The story below is an excerpt from our September/October 2017 issue. For the rest of this story and more like it subscribe today, log in to read our digital edition or download our FREE iOS app. Thank you!
The days before air conditioning held treasures of their own, not the least of which revolved around the stringing of the beans.
Molly Dugger Brennan
Growing up, no one I knew had air conditioning. That was a luxury that simply could not be justified in our farming community. Instead, you spent a lot of time on the porch, hiding from the sun’s rays and hoping for a breeze. If it were a real scorcher of a day, you ran an extension cord out through a window so you could plug in a fan which helped keep the bugs away and gave the illusion of air flow.
While the size differed, everyone’s porch looked the same. The floor boards were painted a shade of gray, and the ceiling was always painted a light blue called “Haint blue” by the old timers. More modern people referred to it as “sky blue.” A haint is a ghost or evil spirit and pale water blue was supposed to keep them away from your house. Another explanation for popularity of the color is the old wives’ tale that wasps won’t build a nest on the blue because it looks like the sky, not a solid nesting spot. All I know is if you painted your porch ceiling any color other than haint blue, people would talk about you like you didn’t have the sense God gave a heifer.
Porches are perfect for watching the world and reading, two of my favorite activities. Lazing on the porch with a good book was a day well spent. The only time I was not left to read was when all hands were needed to help with Grandma’s canning.
Putting up food was Grandma’s thing. I was naïve and thought it was because Grandma enjoyed canning. Now I realize it was no hobby but a necessity, otherwise there would be little food on the table during the winter months. My grandparents bought only five things at the store: flour, sugar, salt, pepper and a mild cheddar called “rat cheese” that came in big waxed wheels cut to order. The rat cheese was Grandpa’s indulgence, going on the biscuit egg sandwiches he had for breakfast every morning before the sun lit the sky.
Grandma’s busiest time of the year was late summer and fall, harvest time, her time to do everything possible to get them through the winter with full bellies. Grandma put up, pickled, jammed, jellied, dried, cured or churned everything. Butter was churned and wrapped in wax paper. Hams, sausages and bacon hung in the smoke house after a week of sending hogs to be with Jesus. The fruits of the peach trees and wild blackberry brambles became jars of jam that shone like jewels. Apples, onions, carrots, sweet and Irish potatoes all had their own sections dug out in the cool earth of the cellar’s floor. The cellar walls were lined with shelves for storing all the jars of garden bounty.