7th Post "THE PAST IS MYSELF"

Top Photo: The Crippled Grandmother, and my Grandfather Addie and Bell Adams.

Middle Photo: The Crippled Grandmother's Farmhouse, where I was raised, renovated.

Bottom Photo: The house of old Ponto Smith, renovated by the present owners.

ATWATER KENT, WSM and EX-LAX

Three tributaries contribute their waters to Yellow Creek in close proximity to the farm harboring me as a child. Hunt Branch and Murphy Branch. Streams of pristine water that began from caves back in the hills and trickled at their headwaters in tiny springs, becoming babbling brooks, then small creeks in their own right. When spring rains came these “branch runs” would fill their banks to overflowing, spilling their contents into nearby cultivated fields and gravel roadways. At this time "Dry Creek" would have water to contribute as the third tributary, this stream bed stayed dry until the rainy season. Their mighty currents would loosen the stones and gravel in their beds and make “fording” the streams near impossible by any conveyance other than mule teams and horse drawn carriages.

Bridges were scarce across Yellow Creek; what few there were, consisted mostly of cables and oak planks to allow motorized vehicles the ability to cross without getting stuck in the loose gravel, these were described as “low water bridges”. Many were the nights while laying in the feather bed under the roof on the second floor of the old farm house, we would hear the whirring of spinning automobile tires in the loose gravel crossing Hunt branch and know some hapless sojourner had plunged into the water too fast and got themselves stuck. There was a gifted knowledge in how to approach these crossings, but the uninitiated always got stuck, either that or they would be drunk.

My uncle would get dressed, harness the mules, connect the trace chains to the single trees and the single trees to the double tree and go rescue the traveler. He would drive two mules in the event the stuck vehicle was too large and heavy for one mule and the double tree needed to be utilized. Single trees and double trees were components interfacing the traces of the harness to the load being pulled.

Yellow Creek was the “cooling off” point when finishing with the haying operation on a hot August afternoon with chaff down your shirt and the temperature hovering in the high nineties. Our mule teams and wagons would be driven into the creek where the mules could cool off and drink and we would plunge, clothes and all, into the cold waters to de-chaff ourselves and cool down for the first time since sun up.

During the “dog days” of summer when the heat in the house was as hot or hotter, under the tin roof, than the temperature outside, and the feather bed was smothering, my uncle would arouse my cousin and me, “Come on boys, let’s go to the creek and cool off”! We all would go to the creek and lay in the cold water until our core” was chilled and then go lay on the front porch until daylight.

Another contribution made to Yellow Creek’s Waters by the Hunt Branch and Murphy Branch tributaries was the aid in helping flood the creek during torrential spring rains. Since two streams must be forded to go to school, the teacher was stranded and there would be no school for several days until the flood waters receded. I would stand on the bank of the yard and watch the swirling water as it carried large logs, trees, dead hogs, mules and cows downstream to the Cumberland River. I always wondered where their final destination would be. Somewhere in the Tennessee River or the Ohio or maybe all the way to New Orleans via the Mississippi? But usually when the flood receded we would find the bloated carcasses stuck in trees along the creek bank downstream from the farm. I loved the floods, especially during school days, fields too wet for work and school shut down.

This scenario allowed some quality time at the speaker of the ATWATER KENT battery radio, listening to WSM, the clear channel station out of Nashville, Tennessee. Grandmother would listen to “Oxydol’s own Ma Perkins” , “Lorenzo Jones and his wife Belle”, “Pepper Young’s Family” or “Stella Dallas”, and there would be advertisements between shows spreading the virtues of products for the home and personal hygiene. There would be spellbinding reports of greatness in Rinso with solium and Lifebuoy Soap, Sal-Halpatica, Ipana Toothpaste and “Chocolaty Flavored Ex-Lax”.

The Adam’s family were quite an industrious lot and good fortune had placed them in an aura of semi-sophistication, they owned a Model 30 ATWATER KENT battery powered radio, with a type E2 speaker. The only other radio in the neighborhood was owned by my father’s brother, M. G. McClurkan and it was a crystal set he had ordered from a Sears Roebuck Catalog in kit form and built himself. His crystal set had no speakers and if you placed your ear close, you could pick up the crystal vibrations. I think he had a better radio, but he was a stingy man and wouldn’t have let anyone listen to it anyway, not too many people liked him, I know I didn’t. He later married Purnie the widow woman, the two of them set real well together, “birds of a feather”, personalities like old man Ponto.

On Saturday Nights, folks from adjoining hollows would assemble at my grandmother’s and listen to the “Grand Ol’ Opry” over the ATWATER KENT, eat popcorn, buck dance, sing along and have a good old time.

Later on these functions ceased as people died off and younger folks moved on and then with the spinster, school teacher aunt going off courting her bread man in his Hudson and the uncle going to a Honky Tonk in another county, there would just be the old cripple grandmother, the shepherd cattle dog, dog ticks and me to listen to the radio.

That is during the time I kept hearing about the “chocolaty flavored Ex-Lax”. The pitch man on the radio had a knack for absolutely making your mouth water with his spiel.

Candy was a scarce commodity for me and “chocolaty” was synonymous with chocolate and candy and all wonderful treats of which to dream, but it never mattered, I never had any jingle in my pockets anyway. But, that fellow on the radio could certainly hit the right nerve with his illustrious description of the product he was pitching.

One summer’s day, I was sent to Uncle Walter and Aunt Annie’s general store “to fetch” a gallon of coal oil. The time was quite early in the morning and all the adults who would need to darken the door of the general store had either already done so or would come later in the day.

When I arrived, Uncle Walter was “out back” in the ante room where he stored chicken feed, shorts for the hogs, supplements for the milk cows and a large drum with a hand crank that delivered the coal oil.

Ordinarily I would have gone searching for Uncle Walter and I would have greeted the old gentleman, but on this particular morning my eyes had spied something never before seen on top of the glass candy case. I saw for the first time what the announcer on the ATWATER KENT had been describing in the white box with the orange, blue and black lettering, the chocolaty flavored EX-LAX.

My eyes were glued to the display that yelled out, “Giant Economy Size”! WOW! The display had mesmerized me and sent me into a mental whirl the likes of which I had never experienced. I just could not stop staring at the EX-LAX. What a predicament, I didn’t even have any jingle in my pockets to make a purchase of what I knew would be, a delicious chocolaty flavor.

Uncle Walter came into the store from the back ante room and I heard the screen door closer spring creaking and groaning under the stress of being stretched for the door to open. I turned to face Uncle Walter and gave him my empty one gallon can with the Irish Potato on the spout and he went back to the ante room to hand crank the pump delivering my purchase.

No other mortal was with me in that empty store that morning, it was the first time I ever could remember being in that old store with the oiled wooden floor alone with no human around. Just me, God, Satan and that display of EX-LAX.

I was wearing my usual summer dress of bib overalls, no shirt, no shoes and no hat, come to think of it, I didn’t even have on underwear. I stared at the EX-LAX display and it stared back, it beckoned me to come closer, it was telling me to sample the chocolaty flavor, then something snapped and I grabbed a large giant economy size package and crammed it into my bib overalls faster than a minnow could swim a dipper; and just in time too, because Uncle Walter was coming back into the store from the ante room with my gallon can of coal oil.

What I wondered most was did he suspicion something because I was not standing and watching him pump the coal oil as I always had done in the past and asked a hundred questions while he pumped. Did he have the packages of EX-LAX in a precise position to know if a package was missing? This was a crime I had performed, what was I going to do now?

On the hot gravel road I made my way back toward Yellow Creek. Since I had come across the foot log which was upstream of the low water bridge where all the traffic flowed, I’d better go home via the low water bridge because I had to get rid of evidence. That evidence had to flow downstream and I didn’t want any of it being caught by the bridge components for anyone to see and know I stole some EX-LAX.

I also had to eat the evidence before I arrived home, not just get rid of the wrapper.

Between the general store and the entrance to the Maysville Road with the low water bridge crossing Yellow Creek, I consumed the giant economy size package of what I had been dreaming “chocolaty flavored EX-LAX.

Arriving at the creek I made certain each and every piece of evidence was floating downstream toward the Cumberland River and away from the farm, the community and most especially, away from me.

Then it happened, before I arrived in the front yard of the farm house, abdominal pain I had never before experienced with posterior propulsions of gas and then I felt a warm liquid running down my leg.

As I mentioned previously, my grandmother’s family were considered prosperous by many of the neighbors. I asked her one time how much money she had, but she wouldn’t tell me. However, she could pay old Colman Jones for that number twelve washtub full of black berries and still have some jingle left, so I knew she was a wealthy woman. But this was only part of the reason I felt she was affluent, we had a “two holer”.

In today’s world folks cook outside on their grills and go indoors to use the bathroom facilities. In my boyhood things were reversed, we cooked indoors and went outdoors to the facilities, no bathroom, just facilities.

These little shanties were called “out houses”, “privies”, “johns” and other such names which were not necessarily a compliment. But, they were functional and served a necessary sanitary purpose.

A short way west of the family farm, a gathering of houses were nestled together in a community named Edgewood. Among the residents were Hardy Adams, no kin to my mother’s family, Mrs. Pearl Hunt, widow of Dr. Hunt, and mother in law to my mother’s twin brother, Dick Bellar, Navy Johnson, father of my schoolmates Roberta and her brother “Goober” Johnson. Also there were the “parsonage” where the Methodist preacher lived, my one room schoolhouse and the Methodist Church.

Edgewood Methodist Church was built in the latter part of the nineteenth century and my grandfather, son of the Confederate Veteran, grandson of the Revolutionary War Veteran was instrumental in the building of the church.

The Methodists had a business function which took place at the church called a “Quarterly Meeting”. This meeting took place on a Sunday afternoon after services each quarter of the year. I really looked forward to the summer Quarterly Meeting because we would have dinner on the church grounds.

Long Oak Planks would be laid across saw horses and after church an ample fare would be set on the boards with all kinds of delicious foods to eat. Among my favorites were Pimento Cheese Sandwiches made with store bought bread, prepared by one of the church ladies.

In the corner of a fence row behind the church was one of those little shanty type structures where a church member could go take care of business if the need arose during services. This structure was referred to as a “one holer” and occasionally necessitated a new hole to be dug, the structure moved over the new hole and the old hole filled with dirt and quicklime.

One summer Saturday, prior to the next day’s Quarterly Meeting, my Uncle, along with a couple of other men, decided to move the outhouse at the church since the old hole was “filling up”.
I was always inquisitive and wanted to follow my uncle wherever he went, if he would let me. I would attend grave diggings, privy hole diggings, hog barbecuing and other events of interest. So, on this particular Saturday I was present when the quicklime and dirt were poured over the old hole in completion of the house moving task.

Next day I could hardly wait until services were over and the food was spread under the big trees and we could partake of the fare, especially Pimento Cheese Sandwiches. As I approached the makeshift table and looked down at the pile of food, I saw on the Pimento Cheese Sandwiches, large quantities of flies and each of them had white legs and white underbellies where they had been crawling around in the quicklime and now they were eating Pimento Cheese Sandwiches.

To this day, every time I eat a Pimento Cheese Sandwich I think back on that fateful Sunday at the summer Quarterly Meeting.

As I mentioned, my grandmother boasted an affluent facility with two holes. Inside there was a large coffee can with corn cobs and some baling wire fashioned as a rack to hang outdated Sears Roebuck Catalogs. Early 1940 Sears Roebuck Catalogs contained two kinds of paper, slick pages showing the products and index pages which were green in color with a soft absorbent texture. Of course the green index pages were the first to go and after that everything was non-absorbent slick sheets, culminating in the necessity of using a clean corn cob.

As I approached the front of the house with my coal oil can, I knew there was something I had to do to take the attention off my smell and the rest of my “man made” natural disaster. Since the Murphy Branch’s water ran beside the road in front of the house, I plunged in, clothes, coal oil can and all. I got soaking wet, cleaned myself as best I could and went on to the house, exclaiming I had slipped and fell in the creek.

For the next five days if I ate any food, it was expressed to the posterior. Immediately in one end and out the other. I thought I might die, but I would not have told anyone what my problem was. Death would have been a much better fate than to have admitted I shop lifted the Ex-Lax.

That was the last time I can remember ever taking anything without paying the price, that was the last time I ever ate an Ex-Lax, that was the last time I ever was involved with a laxative. I don’t recommend anyone experimenting with Ex-Lax, but since that day, constipation has never been a physical problem of mine.