer. Beyond that was the swimming hole.

I think we all had some fear that The Tree, our swimming hole tree with its prized barge rope swing, would be damaged, but as we ran toward it, we could tell it was secure and untouched. True, its tangled roots were in water and the rope swing, rocking gently over the current, was mere inches above the water, but the tree itself was unfazed by the creek's hyper-activity.

We were all panting as we stopped to stare at it, and then Nate walked over to the great tree and with a hand on its massive trunk, gazed down into the deep water and out at the swing which hung above it.

"I'm gonna get the rope," he said.

"How?" asked Annie, coming nearer.

"Jump out and grab it."

"I'll do it," she said.

"No," said Nate. "I thought of it. Stand back."

"Better not get wet," she warned.

We watched him walk several paces back from the tree and turn around. Before we knew it he was taking a ferocious, half-crazy leap into the air, making brief contact with the rope before splashing into the creek, the water roaring around his chest.

"Are you okay, Natie?" I called urgently.

"I'm fine," he called back, wading with difficulty to the opposite bank, rope in hand. He climbed a large rock there and shook himself a little. The he peered over at us and said defiantly, "Actually, that was fun."

"I'm going to do it," said Annie.

"You want me to swing you the rope?"

"Sure," she said, excitement making her voice shrill. Catching the rope, Annie ran off the old oak's tangle of roots out into space, making a graceful arc over the water before launching herself into the deepest part. Her head disappeared for several seconds, and Nate and I both rushed to the edge of the water in fear calling her name, but Annie popped up slightly downstream and waded laughing through the strong pull of the current to the other side.

The rope pitched like a pendulum above the water. With my hands on the tree I inched down toward the spot where the roots nearest the trunk made a sort of rough stairway but were now submerged. As the rope came back, I caught it and hauled it up to higher ground. My siblings were laughing still on the opposite bank, examining their drenched clothes.

"I want to try," I stated when they finally looked up, searching for the rope in order to come back to the tree.

"You're too small," said Nate. "Swing us back the rope."

She could do it probably," said Annie, searching my face. "We're right here, Hoo-doo, but be careful. And don't go for the deep part, either."

But I didn't take calculations of where I should land. If I thought of that unfamiliar flood of water, I'd freeze, so I simply pulled back and jumped out with the rope swing in hand, tightly clutching it for an instant before letting go.

A whoosh! and then, suddenly, I was facing downstream with all the force of the creek behind me, pushing me toward the dying tree near our destroyed stone dam. I could hear someone calling from a distance, and then the sound seemed to settle in my skull with a thud and become decibels louder, and I realized it was me - my voice crying for help as I grasped in blind panic at the reedy plants at the creek's edge. They slipped through my fingers or broke in my hands, but I saw faces full of fear with hands outstretched racing along beside me - Annie and Nate.

My attempts to grasp their hands failed, and I was sputtering as I continued to cry for help when someone grabbed my shirt and hauled me out. It was Annie, and she began squeezing me and saying repeatedly, "Hoo-doo, you almost drowned. You almost drowned. I'm so sorry."

Nate's face was inches from mine and pale as he huddled near us on the bank. I was quivering, too stunned to break down in tears.

"I'm so sorry, Hoo-doo," said Annie, letting me go at last to look at my face.

"It's not your fault," I answered shakily.

I barely had time to stand up and look myself over for some lingering evidence of my ordeal, before we all heard something that struck terror in our already pounding chests.

"Annie! Nate!...Hoo-doo! Where are you?" a voice called stridently from the lane.

We all crouched in unison like a bunch of scared rabbits hoping to avoid the keen eyes of the hawk. We could hear Reuben barking as Dad continued to call. Silly us! That dog had been playing sentinel for Dad, ever loyal. When he had deserted us we could not tell, but he had obviously returned to his master to report our disobedience.

"Dad!" hissed Nate in a low, urgent whisper

"We're in big trouble," I said, quaking with cold and the fresh chill of fear.

"Kids, where are you?" we heard someone wail.

"That's Mom," said Annie. "We have to answer." She got bravely to her feet and called, "We're here!"

"Where?" demanded Dad, and then a bellow, "Get up here right now!"

There was no hope for it but to trudge up that side of the creek to the lane. We dare not take the time to swing back across, but this opposite bank was never used to reach the swimming hole. It was rough going, and our wet clothes made us clumsier. As if performing the duties of arresting officer, Reuben trotted easily through the tangled growth to meet us as we stumbled along, painfully slow. From the sheer length of time it took us, Dad could not but know we'd been to the swimming hole.

Mom started crying when we scrambled to the road. Dad examined us with eyes that burned with unadulterated anger. We were all forced to lower our faces to avoid that fierce gaze.

"What were you doing? Didn't I tell you to stay on the bridge?"

What could we answer? We were dumb.

"Where were you? Why are you wet?" Still we were silent as we looked sidelong at each other for some inspiration. Dad decided individual interrogation might be more profitable, so he turned to his son. "What were you doing, Nate? Why are you wet?"

"I fell in," said Nate.

"Don't lie to me, son."

"I'm not."

"Annie?"

"I..." she hesitated and then lifted her small chin in an effort to be brave as she looked back at Dad. "I jumped in. From the rope swing."

"Jumped in?" repeated Mom in disbelief.

"I'll handle this, Karen," said Dad sharply. He turned back to us with his blazing eyes, "What about you, Hoo-doo?"

"I jumped in, too, Daddy," I answered, breaking down finally in tears.

"Do you realize you could have been killed?" he cried. "You could have drowned! - all of you!"

Nate and Annie glanced at me, and I stuttered through my crying, "I d-did! I d-did al-most...d-dr-drown!"

There was silence except for the cacophony of my sobbing now mingling with Mom's, and then Dad yelled hoarsely, "Do you realize how stupid that was? That was stupid! I told you to stay on the bridge! Never - never - disobey me again! Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir."

He glared at us for several minutes longer as we squirmed uncomfortably before him. Then he uttered in disgust, "Let's go home."

We followed Dad and Mom down the road, not sure if our discipline had been served or not. Annie and Nate whispered accusations at each other as we dripped back up the lane, shifting blame like it was a soccer ball they kicked between them until Dad turned and gave them a harsh stare. I sniffled as I shuffled along, weary and grateful to be alive.

Daniel, my dad

Father's Day is coming up here in the States, and so this post is dedicated to my dad, a very talented man and the one person I've always considered a mentor in my writing. His Kelven's Riddle fantasy series is available on Amazon and through other major bookseller's sites. I have read each of them at least three times a piece, in rough draft as well as in final form. I am now anxiously awaiting Book 4, and while biding my time, I have been trying to get my hands on copies of my Dad's music. That is what this post is about, but I wished to share his books, too, so I have a link to them above.  

It was perhaps a couple years after I got married that I began to regret the absence of something. It was nothing I had lost because of my marriage. I have always considered myself insanely blessed in life, including marriage (knock on wood, rub my head and pat my belly, throw salt over my shoulder while hopping on just the big toe of my right foot, and all that good superstitious "keep the good times rolling" stuff). No, what I began to regret was my foolishness in leaving something behind, something it would have been easy to ask my parents for, something that would have taken up only a teeny bit of space in my departure bags, something that would have entertained me, warmed me, reminded me and comforted me when needed. That something was my dad's music.

In my parent's home there was a whole white box of tapes from recording sessions in Dickson and Nashville, Tennessee - tapes from the days when my dad was struggling to make it as a singer/songwriter in that country music town.  I woke up one day and realized I wanted them, at least some of them, and I knew the tape I desired most. It had Dark Streets, Chris and the Boys, Gone in a Whirlwind and Green Eyes on it. I called Dad, begging him to send one to me, and he did. It was that easy.

But then I got it, and oh no! The cassette was labeled for Dad's songs, but the tape itself, Hillary's music it said, was all wrong. I jammed it hurriedly into the stereo. What I heard, though good music, was not at all what I had hoped for. It wasn't Dad.

Shortly after that my parents moved away from Idaho, where I had lived with them. They left a whole lot of things behind them in a storage unit to retrieve at a more convenient time. It is hard to believe, but Dad's music, all of his demo tapes, were stuck in that storage unit. Abandoned as if no one wanted them. I didn't think about that if I could help it, because I did not have the wherewithal to save them at the time.

And so for years I eagerly yanked out an available guitar every time Dad came around, sometimes giving him warning and sometimes not, and implored him to play his songs for me and my family. That was always a wonderful but too rare occurrence, and it left me even hungrier for the day when I might perhaps have a Dan Hylton CD of my very own to play whenever the mood struck. You can imagine how I felt then when I read my Uncle's post on Facebook announcing that he had transferred some of his own copies of Dad's music to CD - what a great day for America! What a great day for me! I thought, and I wrote him quickly and told him my sob story, offering to send postage for a copy.

I've sent copies to your Dad, he told me. Bug him.

So I did, of course....

And then my torture began - pacing, hair-pulling, fantasizing about walloping a postal worker with junk mail, yelling at the kids and My Man for no good reason kind of torture. I received a message on a Thursday from my dad telling me the CD was on its way. By Monday I was already expecting it.

My mood was in steady decline all week. Tuesday I called Dad and respectfully asked where my Cd was, and he told me he had just sent it on that Monday along with something very special for my son. On Wednesday the living room curtains and the front door were open, so that I could hear as well as see the approach of the mail truck. Yes, yes, I knew the chances were slim, but I still ran out as the mailman pulled away, conscious that this was something usually only little old ladies with walkers do - hoping as they do to have a bit of interaction with a fellow human being. And sure enough - there was a little old lady two houses down rolling her walker toward the mailbox. I only hope she didn't hear the cuss word I uttered when I found out what was absent from my own box. No doubt she heard the bang when I slammed it shut.

Oh, the next two days were like some silly romcom where the audience gets to see the female love interest slap the man in the face a few times before she realizes that she really could or does love him. Every day built up to the the point of the mailman's arrival, and I stormed out my front door pumped up on adrenaline or hope, with maybe a kid or two trailing, and each time I gave a grunt of disgust at the contents of my mail, slammed the mailbox shut and huffed and puffed my way back into the house.

And the worst of it was this: I was expending all this time and energy in anticipation of this CD, and it wasn't even the one I hoped for. Dad had told me on Tuesday that the songs on it were some he had forgotten, ones from his earliest songwriting and recording efforts.

"I warn you, Hillary. I don't know why you want them that badly. I barely remember them."

My heart sank. What songs could they be?

"Oh, Don't Let Me Know is one of them," said Dad when I asked him.

And with that the melody of a song I could scarcely remember took over my mind, playing over and over again with the same snippet of lyrics, " Don't let me know/Don't let me know/I don't want to be around/When you go...." I couldn't recall any more of the words.

And then came Saturday, and Saturday was doom's day. If the CD did not come on Saturday, it would never come; it was a myth, a legend, an impossible dream.

I flew out to the mailbox, and it wasn't - GULP - it wasn't there! I threw the door of our poor defenseless white box back against itself in a rage, said a bad word loud enough for the neighbors, and then proceeded to beat the mailbox with the junk mail I held in my hand while the mailman watched me sidelong with trepidation.

It was a great big trick. I would never have Dad's music.

That day my husband Matthew did not want to be around me. It took upwards of two solid hours to drag myself out of my funk. I had to eventually realize there were so many worse things in the world than not having a CD, even if that CD carries the tenor voice of one's own dad. I kissed my husband, apologized for my horrid behavior and let it go. It is after all true: a watched CD never comes.

Until the following Tuesday, that is.

Monday was Memorial Day - no mail. But Tuesday found me once again with an ear cocked for the special noise of the mail truck's engine. At last I heard it far too late in the afternoon, and I dashed out, all four of my children behind me.

This time I forestalled the mailman who stood sorting flimsy pieces of paper mail in his hand.

"You don't have a package for me?" I whined pitifully.

"Actually, I do," he said with a brilliant smile.

He turned and grabbed it from his seat. I thought I might kiss him when the moment came, flush with my gratitude, but I didn't.

Instead I said, "Thank you. Thank you so much. You don't know how long I've been waiting for this!" And then, "You're the best person ever!" I called after him as he started off. I would have thrown flowers if I'd had any.

I cut open the box impatiently when back in the house, and I pulled out two CDs - all my own! Wrapped up carefully underneath was the proof of The Sword of Heaven, Dad's third book in his Kelven's Riddle series, and inside the flap was a personal note to my littlest boy. It was his birthday gift from his Paca on his first birthday, and I'm not ashamed to say I had asked Dad if he might have it.

Over a week later, I was driving my kids to the park, and I was for the first time really enjoying listening to Dad again. Already I had become reacquainted with the songs I once knew so well as a little girl, and I had gotten over my anxiety about whether they would do credit to the whole body of my dad's songwriting work, including his later more personal songs. I already had my favorites even.

So, really, as with my Gordie (Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot), so with Dad. I will listen to his music in the car until my kids exclaim to their Papa one day, "Wow, Paca must have....like 500 songs on that CD!"

Then Matthew will have to tell them, "No, kids. Mama just listens to them over and over and over...."

And that's my right. Heaven knows I've waited for that privilege long enough. And next time I have the chance to go to Idaho, I'm going to dig out that priceless white box of old tapes from its imprisonment in a musty old storage unit, drag it home with me, and get to work transferring my Dad's music. Some fine day, like his books, his songs may be available to anyone who wants them, and that will truly be a great day.

Dad Steps on one and Mom Beheads another (anniversary repost of the week)

While pulling weeds with my eldest girl in the yard this morning I was reminded of a summer in my childhood when my siblings and I were supposed to be helping our lovely mother in the vegetable garden. We were lazin' about, of course, and while we were thus engaged, Mama encountered something that gave her a real fright. But, of course, that story cannot be told without setting down first the very scary incident of Dad's encounter with a similar cold-blooded creature.

This was a story I always wanted to tell, and I think I did it justice.


I will embrace this summer, destined to be terrible like any Arizona summer, by indulging in summer memories from the past. Those that are foremost in my mind at the moment involve, of all things, snakes.

My brother Nate and I used to sneak up on the garden variety to touch their slippery skins until they ejected their forked tongues at us. Our brave lab Reuben attacked even the venomous kind, rattlesnakes and copperheads, with vigor in the cornfield and woods - barking, circling and lunging. Twice he was bitten, and he would forever have the bare patches of fur as proof of battle.

The scariest encounter happened early one summer. We kids were swimming in the creek in the afternoon. There was a massive old tree which bent its limbs over the water. From one sturdy limb Dad had hung an old barge rope. When we weren't taking turns using it to launch ourselves into the water, we were having dog paddle races in the gentle current or adding rocks to the dam we'd built to deepen our swimming hole.

My parents came home early that day. We saw the car cross the culvert, barreling toward home. This was the first unusual incident, for Mom and Dad often stopped the car at the creek, especially if we kids were there, and they'd lie down in the shallows to cool off after a hot sweaty day in the woods.

We kids abandoned the cool water, jumping the spring as we followed the creek path before climbing to the road and dripping a trail down the dirt lane. As we rounded the corner by the mailbox, we were surprised to see our parents still by the car. And Dad was in the passenger seat. This was a new alarm; Mom never drove. That and the fact that Dad's face was a shade we'd never seen before as he leaned his head against the open car door told us something was very wrong. We all four ran to his side, our words and our limbs becoming tangled. He responded to this onslaught by asking us weakly to back up and give him space.

It was Mom who said in a strained voice, "Your dad was bitten by a copperhead."

The inevitable questions erupted from us in panic. "Is Dad going to die? Why isn't Dad at the hospital?"

Mom's big brown eyes were alarming in size, the rest of her face pinched by stress. Dad finally cut through the tears and mounting fear by saying in a firm if weakened voice, "I'm not going to die. Help me inside the house."

Once inside Dad cut the boot off his foot. There was nothing else to do; the foot was swollen to twice its size. We kids watched in anxious fascination as Dad laboriously pushed the sock down, his face tight with pain. When he finally collapsed against the couch, sweating from the effort, the foot was revealed to us: mottled with various shades of red and blue that had spread up his leg.

It was my brother Nate who spotted the fang marks. "Look!" he cried, pointing to the top of the foot. "I found where it got you, Dad!"

We all bent over the two tiny white marks.

"That's it, alright," said Dad. "Now someone turn down that air conditioner. I'm burning up."

That night I woke up to the sound of someone being sick in the bathroom. We kids straggled out to the living room where we found Dad sweating and miserable by the air conditioner. Mom was urging him to drink a tall glass of water, her cure for everything.

"Kids, go back to bed. There's nothing you can do," said Dad in a low voice.

But we didn't, because we didn't fully trust Dad's assurances that he wasn't going to die. He was shaking and sweating badly; we had to keep watch over him.

For two grueling days my dad suffered from recurring fever and vomiting induced by the venom. On the third morning he got ready for work despite Mom's objections. It took quite a lot of duck tape to secure his work boot to his swollen foot that morning. Every day he had to rewrap the shoe as he prepared for the woods, but he recovered as he said he would.

We learned the story by and by. As I have said my parents worked in the woods for a living. While they hunted for valuable roots to dig, Dad always walked ahead of our mother. This time he stepped over a large decaying log, breaking his own rule about looking before proceeding. The prick on his foot was virtually instantaneous. Luckily, Dad recognized the copperhead pattern on the snake's back as it slithered away, but the burning heat that surged through his foot quickly spread up his leg even as he stood in a nearby creek to gain relief from the painful sensation.

Dad knew copperheads are rarely fatal, so he resisted Mom's urgent demands that they go straight to a hospital. But we prayed, too, and prayer is powerful.

****************************

Dad's experience explains the enormity of my mother's reaction to her own confrontation with a slithering reptile. The image of Dad stepping over the log and saying, "Honey, I think I just got bit," and his subsequent misery were no doubt still fresh as Mom knelt in our family garden later that summer, tending the bean plants and unaware that she had company.

I feel some guilt in the telling of this episode, for I remember our dad adjuring my siblings and I to help her before he left to work a neighbor's farm.

We kids were being particularly unproductive, listening to music and rocking on the couch or the floor in a general state of ennui when Mom burst open our front door and said, "Oh, s--t! There's a copperhead in the garden!"

All four of us froze in horror, not because of the presence of a snake in the garden, but because of the word which had escaped our virtuous mother's lips. It was Vinca who finally stuttered, "Wha-waa-what did you say?"

Mom omitted the word and cut straight to the point before adding in wide-eyed frenzy, "I need something...anything! I've got to kill it!"

It was very unfortunate that Mom spotted the rifle on the living room shelf. She ran out of the house with it and the ammunition before we could prevent her. Nate was close on her heels, however, urging her to let him shoot it (he was a good shot and had actually handled it before).

"Stand back, all of you!" she ordered.

After promptly doing so, we kids watched as our mother blasted not only the bean plants, but the corn and tomatoes as well. Upon inspection, the snake was found to be unscathed.

Having depleted the sparse ammunition, Mom yelled desperately, "Get me rocks! Bring me rocks! I need something to throw at it!"

My sister Annie dragged an enormous rock from the flower bed wall, laughing and winking at me and Nate as she lugged it between her legs. Our mother, still powered by adrenaline, lifted the considerable weight over her head and hurled it like She-Woman in the general direction of the bean plants.

But the snake, not surprisingly, survived the bombardment of stones, though it had lost much of its cover. Our flattened garden was a sad testimony to the presence of the iniquitous reptile that had, despite the assault, hardly moved from its original position. Mom decided the time had come for close combat. She marched to the side of the house, grabbed the hoe propped there and returned to the very place where she had first discovered the copperhead while kneeling in its proximity. She then did what she should have done at the first by quickly and precisely chopping off its head.

By the time Dad returned home that evening, our mother was her usual calm and ladylike self, and we kids were impatient to relate the story of our adventure. We met him at the car, and Mom stood behind us with folded arms as we all spoke at once. Somewhere in the telling, one of us burst out with, "And Mama said a bad word. She said the s-word!"

"I did not," Mom spoke firmly.

"But, Mom, you did!" said Nate. "When you came in the house."

"I would never say that word." Her voice was very quiet, and her large eyes were narrowed. We didn't dare argue with her.

At least not until she went back into the house. Then we all turned to Dad and began whispering, "She said it, Daddy. She really did."

Dad was skinning the miscreant snake in the driveway. He looked up, and his pale green eyes were bright with amusement when he said, "I believe you. But it's our secret, okay? Don't make your Mama angry."

It's strange that our mother's use of a bad word should capture our imaginations more than the image of her firing a rifle into the bean plants. I can only say it is a testament to her beautiful manners, and I need not add, I have never heard her say it since.

Painted in the Desert and...Petrified!

Don't touch or approach wild animals - bubonic plague is a reality!

Whose reality? I wondered. Just how many cases of bubonic plague had Petrified Forest National Park been covering up over the years?  Where were they burying the bodies in order to keep the place open and its reputation as harmless adventure unmarred by such a dire threat? Man, this was serious.

But what the heck! The risk of contracting the plague wasn't about to deter me from enjoying massive brushstrokes of red, purples and blues on huge mesas that rose majestically from desert grassland. Nor would it turn me aside from grabbing the opportunity to view millions-year-old remnants of ancient trees that glistened in the afternoon sun.

You see, my husband Matthew was about to keep his promise, a promise he had made on a previous trip home from Albuquerque when we had rebuffed a chance to see one of Arizona's greatest national parks. Taking that proffered opportunity this time would cost him $10 and nearly two hours travel time off the highway when all was said and done, but it was a sacrifice he was making for me. So damn the plague!

As we gently drove into the Painted Desert at first I wondered, Well, what's the big whoop? This is like driving through the desert in like..Phoenix! Please let there be something to convince Matthew this is really something...but we took a turn on the windy park road, and suddenly I was bouncing in my seat, obsessively clicking the camera and shouting at the kids, "Look, look! Do you see the colors? Do you see them? Isn't it beautiful?"

Our first view of an extraordinary landscape

The farther we went, the more my eyes teared up as I thanked my husband again and again for taking the time to show his family more of the brilliant, wild, incredible scenery of Arizona. Though, granted, sometimes I felt we might have, by some strange tunnel in time, landed on a different world - scanning the horizon for signs of life...

The scenery occasionally collapsed in on itself like the closing of a pop-up picture book for toddlers, leaving us to stare at the simple grass whipping in the wind. As we approached a new chapter in the story called The Tepees, we were astounded to find the book unfolding again with some of the most memorable and vivid illustrations yet.

The colors you see are created by iron, carbon, manganese and more minerals...

I wished to stop at Puerco Pueblo, a Native American ruin, but the hike was just a tad too far. As elated as I was to be seeing massive stricken logs, witnesses to the age of the dinosaurs, strewn mere yards away from the road we traveled, I was not going to make any bones about missing a ruin.

We opted instead to stop at the Rainbow Forest Museum, near the end of the park road, to eat our lunch at a picnic table. On all our road trips I have never eaten at a prettier place. The desert plants graciously encircled us, and ravens glided low on the wind near by, though how they were able to manage navigating the gusts that blew the food from our hands is beyond my understanding.

The view from our picnic table

After lunch, we were determined to walk the Giant Logs Trail behind the museum which passes Old Faithful, the largest log of petrified wood in the park. Park signs warned about near constant high winds and about the need for sun protection - hats, sunscreen, long sleeves. As we stepped out on the path with our children, the winds buffeted us badly, making me fear one of the kids would be blown away into the wilds to be raised by coyotes. The trail led up and down broad steps that wandered between broken logs of petrified wood such as this one:

The great American flag flying over Rainbow Forest Museum

The sun did indeed beat down on us (this is Arizona, after all), but in order to keep hats on our heads in that roaring wind, we would have needed to screw them into our skulls with some heavy hardware. As it was, we braved it, and I held my baby Danny's hat over his delicate blond scalp as best I could.

With joy my eldest daughter and I pointed out the colors in the wood to each other as she held tight to my free hand. The gratification I felt when we completed the trail was a beautiful thing, but more so because the experience truly was a gift from my Matthew.

My Man driving in our van through the Painted Desert

He fought his road trip killer instinct, the one that pushes him to drive and drive with only stops for gas and restroom breaks, just so he could give his wife an experience she craved, an experience she'll never forget. An experience his kids will remember, too. And so, with love, this blog post is dedicated to him.

The Cobbler and the Cobbler Pan (anniversary repost)

I just made a Memorial Day blackberry cobbler. My husband came home with a whole case of blackberries from the Farmer's market, and as I washed each pintful and spread them out to drain on a kitchen cloth, I was having flashbacks to the summers of my childhood - pounds of blackberries piled in milk jug pails!

I made the cobbler in such a way as to make my Mama proud, I hope. The pastry was thick, the blackberry filling deep - no lemon zest, just a hint of cinnamon. It was delicious. Still, I can't believe it held anything to Mama's Tennessee blackberry cobblers. I told my friends that the preparation of her cobblers was like witchcraft - stirring hot, bubbling juices for what seemed like hours in a cauldron-like pan on the stove...well, despite the grueling nature of its preparation, I'd like to have it again if I could. At any rate, this post melds two earlier ones about that tremendous cobbler and about the very special pan that held it every summer.

The Cobbler

Where I grew up in Tennessee, wild blackberries grew in abundance. They were plumpest and juiciest in late July and August, fully ripened with the heat and the humidity. My parents, siblings and I would hike down the long lane from our little house and climb a gate into Mr. Spann's field. There in a hollow shaded by trees, the blackberry bushes formed a beautiful tangle of leaves, berries and thorns. For our equipment we had milk jugs with the tops cut off and our own two hands.

My sister Vinca was an expert at not getting pricked with the thorns as she harvested the deep purple berries. Annie and I kept up a chorus of "ouch!" the whole time. My berry-picking form was not the best in other ways, too, for I would obsessively pluck practically all the berries from a bush, no matter their size or degree of ripeness. When Dad glanced my way, he'd say, "Whoa, Hoo-doo! Leave some for the birds."

He should have added, "And some for the pail!" because many berries got eaten before they landed in our humble milk-jug pails, our fingers and mouths stained purple with the evidence. But those lucky ones that made it back down the lane to home were destined for mom's blackberry cobbler.

To this day I have yet to find anything that could compare with my mom's blackberry cobbler. It was the culinary equivalent of heaven, but the preparation, at least to us kids, was brutal. We had to take turns stirring the blackberry, sugar and cornstarch mixture over the hot stove until it had practically formed a jam. Mom would come in to inspect every few minutes, lifting the spoon from the bubbling mixture and shaking her head tersely in answer to our pleading eyes.

When she finally decided it was ready, the mixture was poured into the dough-lined cobbler pan (a pan with a slightly rounded bottom that was so large we kids used it to go sledding on the rare occasion we got snow). After what seemed like an eternity, it emerged from the oven, steaming from beneath its thick golden layer of homemade pastry. I can still see it resting on the grates of our old wood-burning stove in the living room, Mama slicing it open with a thick knife as steam rose and the smell of it bloomed in our home. We always ate the first slice warm, very warm - cooled only enough to prevent the burning of our mouths with its delicious purple filling. The taste and smell of it is something I can still conjure up in my mind and something, too, which will always embody the bountiful summers of my childhood.

I won't have that cobbler again, I imagine, but it is still my favorite dish in the world. I don't have my mom's talent with pastry dough and, sadly, I never attempted to learn it growing up. And the last time I had wild blackberries was the final summer I spent with my parents in Tennessee. My siblings had all journeyed away from our home, and it was just my dad and me braving the humidity and thorns to pluck memories from the blackberry bush.

But here's my summer wish for you, my friends, wherever you may be: I hope you are lucky enough to find or make for yourself your own perfect berry cobbler. And may you share your bounty with family and friends.
 
 
Ode to the Cobbler Pan

While driving with my family to Christmas Eve Mass today, I was admiring the clear skies and clear ground and the sunshine of this desert valley town. Indeed, this is my first year living here that the persistent sunshine around the holidays has not irked me as ill-placed winter carols jingle from my car stereo. Though we've gotten a little rain lately and the sky has not been its usual bright self, today I truly thought to myself, "Ah, boy, this is Christmas! Warm. No snow on the ground. Clear and beautiful."

Strange. I never thought a southern gal like me would let her roots sink in this clay soil. But here I am in Arizona, and shockingly I'm finding I'm beginning to yearn for my own southwest ranch home, maybe some horses and a back porch that abuts BLM land. And I wouldn't mind more Christmases spent beneath a clear sky and full sunshine.

Still...a tune such as White Christmas never fails to call me warmly back to that traditional idea of a snowy cold Christmas with mittens on my hands and furry boots for my feet and my kids and dogs prancing through the fresh powder on the lawn...oh, and a good long slide in a sled down the nearest big hill.

I never had a real sled. In Tennessee, the opportunities to go pell-mell down a hill on such a contraption weren't often or good enough to warrant the investment. But when the snow came and it stuck, you can bet my siblings and I were rooting around for something, anything that would give us the speed we craved in flying down the big hill in the field.


Ode to the cobbler pan!


Whose cobbler pan this is, I think I know


Mom will not mind if we use it though


To send our bottoms racing down the hill


And hitting a cornstalk, take an awesome spill


Which our siblings will see and laugh about


Til we head home...cold, worn-out


The pan was shiny aluminum, rounded on the bottom and deep with a small lip around the rim. It had been given to my parents in a set for a wedding day gift, I believe. I don't know who first thought of using that old aluminum pan for a sled. Maybe Mama suggested it, giggling at the idea of our little bottoms stuck into the pan in which she baked the deepest, purplest, most scrumptious blackberry cobblers one could ever hope to experience. Or maybe it was Annie, who always was so very skinny and was able to fit into it years after she should have outgrown it. But maybe it was destiny...for us four kids and for the pan.

I can remember many an occasion, heading across a white field toward the long slope that came down between the lines of trees with one of my siblings swinging the cobbler pan in their hands. We usually had hubcaps, too, but the bond there was never strong. We didn't feel love for those hubcaps, no loyalty for their many years of faithful snow-day service. They were just something we picked up as extras along the way. But the pan? We hunted it down on a packed snowy day, pulling it with clatters and clunks from beneath a pile of other pots and pans in the kitchen, dragging it out into daylight after its months of hibernation post-blackberry season.

On the hill we kids would spend a good deal of time clearing our sledding paths of pebbles and broken cornstalks from the summer's harvest. It was cold, hard work. Good exercise, too, and we loved it even if we did have to stop and breath the life back into our fingers which were adorned only in some of Dad's old socks.

With cleared paths at last, we'd balance the pan and a hubcap at the top of that hill - two of us at a time, and two behind ready to give a push whether requested or not. If you were the one in the pan, you held onto that tiny lip of metal around the rim as you teetered near the launching point, then you lifted your legs and got a shove from behind. Down you went, spinning all the way with the world a blur of barking dogs and laughing siblings, and all the while you're thinking, I hope I don't go into that gulch at the bottom or biff it hard on a cornstalk. You knew you'd get a few colorful bruises if you did. But if you were still intact, pan and kid, when you stopped spinning and slowly skidded to a stop at the bottom of the hill, you laughed in victory before hauling the pan back up the hill to the sibling waiting for their turn in it.

We'd take turn after turn speeding in the pan until our hands, noses and bottoms were thoroughly frozen. Then we'd head home, satisfied as only kids can be in their puerile pursuits of adventure, with the smoke curling above that little square house serving as a beacon to call us to a warm harbor. At the front porch we'd quickly stamp our shoes on the steps, and going in, we'd dump the cobbler pan on the ground and peel off our wet jackets and Dad's old socks by the front door, eager to reach the wood-burning stove and hold our numb hands above its hot surface.

A snowy day did come when none of us kids could fit into the cobbler pan, and it would have been embarrassing to even attempt it. Our ingenuity did not fail us, though. The hubcaps could still be used, and there was some old linoleum that Mom had torn up from the living room floor. Nate and I used it, and its slick surface worked well - until it shredded on the way down the hill, leaving nothing but a scrap beneath our bums. Because you see, no sled or other downhill transport could ever be as durable as that cobbler pan. And we treated the poor thing roughly; each good hard snowfall, it got a few more dents in its bottom. And yet come summer it was again receiving and heating Mom's beautiful cobbler.

This Christmas, I wish I had that cobbler pan to hold in my hands again and marvel at the mere fact that there used to be a time when I could comfortably fit my rear end into it while racing flat-out down a slope. Then I'd like to hang it on the wall in my kitchen.

My friends might say, "Hillary, why do you keep that old pan hanging there?"

And I'd look up proudly and get a little misty-eyed as I replied, "There was a big hill in the field where I grew up. It'd snow sometimes, and that pan was just right...."