All you could see as you drove up the red clay hill was a long driveway rutted from all the wear and tear of the years of traveling into the old home place. There was no gravel or rocks to pave the way, just red dirt. After a good rain, the cars would slip and slide going into the house.
As we pulled into the yard, there was an old clapboard house with a long porch spread across the entire front of the front with a small table sitting on the left end holding a big, chipped enamel bucket holding a community dipper for drinking the cold well water drawn with a wooden bucket from the well in the front yard.
And there, of course, sat my grandaddy reared back in his old straight-backed chair in his stripped bibbed overalls and flopped hat, whittling on a small piece of wood.
Before we could get to the end of the wobbly planked walkway, my grandmother would be coming out the screen door to meet me and kiss my forehead as my grandaddy reached for my hand.
Some of my cousins were already there and we would head around the side of the house passed where her old black washpot stood, the one she used to wash in before her new wringer type washer was bought. Now, she used the black iron pot to make her lye soap when they butchered a hog, and she had the fat from the hog to cook into soap made with her herbs.
We would come into the house up the steps to her back porch stepping around her climbing rose bush that has been growing for years at my mother’s old house. The back porch had two rooms on each side of the covered entrance, one her quilt room and the other her pantry of canned goods from her summer’s bounty. As a child, I loved to take naps in her quilt room and on the hand sewed soft treasures.
This little anteroom led into her kitchen with the center being taken up by her old wood burning six-eyed stove. I helped her cook so many of her delicious meals here in this little space. And just out of the kitchen was the big, planked table with benches and straight chairs waiting for us to take our seats and begin our Christmas dinner of baked hen from her yard, smoked ham, from their smoke house, creamed potatoes, beans, sweet potatoes, and her scrumptious big biscuits.
There was no fancy china, no polished silver, no lace tablecloths, and no cloth napkins. There was none of the fancy fixings we all pull out at holiday time, but there was so much love around that table that I can, so many years later, still remember how it felt. Everybody talking at once, everybody reaching for the overfilled bowls of food, and, oh my, the laughter could be heard outside because there were lots less worries, less pressures, and a much more loving and warmer comradery around that old worn table.
I realize things are so different now from those long years ago — more pressures, more worries — but if only we could try to get together with our families, close ones, in-laws, and “outlaws,” and just be content and happy just being together one more time.
Roast Christmas Hen
5 to 6-pound hen
Rub with some type of oil (she used lard and slathered it all over)
Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a few chosen herbs
½ cup of melted butter poured over (She churned her own and sometimes I do this with my little churn.)
Roast uncovered.
