Call Me Pa and Give Me a Hug...

I decided to pause from my morning work and rest for a spell. I got my much needed cup of coffee and went to the patio to watch the two beautiful  doves that have resided in my apple tree for the past three summers...Two years ago, I gave them the name of Freddie and Flossie. They have given me hours of pleasure and I have mentioned them in an earlier post. You can read their story in, "Fly Like a Butterfly."

After resting for a while I decided to walk down to my vegetable garden to see how things were coming along….  Tomatoes are looking good I thought to myself. My goodness how nice the green beans were growing. I walked over to where I planted four tame blackberry vines a couple years ago and they were loaded with nice berries. Looking at those vines, I was carried back into my childhood and the memory of a sweet old gentleman who gave me the opportunity to earn my own money to spend the way I wanted to for the first time in my life… A story I want to share:

Everyone who knew him referred to him as “Pa’ Montgomery,” a man with more love in his heart than anyone I have ever known. Children ran to greet him, adults automatically smiled when they saw him coming. I have never then or now seen anyone who loved children the way Pa Montgomery did. Every child who came into his presence was invited to come and give Pa a hug…"Bless your heart honey,” he always said, “Come give Pa a hug  and some sugar and I will give you a nickel.”  Now I ask you, “What child in the early 1950s was going to miss the chance to get a nickel?”  My goodness, a nickel would buy a whole sack full of candy back then…So you can imagine, Pa got lots of kiddie sugar.

I don’t suppose Pa had an enemy anywhere in the world.” He was a wonderful neighbor to all the folks on the Knob.  Always ready to lend a hand to those who needed help, always speaking kind words, and always jolly.

I am not sure how many families living on the knob were actually related to 
Mr Montgomery. I just know that by his own choice everyone called him Pa. He and his wife made a modest living on their small farm on the Knob. Pa raised a tobacco crop, corn, and sold a cow occasionally...Although everyone called him Pa, they referred to his wife as Aunt Icey.  She made a small income by selling eggs, milk and butter, sweet milk and buttermilk… and I am here to tell you there was no better tasting sweet butter to be bought anywhere than Aunt Icey’s home-churned butter. When you put a pat between a hot biscuit and added some jam or jelly, you had a delightful treat.

The summer I were eleven, Mr. Montgomery asked if I would be interested in helping him pick his blackberries to sell.  “I will pay you seven cents for every quart you pick,” he told me. I jumped at the chance to make me some spending money…”Sure,” I told him, “when do we start?”  He told me to be there early the next day while the morning was still cool. “We’ll pick til’ dinner” he said.

The next morning even before the sun had burned away the dew I went running to Pa's blackberry field. He was already in the patch and stopped long enough to give me a bucket for pickin.’ Taking a faded handkerchief out of his pocket he rubbed the sweat from his forehead and wiped his eyes…”Hot ain’t it?” he said. “Well, you had better get on up ahead of me there and pick from them vines up next to the woods. Be careful and don’t leave any they go bad real soon in this hot weather,” he reminded me.

Mercy, I did not realize how many berries it took to make a quart.  “I declare Pa, I believe this bucket has a hole in the bottom,” I teased with him. “Just keep on pickin’ girl you got a long way to go yet,” he joked back with a chuckle in his voice.

Long about 10:00 AM,  Pa called out to me…”Go to the house and tell Icey we need a jar of  water and when you come back we will take us a short rest under that ole’ oak tree.”   What lovely words that was to me.  I was sure thankful for the chance to rest my aching back from all that stooping under them blackberry bushes so I ran to the house to get the water.

“Don’t slam that screen door,” Aunt Icey called out and I came to a screeching halt just at the entrance. Slightly intimidated by the tone of her voice I said, “I came to get Pa some cold water.”

 In a much calmer voice, she said, “Well, wait until I get this buttermilk poured into the jars and refrigerated and I’ll get you some. I guess you all are probably getting hungry so I’ll give you a snack.” Sweet music to my ears because I felt hungry enough to eat a cow...

 Soon, Aunt Icey had a jar of ice water made and handed me a sack of homemade cookies to take back with me…While we sat under the big oak tree drinking our water and eating the cookies Pa began to talk… “You know honey; God has been good to me. I got my farm to feed me and Icey, I got good health to farm it, and I got some of the best neighbors a body could ever want. My ole’ truck ain’t new and it has a lot of dents on it but it gets me where I need to go. Yes, God is real good to me, always has been. I was never without some kind of food on the table and my kids had shoes to wear and clothes to put on.  We didn’t have the finest of things, but we were fed, clothed, and healthy. I ain’t got the best of things now either but I got just what the Lord wants me to have and honey, I am happy with it. I don’t ask for more…

It took us about two weeks to pick all those berries and at the end of the picking, Pa paid me my very first salary. When I walked into JJ Newberry’s Five & Dime, I sashayed through the door holding my head up with pride knowing I had worked for what I was about to spend…I cannot remember just how much money I earned for that job, but I believe it was a lesson well taught and one I learned.  Take pride in what you do. Hold your head up high and step proudly every day while on your job. It may not be the job you want, but it is the job God has blessed you with. It is not how much money you earn that should give you pride, rather that you gave an honest day’s work for an honest pay.

There is a beautiful prayer of our times written by Orin L. Crain. I goes like this.
   
"Slow me down, Lord! Ease the pounding of my heart by the quietness of my mind. Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time.  
     Give me, amidst the confusion of my day, calmness of the everlasting hills. Break the tension of my nerves with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory. Help me to know the magical restoring power of sleep. Teach me the art of taking minute vacations...of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with an old friend or make a new one, to pat a stray dog, to watch a spider build a web, to smile at a child, or to read a few pages of a good book. 
     Remind me each day that the race is not to the swift; and that there is more to life that increasing its speed. Let me look upward into the branches of the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.
     Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life's enduring values, that I may grow toward the stars of my greater destiny."

That prayer says it all..That is the way I see it.

Walk with God
Mary Frances King.