“Straw Tick,” Grandaddy said to me, “these hot July days remind me of back when I plowed the corn fields behind my old mule Halfwit. I took good care of that mule, Straw Tick. Mind you, I did.”
“Lost him one blistering summer day while we was plowing the cornfield. It got so dang hot, all them kernels on the cob began popping.”
“Did the popping corn scare Halfwit to death?” I asked Granddaddy.
Grandaddy shook his head sadly. “No, Straw Tick. Wasn’t the popping that got him. That ignorant mule thought the popcorn was snow and froze to death.”
About my grandaddy and these stories of his:
My granddaddy was born and lived all his life in eastern North Carolina. He worked as a sharecropper while my grandma kept the house, took care of the kids, tended the family garden, and looked after the chickens.
Fishing and hunting were an important part of family life when my dad grew up. They were the main source of protein other than the hens who’d grown too old to lay eggs.
Granddaddy used to love telling me stories when we’d fish together those weeks in the summer I’d spend with him and Grandma. Did he borrow some of these stories? Perhaps. Are some of them stories I’ve dreamed up that I could imagine him telling? Possibly. Either way, I’ve shared them here with my readers. Enjoy.
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