Growing Up Southern:September 7, 2017

Somethings about the past I don’t miss. Some I do. One thing I miss is the canned peaches my grandmother used to make. My goodness.

I don’t see how they did it, those women back then. We’re talking about a tin-roofed farmhouse before there was any knowledge of insulation. You looked up saw the rafters. An aunt of mine used to decorate them with circles of those corks you used to get in coke bottle tops sewn together in rings.

As I understand it, canning requires things to be put in sanitized jars that are then subjected to high heat. In Mama Rodgers’ (originally “Harris” but she remarried after her first husband died) day, that meant laboring over a wood cook stove during the heat of an Arkansas summer when 100-degree days were common.

Those far-off times created some real women.

But back to those peaches. I remember they had little black spheres of spice floating around in them and a sort of sharp, sweet taste. I’d sell all my wife’s dogs to the Gypsies for one jar of them now. They raised the peaches of course, she and Grandpa Rodgers. (That’s what we called him). They also raised everything else she canned. Along with vegetables, she relied on a smokehouse that stood next to the main house. I don’t know what it looked like inside because we weren’t allowed in there. We could have gone into the root cellar where the canned things were, but I suspected there was a particularly big rattlesnake waiting for me should I dare, so I never.

But back to those peaches. I remember having them for Sunday dinner (lunch to city slickers) when folks would gather at the house after church. The men and boys would eat. Then the women and girls. Then Mama Rodgers. All that would be left of the fried chicken by then would be the neckbone. That didn’t seem a fair deal for one who had worked so hard to feed everyone else. I don’t think women back then expected a fair deal. Survival was miracle enough.

I’ll talk about Mama Rodgers more later. She was a fine lady, unsullied by pride or arrogance. Widowed into abject poverty with three young children at home (our mother being one), she knew comfort in her last years, surrounded by family. She had this one old hat of which she was so proud. I guess you would call it old fashioned now, but she loved it.

But back to those peaches, I don’t think you can buy those at Walmart, and I don’t know anyone who cans them like that today. Too bad. 

No stilleto heels,
but she loved that hat.