Under the Big Oak Tree
There was this big oak tree in our front yard when I was growing up. If that tree could talk, I’m sure it would tell you of the many ‘bank robbers, and cow thieves” that me and Hopalong Cassidy hung from its branches. We always got our man!
Sometimes, it was Red Ryder, Little Beaver, and me smoking the ‘peace pipe’ with the Indian chief Sitting Bull, or the wild renegade Indian, Geronimo.
Why, I remember one time I thought I was a goner…hanging over that cliff by the skin of my teeth. If Johnny Mack Brown hadn’t come along in time, I would of met my death at the bottom of the canyon.
That old oak tree was my shelter many a time, as I played my childhood games. Much of my character was molded under the shade of its mighty branches.
Mama had a big cast iron wash pot under that old tree. Water was carried up from the spring of water in buckets to fill the pot. The fire was lit to heat the water for mom and my sister to wash clothes with homemade lye soap.
I remember the clothes would sometimes freeze while hanging on the clothes line. You’ve heard the saying, ‘Stiff as a board’…well, thats the way our clothes were sometimes when we brought them in the house to be ironed with a ‘smoothing’ iron that had been heated by the fireplace.
Hog killing day was a grand affair under the old oak tree. Neighbors would often come to help. The water was boiling in the pots to ‘scald the hog’ that was hanging from the tree. The purpose of scalding was to help remove the hair, and to clean the hog.
My sisters would squirm as dad took the double blade ax and split the hog down the middle, watching its intestines fall out into a tub.
Much work was to be done on that day. The old oak tree would provide shelter for us from the sun and sometimes the rain and cold wind.
There was lard to make, and cracklin’ for cracklin corn bread..humm! Ham and tenderloin, sausage to be ground and seasoned. I wasn’t to much for eating pigs feet, but I think we cooked everything but the ‘squeal’ from that hog!
Many thoughts still float through my mind from time to time, as I think about those days. But, I guess the ones that are most precious to me would be the ones of my dad.
After a hard days work on the farm, or when the crops were ‘laid by’, I can remember my father getting his Bible and walking out to the old oak tree. There, an old straight back chair with a cane bottom would become an alter of worship as dad would read from the Bible and pray to God for guidance and protection for the family.
Yeah old tree, if you could talk, I’m sure you could tell many stories of battles won, and a few lost…of laughter and tears, joy and heartaches… but days always filled with love, as we learned all about life under your branches.
And, thats the way it was…in the ‘good ol’ days…
