Growing up Country: A Hard Row to Hoe

By Arthur Ferrell Wilson

For a boy growing up in the crawfish dirt of Northeast Louisiana, the real world can look harsh and bewildering, even unfriendly toward its culturally and economically challenged rural neighbors. We came to understand that with hard work, sacrifice, and determination, anyone can rise above his lowly circumstances. Our cotton patch successes and failures taught us to appreciate what we have and accept our lot with humility until we can overcome the challenges and fulfill our dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524502645

Arthur Ferrell Wilson

Arthur Ferrell Wilson, age seventy-four, of Bossier City, Louisiana, spent his working years in mass communications and sales, traveling the land and observing the proud traditions of faith, service, and sacrifice that nurtured this proud nation. A child of the flat delta lands of northeastern Louisiana, he saw up close how a struggling family farm culture sustained generations with hard work, character, and perseverance against a backdrop of disease, war, flooding, and crop failure.

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Copyright © 2016 by Arthur Ferrell Wilson.

ISBN:  Softcover  978-1-5245-0265-2

            eBook  978-1-5245-0264-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 10/28/2016

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Contents

Preface

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1 - Cultural Traditions and Magnetic Personalities

Chapter 2 - The Proof Was in the Pudding

Chapter 3 - Colorful Stories and Family History

Chapter 4 - Catching Up With Running Water

Chapter 5 - A Swampland of Danger and Fascination

Chapter 6 - Titillations and Trepidations

Chapter 7 - Visitors From Far and Wide

Chapter 8 - Keeping Up With the Joneses

Chapter 9 - Grandpa’s Shiny Truetone Radio

Chapter 10 - No Prize Catch Today

Chapter 11 - Granny and Her Go-to-Meetin’ Bonnet

Chapter 12 - Witney, the Family Curmudgeon

Chapter 13 - Lost Fingers and Lost Patience

Chapter 14 - Coming of Age and Then Some

Chapter 15 - Hard Work, Chutzpa and Tomfoolery

Chapter 16 - A Goat for All Seasons

Chapter 17 - Tall Bigfoot -- Or Tall Tale

Chapter 18 - A Labor of Love, Sweat and Fears

Chapter 19 - Muddling Through Somehow

Chapter 20 - An Unremarkable Teenager

Chapter 21 - Getting It Together

Chapter 22 - The Boy Learns to Accept Himself

Chapter 23 - He Even Surprises Himself

Epilogue

Preface

This fictional account examines the life of Devon Alfred James, who grew up just across the fields from his grandparents on a small cotton farm in the flatlands of northeastern Louisiana during the 1940-50s. His flowering reveals how a constrictive lifestyle, personalities, and cosmology shaped a boy of that stoic, agrarian culture. The narrative and characters may come through as surreal, trying to capture clarity and significance. Any similarity to actual people and places is coincidental, with no malice toward anyone. – Arthur Ferrell Wilson.

Dedication

To my son, who died in a trucking terminal accident at age 33.

Prologue

A Song: Country Boy Raisin’s

Don’t think country boy raisin’s so easy forgotten,

’Cause every day was a struggle just gettin’ by.

My daddy said hush, boy, keep choppin’ that cotton.

We’ll fish when it rains, or when the cotton’s laid by.

This poor Louisiana boy learned to work and wish.

Franks River bottomland lay a few miles away,

But our farm wasn’t fit for growing nothin’ but crawfish.

Drought would ruin the crop, or the hens wouldn’t lay.

Our little clapboard shack didn’t have no screens,

And the tin roof echoed with the rain and sleet.

But we sure loved Momma’s cornbread and turnip greens.

Flour sack shirts and Sunday church made our life complete.

Sure, we’d work long hours with no time to tarry.

Then boll weevils would come, or the floodwaters would flow.

We would work in the fields till brown as a berry,

Our old hats in tatters; and our red necks would show.

The townspeople would sneer when we would walk past them.

Often we ate taters. Sometimes Daddy would cry.

We asked for God’s blessings, but the pickin’s were slim.

Sunday brought fried chicken and sweet tater pie.

I go back to visit. The old folks are gone now,

But there’s a beautiful memory behind every tree.

I almost see Daddy watch the new tractors plowing,

And hear Momma sing Old Rugged Cross to me.

One day I’ll be back with kin and friends around us,

Where my gravesite awaits as it has through the years.

I still hear Daddy saying, "Our good works outlast us,

And that spiteful townsfolks just ain’t worth your tears.

Chapter 1

Cultural Traditions and Magnetic Personalities

You could always pick up a ghost story or two, or get an update on the family goings-on, or maybe get a report on the latest political scandals from around the state and the nation—and always have a bounty of larruping food to count on. Those Sunday gatherings at the James home place served as a constant reminder of the family identity and how the grand couple formed the hub of the wheel of generations. They projected a sense of unity, duty, independence, and charity so vital among country folks in the James family’s world. Those qualities ultimately shaped Devon Alfred James for a successful life despite drawbacks, detours, and disappointments.

All comers would attest to his grandparents’ fine character and social prominence. They were Mr. Jethro White James and Mrs. Allie—Granny and Grandpa to Devon. Her flair for hospitality and his gift for spinning anthology-like historical accounts of family and neighbors became legendary. No one could recall when, but the honored tradition began long before Devon was old enough to attend. Somebody had called it the Sunday Social, and the label stuck.

It seemed to Devon the grand gatherings just happened spontaneously on frequent Sundays, but likely the event must have been a planned monthly affair, often canceled by some crisis. When Devon was just a child, the grand event seemed larger than life to him. Everyone would express eagerness to be on hand for another of Mista Jethro’s storytelling sessions—with formal protocols in place to ensure dignity for all worthy adults. That meant special emphasis in a direct address on the title, first, and middle names as accorded to such personages of local distinction.

In those days at social gatherings everywhere, a raconteur was welcomed as a major entertainment treat and for passing on meaningful current events and family and lifestyle legends. The social attracted scores of people of all ages from all directions and via all types of conveyance. They also shared their own colorful stories dear to hearts of city, farm, and swamp. Visitors would chatter about World War I (the war to end all wars), the Second World War, social and political issues, family legends, and news of weddings, births, and passings.

Guests began arriving before noon. The eager founders of the feast, as everyone knew, would be seated like nobility holding court, waiting to welcome each adult with poise and graciousness. Devon was proud of his grands. They were heroic and timeless. Still, they would shoo him away when he sidled too close underfoot. Their chairs were plain but their congeniality noble.

The crowd strained the simple accommodations during the summer months. Wall-to-wall folks, his grandfather called it with a grin. In inclement weather, the gatherings comprised only a smattering of dear relatives and friends of long acquaintance, conscientious enough about space limitations to leave older children and friends at home.

His grandfather’s farm lay northwest of Murphy, nestled among the sloughs, brakes, and bayous of Raddison Parish in northeast Louisiana. Meandering and mingling, the capillaries carry names like Mule Slough, Crank Bayou, Quail Creek, and Forks Brake. The character of wetlands geology, pivotal to everyone’s livelihood, gave inhabitants a sense of identity, belonging. As in delta lands everywhere, that part of Louisiana had been settled at a time when frequent inundations gave the roiling waterways dominion over population. Everyone lived it. Those swampy woodlands provided food, transportation, and natural boundaries for settlers, meting gains and losses in life and fortune.

Population and sparse industrial development along the endlessly intertwined waterways meant increased focus on flood control issues affecting prosperity for the town, village, and farmstead dwellers demanding reduced duration of flooding. That watershed was crisscrossed by rivers, creeks, bayous, and swamps. Scores of miles farther east, the mighty Mississippi River raged with the seasons. Only time could ease the problems of flooding in spring and fall—and especially hurricane season. Country youngsters grew up learning the lay of the land for fifty miles in every direction and how to deal firsthand with its fateful geography.

The locality remained in a constant state of flux between flooding woes and recovery. Individuals, inured to hardship, patterned their activities accordingly. In those days, flooding was the anathema to progress, and flood control resided mostly in theory. Cycles of devastation and adaptation sucked the vigor from the agricultural economy, leaving little disposable income. Mista Jethro, whose generation elevated dignity above fortune, was wont to say, Boy, it ain’t how much you earn, it is what you do with what you have left that matters.

The old man’s truisms, like flood control, seemed mostly theory to Devon. The oft-repeated accounts taught that vacillating conditions meant the very next farming season might culminate in a bountiful harvest—or crop failure—often without warning. Most of the formidable little floodways would give way to progress, dredged out to become boggy canals in the name of flood control. At times of flooding, the lesser waterways spilled over and spread wide across the roads, fields, pastures, and woodlands.

Visitors recounted how sometimes boaters would nail up signs in a flooded expanse to mark the confluence of the interconnecting forest-choked floodways flowing several feet above flood stage.

Overhanging foliage and Spanish moss streamers made open expanses appear strangely maze-like up close. Devon listened in stunned silence when family, friends, and neighbors found time to share their woes, visiting at coffee time or mealtime with news of road closures and such. The speedy disappearance of spring backwaters baffled young Devon. He would wake up one morning to hear how only swampy mud remained where lazy floodwaters had flowed.

Nowadays, only nearby property owners can tell you which ditch is which. Then, roadway signage offered limited help. Travel for pleasure was low on most folks’ priority list, especially if the roads were washed out or your conveyance was a pole barge. Mista Jethro’s laconic platitude was that the barge took you anywhere—so long as the river ran that way. Cars and trucks were meager and roadways challenging. Many attendees restricted their visits to the social to two or three times a year because of flood conditions and maybe poverty. Others living nearby made it a regular ritual, probably attracted by the fine food, socializing, or just the need to feel a sense of belonging.

The social reflected a certain pride in large families and close-knit neighborhoods. Mealtime helpers at the gathering had become adept at crowd accommodation. Arriving mothers would find a place in the crowd, help as hostesses, pitch in to organize the feast, or help shoo the children outside. They said they needed the elbow room, but one sure objective was to keep the delightful, heaping platters of food safe from sneaky taste-testers.

Devon suspected the women also wanted to clear the kitchen area so they could giggle and whisper about delicate matters without fear of eavesdropping. They weren’t gossiping, just catching up, Devon heard them assert with a grin. They took turns tending meal preparation in the sweltering kitchen heat, displaying their best gentility under the judgmental gaze of the older women. Their banter and guarded exchanges would stop and mouths would drop sheepishly with a sharp intake of breath whenever any dapper male interloper wandered into their domain near enough for direct address.

Some forceful women, ever quick to supervise—and invoke liberties—would shoo Devon’s mother, Miz Evonne, from the crowded kitchen. Wasting too much time dodging toes and needing supervision, they would smirk with a condescending smile. His mother seemed equally capable, just more servile. He felt resentful of their attitude.

Miz Evonne’s house, as Devon called his own home, lay about a half-mile away across the fields, and so his family often walked with covered dishes to the event. Fuel was too precious for short drives. His father, Joseph Hart James, Mista Joe to friends, even to Miz Evonne, had built the home with all the help he could get when he and Miz Evonne married, both age 25. Until about age 5, Devon mostly remained home with his momma, seldom taken anywhere except to visit his grandmother across the field.

Devon, born Devon Alfred James, a pompous moniker in his own mind, was noted for being confrontational, especially when his hair turned from white—towheaded, his daddy called it—to taunt-inducing red like his mother’s at about age 6. The name became an emotional burden to the feisty, clumsy, backward child carrying it around -- another tool for sibling derision. In his father’s oft-told story, his momma’s physician, Ol’ Doc Wortham, had insisted he should be named George Patton James, after the acclaimed general.

Devon was pleased that an old uncle was selected as his namesake. Maybe he tried too hard to live up to the expectations the name seemed to demand. That burden deepened with the lively imaginations of his brother and sister with their ceaseless jabbing at his shyness, hair color and cowlick, freckles, and stutter. Being a gangly towhead made to abhor even his own name, Devon had acquired a short fuse. His hair morphed to dirty red, instead of dark, like his obstreperous brother’s locks.

It was a sore subject with Devon, an ugly duckling, pugnacious from the continual bullying and teasing. Tormenting him became Henry Reid’s favorite pastime. Cruel sister Alice, the eldest, had magnified the curse, lording it equally over both of them like a spoiled princess from her position as de facto babysitter—and their father’s pet. There was no other peer interaction to temper Devon’s jaded playtime demeanor. Their mother, struggling with a lingering complication of childbirth, had to rely heavily on Alice’s help. Miz Evonne tried hard to keep up the household chores and care for her newborn, Jacob Wainright, leaving little nurturing time for Devon.

His father, oblivious to Devon’s disaffection, sometimes joined the taunting playfully. The boy’s awkwardness continued to mount. He was becoming more paranoid, withdrawn, and introverted with endless taunts. The continual hazing corrupted his view of child’s play. He knew only to taunt, hit, or insult as they did him. Brainwashed to the point of damaged psyche and eroded self-worth, he lacked communication skills. Any attempt to befriend a potential playmate was doomed to subversion. If his boyish affections might flare for a young girl playmate at family gatherings, the teasing would explode with renewed shame-inducing fury.

Denied any chance for friendship, Devon felt a growing dissociation. He pushed back at familiarity, which might be used against him. He shrank from abuse but overcompensated when riled up. He would strike back quixotic-like -- just in time to be blamed for disruptive behavior. He mostly lurked on the fringes of activity and watched, fearful of riling his irritable father, who was quick to yank a handful of Devon’s hair or apply a startling swat to the backside with much ado. His brand of corporal punishment was mostly benign, yet sudden and ego bruising. His tactic was always preceded by a corruption of the word here, grunted out as heaugh with the same nasality the plowmen used to command their mules.

Devon was allowed to attend the social only when he hadn’t already frayed his daddy’s nerves earlier in the day. Sometimes the juvenile games and frivolities would get out of hand. The antics often brought minor bickering and careless injuries. His grandmother was a stickler for manners and demanded a tone of civility. Everyone at the social was expected to follow her lead. Miz Allie insisted on good behavior from everyone and chastised succinctly when she saw some correcting needed to be done. She was a model of country grace, poise, and charm.

Hints of gentility and faded beauty glowed in her creamy square-faced countenance and coiffed, mousy yellow-tinged curls that turned cottony-white as the years wore on. Miz Allie’s house was a neat but plain country abode with no pretense of high styling. High net wire fence squared the yard. The kempt home shouted love and attention to detail, sporting new paint and repairs when affordable as the seasons filtered past. Mista Jethro always said keeping the back steps looking proud was a moral obligation for the man of the house.

His granny was well known to host a fine gathering, and Devon loved her. He could always count on her fair judgment, even though quick to punish. She kept a warm welcome ready for visitors anytime. She usually parked a pampered coffeepot on the back burner – and maybe a simmering pot of hearty beef stew alongside it -- and delicious homemade cake or butter rolls in the pie safe to satisfy the finickiest of palates. Recurring tiny handprints and smudges on window panes and door facings told a story of bright faces and happy times.

The exterior looked pleasant and well-tended. To Miz Allie, a yard was for growing flowers, not blades of grass. She always scraped away every sprig of grass. Her expansive flower garden screamed perky for Sunday Social. Each garden addition was a memento, a keepsake, a heartfelt reminder. They comprised her living history exhibit, a diary of sorts, of people and events in her life. She would hire the grandchildren to help in gardening -- for a nickel or dime, even a quarter for a carefully supervised day’s work.

Devon’s grandpa had hand-built Miz Allie’s house as a wedding present after they migrated the 10 miles from their sharecropper house near Franks River. They had lived in an existing shack until their new temporary home could be built and later replaced by a grander structure, erected by a crew of family members. The new house featured shiplap siding, later covered over by sand-covered tarpaper. After a decade, asbestos shingles would cloak the structure. Its corrugated tin roof sang with rain or sleet in inclement weather. Interior walls, grayed by fireplace smoke, got an occasional new coat of paint.

Sharing stories of family evolution thrilled Miz Allie greatly. Mista Jethro would sometimes share the story of the residence with the Sunday Social crowd. He talked of how he had installed rock wool insulation in the attic and exterior walls as modest protection against winter’s worst. He always said insulation was no place to pinch pennies. He would quickly add that they hadn’t always had pennies to pinch. Prominence is more propriety than proprietary, he would say. He greatly admired eloquence.

He liked to elaborate on finer points of carpentry as well as other farm tasks. He spoke of the need for extreme efforts in just getting by, sometimes facing frightful odds with crop failure or illness. One favorite digression involved the math of the house’s gabled roof and how he crafted the rafters at an angle established by the 3-4-5-foot rule for fitting the A-frame overhang where the roof attached. He had passed on his homebuilding skills to his son Joseph Hart, who would proudly chime in to explain how the 3-4-5 foot formula formed the perfect drop for a roof – a minimum of materials and just the right incline to shed water and snow. His proud father would add, Now, don’t measure in inches, for that increases the margin of error too much.

The old man had a way of interlacing his tales of his own exploits with diversions about how it took hard work, patience, tenacity, and love to succeed against the era’s daunting hardships. A good pantry can bridge the gap between successful garden years, he would say. Large gardens were essential for large families. Topics like home-grown foodstuffs and proper ways of preservation and preparation touched the hearts of those in attendance, especially the ladies, who often would exchange comments about how their own techniques might contrast to those Mista Jethro had described. Devon had no clue then of just how nerve-rattling the hard times must have been for his proud grands. To him, they made it look easy.

Chapter 2

The Proof Was in the Pudding

For Sunday Social, each woman would bring a covered-dish – plain proof of her own expertise. Even the humblest of foods wowed the crowd. Requests for second helpings always brought smiles. Exchange of recipes was the order of the day. It was clear that each cook knew she would depart the event with a renewed sense of pride and dignity, glowing over having honored her husband and family.

Any culinary coup would serve the family name well amid all the day’s sanguine rivalries. Devon’s mother always beamed and blushed when her own worthy cream corn casserole brought unbridled praise – a meaningful honor from such competent culinary artists. Mista Joe, a hard-working and well-respected farmer, cattle grower and carpenter, was proud of his Miz Evonne and her fine cooking -- and quick to say so. Humble wife and mother, she was often timid and unassuming, quite competent and talented, and yet easily put down by domineering older women who would manipulate and cajole her into subservience.

The more pedantic ladies would call her a shrinking violet. Devon’s ears would perk up when the dowagers would babble softly when she would leave the room, poking fun at her plain manner of dress and apologetic demeanor. Her upbringing as a foster child had meant a life of hard work, maybe slave-like conditions, which Devon would come to suspect had meant abuse and cruelty. Devon never heard her talk about her childhood except with vague references. Whenever visitors would mention her foster families, she would usually respond in single syllables and pained expressions. As usual, most such topics eluded the youngster’s grasp.

Several women, dear family friends who lived fairly close, eagerly rushed in to be a part of the Sunday Social. They would come a few hours before noon to help organize the grand feast so that Granny could be free to attend church services, mostly at Hemphill Baptist Church, a couple of miles away as the crow flies, the religious heart of the Hammer Community. An honored member, she insisted on attending every Sunday, sparing crisis. There she would always invite the pastor, any visiting preacher and church friends to the social, where they could expect a gracious welcome. Elevated status and special invitation superseded the covered dish rule.

With or without invitation, preachers were welcomed as heroes of divine calling who added social flair to any gathering. It was the way of such country events in those days. They were known to be delightful company, always eager to preach, sing, pray, and flail as long and loud as opportunity permitted -- with tears on demand to punctuate their holy message. If convinced his tears represented the dissipation of their forgiven sins, he -- or she, as Devon would hear tell of sometimes – might have the worshippers weeping right along with him.

The concept of lady preacher confounded most common folks. They might have to talk about all that blood sacrificing and begetting, and putting names to all those specific sins that might doom souls to hell – much too graphic for genteel ladyships, Devon thought. Mere survival on the church revival circuit took a certain poise and showmanship. Copious dinner invites and notable fund-raising successes spoke to the formidability of such self-described activists for God. Such feats became part of any artful introduction. Anytime clergymen arrived in fancy cars and tailored suits, they defused any crass comment with levity about having taken no vows of poverty.

Fancy evangelists came across to Devon like prancing roosters basking in notoriety and public acclaim wherever they went, usually guest-preaching at church renewals. He always felt a derision in their practiced stares. Their clothes and cars reflected some measure of panache. His grandpa might find parallels in the parable about the rich man, the camel and the eye of a needle although the camel image took a while for Devon to unravel. For the handsome ones, there was never a shortage of unmarried hostesses butterflying about.

Watchful mothers would beam as older daughters interacted with the dignified attendees, gentrified special guests or preacher types with grace and aplomb. Local parsons rated much the same as free-ranging evangelists, no more dedicated, just more ensconced with the added stability of congregational validation. Pastors were family oriented -- married or widower. Most were worthily ordained and credentialed.

Hemphill Church’s preacher, the Rev. Mr. Blake