Interviewer:  What's your full name?
811:  Joseph Lee {B} the senior.
Interviewer:  All right. And this is Joe {B} Now you were born where?
811:  Uh I was born about uh a mile and a half across the field that on the uh no, I was born on the hi- {X} {NS} yeah that was back yeah uh
Interviewer:  On what bottom farm?
811:  Hickenbottom.
Interviewer:  Okay. And uh okay now this- that place was called what? Was there a- a community nearby or?
811:  Uh Church Point.
Interviewer:  Okay.
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  Has Church Point grown a lot since
811:  {NW} Quite a bit. {NW}
Interviewer:  Yeah. In other words, you call this where we are right now chur-
811:  {X}
Interviewer:  {X}
811:  {X}
Interviewer:  Who were you named of?
811:  Uh after let's see uh it was his uh after his uh grandpa. After my father's grandpa. His name was Joe Mennings. So we have other Joe Mennings. {NW}
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NS} And you've farmed all your life?
811:  I well I'll tell you what I- when when I came up, I came up on the farm.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Uh we'd plant cotton and sweet potatoes. A little corn.
Woman:  {NS}
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
811:  And we farmed uh why w- we would do we would plant
Woman:  {NS}
811:  oh about ten acres of cotton, and
Woman:  {NS}
811:  eight, ten acres of sweet potatoes and about five, six acres of corn.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
Woman:  {NS}
811:  And while we did have our preschool {D: in the sixth grade} they've gotta help on the farm. {C: muffled} And as I grew up a little bit, we uh {NS} lost our way from mr Scanlon. What I would do like during planting season, well I would run that tractor all night {X} from about six o'clock in the afternoon, till about six o'clock that morning. Then I'd go on back and sleep till about ten o'clock. My poor daddy would go ahead and feed my mules and everything, then he'd hitch up and go in the field. And I'd just go on and when I'd get up, I'd go on in the field and I would catch him up, whatever he was doing. In the afternoon, I'd knock off about three o'clock and I'd go back and sleep till about five thirty.
Woman:  {NS}
811:  And we started like that. And during the winter, when we would get through, I had a brother lived in Texas. I would go out there and wait three or four months. They didn't have too much to do on the farm.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Oh we'd wait uh I'd wait until it was time to start again in the field. Till after the winter. Come back and get started again.
Woman:  {NS}
811:  And that's how it went on awhile until I got ready to get married, it was in uh {X} fifty-nine, I believe. So I finally went away from mr Scanlon and we moved in a little house right there. Oh yeah, stayed there nine years. Then we moved in a bigger house, right down over there We stayed there six-
Woman:  {NS}
811:  and I had been working for 'em for about four or five years before I got married. So altogether I stayed on this farm with cattle, rice.
Interviewer:  Yeah. Tell me about the first house you were born in. Can you tell me about that?
811:  Um
Woman:  {NS}
811:  I remember the old house, it had a
Woman:  {NS}
811:  um had wooden windows on it. I #1 {D: dare to} #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
811:  remember mosquitoes used to eat us up. {NW} And the- they didn't have- they had the rafters, #1 you know #
Interviewer:  #2 Uh-huh. #
811:  you didn't have nothing, all it was the thing just wouldn't go up
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  to the top. And they had {X} that would fall down in the house. I remember that good. And we had an old cistern
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  with a-
Interviewer:  Now, when you built a fire, you have a fireplace?
811:  Mm-hmm.
Interviewer:  Okay. Tell me about your chores, about about building that fire.
811:  Well what you gotta do is uh at that time you didn't have no- no coal oil
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  It was kind of hard to come by.
Interviewer:  You started with what?
811:  What- uh Well, with cypress. You had to go out there, that was your chore in the afternoon.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And go cut you some so- fine cypress to get it started. And then you'd be- wood would start you a few Then you have to kind of keep watch the weather. Kind of keep you some dry wood. Cause we had a wood pile in the corn bin. And we let it always tidy
Woman:  {NS}
811:  keep maybe about a day ahead of dry wood cause if you let that wood get wet, you had trouble to start it. And then if you uh {NW} had you a go- what they call a good {D: bag alone} {NW} you didn't have to worry about starting no fire in the morning.
Interviewer:  Yeah I heard that.
811:  Cause you would put this big ol' chunk in there, and they would boil all night. And the next boil, you just put you some fine stuff on there and you get you a good fire going.
Interviewer:  Yeah. Did you um what would the did you put the wood on anything? In other words,
811:  Wha- you uh {NW}
Interviewer:  You'd put the wood on the when you put the log on, you'd- you'd have something you could set it on. Those two things? It'd be-
811:  Lord them that was uh you've gotta twist it some kind of way or either you'd get you a brick or something then put under.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  It was not fancy like they build these days you know in these days you can set it on.
Interviewer:  Yeah what do they call like
811:  #1 Um #
Interviewer:  #2 the #
811:  I don't know what you'd call-
Interviewer:  Dog irons or?
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  But uh hmm.
811:  Now some houses didn't have 'em. Certainly all houses didn't have 'em. You had these uh
Woman:  {NS}
811:  heaters iron heaters. I remember when we was going to school we had this little old one room uh schoolhouse. And we had a coal heater. And many a mornings we'd get around that old pipes would fall over and hit somebody in the head. {NW} {D: It was a point} We had about three miles of the the walk to school.
Interviewer:  Oh.
811:  And if it would start raining the weather would get bad sometimes poor dad had to come get us. That would be eight o'clock at night when the weather would break up. {NS} Cause boy you were s- {NS} {D: We had it big like the kids. Did they} {NS}
Interviewer:  When the weather would break up, you mean it would?
811:  Well, here we'd leave walking going home. You know there'd be lightning and thunder, boy you
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  It's like somebody had something lit up outside, the way it was lightning.
Interviewer:  Have y'all had- had it like this lately? I mean this is- it was I came into town, I had to come through three- about two feet of water.
811:  Oh, well uh I had to go to Lafayette for my checkup recently.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And we've acted like that back home. They got a state trooper that live uh- I know him pretty good. And they uh {X} we left while the- the water was deep right there.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh. And my wife was worried about that uh they go for my two weeks checkup. So I said I guess we gonna go she wanted to go in {X} Says I ain't going in that thing, it rides too bad. They- when they took me to the hospital, she had to hold my- I was sick as a dog. But I had to hold myself {X} the way we was riding back. So I said I ain't going in that. So she went down to my sister she was gonna drive, they don't want me to drive. I said okay. And that was the water wasn't too bad. {D: And man, we was going} and they kept her there till about three thirty. And I rarely come back boy they'd close almost all the roads in Lafayette.
Woman:  {NS}
811:  #1 We #
Interviewer:  #2 Was it bad in Lafayette, too? #
811:  Huh?
Interviewer:  Was it bad in Lafayette?
811:  Oh man. {NS} Then uh Appaloosa well, Appaloosa got nine inches, I believe. Crowley got nine inches.
Interviewer:  {NW} I was in the- I was in Crowley last night. They had thirteen, I think.
811:  Well that's the w-
Interviewer:  Somewhere around- somewhere around there.
811:  That's the worst flood we've had since nineteen forty.
Woman:  {NS}
811:  I heard a bunch of old people talking about it. They said that's the worst flood we had since nineteen forty.
Woman:  {NS}
Interviewer:  Hmm.
811:  And look it- flat rain day before yesterday. They had a- a low pressure that that made up in from Crowley.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Church Point rain, and Appaloosa was just laying across. And it rained it rained that they wouldn't move boy {D: this was still} And but around six o'clock, they'd even start to break up and move outta there. It {NW} And should we {X} and we came up thirty-five there the water was running over {X}
Interviewer:  Yeah, you should've seen Crowley. {X}
811:  Well uh I heard on the CB when it was uh which day- that was the day before yesterday.
Interviewer:  Wouldn't wanna-
811:  You couldn't get in to Crowley. {NW} #1 {NW} #
Interviewer:  #2 Yes well # I had a hard time getting in that night. I came in that night cause cause- when it was raining cause it was starting.
811:  Oh.
Interviewer:  And uh they- they closed off all the roads afterwards.
811:  {NW}
Interviewer:  That was dow- #1 down #
811:  #2 {X} #
Interviewer:  downtown.
811:  Well you just made it, then.
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NW} Yeah, I sure did. In fact, I'm not- I'm not counting my chances too heavy on getting back today.
811:  Now #1 {X} #
Interviewer:  #2 It's going down, # right?
811:  If you- yeah, if you go back to Crowley, you going back to Crowley? #1 Or you going to Appaloosa? #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. # Well, Imma go to uh Imma go to Escambia farm in Iota.
811:  Oh yeah. Well, that's gonna be your best bet. You go up to Branch to the uh {D: barely} four-way stop, you take a right. And that's gonna take you to highway thirteen. And then the- Crowley on this road.
Interviewer:  Okay.
811:  {D: And now we all would wait from there.}
Interviewer:  {NW}
811:  Oh you go
Man:  {D: The left} going to is Crowley.
811:  Yeah. And you'll see the sign that says Iota.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  You take a right.
Man:  Unless you wanna go past all the way back there by {X}
811:  {D: forty-five?} Oh no, that's gonna be too far.
Interviewer:  But uh okay this is the branch road
811:  #1 here? #
Interviewer:  #2 Uh-huh. #
811:  Branch uh Grand Branch Road. It'll be thirty-five. But it's closed, I believe. I doubt they opened it.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Uh up there by ran the water was {D: Thursday} afternoon it was about a foot and a half deep running over there.
Interviewer:  Well, there's a low spot right down there by that-
811:  What?
Interviewer:  there's a canal a refinery or something
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  down refinery?
811:  Uh yeah that's uh coming from Appaloosa there.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  #1 When did they put that up? #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
811:  That's {X}
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  That thing start off as a little bitty little bitty old little plant. And they just kept adding on, adding on. I don't remember exactly. Cause in that time, you didn't have no way to get around you get a flat foot.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And uh
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  I remember whe- when it was, I was about
Woman:  {NS}
811:  oh
Woman:  {NS}
811:  oh I must've been about thirteen. Twelve, thirteen years old. I remember we used to go to Bellevue. When we would go by there. And that was that little bitty old little plant.
Man:  {NS}
811:  And they just kept adding on, adding on to it till it got big as it is {X}
Interviewer:  Bellevue.
811:  Uh yeah.
Interviewer:  Okay. {NW} I'm trying to think where that is.
811:  {X}
Interviewer:  Huh?
Man:  By Lewisburg.
Interviewer:  {X} {X} by Lewisburg, too.
811:  Yeah, you can go through it. #1 Through b- #
Interviewer:  #2 Is that #
811:  Bellevue.
Interviewer:  Is that in Evangeline or?
811:  Uh that would be now {X} {NS} But you can go through that so fast that if you don't watch it I don't believe they even got a store there. They got a church. {NW} {NS}
Interviewer:  Yeah. I tell you, these roads around here are about as confusing #1 as I've ever- #
811:  #2 Oh # Lord.
Interviewer:  Yeah, you y- you come around one corner and you get to another one you know it's just like a a jigsaw puzzle, I guess you could call it.
811:  {NW}
Interviewer:  When you were coming up, was it like that? I mean, were there just roads everywhere all through-
811:  Uh they didn't have that many roads. Uh let's see #1 like- #
Interviewer:  #2 Okay # now when you were- where would you go wh- you go into town, like uh you wouldn't go in pretty often, would you?
811:  No. {NS} Daddy- well, we used to {X} uh
Man:  I don't really know how to {X}
811:  {X} Well
Interviewer:  On that I'm sure should've gotten w- well talking about uh the fireplace and everything, you had to clean out the
811:  #1 Yeah. #
Interviewer:  #2 fi- #
811:  You had uh oh when I would build up so much coals and then you'd get you a shovel and a bucket. And what the fun part about it you could take your big ol' sweet potatoes and put in there.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And just cook 'em and
Interviewer:  You used to cook in there {X}
811:  Oh yeah, you peel 'em. They had these big old iron pots you could put in there and warm whatever you wanted to warm. {NW}
Interviewer:  Uh now, you had to get the what outta the chimney? Get all the black?
811:  Oh, the- well the only thing you had to get was the uh um was the coals and the ashes.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Cause they'd- you know how wood build up ash?
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  {D: wouldn't burn} So what you gotta do i- it was a- it would all pile up down in there. And what you would do, you would put your wood it would sink down in there, they'd it wouldn't {D: burn} {NW} So you'd take your shovel get a special little old shovel and a old five-gallon can or something so you just go in there and pick it up.
Interviewer:  But uh like the chimney, would it ever catch on fire? All the stuff in the chimney?
811:  No. Cause uh you mean going up or?
Interviewer:  Yeah, all that black
811:  No, it would never catch on fire cause it wasn't nothing but soot. {D: but your} uh like a what you had to do {D: like when it would stay all December, you know.} You'd get you something and ram up in there and get the birds' nests and stuff out the #1 {X} #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah, did y'all have # the martin around here?
811:  #1 The what? #
Interviewer:  #2 That # bird that'll- that'll nest in a chimney?
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  {D: They'd get down in that boy and put you a pile of hay.} You had to kind of clean that out. It was the same thing with the stoves. You had the pipes {D: to bang it in} {NS}
Interviewer:  Okay. Now you'd cut it. Wouldn't there be a place in the house the stove pipe would run up to the
811:  Yeah, it'd go through the the ceiling of the house.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  {NW} And them bo- big older higher houses that were so bad they had a {X} and they just would cut a hole inside the house.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  And what they would do is uh instead of they would cut if the pipe was about this big They had something like about a six-inch pipe. While they cut you about a ten-inch hole. And then they'd take ten {NS} and cut the tin just so it would shape over the pipe. {NS} So like that, if your pipe would get hot, it wouldn't boil your water {D: it just on tin}
Interviewer:  How- how is the uh the fireplace built? Like was it some of 'em would be made outta moss wouldn't they? Moss and {X}
811:  Some of 'em was made outta moss and dirt. Most of 'em. Cause they didn't have brick in that time. And the one we had was made outta moss and dirt.
Interviewer:  Okay. {NS} Now, the fire- you'd come in on a cold day and you'd stand- stand on the what? Stand in front of the fireplace?
811:  Oh yeah. There was a well they had a they had a little flat form built out where- where they w- couldn't put no wood {D: cause it was dirty} You know, you had your flat form uh uh well, what you call the clay and uh #1 and moss and stuff, #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
811:  #1 you know. #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. #
811:  what your chimney wa- whatever the chimney was made out of. Uh
Interviewer:  And it was built out- did that have a kind of a raised kind of place built out from the fireplace?
811:  Yeah, they did. Cause uh cause you couldn't start your wood too close to it. Most time they would build 'em like on the side of the house. And uh
Interviewer:  Oh- oh a wood storage thing?
811:  Uh no it would be a chimney, but they would pull it {X} {NS} went to build their chimney. {D: well it} this would cut a hole
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  and they would start their chimney, and they would go up on the outside of the house. And you- you would put your wood in there. And wouldn't be on the inside of the house.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  If your chimney was you couldn't put it on the wood floor if you had a wood floor.
Man:  Right, most of the houses, some of 'em had dirt floors.
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NS}
811:  And uh that's the way they would build 'em. Cause most of 'em they made 'em after they built the houses. Some of 'em when they built the houses, they made 'em.
Interviewer:  Yeah. You know what the hearth- the hearth was? Or the you know, the part of the- the part of the chimney that was outside. Okay. Well, on a wood stove you know, on those wood stoves?
811:  Uh.
Interviewer:  Where you have kind of a raised hearth, raised hearth there? You know, uh okay. Now, but up over the chimney you'd have a- you might?
811:  Oh on the top.
Interviewer:  Yeah, you had a what?
811:  You had- I don't know what you'd call that. But you had some- it was made something like this. Cause if uh you didn't if you left the top open, it would've rained in it.
Interviewer:  Oh?
811:  So what you had- it's something like a horse.
Interviewer:  It is, yeah.
811:  A horse you had on the top. And uh
Interviewer:  Like a horse?
811:  I- I guess you would call it a horse. No, like a a sawhorse.
Interviewer:  Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
811:  It needed something like a well, it'd the chimneys, they got the {X} They made you know, something like that, but it wasn't as big. They got these big ol' fancy {X} They got the- the day our neighbor down there building one uh one about a year ago.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
811:  And they got this big ol' fancy {X} put uh gas gas logs in it. Or burn wood.
Interviewer:  Yeah. Yeah. Well uh, um a stove was always more efficient, anyway. I mean it was better.
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  {X} What I was talking about was uh you'd like to have those kind of a something that in the house uh right up over the the the fireplace that you could put a put a clock on, or put pieces
811:  Yeah, something like a mantle.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Yeah. The uh the chimney was built so high, none of it would come out. And you had a- something like a mantelpiece.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  Over the top of it.
Interviewer:  Did- did uh
811:  {NW}
Interviewer:  What about the- the stuff you had in the house to sit in? Tell me about that.
811:  #1 Oh you #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} # in the old things in the house.
811:  You had uh wooden chairs. Well, for instance like when I got married I bought some uh wooden chairs for fifty cent a piece. {NW}
Interviewer:  Pretty good price.
811:  And uh while a couple of 'em I- I think we still got one or two of 'em. Them wooden chairs. We paid 'em uh fifty cent a piece.
Man:  The one I got in my room?
811:  #1 You didn't have- #
Interviewer:  #2 I've got- #
811:  Oh no, you didn't have no sofa. Wha- what you made is a wooden bench.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  Yeah, you get a cot and you make you one of these fancy wooden benches with a back and everything on it. And that's mostly what you had uh well, it's {D: safe enough} like a sofa. You put you a couple of pillows in it. You know, you cotton pillows. And you put something on the back. But you had nothing like this.
Interviewer:  How did you uh when you moved, did you have to move all your all your
811:  Uh furniture?
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Yeah. You'd move in a wagon {D: or old trailer to it}
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  Okay, now what about the things that you would put your would you have something that had drawers in it that you'd put your clothes in?
811:  You mostly had a it was something like trunks. Every now and then you'd find Somebody that had a old uh chest that cedar, oak, or something. Mostly you had i- is- is big trunks. We had one, I remember it was about that high we'd put the quilts and clothes and stuff in. Very seldom you'd see something with drawers. I- ours {X}
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  {NW}
Interviewer:  Um okay now something nowadays that you'd have to put put um put your clothes in in other words. You know, with drawers in it.
811:  Uh-huh.
Interviewer:  What- what do you call that?
811:  Uh.
Interviewer:  Uh well you know, back in the old days they had uh they had those big things. If you didn't have a built-in-
811:  You had a press. It was a press. That big ol' {X} It had so- it had two doors. But it had shelves on it. You might've had maybe four or five shelves in it. And you had that two big ol' doors, you just walk up and open 'em, you know. #1 And that's what they would call a press. #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
811:  #1 #
Interviewer:  #2 # And you got your clothes out.
811:  #1 Yeah. #
Interviewer:  #2 And then you #
811:  You'd close it back, you had a place you could uh well just like a cl- a clothes closet, a walk-in clothes closet. You had one place you could hang your clothes. Another place you had shelves, you could fold 'em and {D: pull 'em.}
Interviewer:  Ah.
811:  I- it served the same purpose as as a closet.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Cause the- some of 'em was just as big. But what it was- they were so tall and heavy they'd well, they would be a antique now.
Interviewer:  Hmm. Um now the- you mentioned the windows.
811:  They had the windo- you didn't have no screens.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  You had wooden windows. {NW} Uh the weather would get bad or something you had wooden windows with some latches, just like these old type of doors. You just pull 'em and- {NS} And when it would get bad, we just had to get out there and make a smoke. So the mosquitoes. You know, they- some- Well, we didn't have no screen doors. {X} {D: And keep from somebody have to keep with the windows open.}
Interviewer:  Did you have a- a place out at the front of the house? Uh, you know where you could sit? Put a chair or something like that?
811:  Well um b- some of the houses had uh little porches on, where you could {NS} sit out. You know, little hangovers. Wasn't a porch, it was just a {NS} thing to hang over. {NS} And most of the places we lived always had a tree or something we'd {NS} get out there and sit under the tree. {NS}
Interviewer:  What kind of shade tree? Big-
811:  Uh, we had oaks. Well, most of 'em wa- was good trees, they wasn't uh {NS} live oaks or something.
Interviewer:  China ball or
811:  No, we didn't have too many China balls. Uh li- something like a live oak. It was uh but them China ball trees there. I uh I'm trying to remember the first time I ever knew the weather had gotten bad. Uh for a tornado We uh They just had put us in {D: last winter.} A big ol' deal or something like that, no. Poor mama was laying down on the on the sofa, she was feeling bad.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And uh it #1 started- #
Interviewer:  #2 Go ahead. # Uh you can talk. I'm-
811:  #1 {NW} #
Interviewer:  #2 so- it doesn't matter. #
Woman:  We have a helicopter that just landed right out there. What's going on out there? {NS}
Interviewer:  Yeah. But- um {NS} but uh the- when you were young, okay, how did y'all plant rods? Did you plant it {NS}
811:  Uh well we'd drill it down with a with- {NW} we had a drill, we'd start something like uh
Interviewer:  Hello.
811:  {NW} That's the baby girl. {NS} Uh you'd do about forty acres a day, I guess.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Forty, fifty acres a day. {X} It'll- it'll strain you to do forty acres a day, cause you have to push your levees. You didn't have a levee plow then, you uh you would start drilling {X} was in the morning. And uh you had to have a fellow on the- driving the truck to back the truck to the drill. Put the rice in {X}
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And uh afterwards well, then you'd have to start you'd have to put two tractors on a pusher. To push your levees. {D: Cause one tractor you'd get to the corn, it wouldn't tow it.} {D: Or you're doing it} and the gravel was so hard and everything cause she didn't have nothing {X} You couldn't wait more than about six inches, I guess. And then old soil was hard, you had uh then you had to push it and you had about four fellows on the pusher. It'd take you a whole lot of man labor. {NS} Take you uh well if four men's on the pusher, and two on the trac- there were six mens. And a whole lot of time you- you would start about four o'clock in the afternoon and your land would roll cause you you couldn't water that land. And you didn't have enough- no water left with you {NW} And your levees was all one right on top. Close to the uh
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  But you might finish it by twelve, one o'clock that morning. {NS} Uh pushing your levees. {NS} And then to get a good day the next day, you had to get up about around four o'clock to try to get started for five. To put in a good day again. Well, that would never last more than about a week and a half. {NS} But that was a long week and a half during planting season.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And uh
Interviewer:  Week and a half of eighteen hour days.
811:  Yeah. {NW} That was Saturday. Saturday nights {X} sometimes till one or two o'clock on Saturday night. Last Sunday mornings. Well you wouldn't and m- {NW} and they had these old crude oil engines. {NS} We'd have to have a man to {X} And most of these people they was religious people, they wasn't {NS} let them folks run on Sunday.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
811:  They'll uh #1 stop #
Interviewer:  #2 What #
811:  they'd stop 'em twelve o'clock on Saturday night. And they'd start 'em twelve o'clock on a Sunday night. {NS} And uh {NW} They would- they would {D: the only thing that be in the back} you know, pumping and they couldn't ask for the run down, then they had to go close all they levees. And that night at twelve o'clock, well they went off to get up and start opening they levees again. Cause that their problems were gonna start while the waters were gonna get there around four, five o'clock in the morning. {NS}
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NS} {X}
811:  {X}
Interviewer:  And then in that sense, it's easier to plant {X} one reason why they're going with an airplane now this mix, is because I- they- they don't have to cuz it won't mess up the ground underneath. In other words, after they've water plowed,
811:  Well uh
Interviewer:  put the roads up?
811:  you uh wha- what it is is a whole lot quicker done. You uh and you save on labor.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
811:  Well I say you save on labor cause if you drill, {NW} like I was telling you, you can't do more than {NW} bout forty, fifty acres a day.
Interviewer:  The seed will take that way? It'll take?
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  In other words, all they do is just drop it down there {X}
811:  {X} Or then uh well if you were water planting, yeah.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Tell you the way we d- we do it over here. We'll uh, take a ladder and we put four hundred and fifty pound {X}
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  That was uh triple fifteen with zinc. Okay. And we put that with {D: Dixie} {D: We distill that.}
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Then we'd come- we'd flood it Then we get- then we work it in the water with this full ladder in there. Um we'd use drags and harrows. My father got to know what he's doing cause if you get {D: enough, you skip a bit this water is gonna show.} The grass gonna come up {X}
Interviewer:  Uh-uh. {NS}
811:  So, what you do, you don't put too much water. {NS} And uh {NS} you'd get {NS} you go ahead and you do your whole field, {NS} when you get through, you let it- {NS} settle a little bit, about a half a day or so. You come and you throw your rice in there, {NS} and you leave it out till it sprout. Well, we used to {X} sprout. {NS} What we'd do, we'd take it and put it in a {X} {NS}
Interviewer:  In a what?
811:  In a
Interviewer:  {X}
811:  Oh yeah, in a- uh uh we had a special hole where you put it in. Where the water was still.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  No, you didn't have no fresh water {D: run in}
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And you throw a let's say if you uh had a- a hundred acres you want to plant. You're putting a hundred and fifty pound of seeds to the acre and you put a hundred and fifty sacks in there. {NS} You throw the sacks in there weighing a hundred pound when you put 'em. You go to get 'em out, they weigh a hundred and sixty cause they wet. {NW} They smell like hell. The rice we had it'd be all sour, you know. Smell like the dickens, and then you'd get there and get it out. You stack it on the truck. {NS} Then you would take you some tarp over it and you wrap it up. {NS} Uh airtight. {NS} And uh you leave it uh what it is thirty-six hours. {NS} Uh wrapped up under that {X} When you go back, your rice be coming out your sacks it'd be sprouted.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh. {NS}
811:  Then you'd take it, put it in the planter, you'd throw it in the field. {NS} And uh the next day, you'd cut your water out the field, you go, you plow your ditches. Uh you'd plow all your ditches, then you gotta start- you gotta get all the water off {D: with a hose of water and stuff} You get it all off in about uh four days. You can see early in the morning, you go out there and look {D: you get it you're on the} ground and you see all the little green stuff coming out. {NS} And uh {NS} we used to do a whole lot of water planting. {NW} But lately we went back to dry planting. Water planting it had its advantages and disadvantages. If you got red rice, {NW} that's {D: raw in the form of} and now you get a bunch of red rice. But with water, {NS} you can kind of control it a little bit with water, if you water plant. {NS} You don't never let your field get dry when you first plant. You just make sure your rice sprout, you come back and you're flooded again. And that uh the red rice had a tendency it won't come up through uh through water. {NS} But any time it'd get dry, {D: the stuff in it} And after you let it come up,
Interviewer:  Is it i- it's a different type of rice.
811:  What it is #1 is a #
Interviewer:  #2 hard # #1 hard #
811:  #2 yeah. # {NS} And they'd uh {D: or they'd do it straight heads} You know, it- and the other rice, what it doing if a fellow don't understand it oh well like mr {X} he showed me that- a bunch of stuff about that. {NS} Now they say if you got {NS} ten stalk of rice, a good rice, {NS} and you've got eight stalks of red rice, {NS} now all this red rice doing is taking the fertilizer, the nitrogen, {NS} everything from your good rice. {NS} So you me- that mean you gotta put twice as much of everything in it. {NS} And make it produce the way it's supposed to. {NS} And any time you started doing that way, you push it up your red rice, too. After you let it come through.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And uh when they got {X} separate it. {NW} But it makes you a bad sample. {NS} You won't get the price you gonna get if you get just the white rice. {NS}
Interviewer:  One um {NW} one thing that they did was don't they rotate and you plant rice in the same field every-
811:  Uh no or what we'd do uh was down on this farm me, I was taking care of this farm. We had uh let me see. {NS} Um we had about a hundred and sixty acres- uh two hundred and sixty acres of rice. {NS} Uh we'd put rice one year {D: and pasta} We'd rotate from rice to {D: pasta} every year. A- and that makes a big difference. And uh
Interviewer:  Don't they have some kind of farms now, where they they'd flood the rice and get those animals, get- {NS} get the crawfish?
811:  Yeah. This farm of rice here did it. {NW} {X} bad weather. {NW} I don't know what happened, though. But they had money in it a couple of years ago. Tell me one of the boy made 'em fifty thousand dollars. {NS} Uh A young fellow the young farmer, he's about thirty, thirty-one years old. And he went out there in a {NS} they had some land, I don't know how many about five, six hundred acres he planted.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And then when I- that boy his daddy told me, I don't know how true it is, he told me he made fifty thousand dollars in one year.
Interviewer:  {X}
811:  Yeah.
Man:  That's what he'd buy his tractors with.
811:  With crawfish. #1 {X} #
Man:  #2 {X} #
811:  #1 It #
Man:  #2 Then # he bought a new tractor. {NW}
811:  I know a few years ago, they had rented some of them tractors, I don't know how much they was paying him But they got good crawfish country back there. That's across that uh that {D: ninety} uh they call it Chataignier
Interviewer:  Chataignier
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  The #1 town #
811:  #2 {NW} #
Interviewer:  Chataignier
811:  Well, yeah it's it ain't much of a town, it's up near this Bellevue You run through it and you never know you did. {NS} And uh {NS} I don't know that- what they did, they had a bad one of this one. I don't know what they
Interviewer:  Um now tell me about your could you tell me about your mother and father? In other words, we- were they born here?
811:  Uh yeah they both uh Let's see. I don't know exactly what house but they both was born I don't know. My grandparents, too. {NS} they was b- uh Fa- let's see, on my mama's {NS} oh yeah {NS} my uh daddy's momma she was born uh in the {X} parish. That would mean she was born {X} local. You know, r- round
Interviewer:  Okay. {NS}
811:  And uh {NS} my mother's momma, she was born uh {NS} round Church Point, too.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm. {NS} Okay. {NS} #1 What #
811:  #2 And # And I don't I can't tell you about my two grandpas, I- cause I don't remember for sure.
Interviewer:  Okay. Did you know him? In other words, were they living when you
811:  Mm-hmm. I knew uh well uh all except one. My daddy's dad, I didn't know him. But the rest of 'em I I knew. {NS} I don't ever remember seeing him. I think he might've died before I was born. But uh my two grandmothers and my mama's daddy, I knew them.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh. {NS} Now, your father was born {NS}
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  born here?
811:  Yeah. {NS}
Interviewer:  On this place?
811:  Uh let's see. #1 {X} #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  You call this wha- do you have a name rou- this around here or you just call it Church Point?
811:  Church Point.
Interviewer:  Okay. {NS}
811:  {NW} {NS}
Interviewer:  How did your mother and father meet?
811:  Oh {NW} that's the sixty-four thousand dollar question, now.
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NS} Your father farmed, too?
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  Did he know French?
811:  Mm-mm. But uh
Interviewer:  Is that so?
811:  He didn't talk French but uh he understood a little bit. My mother didn't talk French. And none of my grandparents did. {NS} Cause uh no, none of 'em did.
Interviewer:  How many children, mr Mennings? Do you mind me asking?
811:  Only five.
Interviewer:  That sounds-
811:  Two boys and uh three girls. {NS}
Interviewer:  You- were you the
811:  I'm the next to the oldest. I've uh got a brother older than me. We're two years apart well all of us is two years apart. {NS}
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NS}
811:  {D: Oh, he lived}
Interviewer:  In Texas.
811:  Uh-huh.
Interviewer:  Where?
811:  Uh {X} Uh that would be {NW} I guess {NS} would be west uh of Beaumont. Yeah I guess about eighteen miles west of Beaumont.
Interviewer:  On ninety? Yeah.
811:  Uh, well we usually go uh on the interstate. And we get off and come back uh north. We go west on the interstate and then we come back north. Oh about eight, ten miles. There's a little- A little community town, something like Branch, I guess.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And he was on the farm uh he stayed on the farm till uh he got married. He was working for the same fellow I was working for. Only he got married when he went to Texas. {NS} Then he started doing construction work in the county {D: away} {NS}
Interviewer:  Hmm. {NS} Um did did you uh your father farmed, he lived all his life here, right?
811:  Yeah. And uh He di- he sharecropped on half and then uh he went on through it.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  Had men on half uh {NS} The boss would furnish the mules.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Uh the team of there were no tractors then, we just had mules. He would furnish the mules.
Interviewer:  Team of?
811:  Yeah. And uh
Interviewer:  And he had wha- had what did- what did he use to work with?
811:  Well, was m- was mules and uh and plows. You ha- uh {NS} the boss would furnish uh the mules, the feed, {X} the corn, too. {NS} And uh he would fill half of the seed. So uh if uh he had to buy two hundred dollar worth of seed. {NS} When my dad had to pay a hundred dollar, then he payed a hundred dollars. {NS} And uh okay and when the crop was gathered up, um {NS} all the boss would do was take his {NS} the hundred dollars that he wanted for the seed {NS} and then he would get half whatever he made. {NS} And then uh {NW} it got so uh {NW} everybody trying to better theirself a little bit there. {NS} He went on and bought himself a pair of mules. Okay that many he was on {X} He uh had to furnish all his feed for the mules and stuff. {NS} And uh {NS} the boss {NS} would pair one third of the seed {NS} one- yeah, let's see yeah one third cause he was on to it, and he had to pay the rest. And that meant when he sold his crop, the boss would get one and he would get three. {NS} Would get two. {X} on half. {NS} {NW} {NS}
Interviewer:  Hmm. {NS} Um {NS} we were talking about the house, okay, can you- now tell me- can you tell me about the rest of the house? What about the top of the house, what was that-
811:  Uh most of 'em had uh shingles {NS} uh these uh wooden shingles. Some of 'em had tin. There were very few of 'em had them wooden shingles they would've had uh most of 'em had tin on 'em. {NS}
Interviewer:  Tin.
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  Would it ever catch on fire, did you ever see the {NS}
811:  It very seldom every now and then, you'd hear talk of one would burn down. But as I grew older, and they got these up-to-date houses, I seen more fire then then I ever did. Cause in that time I don't remember nobody's house burning from the time I was about
Interviewer:  What would- what would cause 'em to burn?
811:  Neglect I- I imagine. That's the only thing I can see. They'd uh go off and leave stuff on the fire. {NS} Or
Interviewer:  Cinders might come out and land on the
811:  Uh yeah and then every now and then with them uh uh {NS} tin roofs you would get uh where your fire would start coming out on the top of the chimney or something. You know, it would start flying out, it'll fall on the roof. {NS} Every now and then, maybe one or two {NS} in about every ten years you would hear of burning
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  like that. {NS}
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NS}
811:  But it's very seldom you would {X} but from the time I was about six {NS} until I was about fifteen, I don't remember you hadn't had a house that burnt.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
811:  You know, one of these old wood- dirt houses or wood-frame houses from the olden time. But from the time I was about fifteen, when they started having electric lights natural gas and stuff like that. Butane. We started hearing of houses burning. Every now and then you hear somebody say well so-and-so's house burnt. What happened? I don't know. And I know some particular people, and I don't know what happened but it burnt in about three houses. They were living in town, we were living out in the country, and we was going to school, we'd hear the fire truck burn that hap- went about it had- it was in about five years' time. They burn about three houses. {NS}
Interviewer:  Um {NS}
811:  {NW}
Interviewer:  Now {NS} did the window the things you'd have to pull down to shut out light,
811:  You didn't have nothing to pull to shut out a light.
Interviewer:  Well you know, when you had glass wind- when you got glass.
811:  Oh, uh when the yeah, when they come up to glass windows, uh
Interviewer:  You get
811:  What you ha- had to do is make you some curtains.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Some of 'em every now and then would
Interviewer:  Or did you see the ones that would be on rollers, you know? And they'd come to how you just pull 'em down? {NS}
811:  We never did have nothing like that. Uh #1 {X} #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
811:  we had us s- something like that, we'd take a stick
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  and put- with some heavy you know, heavy material. And just take 'em and close 'em with our hand. Open 'em and close 'em. {NS} And what mostly it was was uh they had some um fertilizer sacks or we'd buy fertilizer. When we was {NW} {NW} there was some white sacks. {NS} {X} take 'em and we'd undo 'em uh {NS} and why when after you undo 'em there's a good size. And poor momma would take 'em and kindly bleach 'em and get us some dye. {NS} And she would dye 'em the-
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  the color she wanted 'em. And our underclothes, that's what we'd made our underclothes out of these fertilizer sacks. {NS}
Interviewer:  What were they made out of? They were
811:  Uh {NS} whatever this uh shoot. {NS}
Interviewer:  Were they cotton? {NS}
811:  Ye- uh they had cotton in it, but it was rough. {NW} It was- {X} never did have too much cotton, did it? {NW} I just know it was kind of rough. I don't know what it was, but it was rough. {NW} #1 {X} #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} # good {X}
811:  It'd take many a washing before you would get that and then we had to make our own soup. Me and my poor grandma used to get out there and make soup. {NS} We had to go to town she'd send me to town at they had a {NS} a sack one of these old fertilizer sacks and she had cut me a hole right in the middle of it, she had sewed the top and the bottom up cut me a hole, I'd go to town {NS} and get some scraps. {D: Then we did} cut all the meat off it and I get my sack full, and I'd throw it across my shoulder. Have half of it in the front, and half in the back. I had about three miles to go {NS} we get back with that-
Interviewer:  And you didn't have a car, you had to I mean, you didn't ride a horse, you had to
811:  We didn't have no horse. {NS} It was a fu- {NS} That's what- that's when we was working on half.
Interviewer:  Put that sack over your back
811:  And go where I had to go. {NS} And I would get about uh {NS} three box of {X} {NS} {D: that I had in a paper bag.} {NS} And we'd come back and get us a washcloth {NS} and uh {NS} put them bones and stuff in there and start a fire. And uh we put all these old bones in there. {D: When there'd be a little meat} instead of 'em feeding three box of {X} and pour in there. And that stuff would get hot. It would eat all the little bit of meat and stuff they had on them bones. And then we'd take the bones and throw 'em away. And you'd let it cook for so long, and then you'd just take it off the fire. When you get through, you'd have your soap.
Interviewer:  Hmm. {NS}
811:  {NW}
Interviewer:  And on Monday, your mother would your grandmother would do the is it Monday when she'd do all the {NS} clothes and stuff? What would she use the soap for?
811:  White washing clothes and dishes. Scrub- cleaning the house. She'd take that lye soap and get down there with a scrubbing brush. And then you had uh like when the clothes would get dirty you had to boil them. Take 'em and put 'em in a wash pot outside and boil 'em. {NS}
Interviewer:  She have a day usually when she'd do that?
811:  Huh?
Interviewer:  Did she have a certain day of the week?
811:  Uh yeah was mos- something like on Mondays.
Interviewer:  Like on Monday.
811:  Or either- well, her boy had to work in the field then. If it was a good day on Monday where we- you know where the work was pushing where we had to get out there and work. Well she just going and- and do it late on Monday afternoon when she'd get out there and uh and start and it'd be way in the night before she finished. And it was the kid's mother and everything {X} {NS}
Interviewer:  And then the next day she'd do the? {NS}
811:  Oh, whatever she had left, she'd finish. uh
Interviewer:  #1 For the ironing? #
811:  #2 It'd be that # morning.
Interviewer:  She do any ironing?
811:  Oh, there wasn't no ironing back then.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Very, very seldom. And for irons we had these uh irons, you'd take 'em and heat 'em on the stove. #1 {NW} #
Interviewer:  #2 Yeah. # {NS} Um {NS} now {NS} a room up under the top of a house would be a what? You've seen those?
811:  Mm. no. {NS}
Interviewer:  Um well, you know, you said you had you had rafters in your house?
811:  Oh yeah, you had uh {NS} It was uh you know, like this house here, they got uh you know a ceiling thing.
Interviewer:  Yeah, what do you got up there? You got a?
811:  But uh the other was you didn't have nothing up there, all you had was your two-by-fours going across.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  And then your rafters would go up. You didn't have nothing to stop the heat or the with just your rafters and stuff up there. {NS} And most of 'em was high, you know there's mo- they'd build high. {NS} Then you would have- {NS} for water, we had a cistern.
Interviewer:  How'd you get water in the cistern?
811:  Well, what you gotta do is put some gutters on your house. Whenever it would rain, put gutters around the house. {NS} I'll never forget one time {NS} {D: It was nearly December} and the mosquitos was bad {NS} yeah and they had a little old young mule that'd keep running around the house, running around the house, running around the house, kept running. And the old cistern had a tin top, and some kinda way he come running and jumped in that cistern. {NS}
Interviewer:  Jumped in the what?
811:  In the cistern. {NS} {NW} {NW} And they didn't have much water, either. We already- we had to tow the water for about a half a mile. When it'd it didn't rain and that old mule done jumped in that cistern. The next one, we heard him hollering at that wasn't {X} type of lantern, you know {X} {NW} by the way, that old mule died in there, boy that thing was about eight feet deep. {NS} The damn next morning I had to go out there and get all kind of pulleys and stuff the the highest amount in there.
Interviewer:  A- a beaver?
811:  A- a mule.
Interviewer:  Oh, a mule. {NW}
811:  {X} go out of there. And then we- co-
Interviewer:  {NW}
811:  couldn't drink it. I know {D: the cistern was out} for six month. {NS} What they had to do was get down in there and clean the bottom out and then they put some more bricks. {D: Cause in a bath, that mud it'd come a flood} {NS} We had some water. {NS} It was hard times then. {NS} Why, we said it was hard time, we was everybody had plenty to eat. {NS} But you know, you compare it to now, it was hard times. {NS} But everybody was much more happier then, now I tell you. {NS} You didn't have many people with bad eyes. We had these old {NS} lamps and then you didn't have to worry too much about the mosquitoes. you had bad {X} the smoke so {NW} It'd smoke up the house. {NW} {NS} And uh very seldom you had people having heart attacks, ulcers, and all that stuff. We'd make most of that stuff out of grease. We'd plant peas and all kind of stuff.
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NS}
811:  Very seldom we'd go to the store for
Interviewer:  Um the room that you would cook in uh would be the
811:  The kitchen. {NS}
Interviewer:  Okay. Was it in the house?
811:  Yeah. {NS} And it was the most tiny I had, but maybe two rooms.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  Cause I remember th- one of the houses we- that's where we slept, in the kitchen.
Interviewer:  Yeah. But now y- this here room you call your? This is your?
811:  This is the uh the living room. {NS}
Interviewer:  #1 Your living room, right? Okay. #
811:  #2 {X} {NW} #
Interviewer:  I mean, well things have changed a lot. This is a fine house you have.
811:  Thank you.
Interviewer:  Um {NS} the uh okay you'd sleep in the what? Do you have a- a room you would sleep- what {NS}
811:  Well
Interviewer:  #1 room where you could sleep. #
811:  #2 Most of the time yo- # you had maybe two rooms
Interviewer:  Okay.
811:  with the kitchen, and a bedroom. And the parents would sleep in the bedroom, and the kids would sleep in the kitchen. {NS} We had a little ol' cot or something, you know {NS}
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  that {NS} we'd make our own mattress. {NS}
Interviewer:  If you didn't have a bed, they'd make a what? Make a, just a? {NS}
811:  Well, most of 'em would uh {NS} you'd make uh a stand on the side of the wall and put you a some boards and stuff. {NS} Then put you some mattress on top of it. {NS}
Interviewer:  What did you make a mattress out of?
811:  Wha- with cotton. We used to make our own quilts. {NS} But uh let's say for cotton what we would do is take it {NS} uh {NS} when we would go to the cotton gin well before that we'd take the seeds and take your time and pull all the seeds out of there. {NS} And then you'd take that cotton and you'd fluff it up. {NS} And you'd go ahead and you'd make your mattress. {NS} But then they uh they started when you could get it from the gin. {NS}
Interviewer:  #1 Mm-hmm. #
811:  #2 The # the gin would de-seed it, and it would fluff it up you know, much much better. {NS} And you could uh {NS} go ahead and make you your mattress, your pillows. Now for quilts, well, you should buy cotton. Go to the store and buy this uh roll of cotton. And uh you take all kind of little old scrap pieces and sew 'em together, like during the winter we didn't have nothing to do, me and my grandma and my momma would get together. And would sew all them little piece together. {NS} One side you'd have all different colors on your quilt, and the other side was solid. And we'd sew all them little old different pieces together. {NS} And get one side solid {NS} and when I got married, my grandmother gave you a quilt. You and Sarah, I think.
Child:  {X} she gave me
811:  Uh-huh.
Child:  {X} quilt.
811:  Yeah, so every time I had one of the kids was born, they would make 'em a quilt. {NS}
Interviewer:  That's an art. It really is, to be to- to you oughta appreciate that cause your grand- grandmother, if she can do that, she's quite a good sewer. Cause there's
811:  And I used to love to do all- to sew like that uh for doing fancy work, I'd come out first place at school,
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  When I was in school, and then I just quit and I I was supposed to show the kids how to do it, but I {NS} {NW} get doing so many other things, I forgot. And I tried it to get back then I never could do it. {NS}
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NS} {NW} {NS} There's a- there's a f- a football player that was from down around where I'm from. Big guy, he played for the Rams. His name was Roosevelt Grier.
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  He does- he does crochet.
811:  Yeah, I seen him doing that on a commercial. On TV. {NW}
Interviewer:  Yeah, he's- he's good.
811:  Mm.
Interviewer:  Yeah. Uh and he played football. {NS} Big fella. {NS} Big, tough guy. Um well a room up under the top of the house do you have- you have one of them in this house? {NS} Uh-uh. {NS} No. Wait a minute. Uh we just go- what do you call that? {NS}
Man:  Attic.
811:  Yeah. {NS}
Man:  And sometimes it was for the insulation.
811:  Yeah. We got one. Yeah we got one, but it's
Interviewer:  Got a
811:  insulation all over it. Yeah.
Interviewer:  Um okay now a room maybe off of the kitchen where you kept your where they would keep dishes or extra food or
811:  Well you would call that a storeroom. You know the little storeroom where you could cause what ya a most ho- most of the houses had 'em. {NW} They had their little storeroom cause what your i.e., that little outdoor house and they- they had it off {NS} cause your when you make your bacon and stuff, you have to have a house to put it in. All your canned goods. Your blackberries and your whatever you would can. Your peas and all that stuff.
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
811:  They had a little house outside but {NW} you got you a good lock on it. {X} But people weren't bad as they- as they did, now for taking stuff like that. Every now and then when it was when it was really bad {X}
Interviewer:  {X}
811:  it was people who had watermelons and corn.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  You'd have people
Interviewer:  Y'all raise them here?
811:  Now what?
Interviewer:  Watermelons.
811:  Oh yes.
Interviewer:  What kind did you raise?
811:  Uh we had these uh striped ones. One year we planted some of them yellow bellies. And we really-
Interviewer:  Are they kind of yellow #1 inside? #
811:  #2 Yeah. #
Interviewer:  Are they good?
811:  #1 {X} #
Interviewer:  #2 I've never # seen one. They're sweet, aren't they?
811:  Yeah, they sweet. And we plant squash and we'd can all the eggplants.
Interviewer:  Do you ever let squash dry? Do you ever let- squash dry?
811:  #1 Y- ye- #
Interviewer:  #2 You have a name for it? #
811:  Uh {NS} It'd been so long ago, I remember we used to have planted {X} and all that stuff.
Interviewer:  {X} you know
811:  Uh-huh. And we're uh well if you want to save the seeds, you would let 'em dry. {X} Mom made a phone call?
Child:  Uh-uh.
811:  Better go ask her if she made it. {NS}
Child:  You want some water?
811:  Yeah, bring me a little thing. Do you care for a glass of water, #1 coffee? #
Interviewer:  #2 No, # no thank you. No, I'm fine. {NS}
811:  And stuff like that it would {NS} {D: where you make your own sauce, it} You'll make {X}
Interviewer:  Hmm?
811:  {X}
Interviewer:  {X} What's that?
811:  Uh you take a we're not talking about something good.
Interviewer:  All right. Tell me, what was that again?
811:  You take a like you kill a hog
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  and you had these big guts. You take 'em and you wash 'em good. You take 'em and you hang 'em on a fence about for four or five days. And let it dry. Then you smoke it.
Interviewer:  Have you had any of this yet, Roger?
811:  Uh yeah you ate some. You remember the first time I came out the house been when I I made that okra. When I went and boiled that.
Man:  {NW} I don't know, I don't remember.
Child:  {X}
811:  {NW} {NW} That's some good eating.
Interviewer:  Now I didn't even know what it was you you told me. I didn't he- you- you said something, I couldn't hear what it was.
811:  You take a like this big uh you ever seen 'em kill a hog?
Interviewer:  Oh yeah.
811:  They got these big, big, big guts.
Interviewer:  Yeah. What do you call them, the
811:  Um I don't know what you'd call 'em.
Interviewer:  Hmm.
811:  There were the big guts.
Interviewer:  And you let 'em dry?
811:  You take 'em and you hang 'em out there. You wash 'em good.
Interviewer:  Uh-huh.
811:  You hang 'em up somewhere where they can dry.
Interviewer:  Okay.
811:  Then you smoke 'em.
Interviewer:  Yeah. {NS}
811:  And you set it up.
Interviewer:  You mean dry, or you mean dry dry?
811:  Well, uh but I mean
Interviewer:  Dry like needle dry.
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  Okay.
811:  Like you would do bacon. Uh you smoke a little bit of drying bacon.
Interviewer:  Okay. Seems like to me you wash it out and if you put it out to dry, it would get- the meat would get uh in other words, it would go bad. It would get
811:  Yeah that- then what you do, you season it, you see? You put your pepper and salt and everything on it, you hang it but you hang it somewhere in the shade. Like in your {D: smolder after some} And after it'd drip out good, then you salt it. You well season it.
Interviewer:  Now what do you call this dish?
811:  Huh? A tasso. {NS}
Interviewer:  A tasso?
811:  Tasso. {NS}
Interviewer:  Tasso. {NS}
811:  {X} A tasso is uh #1 you kno- #
Interviewer:  #2 {X} #
811:  Yeah.
Interviewer:  A tasso.
811:  Tasso, that that- you use the- you make that out of beef meat.
Interviewer:  Okay. What's {X}
811:  Well that's that hog gut I was thinking about. And this tasso {NS} that's beef meat. {NS} You cut it in strips and you uh {NS} you smoke it. {NS} And um {NS} you take it and you s- smoke this stuff uh {NS} Oh you gotta smoke it slow and long. {NW} Then you season it hard. You put plenty pepper and salt on it. And {D: you put that in the okra gumbo.}
Interviewer:  Mm-hmm.
811:  {NW} {NS}
Interviewer:  What part of the meat was it?
811:  Well, you just take uh any lean part of the meat {NS} You can buy it every now and then now. Uh the store in town, they might have some.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  It just like if you take a chicken or something and smoke it. {NS} And the smoke taste if you put it in peas or something. {NS}
Interviewer:  Um {NS} now what would you call a lot of things- useless things, you know, that you just kept around the farm? They weren't any good. Worthless, and you were just about to throw 'em away, but you always kept 'em. You ever have- have all that stuff? {NS}
811:  Yeah, as they was going out of style, people would get rid of 'em. You'd think uh {NW} like old uh {X} planters old cotton planters. I remember we had one at Thanksgiving that's trouble. Poor Daddy went and bought a brand new one, it was seventy seventy-eight dollars. And in that time, seventy-eight dollars a whole lot of money. That's like three hundred dollars today. And we went {X} he we- he never would get rid of that old one. We just kept it. We'd pile it up out there for junk. Old pliers.
Interviewer:  Where'd you keep it?
811:  We'd just take it and throw it on side the barn. Outside where well like the planters and stuff like that, we'd keep 'em indoors. But they were so expensive.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  That's just like something today, you know, like when you'd go buy a piece of equipment. If you gonna pay ten thousand dollars for it, you gonna kind of keep it- keep it indoors, you know where it's going.
Interviewer:  #1 Yeah. #
811:  #2 {NW} #
Interviewer:  Um now your mother, around the house she would do all the? Yo- when your mother was sweeping, you'd say she was?
811:  Well, she was sweeping.
Interviewer:  Yeah.
811:  And we'd make our own brooms. We- we had 'em made, we'd plant uh broom straw seed. Make our own brooms. Plant our peanuts. Uh they had some other kind of things they called {X} You'd make candy with it. You put it with peanuts. And uh {D: they would refer- what did we choose uh} something like uh we plant the broom straw seed and all we had to do was furnish the handle, and they charge something like I believe it was thirty-five cent a broom. They make 'em. And every year we'd make about ten fifty.
Interviewer:  Um now uh how would you get from the first floor to the second floor in a two-story house? You ever been in a house you know, that would have two stories?
811:  Mm. #1 I've s- #
Interviewer:  #2 You've # seen 'em around here?
811:  Yeah. Do- your stairs are like doors. You had to come like, outside and get on the porch there's very few of 'em ou-