Gifts from a Special Museum (Tommye wrote this to commemorate the Willow Museum which was started by her nieces Carolyn and Barbara ) Its artifacts not quite so old as someone sees, and yet quite old enough for me--so many things to trigger thoughts to relive days of my Oklahoma childhood. It is Saturday morning, churning day. I can smell the cream, thick in the crock. My arms are tired from lifting the paddle until butter separates from the cream. I wash the butter and pack it, tight in the wooden mold, then push down the handle to behold--beautiful butter, a flower embossed on top. I can smell the biscuits baking brown in the kerosene stove. My mother enters, fresh eggs in her apron. Removing her old split bonner, puts bacon into a heavy skillet to sizzle and splatter, then breaks the eggs into the fat. It is afternoon, my father dressed in his Sunday best will be going to town to sell the cream, to buy the sugar, bananas and sorghum molasses and other things not of the farm. He will sit on a bench talking politics, dust and drought, crops and weather with other fellow farmers It is Saturday night. I sit with my mother in her rocking chair. We have had our baths in this galvanized tub. She brushes my hair, telling me stories of life in Texas--how her mother died when she was seven years old. We both feel sad--she tucks me in bed. I snuggle in softness, deep in time-worn quilts. Thank you holders, keepers of things. These overalls, bonnets, high-top-shoes-- these kerosene lamps and Stetson hats are not just relics, but things of my life. Now this day, those years and the sweetness of childhood are not lost to me forever
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 20:17:25 +0000
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