Stories From Under A Bootheel (Rants, Laughs, and Tears)

Chapter 2 Kinsmen and Kindness Part 2 Hop, Hop, Boom

On the other hand, and on the other side of the family tree, in describing my cousins on my father's side, kindness is not the first thing that comes to mind. Eccentricity, extroverts, extremes and Darwinian tough love are the attributes I most remember.

"Stop it you guys!" I was about in tears, but no way I'd cry in front of my older cousins. I was almost six and very much wanted to impress them, but they were being deliberately mean probably just to irritate me. They only laughed and continued with their dastardly activity.

It was the Fourth of July. All the cousins, aunts, neighbors, and sometimes even neighbors' cousins were gathered at our house for our annual barbecue. A tradition that started well before my memories and when my family was much better off financially. The tradition petered out as all the cousins got older and began to move away.

The adults were all in the backyard gathered around my dad as he tended to our barbecue grill that was made out of a large 55-gallon drum on its side. The drum was cut in half down its length and hinged. There was a two-foot metal pipe at one end for a smoke stack. It was mounted on a stand made from rebar which also supported a wooden shelf for tongs, other utensils and a paper plate containing pieces of meat for test sampling and from which we kids would sneak early bites. It was a typical southern barbecue grill before things got fancy. There were at least four pork butts, at least that many slabs of ribs, and my dad's occasional experiment being tended to on the grill.

My dad's cooking experiments ranged from goat to raccoon. My mom came home from teaching one day to find a cooked racoon carcass on her kitchen table. My dad told her he couldn't eat the raccoon because it looked too much like a dog. His barbecued goat, however, turned out quite successful as did his beaver hot tamales. (I just got off the phone reminiscing with Earl who said the goat was too tough to eat because it was a Billy goat.)

My dad was convinced he was a better cook than he really was; still, everyone loved his barbecued pulled pork made into sandwiches with my mother's coleslaw and Wicker's barbecue sauce. I loved the ribs, but I only got the burnt ones. The others were reserved for the adults. I was an adult before I realized ribs could actually be tender and juicy. To this day, I still prefer my ribs burnt and tough.

The kids, as usual were unsupervised and scattered about the neighborhood running wild, setting off fire crackers, and drinking soda pop till they threw up. One of my mother's cousins worked for the Coca Cola bottling plant in town and brought cases and cases of every type of soda pop that Coke made. Sunkist orange and strawberry were very popular and made the most colorful displays when they were thrown up by the kids who had over eaten along with drinking too much pop.

Hop, hop, boom! The Kids were all out front in the gravel street watching the bizarre scene my older cousins were staging.

"Stop it!" my neighbor Terri and I pleaded. My cousins were putting firecrackers in the mouths of frogs they had caught. At first, it was funny as the frogs looked like they were smoking sparkling cigars as they hopped along, but the aftermath of the boom convinced me, this was not right.

"We'll, stop," Buzzy assured me pretending to be understanding. "You just need to bring us one of those kittens."

I doubt he was serious. I suspect he was just trying to impress our older cousin Earl by terrorizing me. It sucks to be the youngest. Although I suspected he wasn't serious, I wasn't taking any chances. Terri and I ran off to hide the kittens.

Buzzy was eight years older than I was, but I suspect he did whatever cousin Earl suggested. Buzzy was given his nickname by his mother who attributed it to the sound that accompanied his odorous emissions as a baby. She named their dog Tootie for similar reasons.