Halloweens Past

When I was growing up, Halloween was something that I always looked forward to with much anticipation.  I can still remember my first Halloween mask.  My mom took me to the Ben Franklin store in Hillsville, Virginia.  I got to pick out my own mask!  It was a monster with this horrible itchy black hair sticking out.  Do you remember those old masks back in the 70s that were very difficult to breathe in?   The whole inside would collect the moisture from your breathe and start sweating, so pretty soon, your whole face would be wet. Ick. And remember those stretchy little cords that went around your head?  That thing would always get caught in my long hair and make a tangled mess, pulling out gobs of hair.  But, it was so much fun!

I remember in 1973, mom and dad were having a bunch of remodeling work done on our house.  While part of it was going on, we were living in my uncle's little log cabin just up the road. There was no indoor plumbing!  When Halloween rolled around that year, it was a gloomy and cloudy, and it was blowing snow.  I can remember daddy telling me that he did not know if I would be able to go trick-or-treating because of the snow.  I remember the panic!  OH NO!!!  As it turned out, we did end up going.

Trick-or-Treating was always quite the ordeal.  Where I grew up, there wasn't really a street to go begging on, so mom and dad loaded me up in the car and drove from house-to-house. They would pull into the driveway and I would hop out of the car and run up to the door and scream TRICK-OR-TREAT!!  I can remember them telling me to never take off my mask and let anyone see who I really was because that was half of the the fun.  We also never started trick-or-treating until it was completely dark. That was part of the fun!

As I got older and started school, my friends and I would go together and each year.  Out parents would take turns driving us around. We always took great pleasure in going to our teacher's homes because we really did think that they would not recognize us.  Right.  I can remember one year going to my first grade teacher's home. Mrs. Ada Shelor greeted us at the door and invited us in.  Well, even though I had been told to not go inside, this was my first grade teacher!  She had an elaborate table set up with punch and CUPCAKES!  I always thought that cupcakes were just magical, so I was pretty excited.  She offered us a cupcake on a plate and a cup of punch. That is when it hit me!  HOW was I going to drink and eat with my mask on??  Impossible!  I tried to take the cupcake and punch and head for the door, but she was very insistent that we enjoy it there! Now what?!  Dad had told me to never take my mask off and here was my teacher telling me to do it.  What do you think I did?  I yanked that mask off so that I could eat that cupcake!

Another teacher's home that we all looked forward to visiting was Mrs. Pauline Cock's home. Her and her husband would do some elaborate decorations. (This was long before Halloween became such a commercial venture with everyone decorating.  Most homes back then just turned on the porch light, put a jack o'lantern on the steps, and maybe had a cardboard cutout skeleton or witch on the door.)  I can remember one year, as we were starting to walk back to the car after receiving our treats, a ghost came flying out of the woods straight at us!!!  AIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!  Talk about some little girls running back to the car! Hee!  Mr. & Mrs. Cock had rigged up a ghost (a sheet) on a wire and had a pulley system that would make it look like the ghost was chasing you!

Another house that I remember quite well, although I can't remember who lived there, was just past Mrs. Cock's home.  It was a big, white two story farmhouse. One year, there was a bubbling cauldron set up just outside the door and the lady that answered our call of "TRICK-OR-TREAT" was dressed as a scary, green-skinned witch!!!  She really did scare me!

Of course, as we got a bit older, we would all go to one of our houses and set up elaborate decorations and try to scare the trick-or-treaters. One year, we set up in our carport. We had a bubbling caldron and all kinds of spooky decorations. One of us would hand out the treats and the others would be sitting very still on the ground, covered by a sheet. When the children would get the treats, we would jump up and chase the kids back to the car!

One year, we all went to my friend Debbie's house and we did a similar setup, but after the trick-or-treaters, we started walking to neighbor's homes where we soaped their windows and toilet papered their bushes and trees. We were bad! As we were walking along the road back to my friend's house, some of the older boys in the neighborhood drove by and threw eggs at us. Of course, I was the unlucky one and got pegged right in the ear with an egg. Not only did it hurt, but have you ever tried to wash raw egg OUT of your ear?  No fun. The next morning, we did go back to the neighbor's homes and clean up the mess we had made. 

The trunk or treats that seem so popular now just lack the fun, excitement, and spookiness of real trick-or-treating.  It is a shame that our world has become so unsafe that children cannot experience the fun and joy of All Hallow's Eve.

Reconnecting with Your Teachers

 Meadows of Dan Cardinals
This little guy looks MUCH more ferocious
than our mascot did back in the 1970s!

 

In October 2011, just after the Meadows of Dan Elementary School burned, I wrote a blog post entitled "Tribute to a Wonderful Teacher" about Miss Ruth Jean Bolt, one of my teachers. She was my fifth grade teacher and she also taught science and art to the sixth and seventh grade. At the time of my original post, many of my elementary school classmates and school teacher friends encouraged me to send her a copy. I thought about sending it, but then, like so many things, I kept on putting if off.

Finally, just before Christmas, I printed the post and mailed it to Miss Bolt. Just this week, one of my friends from Meadows of Dan sent me a message to let me know that Miss Bolt wanted to talk to me.  Now, I'm not much for talking on the phone and I try to avoid it whenever possible. For me, talking on the phone is just awkward because you can't read people's expressions and you may be calling them at a bad time and they are just too polite to say so. Add in the fact that I was calling one of my elementary school teachers, an authority figure, one that I respected SO much, just made this even harder.  However, the day after receiving the message, I grabbed the phone and made the call before I could think about it too much.

What a fabulous phone conversation! Miss Bolt immediately made me feel at ease and her voice sounded just like it did in elementary school. She is such an interesting person to talk with that I could have stayed on the phone for hours with her!  I am going to try to pay her a visit the next time that I am in Meadows of Dan.

To see what the new Meadows of Dan Elementary School looks like, click HERE.

If you had a teacher who means a lot to you, go ahead. Contact them. Just do it! It will make you feel good and I'm sure it will make them feel fabulous too!

Cornbread

When I was growing up, we had cornbread almost every night for supper and it was one of the first things that I learned to cook. Grandma Burnette had a stool in her kitchen that had two steps on the front of it and I would stand on that so that I could reach the counter to stir the cornbread after she put all of the ingredients into the bowl. As I got a bit older, she taught me to mix the ingredients myself.

One of our favorite ways to eat the cornbread was in milk & cornbread. My parents and grandparents would just crumble the bread into the milk and eat it with a spoon. I never really like it much like that, so I would dig the inside of the cornbread out, eat that, and then dip the crust into the milk.  I LOVED that!!!

Our favorite brand of cornmeal.
Produced at a mill in North Carolina.

When I went to elementary school, one of the lunches that we would be served consisted of pinto beans (nowhere near as good as what we fixed at home), stewed tomatoes (nasty no matter where they are cooked), and cornbread.  The cornbread at school was just gross. It was made of yellow cornmeal and had a hint of sweetness to it. (Cornbread isn't supposed to be yellow or sweet!)  I hated it! When they served that particular lunch at school, I was so sad because I would not eat any of it. Back then, the lunch menu was not posted in advance, so it was always a surprise! In fact, it was this lunch that finally convinced me that I just needed to pack a lunch each day, which I continued to do through high school.

My family always used this flour!
Produced at the same mill in North Carolina
as the cornmeal.

Our cornbread just had four ingredients plus water:

1.  About 1/2 bowlful of Tenda-Bake WHITE Cornmeal  (Yellow cornmeal is only suitable for animal food .  . . or that was the belief in my family and I have since learned that, in general, white cornmeal is traditionally a Southern thing while yellow cornmeal is a Northern thing.)
2.  A couple heaping tablespoons of Southern Biscuit Self-Rising Flour
3.  A splash of whole milk
4.  Enough water to make it the right texture

While mixing these ingredients together, there would be a cast iron frying pan in the oven with a couple pieces of streaky meat frying. If we happened to be out of streaky meat, we would use a spoonful of bacon grease. We had one particular frying pan that was used for nothing but cornbread. Once the cornbread was mixed up, we would take the pan out of the oven, remove the streaky meat, leaving the grease in the pan. Then we would tilt the pan this way and that to make sure that the grease coated the inside of the pan well and then poured the remaining hot grease into the batter, stirring it in really quickly. Then, we poured the batter into the frying pan and baked it until done at around 450F. 

Once the cornbread was done, we would turn it out on a plate and break off pieces to eat or to make milk & cornbread. We NEVER cut cornbread, because that would bring bad luck!  We always just broke off a piece with our hands.

Now, I am wanting some cornbread!

Oh yeah, and some of that streaky meat with the hard and chewy rind!

 Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

The Sleepwalking Burnettes, Part II

Unfortunately, the tendency to sleepwalk and snore were both passed on to me. When I was a small child, my parents were always catching me wandering around the house in the middle of the night. It started causing serious concern when my dad caught me going out the door late one night when I was around six years old. We lived on Route 58 where the speed limit was 55 mph and tractor trailers usually went by our house very fast, so wandering outside was a very dangerous thing.

Like father, like daughter.

When I was in the 6th grade, I went on vacation with my good friend, Debbie and her family. We went to Williamsburg, Jamestown, Busch Gardens and then on to the Outer Banks. This was a camping trip and it was so much fun. One night, we stopped at her relative's home to spend the night. Debbie and I were going to be sleeping on the pull-out couch. In the middle of the night, I woke the whole house up as I was trying to choke an African Violet! This story has been the source of much amusement through the years and even if I wanted to put it out of my mind, I am reminded of it often!

When I was in college, I neglected to mention to my two roommates, Jennifer and Laura, that I was a sleepwalker. It did not take them long to discover my problem. One night I woke them up with my mumbling. I was gazing out the window into the street that ran in front of our 3rd floor dorm room. When they asked me what I was doing I said, "All of the cars are gone." What?!  There were always cars parked on both sides of the street and now I was saying that the cars were gone?  They got out of bed and looked.  Of course, all of the cars were there and they tried to tell me that, which just made me angry. Then, I said "All of the addresses are gone too!"  Well, of course, this was just too much for my roommates and they started laughing at me which made me really mad. This happened within the first couple of weeks of my freshman year and my roommates were really strangers at that point, so this whole deal freaked them out. I eventually just went back to bed. Months later, there was a boiled egg throwing incident, but I will just let you use your imagination on that one!

I typically go to bed a couple of hours before my husband does and it seems like most of my sleepwalking incidents occur during those first two hours. On quite a few nights, I appear in the family room where he is watching television and I will start babbling on about things that usually make no sense. Sometimes, I can vaguely remember these episodes. The ones that I do remember usually start when I jump out of bed and I know that I just HAVE to do something or something bad will happen. As I am walking through the house, I will start forgetting what it was that I have to do, which frightens me even more.  I do know that when Steve attempts to interact with me, I get very, very angry when he laughs at me or tells me that I just need to go back to bed. The more that I try to explain what I am doing, the madder I get because on one level, I KNOW that I am not making any sense and when someone laughs at me, that just infuriates me.  I just can't seem to wake up completely.

I have always been prone to nightmares too and growing up I had one reoccurring nightmare that was just horrible. After I would have it, my parents would have to sit up with me for hours trying to get me to calm down and realize that it was just a dream and that I was okay. To this day, I cannot really tell you what the nightmare was about, but I can still see snippets of the dream in my mind, but if I try to describe it to you, it makes no sense. I still get a sinking feeling when I start thinking about that dream. I had this dream from the time that I was a very small child up until I was almost 16 years old.  Interestingly enough, I never had the nightmare again after my mom was killed in a car accident. It makes me wonder if the nightmare was a premonition of her death.

So, yes, I must confess. I am a sleepwalker. I talk in my sleep. I have terrible nightmares. And, to hear my husband tell it, I snore like a rhinoceros! But it is all something that I inherited, so I will blame it on my genes!

To read part I, click HERE.

 Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

The Sleepwalking Burnettes, Part I

I come from a long line of sleepwalkers. My Daddy, my Grandpa, and my Uncle Lindell were all world class sleepwalker. Here are some stories.

During the Great Depression, my grandfather was building a new house with the help of his brother, Tommy Burnett. Grandpa, Grandma, Daddy, & Lindell moved into the house before everything was completed. One of the things that was not finished was the front porch.  The porch was a good seven feet off of the ground and the only thing that needed to be completed about it was the flooring. In the middle of the night, Grandma heard Grandpa get up and go downstairs. She hollered at him "John Ettered, where are you going?" (His name was John Edward Burnett, but many people called him John Ettered, Dettered, or J.E.)  He did not respond to her. She heard him opening the front door and she ran down the steps just in time to see him step out onto the front porch. Naturally, Grandpa fell through since the flooring was not down. He didn't even wake up!  Grandma got him back in the house and in the bed.  The next day, he discovered that he had several broken ribs and he did not remember a thing about it.  Grandpa was also quite a snorer!

Grandpa Burnette

My Uncle Lindell was also mightly bad to sleepwalk. In the wee hours of the morning, Grandma heard the wooden backporch screen door slap closed.  She got up to see who was up at that time of night. Even though they had an outhouse, most everyone would use the slop jar rather than going outside in the middle of the night so it was strange for someone to go out.  When she got outside, Lindell was thrashing around up in the woods, yelling and carrying on something awful. He thought that he was at war! She tried to get him to come into the house, but he just kept on yelling and threatened to hit Grandma if she got near him. Grandpa came outside and he couldn't get Lindell to do anything either, so they both just watched him to make sure they he didn't hurt himself.  He eventually calmed down and just walked back into the house and went to bed.

Uncle Lindell Burnette

My dad, Bobby, was also quite the sleepwalker. When he was younger and still living at home, Grandma said that he was always getting up in the middle of the night and talking in his sleep. If anyone tried to touch him when he was sleepwalking, he would punch them!  When I was just a small child, I can remember that he would get up in the middle of the night, cook food and then eat it.  The scariest thing that I ever remember him doing was one night, my mom was working third shift, so it was just me and Daddy at the house. Daddy woke up 6 miles from the house sitting in his car!  He had driven that far from the house in his sleep. It terrified him because he knew that he had left me at home alone and I was always so scared to be alone.

Daddy

Another incident happened one night when we were all at home. Mom caught Daddy going out the back door around 2:00 AM. He was fully dressed and was walking with his cane. He was heading into the backyard where a creek bordered our property. Mom was afraid that he was going to fall into the creek and hurt himself because he was headed right to the creek. (My dad was very unsteady on his feet because he had multiple sclerosis.) She asked him what he was doing and he said that Jim Dalton, the mail carrier for Laurel Fork, had come by and asked my dad to deliver the mail for him!  Mom tried to reason with Daddy and he was just getting more angry and more insistent that Jim had came by the house. This was all happening in the wee hours of the morning and there was a considerable amount of yelling going on, so I'm sure that the neighbors wondered what was going on. Mom finally got Daddy back in the house after a good hour, but he was still convinced that he needed to deliver the mail. The next morning, Daddy was STILL swearing that Jim had come by and ask for his help!  Okay, so maybe there was something weird going on that we were unaware of, so Mom did get in touch with Jim and ask him if he came by the house.  Of course he did not, but my Daddy still swore that he did days after the incident!

This is the end of Part I. Watch for Part II and learn about some of MY sleepwalking adventures!

BUFFALO MOUNTAIN

The Buffalo as seen from Rocky Knob on the  Blue Ridge Parkway 

When I was growing up in Meadows of Dan, I was always fascinated by a mountain that you could see for miles and miles. Everyone always referred to it as "The Buffalo". There were plenty of stories associated with that mountain. Grandma said that all of the young folks would climb the Buffalo every May Day. She also said that quite a bit of frolickin' went on up there too (Frolickin' = partying). My grandpa always talked about the "rough bunch" that lived near the Buffalo. Then there were the tall tales about the Buffalo.  On the steep side, there are quite a few deep openings in the rocks. Legend has it that there is a black snake as big as a telephone pole that frequents those tunnels! Needless to say, if there is, I will never know because I am sure not going to take a peek!

When I was growing up, there was a fire tower on the Buffalo where someone would go sit during fire season to watch for forest fires. One time, we even drove our pickup all the way to the top!  Turning around was a HUGE pain because there was such a small area. When I went up there as a child, I would always try to sneak away from daddy and climb the tower. One time he caught me when I was already half way up.  Yes.  I got into considerable trouble for that!  I'm not sure when the fire tower was removed, but it was prior to 1987.

The last time that I was on the Buffalo was either the Fall of 1986 or 1987. At that time, the tower was gone, but there was still a radio transmission tower used by the Blue Ridge Parkway. The route to get to the Buffalo at that time was pretty cut and dried. You drove to where the current parking area is located, then followed the old road bed to the top. Easy to find and fairly easy to hike.

Buffalo Mountain Natural Area
Burk's Fork, Virginia

Today we parked in the designated parking area. I could see the old road bed that goes to the top, but there were lots of trees down on the road. I suspect that many of the trees were dropped on purpose to prevent people from trying to drive all the way to the top.

Old road bed just to the right of the kiosk and an old trail on the far right

I saw the kiosk to the left of where we parked and actually walked over to it. There was a mud pit in front of the sign, so we didn't get close enough to really read the sign. That was a mistake. So, we took off up the mountain. It was steep  I mean REALLY steep in places. Steep to the point of having to grab a hold of a tree to pull yourself up! About 1/3 of the way up, we looked back down at my car and it was like we were right above it and it looked like a toy car! We kept on going. I could see the old road bed below us to the left. At one point, the trail looked like it split. I said that I thought that we should go left. Steve thought right.  So, I went one way and Steve went the other, but we were always pretty much in sight of each other. Later on, we discovered that we were both wrong!

In the distance, I could hear a huge roaring sound. It was a  fighter jet headed straight for the mountain!  They do test flights in the area and they fly low through Rock Castle Gorge and then come up out of the Gorge and head around the Buffalo. When the jet passed where we were on the mountain, he was tilted almost vertical and I swear that I could see the pilot's nose hairs!  All of you folks that live in the area, know what I am talking about with those jets buzzing the mountain.

Our paths connected back together about half way up the mountain and we decided to sit down and eat our sandwiches that we had picked up at Subway. We continued on up the mountain. We arrived at a  place that actually had red blazes on the trees. Hmmmm. I think we had missed the trail entirely and made our own path up the mountain! No wonder it was so steep and terrible! Now we were on the right path.

YAY!  The summit is just ahead!

The Buffalo in all of its glory! You have a 360 degree view of the surrounding country.

Yes, that is ice in that little pool on the rocks!

This photo was a total accident, but I love it!

Me & Steve

Me looking totally thrilled

Steve pointing out something in the distance

I was disappointed that it was so hazy.
If you look carefully in the distance you can
see Pilot Mountain in Pinnacle, NC.
(about 60 miles away by road)

Pilot Mountain, Pinnacle, NC
(16x zoom)

Point A--Buffalo Mountain, Burks Fork, Virginia
Point B--Pilot Mountain, Pinnacle, North Carolina

I have a photo from circa 1920s of a group of
people standing in front of this rock. 

Plants from the top of the Buffalo

The only thing place that I could recognize (for sure) looking at the surrounding countryside, was the Buffalo Mountain Rock Church built by Bob Childress.  

Buffalo Mountain Church
(16x zoom)
You really should read The Man Who Moved A Mountain
by Richard C. Davids

Now, time for the hike back to the car. We decided that we would actually try to follow the REAL trail down the mountain, even though we were not sure where it was. We were following red blazes on the trees, but sometimes there was one red mark and sometimes there were two. Geez. I was worried because I had read about some folks that thought they were going down the right trail and they ended up on the wrong side of the mountain and had to find someone to drive them back to their car because they were so far away!  Luckily, Steve and I both have a very good sense of direction and both of us played in the woods growing up. It was just a matter of the trail ending at our car . . . or not!

Anyway, here are some cool photos that I took on the way down:

The rock formations on the Buffalo are just fascinating.

Hugs!

The tree in the right two photos was determined to grow even on a rock!

Some more cool trees

I have always loved rocks and I could have filled my
 pockets with some beauties!

LOVE this tree!
I think it is very weird that the orb is directly in the hollow.
That orb showed up in another photo too.

My dyer's heart was IN LOVE with all of this beautiful lichen!
It produces a gorgeous purple on wool.
It is very slow growing and care should be taken to not over-harvest.
I did NOT take any from the Buffalo.

Trees of the Buffalo.
The one on the right is a perfect perch for a
bobcat or cougar!

This tree had uprooted and took this section of the trail with it.
Of course, this section of the trail was majorly steep and it was
very difficult to navigate around this huge hole.  

I have always loved rocks and there are
some huge ones on the Buffalo

If we had ONLY seen that red blaze on this tree
and read the sign more carefully!
So, when YOU visit the Buffalo, the trail 
starts to the LEFT of the sign, NOT the right!

The Buffalo is a very interesting place with some unique species

My Soul on the Buffalo

Alas, my Soul needs to be cleansed 

*Click on any of the above photos to make them larger

Read my blog post about May Day on the Buffalo

Visit this site to learn more about hiking the Buffalo. 

Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

33 Years Ago Today

33 years ago today was a Sunday. I remember that mom was in a big cleaning mood, so the entire house got a really good cleaning. At that time, there was a company called something like Home Interior Decorating or something similar. My mom had bought quite a bit of the items to hang on the walls and she had just not gotten around to putting it up. We did that day. To make matters even worse, I was in trouble because I had broken my curfew and came home about 45 minutes late the previous Friday night and she was still trying to figure out what my punishment should be. Since I have always hated housework, I felt that all of the cleaning and decorating that day was quite enough punishment!

That afternoon, it started snowing. Woo-hoo! Hopefully, school would be cancelled the next day. I was in the 10th grade that year and I had just gotten my learner's permit three months before.  One of my best friends was already 16 and she had her license, so she would always ride with me so that I could drive. Back then, you just had to have someone that had their license in the car with you, it didn't matter how old they were.

My mom worked 3rd shift at the J. P. Stevens Elastic Plant in Stuart, Virginia. She supervised the training of new employees on how to run the huge looms. She was supposed to work that Sunday night from 11 PM to 7 AM the next morning, so she had went to bed in the afternoon. When she got up around 9:30 PM, there was already a lot of snow on the ground and the state trucks were plowing Route 58 in front of our house. I remember that my dad and I tried to convince mom to call into work that night rather than trying to drive down Lover's Leap Mountain to get to work. Nothing doing. My mom very seldom ever called into work and she instilled that same work ethic in me.

She left home a bit earlier than normal that night, around 10:00 PM, driving a 1979 Pinto station wagon for the 18 mile trip to work. Since I suspected that I would not have school the next day, I stayed up to watch "Trapper John, MD" which was one of my favorite television shows.  It was on from 10-11 PM each Sunday night. Since my dad always went to bed early,  I remember him fussing at me to turn off the television and go to bed.

Around 2:30 AM that morning, I heard someone banging on our front door. It scared me to death!  I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom and pulled the door to until there was just a crack that I could peek out of to see the front door. Dad went to the door and yelled "Who is it?"  It was my mom's brother, Willie. That was really strange!  My dad opened the door and I saw Willie standing on the snow covered porch with a Virginia state trooper.

All sorts of things went through my mind in those first few moments to try to grasp why they were there in the wee hours of the morning. When they came into the living room, I saw that Willie had my mom's purse. They then explained to us that my mom had made it all the way to the foot of Lover's Leap Mountain. She had made it through the last curve.  But then in a straight stretch of road, for some inexplicable reason, her car went over the bank and went broadside into a tree on the driver's side door.

The police department got a call around 11:20 PM reporting that someone driving by glimpsed the red taillights of a car over the bank. She had been killed instantly. Whoever made the phone call reporting the accident did not give their name, nor did they wait until the police arrived. I will always wonder if perhaps the person that made the call was involved in the accident, because the location of mom's car would have made it very difficult to have seen anything, including the taillights.I will never know.

My mom had just turned 48 years old a couple of weeks before. She had been working at J.P. Stevens for over 25 years and was thinking about retiring soon. I am now 48 years old, almost 49. I cannot remember my mom's voice anymore. I wish that I would have had the chance to know my mom as a person and not just as a mom. I have to admit that I am very envious of my friends when I hear them talk about doing something or talking with their mothers.

It does not seem possible that 33 years have passed since that night. I still miss you, Mom!

Birthday Greetings

Happy birthday mom!

Vera Vaughn Burnette

1932-1980

Very Superstitous

Grandma & Grandpa Burnette--December 1977

When I was growing up, I was fortunate that my Grandpa & Grandma Burnette were my babysitters. Much of my life was shaped by both of them and I would not change it for the world! Both of them taught me wonderful values and that you have to work for what you want.

I do not think that either of them were truly superstitious, but there were certain things that they would always say or do and it rubbed off on me.  I mean, really, why tempt fate?!

Here are some of the ones that I remember and I still do most of them.

Don't rock an empty rocking chair. Grandpa & Grandma both always sat in wooden rocking chairs and I was forever sitting on the couch with my foot on one of the chairs and I would start rocking it. They both always told me that I would have bad luck if I did that.

Always leave a house by the same door that you came in. I typically always went in the back door when I visited them, but sometimes I would start to leave by the front door. Many times, they would be sitting on the front porch and Grandma would always tell me to go back through the house and go out the back door.  I still have a tendency to do this no matter where I am.

Don't open an umbrella in the house. I'm sure that much of the reasoning for this one is so that you do not poke someone in the eye with one of the umbrella ribs, but I still will not open an umbrella in the house because Grandma said that it would be bad luck.

Make an "X" on the windshield when a black cat crosses in front of your car. Grandma used to always tell me of a lady who lived just down the road. If a black cat crossed in front of her, she would refuse to go any further and would return home!  I'm not quite that bad.  Just to be safe, any time that a cat runs in front of my car, I make THREE sets of THREE "X"s on the windshield and I do that no matter what color the cat.

Knock on wood--Always knock on wood after you say something so you will not be tempting fate. An example might be, "Our potatoes are sure growing good this year. I haven't seen a single potato bug so far!"  Always knock on wood.  I still do this one, probably at least 3-4 times per week!

The ever popular "don't walk under a ladder." I suspect that just about everyone has heard this one. Of course, it makes lots of sense because a couple of bad things could happen: If you bumped into the ladder, you might knock someone off of it and of course, you might knock something like a tool or paint bucket off off the ladder onto your head. 

Never say that you are going to so something tomorrow unless you say "if the Lord's willing." My Grandma was a big believer in this one. I remember that I would be so excited that I was going to go stay at a friend's house the next day and I was just chattering on and on about it. Grandma finally told me that I should always say "if the Lord's willing" when I was talking about doing something in the future.

Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

The Penny Loafer Story

Every Saturday, we always went to town. The closest town was about 20 miles away, no matter in which direction we traveled. North was the town of Floyd, east was Stuart, south was Mount Airy, and west was Hillsville. To get to Mount Airy or Stuart involved traveling down the mountain, Floyd involved very twisty, narrow roads, so Hillsville is where we typically went for our weekly trips.

So, why did we go to town each week?  The biggest reason was to buy grocery at the IGA or Mick-or-Mack. My mom always visited the beauty shop and I went for piano lessons. We also might make purchases at Nuckolls Drug Store, Gwynn's Department Store, or Gwynn's Hardware.

One Saturday I needed a new pair of shoes, so we visited The Family Shoe Store. It was a shoe paradise!  There were boxes of shoes stacked floor to ceiling, and the ceilings were really high! There were aisles of shoes and boxes of shoes stacked everywhere.  Ahhhh!  The smell of all of that leather!  To this day, anytime that I get a whiff of leather, it whisked me back in time.  I always loved it when I needed a new pair of shoes and I think that my love of shoes today dates back to that time.  I remember looking around at all of the shoes and finally deciding on two or three pairs to try on.  They would get that metal thing to measure my foot and I can remember that it always tickled.

Do you know what this device is called? **

On this particular shoe shopping expedition, I decided that I just HAD to have a pair of penny loafers. They were terribly popular at that time. Since I was an only child, I was around adults more than I was around other children and I had seen many adults wearing penny loafers, so that made me want them that much more.

I was so excited about my shoes that I demanded to wear them home from the store. I remember that when I got home, I was prancing all around the living room showing off my pretty new shoes to daddy.  He was laughing at me and said that they were not real penny loafers until I put pennies in the slot of each shoe. He dug through all of his change until he found two really shiny pennies to give me.

I don't remember what happened later that day, but I was about to get a whipping for doing something that I should not have been doing. If I had to guess, I would be willing to bet that I was asked to do something and I back-talked. (Yes, even as a child, I could be pretty mouthy!) My first reactions when I knew that I was in trouble was always to run! 

At this point, you have to picture our yard in your mind. A little over an acre in size, Highway 58 ran in front of our house. On one side, there was a tall fence that divided our yard from the neighbors. The other two sides were bounded by Tory Creek. Acres and acres of woods were across the creek. I was forbidden to go into the woods.  I guess that mom and dad were afraid that I would slip when crossing the creek and drown.

Back to being in trouble. I was always told that if I ran when I was in trouble, I would get into even more trouble for running.  Well, on this particular day, I was feeling particularly bold, so when daddy got after me to give me that whipping, I ran.  Out of the house and into the backyard.  Straight for the creek. I looked back towards the house and daddy was on his way after me.  Well, I decided that I was going to run into the woods, because I knew that he would have a hard time crossing the creek and finding me in the woods. I need to say at this point that my dad was very unsteady on his feet because he had multiple sclerosis and that was why I knew that if I could only get across the creek, I would be safe from a whipping.  I really don't know what I was thinking, because I was going to have to go back home sooner or later!

Anyway, as daddy got closer, I started crossing the creek, jumping from rock to rock.  He was yelling at me to stop and to not go any further.  By that time, he was really close. I'm sure that you can see what is coming! My foot slipped off of one of the rocks and my foot went right into the creek up to my knee. Then, I lost my balance and stepped into the creek with my other foot. There I was standing knee-deep water. With my new penny loafers. 

Well, due to the original offense of back-talking, then running when a whipping was imminent, trying to go into the woods where I was forbidden to be going, AND ruining a new pair of leather shoes, let's just say that I got a VERY good whipping.

And I deserved every lick!

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** Answer:  Brannock Device

Copyright 2012--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean