The Shadow
You may say that I am eating “high on the hog” and others will say that I am crazy. To be honest with you, both statements are correct!
To top it all off, as I sat at my computer typing this column, I was scarfing down an onion sandwich with a little mustard on it. Before you knock the onion sandwich too much, it is a carry over from me growing up during the Depression days of the 1930s.
Some days when I came in from school, that was about all we had in the house to eat until supper time. You might say that we were poor. But at the time, we did not know it because all the neighbors and their children were poor also. I guess we all thought that was the way life was supposed to be.
Now let me explain about “eating high on the hog.” After the stock market crash in 1929, this country went into a depression that affected almost every family. People that lived during that time knew what it meant not to have everything we wanted, but coming from a large family of eight children, the younger children would get a lot of hand-me downs from their older brothers and sisters.
Today, it would be akin to a clothes closet sponsored by a churches or some other relief organization. But back in the Depression days, most of the hand me downs stayed right in the family circle. That is, if they were not already worn out. The boys were especially hard on clothes, and in most cases, we wore our clothes out. But we survived the Depression and for the most part, become pretty good citizens that really knew what hard times were like.
Back when I was growing up in the 1930s, every family had a garden. The gaeden was a vital food supply. The kids had a lot of hoeing to do and we caught bean and potato bugs in jars that were filled with a couple of inches of kerosene. We did not have all these fancy bug killer powders back them. My mother canned everything she could get her hands on to be used during the winter. My mother also had a flock of chickens and we got some eggs from them ,but after a while they also ended up in the pot for Sunday dinner.
Another thing that happened each fall was my mother making a kettle of apple butter. At apple butter making time, the night before we began, all the neighborhood ladies wo-uld come to the house and they would peel the apples and cut them up and then they would be ready to put in the kettle early the next morning. I always liked apple butter making time, because it was one of two days that I would get to stay home and not go to school. It always meant that I would have to keep the wood near by to keep the apple butter cooking. But the big thing was that I did not have to go to school that day, and by now you readers know by my writing that schooling was like water and oil, it did not mix too well, and how I managed to get a passing grade of “D” or 75 I will never know.
Now, I will attempt to explain what I meant when I said I was “eating high on the hog.” During the Depression, most families raised hogs and every fall a bunch of them would go together and have a hog killing day and would help each other kill and clean the hogs until every one was killed and poled. The main reason I liked hog killing day was, it was the other school day that my dad let me stay home from school and help. The day started by first heating large drums of hot water and then the hogs would be killed and then dumped into the hot water. We would then take them out and the hair would be cut off the hogs until they were hairless. I guess it was a good way to clean the hogs but did they stink when the hot water hit them. After hanging them on poles and cleaning them up, it was not too bad.
Back in the hog killing days, I learned to eat hog liver and I was pretty good size before I learned that cows had livers too, and most people liked the cow liver the best. I guess the cow liver was more expensive was the reason that my father never did buy any cow liver. We never owned a cow, no room to keep it anyway.
Hog liver is hard to come by in the grocery stores, I found some down in Clifton Forge for a while at Save-A-Lot’s but after a while they also stopped carrying it. One reason I think that hog liver is hard to find is that doctors say that animal organs are not good for you and I think that includes hog livers. Another reason some of us like hog liver is that back in the depression days, if that was the only meat on the table at supper time, you eat it or nothing.
Now don’t get me wrong, if your doctor said not to eat hog liver, listen to your doctor, after all he knows best for you. I also think that most of you that don’t like liver, you have to acquire a taste for it, and believe me, during the depression anything that was put on the table was eaten, and I believe that the children waste more food than eaten on the table now days, we are a wasteful nation when it comes to throwing away good food. My wife who also came from a poor family and grew up during the Depression has a policy never to throw away any food left over from supper. She would put it in the refrigerator and label it for soup and about once a week, all the leftovers would go into a pot of soup along with other soup items and with these long cold, snowy days it sure comes in handy.
I will be “eating high on the hog” for the next few weeks because a friend of mine, I will call “Jake” still raises hogs and kills them each year. He knows that I like hog liver and he brought me a good mess the other day and also a good mess of back-bones. I can hear some of you that really stick to good health practices say, “I can’t believe you are going to eat that organ liver after your doctor said it is a no, no. My answer: “I know I am not perfect.” But again: “Are any of us perfect?”
Getting back to liver, my wife will fry the liver and make gravy around it with some onions in the gravy, make hot biscuits and whether you like liver or not, I will almost guarantee you that you will love the gravy.
My friend Jake is from the old school of farmers, and also worked at the mill, but now retired and he also served in the armed services and is just an all around good guy that would give you the shirt off his back if you told him you needed it. These kind of friends are hard to come by now days.
I have a few other items I would like to pass by you before I leave you this week.
First of all, John Hayes, chairman of the Clifton Forge Shrine Club Fall Festival reminds the vendors that have not reserved their spot for the festival that will be held Oct. 15, 16, and 17. Vendors should contact John as soon as possible in order to get their same spot again.
It has been reported that the new bridge over Main Street will not be started in 2010; the festival will be in the same spot as in the past in downtown Clifton Forge.
John Riley, of the Clifton Forge Water Plant sent a note saying as the trees and roads are covered and 606 has been closed, he has been watching robins fly along side of his jeep as he goes to work at the water plant. I have been to the water plant many times and it is beautiful up there and the robins are smart to find a home there. l believe that it would be safe to say the robins are back if it ever quits snowing.
I saw in the Virginain Review a few weeks ago that some veteran employees at the Alleghany County Sheriff’s Office retired at the end of 2009. I understand that two more veteran employees, Barry Rose and Greg Crowder are going to retire later this year. I am still hearing rumors that Sheriff Kevin Hall is going to face opposition when he runs for re-election in November 2011.
I also understand that Del. Morgan Griffith of Salem, who is a Republican, will decide after the General Assembly is over whether he will run for Rick Boucher’s seat, and he is going to run for re-election this fall. All I have to say at this time is that it is not an easy task to beat an incumbent. But time will tell.
I read in The Fincastle Herald recently where longtime Alleghany Co-unty educator Donna Vaughn of Eagle Rock has been appointed to the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors.
Vaughn was appointed to the Fincastle District seat by Botetourt Circuit Court Judge Malfourd Trumbo.
She will fill the seat until an election is held in November. The seat became vacant when Supervisor Don Meredith passed away in January. The Botetourt County Board of Supervisors asked Judge Trumbo to appoint someone to the vacant seat. Vaughn, who retired a few years ago and a guidance counselor at Alleghany High Sc-hool, told Judge Trumbo that she is not interested in running for the seat in November.
Remember: The 2010 Cenus forms wil soon be reaching your mailbox. Please take the time to fill the forms out and send them back so we get an accurate count for the Highlands.
I have run out of space, time and coffee. See you next week and always remember that you have one true friend in Jesus, and He will never let you down.
