Dribblers

Dribblers,

If you are interested in some "OLD STUFF" stay tuned to one of my many WEB Sites at:

http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~ollis/old-stuff/index.htm

Over the next several weeks I will be adding a lot of grits, hash, and bs... Stay Tuned.

Ollie

TO: Ollie

Wonderful! An Excellent Read!!! But much too descriptive with the food.... It is 2306 hours and I have just finished off two cellophane stacks of ritz crackers, Cheeses, ham, Strawberry Jelly and Peanut Butter! I almost fried a mess of eggs and ham!!

Garcia

Ollie; Great stuff as always!! Eduardo just inspired me to seek out a "sleeve"of Ritz crackers...or Keeblers......whatever.

I read it all. What a talent we have in "Our Ollie". All those adventures

involving one so young.

Jim Colvig

TO: Garcia

You should enter the National Hot Dog eating contest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ollie

TO: Ollie

Wow - what a web page. Really worth reading! Ben Halsted, Abilene, Texas

Great stuff Ollie. I am a little disappointed in you calling your family a "poor" family - My family would consider you upper middle class. Noah Webster once offered my folks $5 if he could use our family picture in the definition of poor, why I was born in a hut with a dirt floor. Ever eat a lard and onion sandwich? Jim Hilton

We were so poor we couldn't afford a Mother!
EZ

HHHHHmmmmmmm??????? We were poor too!!!! thank goodness it was so inexpensive we could afford it!!! A diet of rice and Beans gives you a good outlook on life and is seldom constipating! Running barefoot as we did growing up at Fort Kam was easy on the pocket book and you never got athletes foot! Being the oldest I passed my clothes down to my younger sibs...really pissed off my sister.....and my younger bros when sis passed hers down!......
Eduardo

EZ I guess you and Hilton WIN the poorest... You with no Mother and Jim with a Hut with dirt floors..

Ollie

It was tough for me, too. When I was born I was just a baby.

JCee

Thanks, Ollie. It is so seldom you win with this gang!

We are all supposed to be losing our memory, but you sure as hell wouldn't know it!

EZ

Thanks for the tip, Ollie. Glad you are branching out. Must mean you are feeling a lot prettier.
John Quinn

The first story never has a chance with this group, sounds like can you top this. We lived in something called a clap board house which I later learned was architecturally called board and batten. Unfortunately ours was constructed from green pine lumber which cured out and left gaping cracks between the boards. They were sometimes called air castles because the wind whistled through and could blow the lamp out. Windows were frequently without glazing and had wood shutters which kept out he rain but not the bugs. Those were the good old days, no indoor plumbing, no electric power, no radio or telephone just a well and outhouse. Communications was the rural mail carrier who relayed the messages family to family and the Saturday morning gathering at the griss mill where you could get your corn ground into meal and the latest community gossip. ----- Frank

What is indoor plumbing???

Ollie

Ollie, Indoor plumbing is where you have a spigot in the kitchen that gives out rust colored water (hot in summer and cold in winter). You catch the water in a pan or pot and dispose of it by opening the shutter and tossing the water out the window opening

Well, I am pretty lucky, and I wish I could have raised my son in the same environment. I was raised in a commercial fishing community near the mouth of the Potomac River in the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia. All of the families - about 18 of them - lived in about a 2 square mile area of little 5 - 6 acres farms planted right in the woods which came right down to the river shore. The river was about 4 miles across. We had no electricity until 1952 when the REA brought it in, no indoor plumbing, except that some of us (my family included) pumped water up from the well to a tank on stands next to the back of the house above the roofline. The water came from the tank directly into the kitchen and drained out a pipe for about 50 ft from the house down the hillside. We grew and canned all our veggies and bartered a piglet with a neighbor with a horse to plow, harrow, and cultivate an acre for our garden. We hunted small game in "eating season", shot a couple deer a year, "meat-hunted" geese and ducks, and canned all the meet that we didn't cure. We slaughtered a hog each year, and had a cow that provided milk 18 months out of each 2 years. All the fish we could pickle (herring), can, or eat fresh. Two winesap apple trees down hill, and a freestone peach tree off to the side that seemed to set a record of the number of peaches borne each year. Canned jars and jars of apple sauce, pie slices, apple butter, and peach quarters. Had a spring house about 20 yards uphill from the house that was a cool 60 degrees during dog-days, where we hung or stored all the meat and cheese, apples, potatoes, beets, and carrots. Healthy as the dickens, only time any of us went to the doctor was when we broke a bone or a bad sprain. Dad had been a medic in WWI, and generally took care of suturing up bad cuts, after sprinkling in sulfa powder and mercurochrome around the wound site. We kids could swim like a fish by time we were 6 years old, and could hunt and spend overnight in the woods by time we were 12.

Everyone took responsibility in helping raise and mentor the kids. Adults other than mom or dad were "uncle" or "aunt". By time we were 12 we boys were working on the fishing boats when not in school or doing chores. We helped caulk with the oakum in early spring, build and mend nets, sort fish, and do general cleanup. In the winter we trapped muskrat, in the spring we hunted for snapping turtles just before they came out of hibernation and put them in the pen to sell, in the summer we hunted soft-shell crabs to put in the running fresh water pans to keep to sell, and in the fall we hunted rabbits and squirrels. As we got older we hunted geese, turkey and deer.

We grew up to be responsible and able to take care of us and our buddy.

I really miss those days. Jim Haynes

I really envy you classmates who lived the typical rural life in your growing up years....hunting, fishing, exploring and camping out should be a part of every boys growing up years....mine as you all know were spent on Army Posts and the discipline inherent to that life pretty much precluded all those wonderful activities...I did manage to get all that stuff in but it had to wait until I retired from the USAF and became the Assistant Scountmaster at Troop 237, Fort MacPherson, Georgia...Anyhow I sure enjoy reading about your early years and hope our Ollie will make these dissertations a part of our record...Remember folks, unless you are a talented reporter and web master like Ollie our web site is pretty much our history...
Ed

Dribblers i'is won-din if any of you'ns er got hankering for whole pod boiled okra? Grab it by it's stem and dip in some hot pepper sauce... tilt head back and suck it in like you eating pickled ell..... Okra best when y'all boil with chit'ins.

Ollie

No. Okra is bestest when it be fried. Sure am enjoying fresh tomato sandwiches from My garden. This year I planted a loaf of bread and a bottle of mayonnaise next to each plant and I just pick the sandwiches.

Jim Hope

Great plan Jim... next year plant a box of black pepper with the bread, mayo, tomato's and plant the salt box about 12 inches to the side....
Ollie

Jim, Marta said she loves tomatoe samiches as well!.... I do too with lots of salt n' pepper like Ollie! Gonna plant me a little plot like that...it do sound swell! Florida soil is kinda fertile in some ways...gonna try a little burger patch as well...see if I can get some of those little seed Krystals...plant some mustard n' relish next to em with some of Publix French Hamburger rolls.......ummmmmm bet they gonna be goodies!
Ed

Wa'ca spose yall gotta plant fo energy??? Shore lackin' in that.
Dan

Youse guys aren't using your OCS ingenuity. Don't you know you can graft salt and pepper shakers on to tomatoe vines? sure cuts down on the mess. Also I vote for fried okra vs boilted. Jim Hilton