July 2020

Helping to make molasses out of sugarcane the old-timey way in the 1940’s was my first experience with the tall grass known as “sugarcane.” Since there are three types of sugar cane, — chewing cane, crystal cane, and syrup cane, — I’m guessing my father’s cousins in Carmine, Texas, were using “syrup” canes for making their strong, thick molasses. I was a pre-teen at the time, and my job was to carry bundles of sugarcane to the area where a poor old horse, attached to a pole, went around and around on a device that crushed and squeezed the sugarcane stalks. My job was easier than the horse’s.

Recently, while going through my closet, I came across a small, “Indian” arrowhead that I had found as a child growing up in Dime Box, Texas. We called such artifacts, “Indian” arrowheads back then. Today, however, “Native Americans” is the preferred term, although anthropologists and archeologists use the word, “Amerindians.” I remember how many, many Amerindian artifacts people would find in the 1940’s. Most of my young friends had a collection, though I never got past my one arrowhead.

Although he was born in Carmine, Texas, my father grew up in Dime Box, married, and raised his family there (which included me). Daddy was an avid fisherman! Fresh water! I don’t think he had ever been to the Gulf of Mexico until much later in life. But the creeks in Dime Box in those days were clear and unpolluted, and fish were abundant, and the Colorado River was only about 38 miles away, whether in the direction of Bastrop or LaGrange. My father and my uncle would take the women and the kids to the small creeks to fish, but only the men would risk fishing on the big Colorado River, and even they were afraid of it.

After losing the war with the squirrels and birds over the figs for many years, we are declaring total victory this year! Victory came only with the daily help of our daughter and granddaughters, armed with buckets and bowls.