“Be kind. It really is important.” – Dr. David L. Walters
One of my dad’s best friends, Pastor William “Bill” Ridgeway, once said, “Life is a journey.” The statement is both simple and profound. Everyday, we travel through life. We make footprints of different sorts as we go along. These rambles and ruminations are the footprints of my journey. I hope you enjoy them. And as I share these footprints, I will try to follow the advice of my college band director, Dr. David L. Walters: “Be kind. It really is important.”
All images copyright Stephen W. B. Rizzo“Tarantella Americana for Clarinet and Piano” (c) 2021 Stephen W. B. Rizzo
Just to be clear, all comments on this and all of my social media platforms are mine and mine alone. I am not speaking on behalf of any entity, organization, or individual with whom I am otherwise associated or employed, etc. Gotta love our litigious society!
When the weather is cold and I am shut up inside, the most natural thing to do is sleep. The second most natural thing to do is make something yummy. My go-to cold weather taste is usually chilly. However, on our first winter weather day home from school this semester, I opted for homemade chicken vegetable soup.
And once I start making it and I realized that I also needed to be working in my online classes, the most natural thing to do was…. write about the soup instead of working in my online classes. It might not have been the most prudent, but it was the most fun. Of course, I promise I did not let my students languish.
When the kids were younger, this would have been a project that we worked on together. I determined early on that both my son and daughter should learn how to do laundry and cook before I turned them loose on an unsuspecting world. And they both have mastered those tasks. But the learning process was fun, especially the cooking part. As they developed maturity and dexterity, I relinquished parts of the process to them, such as cutting up carrots, peeling potatoes, and such.
Now that they are both grown and almost out the door, they both had real work to do on this day also. So dad was on his own, except for the occasional request to have my son reach the top shelf or my daughter give me suggestions. He is good at top shelf reaching, and she is good at instructing.
Once we got the word that there would be a cold and frozen day, I made a grocery list and let Nick and Olivia divide and conquer to assemble the list of ingredients from the store before the frozen precipitation hit the ground.
INGREDIENTS: Pepper, salt, dried parsley, and dried sage. (You will use these to taste, or as my daughter says, “until the voices of your ancestors tell you that that is enough.”)
Two 48-ounce containers of chicken broth. I prefer reduced salt. (I generally cook like I am feeding an army, but you can reduce the recipe as needed.)
Three good-size chicken breast. (I really prefer the flavor of dark meat. But deboned chicken breasts are easier to work with than having to debone thighs for soup.)
One stalk of celery
Two 16-ounce bags of carrots (I normally like to get the really large diameter carrots from the local veggie stand, but since we made the grocery list on a Sunday, that was not an option. Also, if you do not want to peel the carrots, baby carrots would be fine.)
One large onion (This time I opted for a large yellow onion.)
About three cloves of garlic or equivalent pre-minced (I keep whole garlic on hand but also a container of pre-minced in the fridge for quick use.)
Two cups of spinach (This was my daughter’s addition. She has recently fallen in love with spinach and had a 2-cup bag in the fridge.)
Approximately two cups of dried elbow macaroni (Why? Because my grandmother did it.)
You can add to this or take from as you wish. But this combination turned out to be really tasty. I liked that the flavor profile that did not use tomato products of any type. I love tomato! But it is a dominant flavor, so giving the family a different taste from tomato-based foods like chili or spaghetti sauce made for a delicious change.
Of course, one of the wonderful things about making a recipe like this is adding or taking away what you prefer or simply making it with what you have on hand.
COOKING INSTRUCTIONS: You can go at this all at one time and probably get everything prepped, with the exception of waiting on the chicken breasts to cook, in about thirty minutes or less. However, this day was one of those go-at-your-leisure days. So I interspersed the food prep with the other activities of the day.
Begin with the chicken breasts. I like to use a steamer, but you may boil them as well. I seasoned them by coating one side with dried sage and parsley and pepper. I eye-balled this. Sage goes well with chicken, but I suggest less sage than the other two because it can be a bit overpowering. I use a pepper grinder because the whole peppercorns hold their flavor longer than pre-ground.) And I personally like a lot of pepper!
If you do not have a steamer, boil the chicken but do not overcook it. Remember you are going to move it to the soup mixture where it will continue to cook.
Steaming (or boiling) produced a nice broth, a cup or so, that I added to the soup mixture.
Once you get the chicken started, beginner vegetable prep. This will not take long.
I did a rough cut for most of the veggies. You can decide the size texture that you prefer.
I peeled the carrots and cut them into about quarter inch rounds. These were small diameter carrots. I usually like the larger ones that are about 1 inch around. They just seem to be sweeter.
I cut the onion into about quarter inch pieces as well. Sometimes I like to leave the onion and longer strips. Again, this is soup. Everything is going to get softer as you cook it. So the larger these pieces are the more integrity to the bite you will have if you begin with larger pieces.
With this in mind, I cut the celery into half inch pieces. And I throw in the leafy tops of the celery as well, the more the merrier. Be sure to rinse your celery good because it can trap sand and soil.
Rough mince the garlic.
After the veggies are prepped, pour your chicken broth in a 6 quart or larger pan and bring to a boil while you add the first few ingredients.
As I said, you can scale the recipe down if you wish. Yet if you have never cooked like you are cooking for an army, try it! For one thing, large quantities are more forgiving than small. If, for example, you get it too much salty, add water. Or if it looks like you have too many carrots, drop in more celery, even if it is just to get an aesthetically pleasing look. And really, prepping big does not take that much more time than preparing smaller portions.
It is also nice to have soup to share or for the next day. We ate this batch for lunch and supper and all three took it for lunch the next day and still had enough to share with my mother and sister.
Salt to taste as you go, but I like to get everything in the mix before I begin to add salt.
As the broth comes a boil, add the veggies first that take longer to cook. Add the elbow macaroni in early as well. (I actually boiled my pasta in a separate little pan and then poured it into the soup mixture, but that really was not necessary in hindsight.)
Cover to cook, but if you want the soup to reduce, then leave uncovered. Generally, however, you do not really want your soup to boil away.
I started with carrots and then onions. Let them boil a while, but you do not want them mushy.
After that, reduce your temperature to a simmer, keeping the pot covered. Add the pasta. After a time, add the celery because it does not take it that long to soften up. Finally add the spinach or any leafy green of your choice at the end. It wilts quickly. Different greens will bring their own flavor. The spinach was a nice addition. (Credit goes to my daughter.)
Somewhere along the way my chicken was finished steaming. I let it cool just enough to touch. I do not have the cooking hands my Grandmama Burton did. It seemed like she could just about stick her hands into a boiling pot of water. But I am a little more delicate.
I cut the chicken into small cubes, which of course eventually fell apart in the soup. I am not really sure exactly when in the cooking process I added the chicken. So just add it whenever yours are ready. And I as previously indicated, add the broth that cooks off the chicken to your soup. It really gives the flavor a kick to add the fresh broth.
After all your ingredients are combined, let it simmer to you have the texture you are looking for the veggies. I like mine crisp. The kids like theirs a little softer. It is all up to your mouth.
PLATING (or is it BOWLING?): Grab a big ladle and fill a bowl or two or fifteen… The good thing about this soup is you can eat a lot and feel full but not feel guilty. This is a hearty, tasty soup with a nice mix of ingredients, yet it is a low calorie meal (unless you eat it with my son’s homemade bread).
The next time you are going to be cooped up in the house, give this a try. And if you have some budding little cooks at the house, this is a good family project with just a little oversight. Carrots are fun to peel with a potato peeler. If you use the smaller diameter, carrots, they are easier for small hands. Onions are not that difficult to cut. Celery is not difficult at all. Plus, you can fill a bowl with water and let the kids give the celery the good rinse it needs.
Be careful lifting the lid off the pot. You do not want to get burned by the steam. This is probably something you only want to let your older helpers do if you do not do it yourself. Show them how use a pot holder to lift the lid pointed away from them, shielding them from the steam that is released from the boiling pot.
Tossing the veggies into the soup, as I learned with my own little cooks, is a temptation for them. Of course, this makes a great splash, which is a burning hazard and makes a tremendous and unnecessary mess. Instead, instead teach them how slide the veggies into the soup from a small cutting board or plate, being careful not to let the soup splash on them.
And if you make it fun, your junior chefs will do a lot of your cleanup as well. (Yes, I am sneaky like that.)
Whether you go it alone as I did this day or you make it a family project, I hope you have a good time making this tasty, filling soup!
My dad would have been 86 years old today. His last birthday this side of heaven was ten years ago.
He was born in 1940 in Creel Town (Empire), Walker County, Alabama, at his grandmother Minnie Creel’s home. (The house is gone, but I own the homeplace.) Creel Town was named for his prolific Creel family that covered the area.
Though his birth certificate read Frederick Stephen Rizzo, everyone knew him as Bucky.
There are two variations to the story of how he came by the name.
In both versions his mother and father were at odds over his name when he was born. One version of the story was that his dad finally relented in frustration and said, “I don’t care what you name him. You can call him Buckshot if you want to.” In the other version, the one I tend to believe, his mother said, “He’s my son, and I’ll call him Buckshot if I want to.”
And so despite the name on his birth certificate, Buckshot was what he was called. Then over time it morphed into Bucky and sometimes just Buck, though my son frequently referred to him lovingly as Buckshot after he heard the story of his naming.
When Dad started school, his teacher, Mrs. Hill, asked him to write his name on a paper. He wrote Bucky Rizzo. She told him to write his real name. He insisted that Bucky was his real name. After some ardent communication and consternation, he relented and learned his “real” name. But to that point, Bucky was the only name he knew himself by.
(Incidentally, Mrs. Hill was Hazel Duncan Hill who was married to Stanely Hill. Stanely was the son of Ed and Millie Creel Hill. Millie was my grandmother’s aunt. As I said, the Creels were prolific.)
Though he accepted his “real” name was Fredrick, the way he spelled it, he was still Bucky. In fact, eventually he had to legally add Bucky to his name because so many people used Bucky on checks and other legal documents.
To his nieces and nephews, he was Uncle Bucky. When grands came along, he was Bucky Daddy (and my mom was Boof Mama). Of course, over time, they, too, just settled on Bucky.
And to the many he befriended, he was Bucky, and he was a devoted, faithful friend.
In his sermon at Dad’s funeral, Randy Eubanks said that there was an argument among his friends over who was his best friend. One young man told Mother that till the day of Dad’s funeral when he heard so many tell stories of their relationship with Dad, he thought he was special to Dad, and he was special, but he was not unique because Bucky could love wide as well as deep.
At the graveside, two of his oldest friends if not his best friends, since the argument was never settled, closed the service. Bill Ridgeway read a scripture and Ed Williams prayed, then gave a final salutation on behalf of everyone: “We’ll see you later, Bucky.”
If you know the sweet flavor of cooked onions, you can already imagine how delicious this simple breakfast dish is.
If you think you do not like onions, that is because you have only been exposed to raw white onions on a hotdog at a bad hotdog stand.
This version of the recipe is mine, but the idea occurred to me from a reel I encountered when scrolling on Facebook. I didn’t stop to view it. I was already hungry and that little nudge was all I needed to decide what breakfast should be today.
Ingredients: Olive oil Eggs Sausage or other meat Grated cheese of choice Onion Peppers of choice Garlic Salt Ground black pepper (Other ingredient options, such as mushrooms or tomatoes, are only limited by your imagination and pantry.)
Prep: Set your shredded cheese out and let it come to room temperature while you work on the other ingredients. This will allow it to melt faster when you begin cooking.
Rinse and cut off the top and remove the seeds from the peppers. I had one Marconi and one Sweet Banana Pepper from the garden. For more heat, you might choose Jalapeño or Serrano. You know what you like or what you have handy. I decided on these peppers because they were the peppers I had in my garden, but they worked well together.
Mince the peppers. In addition to providing flavor and potentially heat, the peppers provide texture, so don’t cut them too small.
Mince a small bit of the onion, roughly an amount equivalent to one pepper, also purely for the sake of texture.
Mince one to two cloves of garlic.
Every type of onion brings its unique flavor to this dish. Today I used a red onion because I had one on hand. Then again, I usually do have one on hand because I like cooking with them. Goldie Locks would agree. They have just enough punch to taste oniony, but mildly so, when raw. Cooked or raw, they have a gentle sweet flavor, which holds up well when cooked, so they tend to be my go-to onion. But to each his (or her) own, white, yellow, or any other variety would work.
More than thirty years of teaching have taught me that some things that should not have to be said frequently have to be said — Peel the onion.
Next, cut the onion horizontally into a quarter or half inch rounds. After cutting the onion into rounds, take each slice and gently push out the individual layers. Each slice will naturally have rings that can be separated by lightly pressing them apart with your fingers. The rings will vary in size. Decide which size rings you want to use, or use a variety of sizes if you wish.
By the way, unless you are cooking for an army, you will have more than half of the onion left. Fortunately for me, Monday is Labor Day, so the remainder will be used with burgers and hotdogs. Onion slices will keep well for a few days stored in the refrigerator.
If you have read any of my cooking narratives, you know that part of the process is using what you have on hand instead of running to the store for ingredients. Earlier in the week I made cheese greets with Italian sausage. I had one sausage left, so I crumbled it. But you can use cold cuts or bacon or even omit meat. If you are working with uncooked meat, especially pork, cook it before you mix it with the eggs. The cook time for the eggs will not be long enough for uncooked meat to cook adequately.
I was making enough for the family, my band of Three Musketeers (and sometimes Three Stooges), so I used five eggs. Crack them into a small mixing bowl and whisk. Whisking not only mixes the whites and yolks, it aerates, creating a fluffy texture. Next, combine the other ingredients. Salt and pepper to taste. If you are not sure how much salt or pepper, you could wait until you begin to cook the eggs for salt and pepper if you prefer or even wait until they are cooked.
Salting tip: You should use just enough salt to bring out the flavors. You never want to taste the salt. As for pepper, I like lots of ground black pepper. I have my mother’s palette. She virtually covers her eggs with black pepper.
Add the shredded cheese and continue to mix. (I did not have any shredded cheese in the fridge, but I did have sliced Colby Jack. I tore two slices into small pieces, which worked fine.)
Cook: Once the egg mixture is prepared, add olive oil to a skillet and heat. I usually turn the heat up high and then back down after the oil heats up. There is no particular culinary reason that I know of for this. It has more to do with my impatience. Once the oil is hot, turn the heat to medium low.
Take the skillet off the heat to add the onions. This will reduce the likelihood of the oil popping on you. (I experimented with a couple of techniques. This one worked the best.) Your onion rounds will have a bit of a funnel shape because of the natural shape of the onion. Place them in the oil with the larger aperture facing up. Return to heat. If you notice, the onions will begin to gently change color and texture from the bottom up as they cook. After about twenty to thirty seconds, flip. Cook for twenty or thirty more seconds, depending on the size of the slice, and then flip again. You don’t want to brown them. Just barely begin the caramelization process.
With the funnel end up, add the egg mixture inside the rings. For this, I used a gravy ladle. I coated it with oil to keep the eggs from sticking. I have no idea if coating with oil really made any sense or helped, but using the ladle was more manageable than pouring from the mixing bowl. Be careful not to overfill the rings. If you do, eggs will spill out into the skillet as you cook. (Yes, I learned this from experience today.) Some might seep underneath the rings also. That’s ok. Just gently pull them away from the rings before you try to flip them.
Skillet tip: Use a griddle or at least use a shallow skillet to make maneuvering the rings easier while they cook. Also, do not place too many rings in the skillet at the same time. It makes it harder to individually flip them without bumping the others and spilling the egg mixture.
Let the eggs cook. When there is just a slight bit of uncooked egg left on top, flip the rings. I settled on a small, thin spatula. From my several attempts, it worked better than a larger or thinker spatula. Let them cook just long enough for the remaining uncooked egg to get done or cook longer if you want the egg to brown a little.
Plating: Remove from oil and place on a plate. It will not take them long to cool enough to eat.
I plated the onion ring eggs with some of the leftover grits from the cheese grits and Italian sausage from earlier in the week. (Plated, I sound so fancy.) The grits were not watery instant grits. They were rich and thick with cheese, butter, and chicken stock and paired nicely with the onion rings and eggs. (Paired nicely, yep, my diction is definitely getting fancier.)
The onion rings and eggs were delicious, and I ate more than my share!
Postscript: Did you know that due to their high fructan content, a type of carbohydrate that can cause gas and bloating, eating too many onions can cause a tummy ache? Yeah, I learned that from experience today too. But it was worth it.
Last Saturday morning, I let myself sleep in. Correction, I made myself sleep in. The first week of the semester always disrupts my circadian rhythm. I had gotten four, no more than five hours, sleep every night for a week. And true to form, I woke up at 3 a.m. but put myself back to bed at 5 a.m. for a few more hours. Even after I got up, I was moving slowly, so no breakfast. And then once lunch rolled around, I wanted something good. But I did not want to go to the store or any great trouble.
And then there it was, inspiration, a single Ichiban eggplant lying on the table.
With the eggplant in my mind, I scanned the fridge and came up the following tasty lunch idea.
Ingredients: Eggplant Bell pepper Carrot Onion Garlic Oregano Olive oil Red pepper flakes Salt Lemon juice
Prep: I recently learned a French culinary term from a TikTok video – mise en place (pronounced meez awn plahz), which literally translates to “everything in its place.” This is good advice. But I don’t speak French, so I’m just going to say before you begin cooking, make sure you have everything in place – all the veggies peeled and cut, skillet ready, everything.
Peel the eggplant. You don’t have to, but I prefer peeled. Then cut it into small pieces, in this case, about half inch rounds. Toss the eggplant into a bowl of salt water to soak while you prep the other ingredients. The saltwater helps pull some of the bitter taste associated with eggplant. Fresh eggplant is less likely to have the bitter taste, but soaking them in the salt water is still a good idea.
Peel and cut the carrot(s) into about quarter inch pieces. (I like large carrots. They tend to be sweeter. The one I had was about a two-inch circumference. So I peeled and quartered it and then cut it into pieces.)
Rough dice half an onion. (In this case I had a yellow onion, but any kind works.)
Core the bell pepper and dice. (My bell pepper was yellow, but like the onion, whatever you have on hand is fine.)
Mince two to three cloves of garlic (Pre-minced garlic works if you don’t have whole garlic.)
Cook: Preheat your skillet to medium low heat and add olive oil.
Add the carrots and lightly salt. As you add the other ingredients, add additional salt and olive oil as needed. Be sparing with the salt, but don’t be stingy with the olive oil.
Cook for about three minutes and then add the onions and eggplant. Stir as you add each ingredient.
Continue cooking and add the bell pepper after about three more minutes.
Finally after a few more minutes, add the garlic and two tablespoons of oregano, not that I actually measure. Add the red pepper flakes to taste for a little heat.
For crispier vegetables, don’t cover as you cook. If you prefer the vegetables to break down more, then cover with a lid in between stirring. Just before you take the veggies off the heat, hit them with a little lemon juice. The acid of the lemon balances the oil and overall brightens the flavor of the veggies. (Confession, sadly I forgot to do this. But I use this tip enough to know what the effect would have been. I will definitely remember next time.)
When you are satisfied with the consistency, serve over rice or pasta.
Plating: I had leftover spaghetti in the fridge, so I heated it up and spooned the veggies over the spaghetti and sprinkled with grated Parmigiano Reggiano.
Continuing with the theme of what’s on hand, I heated up some ground Italian sausage from earlier in the week and added a sliced tomato and basil fresh from the garden.
I must say, it was all yummy.
Now go be creative with what you have at the house. You might just surprise yourself.
Today for lunch, my daughter Olivia and I are having taco salad with homemade leftover salsa that I whipped up last night. My son Nick is in Atlanta on a video/photo shoot and is probably going to eat somewhere fancy, but I doubt it will top our lunch because this quick and easy homemade salsa is even better the second day than it was last night.
Speaking of last night, we had a bit of confusion about dinner. I had told Nick I would make spaghetti sauce this week and sent him to the store for groceries, but I forgot I had told Olivia we could have taco salad. Nick purchased groceries for sauce but had did not get salsa, of course, and we did not have any on hand. So, I pulled a can of diced tomatoes from the groceries Nick had purchased for spaghetti sauce and then went to the pantry to see what else I could find to save a trip back to the store for salsa. In the process, I came up with this “quick and easy” salsa.
Prep time: 10 minutes/Feeds: 2 to 5
10-ounce can diced tomatoes with chilies (mild or hot) 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes Half a chopped onion (I had a red onion at the house, but I think a white onion would be better.) 1 or 2 garlic cloves or a teaspoon (more or less) of ready-to-use minced garlic Cilantro to taste (We had dried, but fresh cilantro would kick the flavor up a notch.) Juice from a lime or 2 tablespoons of bottled lime juice (I did not have a lime and did not measure the bottle lime. I just eyeballed it. Use enough to give the salsa a touch of citrus.)
Blend to desired consistency with a food processor or hand emulsion blender.
It is that simple! And it really is tasty.
The next time you forget the salsa or if you just feel adventurous, open the cabinet and put this homemade salsa together. Experiment with your favorite ingredients. You might never go back to store bought salsa again.
My Uncle Edgar Morgan got hurt working in the coal mine. He was actually my father’s uncle, which made him my grand uncle. He and Aunt Martha lived in the town of West Jefferson. They had several daughters, Joy, Faye, Joanne, Marie, and Carol Jane. Marie was about my age. We were probably in the fourth grade when Uncle Edgar was hurt. He broke his back and was in the hospital for a long time. When he came home, he was confined to a hospital bed and wheelchair.
I remember going to visit him after his accident. Of course, I had been around them before, but this was my first time to go to their house in West Jefferson. Along with me were my two baby brothers Floyd and Lloyd, my mama and my daddy, Granddaddy and Granny Burton, and my daddy’s younger sister Helen Burton. Uncle Edgar was Granny Burton’s brother. My granddaddy and granny didn’t have a car for a while, so my daddy drove them.
That was the first time I or any of the rest of us, for that matter, had ever seen anything like the tree in their front yard. It was glorious. It was bushy. It had a base and then limbs branched out with these pretty pink fuzzy blooms on them. We had never seen anything like it! We all liked it. Aunt Martha said it was a mimosa tree. (I think it has a Japanese origin.) Granny was always getting cuttings off everything, so she and Mother got cuttings from the tree and rooted them.
Mama set one out in the front yard. It grew and was so pretty. Then after a while, mimosa trees just sprouted up everywhere. They tried to trim them down. But they kept coming up and coming up. They tried to get rid of them but couldn’t get rid of them. They just kept getting in everywhere.
Granny already had kudzu, another invasive plant from Asia, in her backyard that would start growing before the grass got high enough to be mowed. She also had a scuppernong vine that the kudzu would get intertwined with. Then she planted two mimosa trees in the backyard. The mimosa trees spread at my granny’s like they did at our house, so they came up in the scuppernong vine also. They tried to cut the kudzu and mimosa trees out of the scuppernong, but they could hardly cut anything without cutting the good scuppernong vine also.
My daddy finally cut down the tree in our front yard. But that didn’t kill it. It kept sprouting from the stump. I especially remember how Mother fought the tree stump because it kept sprouting up again, so she kept trying to kill the stump with anything that she had that she could. Anything like hot grease or hot water or anything that had lye or something in it, she’d go out there and pour it on the stump. But it still just kept growing and growing and growing till finally she killed it enough to the point that they could take it out of the ground with a tractor. We didn’t have big equipment, just the little red and white Ford garden tractor. But Mother had finally managed to get it to the point they could pull the roots and everything out of the ground. But it took years to get it to that point.
Now almost eighty years later, mimosa trees grow all over this area. When we moved here, we moved into almost a wilderness area that had no mimosa trees. We lived in the woods like Little House on the Prairie, so I figure that it’s the cuttings Granny and Mother got from Aunt Martha that are responsible for all of these Mimosa trees around us.
I think there’s a spiritual lesson here. Sin may look beautiful at first. It’s enticing, so much so that you bring it home and make a place for it. You even cultivate it. But then when it starts to take root, it’s hard to get rid of it. And even if you do get your life right with God, what you bring into your life you also bring into your family. Just like the mimosa trees that are all over this area now, you could be letting something take root that will be a problem for your family for generations. So if you see a mimosa tree, leave it where it is. And when you’re tempted to bring sin into your life, no matter how appealing, leave it alone too!
I was a little girl of only five years old. I had not started school yet. I had a father and a mother and twin brothers who were seven months old. I was happy with my family and loved them very much, and they loved me.
My parents had been Christians all my life. I never knew any kind of life except going to church regularly with my parents and grandparents. All my life my parents taught me the Word of God. The first book I ever owned was a Bible storybook. My parents read me stories from the book and every night had family prayer. My mother or father would say, “It’s your time to pray.”
And then I would begin to pray: “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” This was something I was accustomed to doing every night before I went to bed.
My dad purchased forty acres of a farm in 1945. This was during World War II. The property was surrounded by woods on every side. He built a house on the property in the middle of the woods and moved our family into it. It was not a large house. But there was room for our family in it. Because the house was far off in the woods, it did not have a paved road that came to it, only a dusty dirt road. During the war, materials like copper that were needed for electrical wires were not available. So it would be several years before the house would have electricity.
Even though it was the middle of the 20th century, the family lived like pioneers from the 1800s. Mother cooked on a wood-burning stove and washed clothes by hand. At night, the house was lit by kerosine lamps and heated by a fireplace.
One day in March, I was having breakfast. Wearing a nightgown and little cloth house shoes, I sat at the kitchen table. Mother had mixed together butter and syrup, and I was sopping it up with a homemade biscuit. One little brother was sitting beside me in a highchair. The other little brother had spent the night at my grandmother’s house. I noticed that my mother kept going to the doors and windows and looking out. But that did not disturb me. I was just having breakfast.
Suddenly, one of the doors blew backward and outward. I wondered what made the door do that. But I was not worried. I continued to eat breakfast while my mother closed the door and locked it as tightly as possible. Next, I heard a roar from outside. But I was still not worried. Mother was there.
Then Mother began to hurry back toward me and my little brother. She walked past a bed when suddenly the house jolted as strong winds hit it. Mother fell over on the bed flat on her back with her feet hanging off the edge and touching the floor. I felt the house shake and then lift upward. I started to feel frightened for the first time.
Across from her in the kitchen was a window facing the outside of the house. She saw the window panes break and fly out. On the table by the window was a large basket of fresh eggs. It flew out the window. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor with my chair turned over beside me.
I reached out and grabbed the bottom of my little brother’s highchair to keep it upright. Mother was still on the bed and could not stand up because of the motion of the house. The rain was horrific. It kept raining and raining and raining. The house lifted up and off its supporting pillars of blocks and large stones and moved as the pillars gave way. The house moved to the side about three feet and landed on the corner where the kitchen was, driving it deep into the wet ground.
My mother finally made her way to me. I still did not know what was happening, but I was frightened. Mother helped me up and picked up my little brother. She held me close by her side with one hand and my little brother cradled with the other and began to pray “Lord, help us. Save us from destruction.”
Standing by my mother as the rain poured in on us, I began to pray too. I looked up toward the ceiling and imagined Jesus in Heaven looking down on us. This was the first time in my life that I prayed without someone telling me it was my time to pray. For the first time in my heart and my life I felt a need and a prompt to pray without someone telling me “it’s your time to pray.” I prayed to God for safety and to take care of my family.
When the strong wind passed, everything in the house was covered in grit from the wind and rain and broken glass and wood. The house was heavily damaged. It looked like it could fall on us any minute, so my mother put a coat on me and wrapped up my little brother. Then Mother put on something to keep dry and headed out the door with me and my baby brother.
The house was at the bottom of a long, sloping hillside that was covered in trees. Water from the rain was flowing down the hill. As we stepped out of the house, the water was already deep. Debris was floating in the water and rushing by us. Boards with nails and broken tree branches brushed up against us. As we walked, the water got deeper and deeper until it was up to my waist. Finally, Mother said, “We can’t do this. We’ve got to go back.”
They could not go any farther, so my mother and little brother and I headed back toward the damaged home. We took shelter in what was left of our home. The windows were out, the doors were gone. It was a terrible situation.
Then help arrived.
We saw a teenage boy on horseback. His family lived at the top of the hill. Joe Bob looked at my mother and said, “Let me take the little girl first. Then I’ll come back for you and the baby.”
He took me to his house. His house was half gone as well. In one room his father lay sick in a broken bed inside a bedroom with three walls missing. His mother took me. Then he left. He returned with my little brother, still wrapped in the quilt Mother had put around him. After another trip, Joe Bob returned with my mother.
The Brazeals, the family at the top of the hill, was kind to us. They found dry clothes for Mother and took care of my little brother and me.
My Daddy had an uncle who lived nearby. Soon, he found us. Uncle George had been concerned after the storm passed through and had set out looking for us. Later my father returned from work. His factory was miles away, so he did not know about the storm until he returned from work.
Over the next several weeks while my little brothers and I stayed with my grandparents, my mother and father camped at their small farm to repair the damage from the storm. Their clothes and sheets were all wet and nasty. My mother worked hard to clean them. Some of the furniture was broken and damaged. Over the next several weeks, my father had to completely tear the house down. His uncle and cousins helped him rebuild it. This was hard, heartbreaking work. But finally the house was rebuilt and our family could move back in it.
The house still did not have electricity. It would be several years before it did. We still only had a dirt road that sometimes turned to mud and had deep ruts that caused the bottoms of cars to drag. We still lived the life of a pioneer in the middle of the 20th century. But this was okay. My family was safe.
Almost eighty years later, I am a grown woman, not a little girl. But I still reminisce about this day. The most important thing about that day is that God listened and that God had allowed me to have the privilege to be taught that He is always listening. I learned that when I am is in trouble, I can cry out to God, which is something I lived with all of life from that time to now.
This is a series of stories about my mom’s life. We have an interesting process for creating these stories. She tells them to me, and I type them up. But we do it while driving around. I turn on my voice recorder on my phone and then later export the transcript. But I have to delete out the drive through at Jack’s because every trip requires a milkshake. Also, Mom’s head is on a swivel when we go for a drive, so I also have to edit out her commentary on the construction at the church, the comment about the neighbor’s little boy, and on and on. It is a trip, literally and figuratively! After a few tweaks, I post them here. I hope you enjoy them. I know I do.
The picture is of my mom and dad some years ago. I do not think I know anyone who so loved her husband and was so proud of him. She never wanted to go anywhere without him, even Heaven. He just got there first.
I will be making mistakes today, just as I did yesterday and the day before. Of course, I will not know it in the moment. Only time will tell. Sometimes time is short, like after sticking your tongue to a flagpole in winter. Sometimes it is longer, much longer, half a lifetime longer, when you discover someone you thought to be a trusted friend proves otherwise. Most are somewhere in between.
So as I go about this day’s mistakes, I’ll look back on my past and try to learn from missteps and bad choices. But the one thing I won’t do is let the past teach me to shy away from taking chances and moving forward with my life with the absolute confidence that I will make mistakes because the absolute worse mistake I could make is to do nothing for fear of failure.
No, a catastrophic situation did not prompt this proclamation, and nothing dramatic is happening in my life… yet. But who knows what today’s decisions might yield!
Rizzo's Rambles and Ruminations 