Back Then

Sometimes a scent or a sound takes me back to a time when things were so much simpler, a time when I think I felt the most secure in my life.

I wish I could remember how many sunny mornings I spent next to the old wood stove at Grandma's house. I could look through the door and see her in the kitchen puttering around making dinner (what we called the mid-day meal). The radio would be on KBFC in Forrest City and every one of my memories includes "The Wings of a Snow White Dove" being the background music she'd listen to as she kneaded the dough to make rolls, or beat the batter for her yummy cornbread.




A pot of pinto or great northern beans would be simmering on the wood stove and the aroma that drifted up when she'd lift the lid to give them a stir would make me so hungry even though it hadn't been all that long since breakfast. I can't remember ever having a dinner or supper at her house when there weren't some of those beans on the table.

If a hard freeze hadn't damaged the green patch, she'd also be washing some turnip or mustard greens to get them ready to throw in a pot of water with some tiny slices of salt pork for seasoning. Sometimes there'd be some little potatoes cooked in their jackets staying warm on the back burner of her old range. She'd always put a little pitcher of bacon drippings beside them so we could season them with a little drizzle.

I think if I could go back to just one place in time it would be as a child in Grandma's kitchen, maybe sitting at the table with her and Grandpa, a bowl of her hot cornbread covered in cold buttermilk sitting in front of us.