My Dad was always big on avoiding extra
expenses, if a one time expense, combined with the sweat of our brow, would
work as well. We had land, 250 acres or so, but a lot of ready cash was just
not available. Our income came from raising registered bulls, and the sale of
bull calves for quality herd bulls each year amounted to about $2000. That was
normally about it. So, we had a small grist mill, sorghum mill, sawmill, corn
sheller, and pea thresher.
The grist mill ground corn into corn meal. Mom
usually cooked enough cornbread for us and a little extra for the dogs. The
shelled corn was put into a hopper at the top. It was powered by a belt to the
tractor. If the belt started running off, Dad always kept and old can of
sorghum molasses to pour onto it. The corn was shaken down into the mill, and
the first batch of meal that came out was always discarded, along with the body
parts of the mice that did not get out in time. I suspect that was a problem
with all the old time grist mills. The inner reaches of the machine would seem
like heaven for a mouse–until all hell broke loose!
Our “sawmill” was also powered by a belt from
the tractor. We regularly got stave bolt trimmings from Plainview, ten miles
away, and cut them up into firewood length. Once, the belt to the tractor
broke, and the tractor started rolling down the hill. I chased after it until I
finally caught it, and tried to push the brake. Finally, the tractor and I both
wound up hung up in vines at the bottom. Dad also regularly cut a medium sized
sweet gum and I cut it up into “back sticks” for the fire place, to focus the
heat out front.
I only saw the pea thresher running once, when
I was very small.
Our sorghum mill was powered by old Murt,
our last super mule. Before the Depression, the Gillum's were into breeding
super mules. The Comptons and Turners were into that with us. They bought a
Mammoth Black Jack down in Texas, named King Leo, for one thousand dollars. He
won first place at the State Fair.
People came from far and near to breed their mare to King Leo.
They bought another Mammoth Black from Europe, but seems he died early. I can't
seem to find out much about him. Anyway, old Murt was the only one left when I
came along in 1944, Seems tractors in common use killed the super mule
business.
Anyway, a long timber reached out from the
mill, attached to the mule, and she walked round and round. The sorghum stalks
were fed in, and the juice was pressed out. It was put in very long copper pans
with a fire built around them. The juice was evaporated, with impurities
constantly being skimmed off the top, until molasses remained. I'm sure there
was more to it than that, but I am walking along the edge of my memory here, so
I will leave it at that.
All of this machinery I've mention was pretty
old in my memory. I think they were from pre-depression times, when the Gillums
were doing a little better.
One of the most common sayings Dad had,
when things were not going well on the farm was, “I'm afraid we may be headed
for the poor house.” Over and over he said that. I never knew what a “poor
house” was. Then, recently, Barb and I visited one, on a trip to Ireland. It
was set up when untold thousands of people were starving, during the Great
Potato Famine of the early and mid-1800s. They wanted to limit it only to
people who were on the edge of starvation, so it was set up so that only those
people would want to go. Families were not allowed to communicate with each
other; they worked very long hard hours, all on a bowl of thin soup a day. It
looked like a prison. We stayed at a bed and breakfast in Ireland, where the
lady who ran it told us about her grandpa. He broke his leg, badly. But he was
afraid that if he went to a doctor, he would be put in the poor house. He lived
out his life with his leg broken instead. I did not know at the time, but have
since learned they were commonly used in this country, before the welfare
system. I am not sure how they compared with the Irish variety, but I do know
that fear of the poor house was deeply ingrained in the old Gillums. I guess
that fear finally died out, because I have never heard it used by my
generation.
*
The Whippoorwills are going crazy about now. I stayed in my cabin
lately in Wing, Arkansas. I kept the windows open all night so I could hear
them, 3 or 4 at a time. I heard their relatives on that hill in the 1950's,
seems like every spring night.
*
More
recently - I added one thing to my bucket list last week.
I sweet talked my way into prison. When
I got to Pine Bluff Prison for my prison ministry, (after a two hour drive) I discovered too late that I did not have my
driver’s license (an absolute necessity to get in) I gave a really good sob
story to the nice lady at the entrance, told her she was a sweetheart, gave her
a bag of cookies. She said, “just go
on.” Nobody was more surprised than me.
I almost got my wife kicked out of
prison once, but that’s another story.
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