MAMA....Root, Hog, or Die

Cascade - Chapter 14

Third place winner National Writers Association/Florida Chapter

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.
--Thoreau

Summer had arrived, school was out and Mama had said she didn’t know what she was going to do with “you kids” under her feet until fall.
I had a friend who lived in a small settlement named Cascade, less than twenty miles from where we lived. I had begged and begged Mama to let me ride the Dick & Willie (Danville & Western Railroad) to see her. After all, the tracks ran right by her house and I could go and come back the same day.
Finally Mama said, “Well, go on… then I’ll have a few less questions to answer.” By that time in my life, I was probably in the sixth grade. I knew well that Mama would just as soon I never asked another question.
The station was on the next ridge north, so it was just a matter of running down the path by the big water tank that served two purposes. It was a reservoir for drinking water for that part of town, and it was “insurance” in case of fire at the lumber yard that was in the valley between the two ridges. At the end of the path there was a narrow paved road that led straight up the hill to the station. Of course there was no sidewalk. And birdfoot violets grew in clumps all along the edge of the cracked pavement.
Mama had “commanded” me to put on shoes. Reluctantly, I pulled out the little green shoe box and retrieved my shoes which I’d hidden under it, and put them on. I would much rather have gone barefoot so I could feel the warm summer earth between my toes.
As I ran out the door, Mama said, “Don’t you dare run on the road! Run in the grass and don’t stop for nothin’!” And then she added, “And bring me back a big sack o’ ‘greens’.”
Being afraid not to, I did just exactly as she told me to. If I didn’t, I knew Mama would find out one way or another, and that would not be a good thing for Youngest Daughter.
The train was in the station. I went to the ticket window to pay the fare that was twenty-five cents round trip. Then I went to the passenger car and gave the ticket to the conductor who said it would be a little time before the train would pull out. There was just one car and I was the only passenger. Pretty soon I got to thinking: wouldn’t it be something if I could ride in the cab with the engineer! Finally enough courage was mustered to ask the conductor if I could do that. He looked down at me, looked back through the empty car, then said, “Well, Little Lady, let’s go see.”
My father had frequently brought me to the station to see the trains which I dearly loved, and we made a game of learning all the numbers. And frequently, too, we’d get to talk to the engineer. Mostly there was just one engineer who was on that run, and sure enough he was there that morning. The conductor spoke on my behalf, the engineer looked down at me from the cab… thought a minute, then said, “Why not! Come on up… that’s a high step… don’t fall.”
The conductor helped me up into the cab and I was beside myself with joy! Oh, what a day! I was in the cab with the engineer and we were going to Cascade.
Pretty soon the engineer leaned way out the window looking up and down the tracks. Then he yanked on the cord blowing the whistle, the big drivers slowly chugged into motion and steam hissed out over the tracks. We were on the way! I was so excited I could not talk, yet there were so many things I wanted to ask the engineer. While this was not the first time I had ridden a train, it was certainly the first time for riding in the cab with the engineer. As the train gathered speed running faster and faster, I looked first out one side the cab then the other. I remember the engineer putting his big rough hand on my shoulder as he cautioned me to be careful not to stumble in moving around.
Through those red Virginia hills the train rolled… past red fields now turned summer-green with half-grown corn. Occasionally we passed several fields of tobacco, but not many farmers raised tobacco in that area, saying that tobacco was one of those crops that didn’t “take good” to red clay. We ran through velvet green pastures feeding herds and herds of cows and a few horses. And for several miles the tracks ran through piney woods so thick and tall it almost seemed that we were running through a long green tunnel. The sweet fresh fragrance of all those pine trees was purely thrilling.
I’m sure now that the engineer blew the whistle more than he usually did just for my benefit. Every time there’d be someone working in the fields, he’d blow the whistle. We’d wave wildly and so would they. Up to that point in my life, if there ever were a more perfect summer day I could not remember it. The sun beamed down from a flawless blue sky, the wind lay quiet across the summer-warmed land and the fresh smell of the fields and woods mixed right in with the smoke and steam of the train. I didn’t want us to get to Cascade, I didn’t want the train to stop. I wanted to just go on ridin’ over those rails in the cab with the engineer… the wind in my face and blowing through my hair. I loved every sound, the clickety-clack of wheels on the tracks, the hissing of the steam every once in a while, the creaking noises of all that moving iron that were ever present.
But just like most truly wonderful things, there had to be an ending. The goin’ part of the riding came to an end when the train pulled in to Cascade. The station was so tiny it was a wonder we didn’t miss it altogether. Just one small building, more like a square knot along one short stretch of track. On the track side, it had a long narrow window that opened with three rusty hinges along the top that when open had to be held up with an equally rusty hook. There was a small door on the opposite side. I couldn’t help but think how hot that little station would be in summertime and how cold in winter. I have to admit it reminded me of Grandpa’s “little house” at the end of the garden at the farm that “hung” over the topmost edge of the hill. Of course the little station was unattended.
From the cab, across several fields, I could see the farm house where my friend lived. The engineer said he’d be back in mid-afternoon and for me to be sure to be there. Then he helped me down the high step and off I ran, waving to him ‘til he was out of sight. I crawled through two barbed wire fences and over a third one made of hog wire. By this time, my friend had seen me coming and was running to meet me.
Her name was Katie. While we were about the same age, she was considerably taller than I was, so when we talked she had to look down at me as I looked up at her. When her daddy came in from his work at the barn, her mother had a good dinner ready. The kitchen wasn’t very big, but that was the only place they had for the eating table so that’s where we had dinner. Like at our house, the midday meal was never referred to as lunch. It was a full-fledged meal at high noon: just-picked corn on the cob with fresh soft butter churned that morning, new potatoes, green cabbage sizzling in an iron fryer that was placed on a board on the table to keep it hot, and a big red pile of tomatoes with garden-fresh “spring” onions on what Katie’s mother called, the “Sunday platter”. For dessert, she’d made a bread pudding bubbling through the slashes on top, crisp and golden brown at the edges with lots of nuts and raisins across the top. It was served not in little dessert dishes but in bowls. Over the warm pudding she’d poured pure thick sweet cream, saying, “You don’t never eat cold puddin’- it’ll stick to the roof o’ your mouth.” The table was about three feet from the big wood stove. It was really hot. I don’t know why I got the chair nearest the stove but I did, and little beads of sweat ran down my cheeks and dropped on the front of my dress. For a minute I thought they might think I was cryin’. And my hair got real damp. I was afraid to wipe my face for fear somebody might think I was complainin’. Besides, nobody else was wipin’ sweat so I didn’t either and I just got wetter and wetter. Katie’s mother cooked real good, and when I asked “please for a second helping”, she smiled real sweet saying, “Now you just go ahead and eat all you can hold… you got a ways to go to catch up with bein’ big as Katie.” I did just that, ate “all I could hold”, but I was more than a little glad when we’d all finished eating and I could move away from that stove.
After dinner Katie’s mother sent us out to the vegetable garden alongside their barn to pick tomatoes. She, too, mentioned shoes. “Don’t take off your shoes, either one o’ you. There’s ticks in the ground this time o’ year.” They were the biggest tomatoes I’d ever seen. We had taken a bushel basket with us and we picked it full. It was so heavy we had to carry it between us back to the house. Handing me a paper bag, Katie’s mother said, “Here, take this poke o’ tomatoes home to your Mama.” Not having any idea what the word “poke” meant, I peeked inside to see what else was in the bag but I didn’t see anything except tomatoes.
Later, Mama told me that the word actually meant a paper bag. Then, like an afterthought she said, “I guess that word ‘poke’ come from people ‘poking’ things in a paper bag”. Then she added, “But that might not be right.”
Handing us a bucket, Katie’s mother sent us to the spring to get some “cold, fresh water for tea.” The path was so narrow winding around big trees, and rocks as big as bushel baskets, that we could not walk side by side. So Katie led the way down the steep hill. Wild honeysuckle was in full bloom and smelled so sweet I felt like I couldn’t breath deep enough to get all the sweetness inside of me. I buried my head in those creamy white clusters of little trumpet-like blooms. At first glance, the spring looked like nothing more than a dark, deep hole at the bottom of the hill with big stones on either side. A little stream of diamond-clear water was trickling away from it over the rocks, winking in the dapple sunlight.
Katie squatted down on one side, holding tight to the bucket with one hand and holding onto a sapling near the rocks with the other. She leaned way over, pushed the bucket down in the hole and came up with “cold, fresh water for tea”. I remember thinking I was glad not to be taking a bath in water that cold. And I thought, too, it was a good thing that Katie’s arm was nice and long or we’d never have gotten that bucket of water.
Trudging back up the steep hill, past the sweet honeysuckle, Katie said, “We better hurry or the water won’t be cold when we git there and Momma’ll know we just piddled along the path.”
When we got back to the house, Katie’s mother made a big pitcher of sweet tea with a lot of crushed mint which grew in a little patch beside the back door. I drank a big glass and wanted another but I figgered I better not drink two glasses all at one time. If I did I might have to ask the engineer to stop along the way for me to take a walk in the woods and I didn’t know how I could do that.
In no time, it seemed, Katie’s mother turned to me saying, “You better get goin’, it’s ‘bout time for the train.”
I was never to know where that day had gone. On wings of the summer wind, it simply flew away. By the time I’d crossed those fields and through the fences and got to the little station house with the big “poke” of tomatoes for Mama, the train was there. With the engineer’s help I climbed up into the cab and the train pulled out. Again, there were those wonderful sounds… the big, laboring drivers, the hissing steam shooting out on both sides, clickety-clack of wheels on tracks and three pulls on the cord to blow the whistle! Two shorts and one long.
We had only gone a mile or two when I told the engineer that Mama had asked me to bring her some “greens”. He grinned saying, “She musta knowed that this line goes right by the Jonesby farm and they got more ‘greens’ than God.” (His using the word like this did not seem irreverent. It simply was his way of expressing the absolute most.) When I asked where the farm was, he said, “You’ll see… it’s rite ‘round the next big bend which’ll turn us so’s we’ll be headin’ a little northwest.”
Pretty soon, the train started slowing down and then came to a screeching halt. Sure enough, there were two men in the Jonesby field cutting “greens” and throwing them in bushel baskets like we’d picked tomatoes in. The engineer knew both the men. Hollering above the noise of the train he asked, “You got any extry ‘greens’ today?” One of the men who looked like he was in a permanent stoop, managed to slowly stand up and hollered back, “We allus got ‘greens’… long as it’s summertime.”
Almost before I knew it, a big stack of fresh “greens” had been jammed in a bag and thrown up into the cab where the engineer caught it and we were off again. I knew Mama would love those “greens”.
The closer we got to the end of the line the sadder I became. The summer sun had begun to slide down the sky and the long, lean shadows in the piney woods were like dark telephone poles striping the forest floor. It had been a purely smiling day… but now the smiles were gone. When the train went under what was called the “dry bridge” because it was the tracks that were beneath the bridge not water, I knew the day was next to over. When the Dick ‘n Willie pulled into the station, the engineer patted my head, helped me down from the cab, handed me the sack of tomatoes and the bag full of “greens” and said, “Don’t you cry… be careful goin’ up the hill and maybe we’ll go off again someday…”
But we never did. Yet, as I watched the Dick ‘n Willie pulling out of the station without me, I knew that as long as I would live I’d never forget a minute of that summer’s day trip to Cascade… ridin’ in the cab with the engineer, the hot hissing steam, clickety-clack of wheels on tracks… three pulls on the whistle cord… yonder goes the train… Goodnight America… I love you… say don’t you know me I’m your native son. 1
Clickety-clack of wheels on tracks, Clickety-clack… clickety-clack… The “grand” is in the goin’ and not the gettin’ there and back.

The story goes that those who bought the Dick ‘n Willie planned to go west with their newly acquired railroad as far as Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee via Stuart, circa 1884. However, upon completing the line to Stuart they suddenly discovered mountains! Lots of mountains, all sizes and shapes marching westward as far as eye could see. They looked at those mountains and decided right then and there to stop the run at Stuart. Consequently, a depot and turntable were constructed at Stuart in order to be able to turn the engine around, and that was the end of the westward trek of the Dick ‘n Willie. It never ventured beyond Stuart in Patrick County in southern Virginia. 2


1. From: City of New Orleans/Steve Goodman, © 1970-71 Turnpike Tom Music)
2. Courtesy: Carl DeHart, Blue Ridge Regional Library Museum, Martinsville, Virginia

MAMA....Root, Hog, or Die

Ricky - Chapter 9

First place winner

National Writers Association/Florida Chapter

It was early September and the feel of fall was already in the air. Leaves on Mama’s wild pear tree at the end of her little pond had turned pale gold, clusters of bronze persimmons were ready to burst with ripeness waiting for the first frost, and school had just re-opened.
After getting her four offspring off and running for the first day of school, as usual Mama couldn’t wait to get out in the yard… to the garden or her flowers or as she said so many times, “to see what the morning’s like…” And out she’d go with a cup of coffee leaving the house chores that “wouldn’t spoil” ‘til she got ready to tend to them. “I’m not gonna let a pile ‘o dishes tell me what to do.”
This first morning of back-to-school, she’d gotten as far as the back porch when she saw a young boy walking in the driveway between the garage and the house. She stepped back on the porch so he could not see her. She wanted to see where he was going. He walked past the house, turned the corner of the house where the pantry was following the narrow path by the fish pool. Then he went across the front yard to the street. She noticed he was not carrying anything, nothing that looked like books or paper and she particularly noticed he was not carrying a paper bag that might have been lunch.
Mama had been told by someone in the neighborhood that a family had moved into “the worst rundown mill house” on the north side of the ridge. We lived on the south side of that ridge. She asked around trying to find out who they were but no one seemed to know.
The next morning at about the same time, Mama kept her sharp eye out to see if he did the same thing. Sure enough, he cut through the yard again, but this time she noticed he stopped almost at the back door staring at that open door for a bit, then proceeded around the corner, by the little pool, and to the street just as he had the day before.
Mama made up her mind that if the same thing happened again, she’d go out and talk to him. Our house being on a corner seemed to invite various walkers to cut the corner across the yard. I often thought that many of them simply wanted to see Mama’s flowers and the little pool, never once thinking they were trespassing.
Well, the little boy came walking in that third morning just as he had before, and Mama was on the porch waiting and watching. She walked out and spoke to him. “Son, I don’t like you walkin’ ‘cross the yard like this… if ever’body cut ‘cross the yard like you’re doin’ there wouldn’t be no need for a street…” Seeing that he looked close to crying, she asked quickly, “You goin’ to school?”
“Yes Mam… I didn’t mean to hurt nothin’… I mostly wanted to smell somethin’ good to eat comin’ out your back door…”
Instantly, Mama thought about seeing him the day before when he had stopped and stared toward the back door. And just as instantly she knew that little boy was hungry. He was skinny as a rail… too skinny to throw a shadow, she said. His shirt was clean but torn in several places and hung on him like a sack. His shoes barely stayed on his feet they were so frayed and worn.
Mama lost no time in saying, “I was just fixin’ to make myself a sausage ‘n egg sammich. Why don’t you come on in the house and eat one with me?”
He started to smile, then looked embarrassed, kicking one foot against the other and said, ”Thank you, Mam...but if’n I do that I be late to school… but I’d… I’d like that…” And he’d made no move to keep on walking.
At which time, Mama said, “Never mind bein’ late to school… we’ve got uh old truck in the garage and I’ll take you to school so you won’t be late… come on in..”
He lost no time in going with her in the kitchen and she lost no time in fixing the sausage and egg sandwich. And while he ate, she packed a lunch for him.
He told her his name was really Richard, but that “most ever’body calls me Ricky which is awright. We moved in a house back that-a-way on the side of the hill.” He was pointing toward the back side of the ridge, so Mama knew that he was of the family she’d heard about. But he didn’t mention his last name and Mama didn’t ask.
He said he was seven years old, “But I’m a-goin’ on eight come November” and he had never been to school before. He took to Mama and she to him. There was a tender understanding between them. On Friday she asked him to come back Saturday morning and maybe she’d have something for him to do in the yard. He showed up bright and early and she put him to raking leaves… after she’d fed him. Mama swore she could tell a difference in the way he looked after she’d been feeding him for just a week.
And he never left our house going back to his house that Mama didn’t send food with him. She’d always say “I cooked too much of this or that and we can’t eat it all and maybe you and your Mama would like it…” And she’d always put some coins in his pocket. Once when she did this, they fell right through a hole in his pocket and out on the ground. “Come on in here,” she said, “and take off your pants. I’m gonna fix that hole right now.” Without saying a word he followed her in the kitchen. Mama said he stood stark still looking as if he didn’t know what to do, so she said, “I can’t fix that hole ‘til you take your pants off…” Then he said, “Mam, kin I go in here?” And he was pointing at the pantry off the kitchen. She said, “Oh, of course, go right in there.”
Ricky went in the pantry, shut the door, took his pants off then opened the door just enough to get his skinny little arm through holding the ragged pants out to her. Sometime later, he was overheard saying, “She can fix anything… jus’ anything! And she allus has a lot o’ good things to eat.”
Knowing that Ricky was a shy little boy, every morning Mama made a point of saying… come back tomorrow, or I’ll see you in the morning. Then that thin little smile would spread across his face and he’d say, “Thank you, Mam, I sure will…” and he did for several years… as long as his family lived in the house, as he said, “back that-a-way on the side of the hill.“ He never called Mama any name except “Mam”.
Day by day Ricky began to fill out and lose that sad, gaunt expression. He came regularly including Saturdays when he worked raking leaves, or mowing summer grass, pulling weeds in the garden or whatever else Mama could think of. He seldom talked but as Mama said, “When he does talk he’s got somethin’ to say”.
Some time after he’d been going to school, Mama went to the school to see his teacher. She had a feeling that his own mother had not been to the school and didn’t know anything about it. She was right. His teacher told Mama that she thought Ricky was basically a bright little boy but that he’d not been exposed to a book or to any learning process from his family or anyone, consequently he was far behind in basic learning skills for a seven or eight year old.
“Well,” Mama asked, “you think he’s too far behind to catch up?”
“No, I don’t mean that,” the teacher said, “But I do mean I think it’ll take him two or three years. However,” she went on, “He’s making a good start.” Then the teacher said, “I have the feeling you’re the one who’s feeding Ricky…”
When she said this, Mama simply got up saying, “I gotta go now.” And she lost no time in leaving the school.
When the time came, Ricky was promoted – barely the teacher said – from the first grade to the second. But after that, the teacher told Mama that he caught up remarkably well, and was promoted from grade to grade without having to repeat. In that same conversation, although Mama had not asked about my two brothers, the teacher smiled saying, “Now about your own sons… they both passed near the top…”.
Mama interrupted the teacher saying, “Well, they just better pass or they’ll be eatin’ standin’ up for a while…” And then she left without saying another word.
That next year as Christmas time drew closer and closer, Mama said to my father, “Do you think we could find ‘nough parts and wheels to make Ricky a bicycle? He’s never said so, but I know he’s never had nothin’ like most other boys…. you think we could?”
My father was not one to promise something he could not deliver, so he said, “Well, we’ll just see about that…” And Mama knew from those few words that the bicycle was as good as made. She said nothing more nor did he. But then a week or so before Christmas he called Mama to the shop. There it was… all finished on the rack in the middle of the shop. Ricky’s bicycle. It was made with a Schwinn frame, odd handlebars, two nearly new wheels, two brand new pedals and a new seat. My father had scraped and sanded every rusty spot on that frame, and then he’d buffed it ‘til it was shining satin smooth. “I’ll paint it first thing tomorrow,” she said smiling. “Oh, I can see him now… he’s gonna love it!”
Mama was as good as her word. First thing the next morning, she took the bicycle into the kitchen knowing it was too cold to do the painting in my father’s garage shop where there was no heat. She painted the bicycle bright red and striped it in white. At first glance it gave every appearance of being a new one.
“Now, when are we gonna give it to him?” Mama asked my father.
He replied almost as if he were thinking out loud, “Well, this year Christmas is on Saturday, and I’d lay a bet that Ricky’ll show up Saturday morning just like he usually does.”
Mama thought a minute, then said, “‘Course he will, and we’ll just have it waitin’ for him in the kitchen.”
And that’s just what happened. Mama was right again. She had watched for him from the porch and when she saw him round the corner of the garage and walk toward the porch, she called out “Come on in Ricky… I got Christmas breakfast ready…”
When he walked in the kitchen and saw that bicycle, she said he gave a little gulp, looked at her, then back at the bicycle and couldn’t say a word. Mama couldn’t wait. “It’s yours, Ricky… yours to keep. You can ride, can’t you?”
He was quick enough with his answer, “Yes Mam… yes, I can ride good, but I never been on a new bicycle.” By this time, Mama said he was rubbing the handlebars, feeling the seat, spinning the pedals… totally disbelieving what he was seeing.
Later, Mama said, “He was so shy… I thought it might scare him to death if I ever hugged him so I never had. But seein’ how he looked at that bicycle I couldn’t hep myself. I had to hug him, and then he put one skinny little arm out and halfway hugged me.”
Ricky and his family lived on the “back side of the hill” at least a half dozen years, during which time he and Mama grew closer and closer. He learned as she said, “by lookin’ and doin’”. And I heard her say one time, “When I ast him to do somethin’ or I try to show him what to do, he does it, and he’s never once ast me ‘Why?’”
When Mama said this she was looking straight at me.
One Saturday morning Ricky did not show up. Mama wondered why but simply thought that he had something else he had to do. However, it was not like him not to come by some time during the day. The day wore on but Ricky did not come. Monday morning Mama watched and waited for him to come riding his bicycle up to the back door… but he did not come. She couldn’t stand not knowing where he was or what had happened to him. So she drove their old truck to the school but he was not there. Then she drove straight to the “back side of the hill”. The house was empty, doors and windows wide open with no sign of life anywhere except for a shaggy old neighborhood dog curled up on the sagging porch.
Ricky was just one of the many hungry kids who just happened by from time to time that Mama fed, and mothered, but he was by far the one who found that secret little door to her heart and was invited in. She had never learned anything about his family, not from him or others in the neighborhood.
Once when she was asked rather pointedly about his parents and his family in general, she said, “All I know is he showed up one mornin’ at our back door… he was hungry, fact is, he was near starved and I fed him.” As far as Mama was concerned, that was the beginning, and the end of the story. I knew then that no one would ever take Ricky’s place.
After he and his family moved away, Mama never saw him again.

MAMA...Root, Hog, or Die

Like Mama, like daughter. Both strong and stubborn. Both as constant as each day’s rising sun. Both content with their rich lives and loving husbands. In this touching tribute, it’s sometimes difficult to tell which character is really "Mama" back then, and which one is Youngest Daughter.
 Barbara Oehlbeck’s literary portrait of her mother is a portrait of the best in all mothers, especially those of the rural South in the 30s and 40s.
 Mamas never really rest because the job of being a mother never ends. There’s always someone who needs tending to; something that needs mending; something that needs planted, picked, preserved or baked.
 Barbara’s Mama instilled in her Youngest Daughter a sense of "learn from looking". One never quits, never wavers, never bends. You do what you have to do to get the job done. You say you don’t know what the job is? Wake up! It’s practically staring you in the face.
 These are most often traits associated with fathers. Barbara had a strong and exceptional father. But he was perhaps no match for her mother, who, in her daughter’s eyes, could do anything.
 During moments of self-reflection, we all wonder how much of the Sculptor’s Clay was removed from our parent’s mold and how much from our evolving environment. The Youngest Daughter in this book emerges as her Mama’s finest work. Some say, "A spittin’ image."
 The book was a pleasure to read.
Mark Renz, author of a bunch of books about old bones.

MAMA is a fascinating book, one that grabs your heart, mind and soul and never lets go. You laugh one moment and cry the next, and MAMA becomes so real you expect her to step right out of the pages and sit down beside you. Barbara Oehlbeck has created a classic that will be enjoyed by generations of readers yet to come.

Patrick Smith, Florida’s most renowned and award winning author

Two Chapters of MAMA have won the National Writers Association Competition/Florida Chapter. "Ricky" First Place and "Cascade" Third Place. These two chapters will be posted here for your reading pleasure.

If you would like your own copy of MAMA... Root, Hog, or Die

E-mail me at doco@strato.net