Joe Dabney at Large
We Are What We Were
Memories of Growing Up On A Farm In The Depression Years   

By Joe Dabney 

One of the most poignant and nostalgic books to come across my desk in a good long while is a beautifully written new volume, We Are What We Were, authored by my friend Gene Younts, Public Service Scholar and Vice President Emeritus at the University of Georgia in Athens.

The book, subtitled Memories of Rural North Carolina, recounts his early years as a farm boy in Davidson County, North Carolina, during the Depression years of the 1930's and 40's.

The book brought back fond memories of my own growing up years just down the road apiece in the South Carolina up country, and my experiences were almost a duplicate of Gene's, even to the size of his family! The only difference is that I grew up on a cotton farm while Gene's was a small dairy farm there in the rolling foothills of the North Carolina Piedmont.

But we both had a lot of fun plowing mules, going 'possum hunting, getting baptized and going barefoot beginning the first day of May.

Gene grew up as a member of a large family ­ six boys, one girl and 67 cousins! And he spent many days during his youth working in the fields with his father and his siblings.

As the book flap declares, his book is a reminder that our personal traits reflect the total of life's experiences inherited from our forebears. "Everything we have lived, breathed and touched has made us what we are today ­ our schooling, interactions with people, work experiences, places we have visited, friends made, games played, and religious experiences including "preaching, praying, singing and eating" (especially at huge "dinners on the ground.")

Gene has some great stories involving his experiences with mules and how his father broke stubborn mules. His plowing career began when he was about 10 years old, about the same time as other farm boys in the region.

"Dad had fashioned a cultivator with a wooden beam, making it lighter in weight than the heavy steel factory-made cultivators. One morning as I walked to the barn, I noticed Dad had harnessed and hitched a mule to the cultivator, signaling that a rite of passage had come. We went to the field beside the house where corn no taller than twelve inches grew in rows about forty inches wide filled with plenty of young weeds and grass.

"Even though I had observed Dad and my older brothers handle a cultivator, suddenly a pit formed in my stomach as I was told to take hold of the two handles. The rear end of the mule seemed as tall and wide as the Farmer's Hardware building up town but Dad showed no hesitation as he gave the mule the signal to start walking. Off we went, Dad holding the lines to the mule in his hands and I with the cultivator handles.

"Rather than staying between the rows of corn, the cultivator veered first to the right, plowing out about a dozen stalks of corn, and then to the left, uprooting another dozen (stalks) from the row on the left. Finally, with Dad's help, we made it to the end of the row, which seemed like a mile when in reality the distance was probably no more than 300 feet. Dad instructed me to lift the cultivator around as he pulled on the line guiding the mule between the next two rows. Away we went again, repeating the same plowing pattern four or five times.

"Without saying a word, Dad placed the lines to the mule around my shoulders and told me to finish cultivating the field."

Slowly and cautiously, Gene cultivated the rest of the field, about a half acre, and luckily destroyed only a dozen additional stalks of corn and passing his first test with flying colors. For the next few years, the wooden beam cultivator belonged to him and he got first choice of the gentlest mule on the farm.

Sometimes working a team of mules took a lad away from the farmhouse from sunup to sundown, which meant carrying a supply of water to quench his thirst and a sack of food for lunch.

"For most farm boys, such a day was a treasured experience. The team felt their independence and so did the boys, knowing the day belonged to them and the team."

"The boy had plenty of time for thinking about his world and what it might hold for his future. Background music was free; not stereophonic, but an off-key chorus of insects swarming around the animals, June bugs buzzing overhead and grasshoppers fluttering underfoot. The hotter the day, the louder the music the insects produced. There was little else to distract the boy. He wanted to complete his job and please his father.

Another experience that came close to home for me was Gene's account of going on his first possum hunt. He recalled that the older boys introduced the younger ones "to the folly of hunting under the pretense we were about to experience our first glance at heaven."

Most boys were no more than five or six when the thrill of "possum hunting" was revealed. As the sun slid behind the horizon, Gene recalled, the five hunters ­ himself, another brother, two cousins and a local hunter, plus four hound dogs ­ prepared for the great adventure.

Down through the pasture they went in wet grass up to Gene's waist. "The dogs and I trudged along the best we could, and by the time we reached the barb wire fence next to the woods, my shoes, socks and pants were cold and wet."

They walked about ten minutes, Gene related, when one of the dogs, Old Blue, let out a prolonged yelp and Gene's cousin yelled, "Whoopee, I believe he's struck a hot trail." Almost in unison, the other dogs joined in the chorus with their noses to the leaf floor moving in small circles and barking.

"The dogs picked up their gait and so did all five of us in a mad rush, tugging at bushes and tree limbs to stay abreast with the dogs."

From Gene's vantage point, "the world was nothing more than dips and gullies on the ground that needed crossing, neither of which fit my short legs." An older cousin carrying a kerosene lantern yelled, 'come on,' pushing limbs aside and releasing them to hit me in the face and spray water from their leaves, which soaked every thread on my small body."

One of the boys yelled he believed the dogs had treed a possum. Their pace quickened, but Gene recalled that as hard as he tried, his legs would move no faster. "Not only was I cold and wet but a tiredness hung over me like none I had ever known."

As they neared a tree surrounded by four barking dogs, "the four older boys caucused in a small circle near the base of the tree. As they broke up, one said, 'you climb up and get him, Buster.' Off came Buster's shoes and up the wet tree trunk he scampered as those on the ground shined flashlights into the limbs.

" 'I see him'," one cousin said, "and when I gathered my emotions and looked up, all I could see were two beady eyes which sparkled like red reflectors on the rear fender of a bicycle.

They belonged to the possum. Buster reached the limb holding the possum and shook it vigorously until the catch let go. He hit the ground with a loud thud only to be suddenly grabbed by the jaws of a snarling pack. The possum made himself into a round ball which the three older boys wrestled the dogs to free him. Almost as if my magic, the tallest cousin proudly lifted the possum by the tail high in the air for all of us to get a good look."

"Man, he's a nice one," Gene recalled their saying, "as I wondered, how could such a frightened animal be worth a celebration?"

After placing the possum in a burlap sack, the older cousin decided it was time to return home, and he looked at Gene, remarking he had had his lesson for the night.

"Indeed, I had," Gene recalled, "and the cousin led me by the hand for the trek home. Possum hunting and I were strangers no more."

Joe Dabney is an author and a speaker, and his most recent book is Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread & Scuppernong Wine, winner of the James Beard award as "Cookbook of the Year." He can be reached at joedabney@aol.com.