A Slave To The Bottle

Tallahatchie Mississippi Area

I was born around Tallahatchie, Mississippi  Area I was told.  Mom had a nice wood stove that daddy had built for us to use for cooking meals.

She even had a few skillets and a big old round pot for cooking up some of them vegetables that was grown out in the fields,  so she could make us some homemade vegetable soup,  and she would add chicken to it and it would be so tasty.

Mom taught me how to read and write pretty good because there weren't many schools around in that day. She wanted me to learn but also to help with the crops and back then,  you just couldn't get the education that you had wanted at the time.

Survival was the way to go and you did what you had to do in order to survive. 

Homes were made mainly of wood.  Daddy had the skills to help build our home along with friends who helped out.  We had plenty of wood living in the country. 

Work,  work,  and more work was the way to survive. No wonder drinking alcohol had become almost a way to escape temporarily from the problems of being raised in the south with not a lot of money to be had.

Drinking almost was another escape that had one feeling very good in them days.

As I got a little older and soon found me a girl whose name was Beulah to keep me personal company,  we soon became a hot item.

I grew attached to Beulah and we soon had gotten hitched. You know, married.  We loved each other very much,  and had found a little home closer to some stores to where we wouldn't be all the way back in them woods.  It almost seemed like city living.

Of course,  I had skills,  planting,  tending to chickens and helping to build homes so I was able to earn a living quite well for me and my Beulah.

Back  then, I didn't want her working far away,  just tend to my needs and let me do the work. And that's what Beulah did.  Stayed home,  cooked,  cleaned and helped with garden but not much else.

We had a nice life until I had ventured out.