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High
Cotton in the City
By Mona Lease
Hi, all!!! I'm sorry, readers. I forgot to submit a column for last
week. I lost a cousin. He lost his battle with cancer.
I've heard it said that we really learn by example from those around
us. And usually by those close to our own age. My mind took me on a
week-long trip through past years. There are a lot of old memories.
Alabama had a song out called, "Song of the South." A line from that
song, "Someone told us that Wall Street fell, but we were so poor we
couldn't tell"...kept running through my mind. We weren't rich by any
means. I'm not sure what poor is. We had everything we needed...and
then some.
I'll start with the memories in 1968...give or take a couple of years.
If you wanted money...you found some work to do. If you were a boy (in
some cases, a girl) the Darke County Fairgrounds was "the
jackpot"...three cherries straight across the screen. There was always
someone who would pay you to shovel out a horse stall. Horse owners
would pay you to walk a horse. If you were trustworthy enough...you
could make money bathing the horse. Should you have the strength or the
inclination...you could get paid to unload bales of hay. My cousin's
(that just passed on) Dad and my Dad are brothers. We lived back to
back. He and the neighborhood guys visited "The Fairgrounds"
frequently.
The "worming business" was lucrative in those days. The neighborhood
guys would wait for a nice, gentle, soaking rain. This brought the fat
earthworms that the fish love so much, out to the sidewalks and in the
grass. I remember watching the neighborhood guys knock on neighbor's
doors to see if they could "harvest" the worms from their sidewalks and
yards. I guess there were those who paid well for the worms. I was a
girl. Worms were...well, yuck.
Gooch Unger (now deceased) was the local buyer of aluminum and other
scrap in those days. Remember the aluminum pop/beer cans with the
pull-tabs? Yeah, those. The guys collected those to sell. In those
days, you might get paid in some aluminum and some cash.
We girls used to say it was hot. Oh, it was hot. Would we be able to
spray each other with the garden hose? Yes, we could. Often, a girl's
brother would grab the hose and soak us. We'd rail at the "injustice."
The brother would laugh and say, "You whined you were hot."
On hot summer days, we "kids" would sit outside in the shade with a
slice of fresh watermelon...passing around a salt shaker. That was
"high-cotton"...or "life is good." Afterwards...we had seed
fights...which led to another round of getting sprayed with the garden
hose.
Everyone had a "bike" (bicycle). We'd race each other around the block
on them. A few of the "guys from the hood" kept a sort of "bicycle
shop" at their house. Spare tires, rims, chains, etc could be bought or
traded.
It's no secret that I'm a Lease by birth. It's no secret that a few of
us Leases were "dirt farmers." It's no secret that where Arby's in
Greenville is now, is where the Lease homestead was...and where we
planted bunches of tomatoes and other veggies. We all helped with that.
Plant it, water it, weed it, pick it, wash it, sell it...another way to
make money. One year...if it grew...we floured it and fried it. Toasted
pumpkin seeds (no flour)? Very good. Fried, floured pumpkin leaves? Not
so much. Fried, floured green tomatoes? Yummy, I hear. I never
developed a taste for them.
I watched my now-deceased cousin and his brother sew uncooked white
beans into a cloth pouch. They practiced their "aim" for the Great
Darke County Fair. Games of "toss" and anything to do with the air
rifle was the "in" thing then.
There were always leaves to rake, snow to shovel, and weeds to pull.
Sometimes you got paid in real money...sometimes in glass, returnable
pop bottles. Money is money...whatever the form.
So what did I learn that I learned all those years hence? (I just had
to say it like that).
There's always work to do to make money.
Set a course for your life.
Look to the future.
Keep moving forward.
Watermelon on a hot day is still good.
Remember the kiddies and our service people. Take good care of the
furry and feathered ones out there. Be safe and healthy. See ya next
time. Ever Toodles!!! MONA
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