Of an old man, hog feeding, and lessons learned
Grandpa Joe offered a study in character contrasts. Though easygoing and soft-spoken, he was mule stubborn. Similarly, while tough as a well-seasoned hickory shaft and seldom given to shows of emotion, he could be wonderfully patient and tenderhearted with his adoring grandson. Fiercely independent, Grandpa wouldn’t labor under the supervision of another man. Yet he possessed an admirable work ethic comprised of pure grit, keen understanding the wisdom inherent in “making do with what you’ve got,” and sharply honed survival skills developed during a lifetime of living in close harmony with the land.
He epitomized the mountain description of “quare,” but in my eyes he had endearing traits. Those included being full of tricks as a pet ‘coon; possessing endless quantities of that most precious of assets, time; and in some senses, just being a boy trapped in an old man’s body. One sunny September afternoon all these qualities coalesced in unforgettable fashion.
We were in the cornfield of his tiny farm along the banks of the Tuckasegee River near Bryson City, N.C., pulling red-rooted pigweed and gathering inferior pumpkins scattered amidst rows of towering Hickory Cane corn. The corn had already “made” and awaited storage of cobs in cribs and fodder in shocks. It was hard, dirty work, made even tougher by the possibility of stings from packsaddles and certainty of encounters with razor-sharp edges of dry corn leaves. To me, none of that mattered.
There were ripe ground cherries for a snack, one of Grandpa’s rich store of tales to nurture the mind, and treasure from his memory to stir the soul. We were gathering the weeds and pumpkins to feed hogs, part of a fattening-up process that would conclude with killing day come the first strong cold snap in November. Then the whole extended family—my grandparents, mother and father, aunts and uncles, along with any cousins old enough to help—would put in an extended day of labor spent processing from six to eight hogs, using, as Grandpa put it, “everything but the squeal.”
As was often the case in such settings, Grandpa started reminiscing about the days when hogs roamed free and fattened to prime bacon perfection on chestnut mast. The subject was a deeply moving one for him. Invariably he became a bit misty-eyed and had a catch in his voice as he looked back in forlorn longing to the demise of the American chestnut. He would recall how it was a staff of life providing cash money from sale of acid wood, shakes for roofing, rails for fences, lumber for barns, nuts to sell to city markets, and, of course, food for hogs.
Troubled by the visible sorrow his recollections had brought to the surface, I abruptly changed the subject with mention of one of my fondest ambitions. “Grandpa,” I said, “I sure do wish I could throw a rock all the way across the river.”
Shedding his mantle of painful nostalgia, he chuckled and responded: “Why that’s easy. I can throw one all the way over to the mouth of Deep Creek” (which entered the river across from his home).
With youth’s endless enthusiasm and woeful lack of insight, I seized on that seemingly ludicrous statement. After all, Grandpa was bent with age, had never completely recovered from a hip shattered while out hunting in the snow, and to my knowledge possessed no throwing ability whatsoever. Impulsively I stated, without even thinking about a quid pro quo should he fail: “Grandpa, I’ll pull pigweed, shell corn, and slop the hogs by myself for a week if you throw a rock across the river.”
Having duly offered the bait and suckered his grandson into taking it, the family’s grand sire muttered a favorite phrase. “You’ll learn,” he said, as he opened his Barlow knife to cut down a particularly long corn stalk. After stripping the leaves he trimmed the stalk to about eight feet and carefully carved a notch near its small end.
We then walked to river’s edge and, after careful scrutiny, Grandpa selected a stone. Fitting it into the notch, he drew back the corn stalk and launched his donnick. The rock was still rising when it reached the opposite side of the river. Turning to me with that sly grin I had seen so many times before, Grandpa said: “Son, things ain’t always what they seem. I reckon you best get to pulling pigweed.”
He left me in my crestfallen misery for what seemed an eternity then chuckled: “Go ahead and get busy now, but I’ll help you. Next time though, you might want to remember to pause and ponder before you open your pie hole.”