A Sweet Lesson In Life

Today's guest post is by Jequeta Mullins Briskey. Jequeta was the youngest of 11 children and she grew up in Clintwood, Virginia. She didn't start writing until after she was married and most of her short stories and poems are centered around growing up in southwestern Virginia. She currently lives in northwestern Ohio with her husband, John, and they have 3 children, 8 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren.  

A Sweet Lesson In Life

It started back in the early 50s when I was in the fourth grade. My dad decided that he would go into the strawberry business. He thought that it would be profitable and would bring in some much needed money for our family. Not only did he have the space and the know-how to plant the seedlings and bring them to life, but he also had the extra hands to help him with the task. Those extra hands would belong to me and my siblings.

He picked out a prime spot on our little mountain side farm and prepared if for planting, naturally with our help. I don't recall actually helping to do any of the prep work with the soil, the planting, weeding, and care of those tender plants but somehow they survived. The first year is never great for strawberries but the second year found us working hard at picking the nice red ripe fruit every other day. 

Most of those strawberries were for our personal use and we really enjoyed them. After working all morning in the blazing sun on our hands and knees, picking the fruit from those verdant green plants, one would think the last thing on our minds would be eating that fruit. But, knowing that Mom was in the kitchen baking an old fashioned strawberry pie for lunch would make our mouths water. These pies were not like the pies of today with their glaze and piled high with whipped topping. Her pies were made with sweetened cooked strawberries thickened with a flour mixture and poured into a handmade baked shell. They contained no topping and we never asked for a topping because in those days, we didn't know that anything of that sort existed. We accepted what we had and were thankful for it. 

By the third year, Dad's strawberries were producing in abundance. We started letting other people know that we had an excess amount of strawberries and that we would be willing to sell some of them. So, off we went to the fields early in the morning to pick the fruit. We had attained gallon buckets over the past two years in anticipation of this day. These buckets were most likely gallon lard cans or anything of that sort. Each of us would carry a bucket along and we would take what my Dad called a "swath" which was our individual portion in which we were to remove all the ripe fruit, leaving the green ones to ripen for another day. And we were cautioned not to step on the plants as this would likely damage them from producing again. 

Dad had told us that we would get paid for helping him with this task. We were allowed to pick one green berry for each gallon bucket we filled and he warned us that he knew our capacity for picking and he would know if we cheated. In one day, if we picked well and fast, we could make a dollar for picking ten gallons of berries, That was a lot of money for us in those days. We felt rich! We didn't think about how long it took for use to make that much money but just having the money was joy beyond compare. 

When we had filled one of the buckets we could pour them into a larger container to be carried down the hill to where our home was. This would eliminate several trips up and down the hill. Eventually, my brother rigged up a pulley system from the house to the top of the hill so we could hang a bucket of berries onto the pulley and lower them down to the house by way of a handle. This sure saved a lot of steps and time for us. 

Word got around our community that we had strawberries for sale and people started placing orders with us. Whether it was only one gallon or a huge order of twenty to thirty gallons, we could always fill those orders. Dad would fill the gallon buckets heaping full until the berries were falling off the sides. Then he would transfer the berries over to the containers our customers had brought with them, all the while he would make sure the customer helped him count the gallons so as not to short them on their order. And when it was time for them to pay up, the price was always $1.00 a gallon. In all the years we kept that business going, he never changed the price. Word got around that Dad was very generous and fair and that made more business come our way. Eventually we got to the point of selling thousands of gallons of berries each season.

Mom would never want the first berries in the spring. These were the ones that were bright red and huge. Just looking at them would make your mouth water. Most people would ask for those but not mom. She would always wait until the end of the season when the berries were smaller and a deeper red. Then she would ask for her share of the crop. These late berries had a sweeter taste. Sure, it took longer to clean and process them but it was well worth the effort. The jams and jellies she made from this fruit was the best and it was always a great treat to pull a box of sweetened berries from the freezer on a snowy winter day and taste summer sunshine. I think back on this now when I go out to buy strawberries for myself, might I say at a ridiculous price, and I try to choose the smalls berries in the bunch because I know they will taste the best. 

This business for us lasted about twenty years. By the time I graduated high school, there were no more children left at home to help Dad and his age had slowed him down. Eventually, he let the strawberry patch go but even after our crops had gone and we no longer kept it producing, we would get phone calls asking if we still had strawberries for sale. I guess Dad had a good idea after all. That business kept our family going for many years all for the price of a few plants, some fertilizer, and several strapping young kids capable of picking their share of red summer sunshine. Oh, the memories it brings for all of us. Thank you, Dad, for teaching us another lesson in life.

I hope y'all enjoyed Jequeta's short story as much as I did. She couldn't have sent it to me at a more perfect time because I've had strawberries on my mind for the past month! I agree with Jequeta...they do taste like summer. If you missed my post last week and would like to make some jam with all of the strawberries that seems to be poppin' up, you can find my post and recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Jam here. Does strawberries taste like summer to you too? 

Memories Of Home

Today's guest post is by Jequeta Mullins Briskey. Jequeta was the youngest of 11 children and she grew up in Clintwood, Virginia. She didn't start writing until after she was married and most of her short stories and poems are centered around growing up in southwestern Virginia. She currently lives in northwestern Ohio with her husband, John, and they have 3 children, 8 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren.  

Jequeta's parents at their 50th Anniversary, 1979.

Memories of Home

I went back once more to the home of my birth, 

That's when I realized how much memories are worth.

The home that my father had built with his hands

had lost all it's luster, but serenely stands. 

The kitchen was downstairs, the bedrooms above.

The living room, the "can house"; they were all built with love.

The front porch, so big, was adorned with two swings.

Relived in my memory, how much pleasure it brings.

I remember the river once so clear, flowing free.

I remember every rock, every bush, every tree. 

The animals we had both for food and for fun. 

The strawberries we picked in the hot blazing sun. 

The meals my mom cooked on the ancient old stove.

We walked to the store 'cause nobody drove.

My dad told us stories of when he was a boy.

We kids played for hours with our handmade toys.

When winter winds came and the world seemed at rest, 

it was time to do quilting and mom was the best.

Her fingers would fly making stitch after stitch,

and when it was needed, she could yield a mean switch.

My dad was a giant, both gentle and kind.

His voice was enough to make us kids mind.

I remember him plowing and clearing the land

to start a new garden to feed all his clan.

My mind overflowing with memories of home, 

as I stand there staring at the life I had known.

There were no flowers in the yard anymore. 

The little creek was gone. It had been there before.

As I relived the memories of my childhood years,

I couldn't stop my eyes from filling with tears.

I couldn't believe, but I should have known

how time changes things after you've grown.

So, I vowed then and there to never return.

I would never go back, though my heart it would yearn.

If I ever feel the need to return back home, 

I would do it in my memory because memories live on. 

I hope you enjoy Jequeta's poem as much as I did. I shared one of her short stories, Summer In The Mountains, last month. If you missed it, you can find it HERE.

Summer In The Mountains

Today's guest post is by Jequeta Mullins Briskey. Jequeta was the youngest of 11 children and she grew up in Clintwood, Virginia. She didn't start writing until after she was married and most of her short stories are centered around growing up in southwestern Virginia. She currently lives in northwestern Ohio with her husband, John, and they have 3 children, 8 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren.  

Jequeta's childhood home in Clintwood, VA.

Summer In The Mountains

By the time the morning sun topped the tree line on the ridge by our mountain home, everyone in our family had finished breakfast and moved on to their specific chores for the day. Breakfast came early at our house. We were to be up and ready to eat breakfast by 6:00 a.m. every day. Cows were waiting to be milked, hogs waiting to be slopped, chickens waiting to be fed, eggs waiting to be gathered and the family dog Rookie waiting for another adventure with my brother Johnnie. The girls had the inside chores like making beds, washing dishes and sweeping floors right after breakfast. Mom would usually be in the kitchen preparing to cook, can, freeze or bake anything that had been harvested from our gardens. Dad would be out on the mountainside working to keep down the weeds or burning off the trees, twigs, weeds or bushes as a way of strengthening up the soil to start yet another garden spot for more crops. We raised all the usual, including corn, beans, peas, lettuce, carrots, onions, beets, squash, pumpkins, watermelon, and okra (my least favorite). We also had fruit trees which included apple, pear, peach and papaw (which was dad's favorite). Growing wild in the area was blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries and ground cherries. Of course, my dad had his well known strawberry patch which I am sure helped clothe us and keep shoes on our feet throughout the year.
After all our chores were done, we could run wild in the mountains as we pleased. Johnnie would take the dog Rookie and play his games of Cowboys and Indians. Joyce, Marline and I would never venture far from the house. We spent a lot of our time on the big front porch swinging and dreaming through the Sears and Roebuck catalog, planning our future. Many times there were interruptions of Mom calling us to come wash up some canning jars or churn up some buttermilk or help string some beans, or hang some clothes on the line. It seemed there was always something to do especially in the summer.
The mountains held all the entertainment we needed. All around us were a multitude of lessons to be learned from experience. We learned early what was safe and what was not. Swinging on the wild grape vines that intertwined thorough the expanse of trees surrounding our home was something we could not resist, even with the warnings from our Mom that they were unsafe. We could always find something to snack on throughout the hillside. Mountain Teaberry is an experience that is beyond belief. Though the berries are hard to find and as hard to see, the taste is worth the effort of the search. If you have never heard of this treat, just imagine Teaberry Gum in its true organic form. We also could chew on birch bark from young birch trees. And though we had a huge strawberry patch at our disposal, we would gladly forego those to have strawberries growing wild in the mountains. And a cool mountain stream was never far away if we were thirsty.
Rookie was our faithful watch dog and we could always tell by his bark whether there was an intrusive animal about or if a stranger was lurking around, or even if he had roused up a copperhead. The air in the mountains was clear and refreshing. The sounds of critters and crickets were always present. During the day, we could hear all kinds of birds including the woodpecker, the bob white and the ever present crow raiding our corn patch. Sometimes Mom would allow us the take out the old .22 rifle and shoot a warning shot to scare them away. However I am sure they ate more in corn than the cost of the shells we wasted. As dusk fell, we would watch and listen for the elusive whippoorwill. As night time grew we would all gather on the front porch and share the quiet of the evening with a chorus of croaking frogs in the nearby river. Two swings and many chairs, most likely home made, offered us comfort as we rested our bodies from the days work. In the cooler evenings. we would have a quilt to work on instead of sitting outside. I have spent many hours sitting with my dad on that front porch watching a thunder storm move into the area or move off into another direction as the rain fell and serenade us with the gentle sound of nature.
As summer drew to a close we would find a new crop of treats out in the mountains. Chinquapins, beech nuts, butternuts as well as black walnuts were plentiful. The cooler autumn days drew us deep into the mountains searching for ginseng which we dug, brought home to dry and sold for a nice price. We never knew for sure where this ginseng ended up but we sure enjoyed the search for the big red berries that honed us in to that much sought after treasure. As the days marched on and the winter winds blew, we could bring summer time back again by opening up a quart of green beans or corn from our can house or a pint of frozen strawberry jam from the freezer. We knew the mountains awaited us for yet another year of work and pleasure as we enjoyed summer in our Appalachian Mountains.

I hope you enjoy this short story as much as I did! I look forward to sharing more from Jequeta in the future.