It’s around 1978. I’m about 9 years old. I’m spending the weekend with Pa and Granny at the homeplace. Same place my cabin is now. Family land since before Sherman marched thru and burned our barns and fields. Anyway, it’s 1978. Pa leans over in his recliner and fishes out a $1 bill from his billfold. I know what is coming next. He folds it into a small square and flicks it to me. I am immediately out the door and into the front seat of his 1970 Ford Ranger. I drive to the community store two miles away sitting on the front of the seat, never getting out of second gear. I buy Pa his Redman Chewing tobacco and I have 15 cents to spend on mary janes and bazooka joe. When I get back I head straight to the kitchen. I have been waiting for this all week. I learned Alum powder causes your mouth to pucker. I opened the redman, dumped in half of the bottle in the cabinet and shook it really good. “Hey Pa, here you go, I already opened it for you”. You know how when you get out of a recliner it kinda leans back a little when you push out? Two seconds after Pa put a plug in that recliner went back so far I thought it would turn over. I was 5 feet away and made for the kitchen. Granny yelled, “Now Alston!” at Pa. My sister was crying. Out the back door, never heard the screen slam, Pa was thru it. Made it around the Pack house to peek out the corner and see where he was. We were nose to nose. How could that old man move so fast? He hit me over the head with a tobacco stick. I saw stars. When he got back from the store he had a NuGrape for my sister and nothing for me. Memories.
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Explains alot ha ha. My Father was helping his father in law catch cows. They had pulled the last one on the trailer and while shutting the rear slide a cow tried to jump thru the slide gate. My father was closing the gate and had his shoulder in the cows chest. Squeezing her head with the gate and trying to push her back my Grand Dad swung down with rather large limb he grabbed in a hurry to make the cow back up. Cow moved my Dad took the blow to the head. Knocked out by his new father in law, supposedly the cow moved at the last minute. We always said that was what changed my Dad, knocked him crazy…Course my Grand Dad always told it with a chuckle too!
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