The Lemonade Prescription

By Lou Tyner

Once upon a time, a childhood didn't include cell phones, texting, email and video games; no instant music, flat irons, silky hair products and malls for every good thing, needed or not.

After the big money crash in 1929, followed by many years of the Great Depression, our community stuck together. The Depression babies arrived all through the thirties and when World War II arrived, jobs were greatly appreciated but young men went off to fight and so many to die.

With the men away at war or working, women joined together to raise the children. An old African saying, it takes a village to raise a child, was recently brought to the fore. This is something I found to be very true during my early years. In fact, it was how our community operated. That's what I found growing up in a small rural southern community centered around church and school.

Everybody looked out for each other and relied on each other. Sometimes being close knit spilled over into a lack of privacy, usually it involved gossip, but mostly tender loving care.

These are the depression years and the war years my parents' generation endured.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781641387422

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The Lemonade Prescription

Lou Tyner

Copyright © 2018 Lou Tyner

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64138-741-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64138-742-2 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to my grandchildren, twins Christopher and Christen, Paul, Harvill, Georgia, and Madison Grace.

Once upon a time, a childhood without cell phones, texting, e-mail, and video games existed. There was no instant music, flat irons, silky hair products, or malls for every good thing, needed or not.

Of course I want you all to enjoy all of the above and good modern changes. Just remember to ask, How much is enough? Don’t be pulled into a self-absorbed culture where it’s all about me.

Here is what I know. Love is the answer. Love each other always. It is the greatest power in the world and it lights up the world. It is the only law you need. It fully satisfies all of God’s requirements, so I leave you with two things:

Do everything with love.

And Believe. Jesus said, It is done as you believe.

Also dedicated to my mother who spent her whole life taking care of others.

Home is where the heart is. Home is where it all starts and memories, at least for most of us, are forever, the past is part of us, good or bad. Certainly not to dwell on, but to perhaps understand a little better. One prominent writer once said that the past is never past. The most valuable gift is today. Live and love today.

About this Book

After the big money crash in 1929, followed by such a severe Depression, our Kelleytown community stuck together. Blessed with sun and rain and good soil, food could be grown. Sun and rain were free, but not everyone owned land. Landowners, the old ladies said, planted more and shared as much as possible with relatives and neighbors. Of course people still suffered. Lack of jobs just lasted so long. Many worked and bartered for food.

The Depression babies arrived all through the thirties. We learned early that all the money had gone away. Disappeared. As one of those babies, arriving in 1937, growing up with siblings and cousins who lived nearby was fun. We made our own fun exploring the woods, climbing trees, playing Tarzan, roaming the farms, and hours of baseball. Our biggest treat was seven cents for a Coke at the country store. Or five for a candy bar. Mostly we settled for penny candy.

The grown-ups talked about the War. Our soldiers over there. Overseas. Fighting and dying. The whole world at war. First, the Depression and no money, and now some jobs and some money but they were sending their men away to fight.

Mama arrived in our Kelleytown community as a bride in 1933, one of the most severe years of the Depression. In her teens, she had already learned to make do, use ingenuity, use what was at hand. And from her church, she had learned to always do right no matter what. She had been severely disappointed when forced to drop out of school along with many others. But it wasn’t my nature, she said, to dwell on loss, on negatives. She believed in forging ahead one way or another.

An old African saying, It takes a village to raise a child, was recently brought to the fore. This is something I found to be very true during my early years. In fact, it was how our community operated. Mama’s Ladies Aid group and her Sunday school class (the same group) ruled. The men worked to make the living and the women raised the children. Together. All the children had the same rules. No food between meals, church on Sunday, school rules, and manners always. No talking back to an adult. Ever. Any adult could correct any child. And if a child messed up, all the women knew and the mother of that child was embarrassed.

This was more easily achieved because our church was the center of the community and our school was next door to the church. Everything happened in one place or the other.

Our special advantage was our town, only four miles away. It had a movie theater, shops, hospital, drug store, library, and food stores. A trip to town was a treat. Little money but a treat all the same. especially, Saturday afternoon movies.

My purpose in attempting this memoir was simply to give my grandchildren some idea of the old days.

Sometimes they ask but cannot always comprehend such a setting. It is simply written from the viewpoint of an eight-year-old, based on listening to grown-ups talk and on my own long-ago memories. Maybe it will shed some light on those Depression and war years their great-grandparents endured.

It was August 1944. Hot.

Dog days, everyone said. Not fit for man or beast.

Grown-ups had talked about the weather all summer.

Hotter than usual they said. Stifling. Sultry.

I’d quit my baseball game early. A whole summer in the sun and I still had to worry about sunburn. Baseball was our favorite game and kept us in the sun for hours. We’d take shade breaks to cool off, but my sisters and I were blond and fair.

Towheads, some people would say. I didn’t like that word. It meant we wouldn’t turn brown like some of our cousins. We’d turn pinkish like our blood was trying to seep out. I wore an old baseball cap but that didn’t protect my poor ears.

I was burned and Mama would fuss. And she did.

Short shorts and halter top, she complained. In this sun.

No protection at all.

That Carolina sun. Mama sighed. That’s what she always said.

Daddy said that Mama thought the sun was owned and operated by the state of South Carolina.

That’s where we lived. South Carolina. The Palmetto State. Pee Dee River country. The Piedmont where cotton and tobacco reigned. Plenty of flat soil and rain and plenty of sunny days. Peaches, pecans, peanuts, and vegetables of all kinds. Lots of flowers too.

Our town was Hartsville. Mama loved Hartsville. The best town she’d ever been in. Daddy had brought her here on the day they married in 1933, one of the worst years of the Great Depression.

The Depression, Mama said, had ended her dream of becoming a nurse. She’d always loved the idea of making her own way, being independent. She’d loved the idea of taking care of the sick and suffering. She was sure she could make a difference; sure, she had talent for it. Now she was moving in a whole new direction. Her dream was lost but she was happy about her marriage and loved Daddy very much.

Hartsville, Mama said, had everything a person needed and more. It was attractive and clean and the people so neighborly and kind.

It had a library, movie theater, churches, schools, and some really nice stores, not that she had much money to spend.

And most amazing of all, Mama exclaimed, a school for girls. Right here in town.

Oh, to be enrolled.

Here she was married, school days gone forever, and now living within a few miles of a good school. She wanted to study and learn at a time when people were struggling for survival.

But, Mama said, "it wasn’t my nature to dwell on losses and regret. I’d learned to live in the present. Day by day.

But to live in a town. All that activity. Walking everywhere. Being in on what was happening. But as it was, we were living a few miles out in a community called Kelleytown. Daddy was born and raised on a farm there.

As the only son still at home and running the farm in partnership with his elderly father, he had worked hard to hold on since the great money crash.

I loved Kelleytown right away, Mama said. It was a tight-knit community centered around the Baptist church.

Everyone was supportive of each other, Mama said, "at a time when it was most needed. The Depression was pressing everyone.

"Your daddy and I had a bedroom in his parents’ house just down from the church. We had land, meat, vegetables and fruits, and the great luxury of a car. Very little money but blessed with family and close-knit neighbors.

A little bit of gas money to get around was the treat I looked forward to. A Sunday drive, stopping for a Coke or an ice-cream cone and visiting relatives and old friends.

That was all the entertainment we could hope for. At least we were near the church, school, and country store and had neighbors.

I plopped myself down in the porch swing and gave myself a push, hoping for a little breeze. Pushing back and forth. My sisters and I loved our swing and our front porch. Being outside but under a roof was the best, especially on a rainy day.

Mama and Aunt Martha were sitting and rocking and shelling butter beans and peas.

No air movin’, my aunt said, fanning herself with her Kelleytown Baptist Church fan.

Even that shower yesterday was steamy, Mama said.

Mama and my four aunts gathered almost every day during the heat of the day, after twelve noon dinner and dishes; it was most often on Mama’s porch because she was the most centrally located. Everyone loved Mama’s porch because you could see the country store from there and who was coming and going, which was great for conversation.

And anything going on at the church next door could be watched.

Mama and my aunts and all the women in Kelleytown got up before light to get their work done before the heat of the day. They gathered, cleaned, washed vegetables, cooked twelve noon dinner, did the dishes, and headed for the porch when it was too hot to do anything.

In their lightest, coolest house dresses, they headed for the porch, hoping for any possible breeze. They still had to shell beans and peas for the next day and for canning and they figured they might as well do it together and visit. Visit meaning talking about everything.

Porches were important. The best ones extended across the entire front of the house, were deep, and were covered with the same roof as the rest of the house. Even better, some extended around another side of the house like Daddy’s old home place. Some even extended around both sides of the house.

My sisters and I agreed that every porch should have a swing at each end. We shared one swing because our porch didn’t cover the width of our house. Our porch chairs were rather crowded but everyone seemed to find a seat.

Lila Rose and Flossie should be here anytime, Mama said, And maybe Edith too.

Miss Edie lived across the road and was like an aunt to us.

My sisters and cousins, eight in all, often met on the porch of the old home place to sit and talk and make plans for the afternoon. If the school playground was too hot, we’d often head for the family woods where it was cooler, to climb trees and pretend to be Tarzan, or just go exploring.

I love August for three reasons, I said.

That child has three reasons for everything, my aunt Flossie said.

A born list maker, Mama said, laughing.

Loves her chores listed and numbered, Mama added. Notes on her bureau and in the drawers with her clothes.

They both laughed.

First of all, I continued, it’s my birth month. I’ll be eight years old on the thirty-first.

Second, I said, hurrying before the subject could be changed, August means another month of summer before school.

Third, I love August because of the heat, I said.

Now that would take some explaining, my aunt said. Before I could explain, Miss Edie arrived and explaining forgotten. Grown-ups liked to talk themselves, better than listening to a child.

I loved August because the heat forced everyone, even the men, outside to the porch whenever they found a moment to sit. Especially after supper. Fall, sunny days of winter and spring too.

Even for my sisters and cousins, it was sometimes too hot to play inside or outside in the sun. We loved porch time too. You could be outside but out of the sun and listen to grown-ups talking. They talked about church, gardens, weather, and crops, but they always came back to the war.

For as long as I could remember, grown-ups talked about the war.

The war over there.

Overseas.

Our boys over there, fighting and dying.

Dying on foreign soil.

Gold star mothers whose sons were never coming back.

The whole world at war, Mama said, shaking her head and fanning herself.

Ten million Americans in uniform, Mama exclaimed. Mama loved numbers. One way or another, everyone and everything was connected to a number.

When will it all end? Aunt Martha asked.

The scary part about the war was that they talked about more than one war. It was hard to tell what was happening now and what had happened in the past.

There was the war-that-happened-when-Mama-was-a- little-girl. The first war. Mama’s favorite uncle, so young and so handsome, went away to war and never came home. He was buried somewhere in France. Buried in foreign soil. Mama didn’t approve of foreign soil, especially being buried in it.

Someday, Mama said, I’d like to visit his grave. But she knew she’d never get there. It was overseas where she’d never go.

Old people always wanted to visit graves. Pay their respect to the dead. On our Sunday drives, Mama always wanted to stop at cemeteries and look around at all the monuments. She’d read the names and dates and anything that told about the person buried there. It seemed like any cemetery would do. The aunts said that it was a Southern thing, as if that explained it.

Daddy didn’t like cemeteries at all. Neither did my sisters and I. We’d run all over the place while Mama examined graves. Daddy’d find a good shade tree, smoke his Camel cigarettes, pace back and forth, and wait.

Daddy said it was a good thing Mama liked cemeteries since she had one practically in her own backyard, just behind the Baptist church next door.

You won’t have to visit my grave, Daddy said. You can see it every day from the window over your kitchen sink.

My sisters and I thought it was very funny but Mama didn’t laugh.

Then there was the second war. The war-that-was- happening-now. Planes had come across the ocean, bombed our ships, and killed our soldiers. Everyone was really mad about it. Scary voices on the radio told about it and grown-ups talked about it every day.

Bombs were falling. Somewhere overseas. People living in their cellars. Children were sent away. Away from their parents and their homes. That was the scariest part. What if the war spread to us? Grown-ups said it had spread all over the world. What if my sisters and I were sent away?

Who would take care of us?

All the men had hurried to join up to fight. The older men were really mad when told they were too old to fight. The government only wanted young men.

Your daddy wanted to go off to fight, Mama said. He was young enough but they were starting with men without children to support. He had to go to Fort Jackson to sign up and was told he might be called at a later date. Your daddy was disappointed but I was very relieved.

Then there was the-war-that-happened-a-long-time- ago. The scariest war of all. Soldiers came through South Carolina and burned all the houses. They camped on the very ground that was later my grandfather’s farm. They camped on the land where our house now stood.

The commander of that army had made his headquarters in the Jacob Kelley House, just across from where our church now stood. He liked the house they said, and when he left, he told his men not to burn it.

It was a long time ago, but when the grown-ups talked about it, it seemed like now. As near as I could figure, if soldiers came once, they might come again.

"That child has a