A recent trip with our daughter and son-in-law to the Mississippi Agricultural Museum brought back memories – some fond and some not so fond. I think maybe that’s the purpose of museums. In my case, reminders were everywhere of my grandfather, a dairy farmer with side interests of corn, cotton, and sorghum crops. He had an abundance of cows and a couple of mules named “Bill” and “Bob.”
As often happens in families, the oldest grandchild determined what he would be called by all future grandchildren. In this case, that was me. Mama and Daddy tried to teach me to say “Grandpa,” but the closest I could come was “Pap-aw,” and the name stuck. He was an old-time farmer without much modern equipment. The museum display of the farmer following the mule and the plow brought memories of visits when time was crucial and Papaw spent long days getting crops planted or working the land. When it was too dark to work any longer, there would be supper and sitting in his front room in a rocking chair for a long-awaited visit with him, but he was so tired that he fell asleep in the chair.
Papaw grew a small plot of cotton as supplementary income, only as much as he and any of the six children living at home could pick, but he had a novel place to grow it. There was a small hill at the end of a lane dividing his woods from his pasture (a fascinating place to walk). He planted the cotton in one row that spiraled around the hill from top to bottom. His small corn plot fed his cows and the two mules. His sorghum may have provided his favorite crop since his molasses pitcher sat on the table for every meal. He considered it equally good for cornbread or biscuits.
My favorite part of the museum display was the green wagon that looked exactly like I remember Papaw’s wagon. He’d hitch up the two mules and ask my three sisters and me if we’d like to ride into town. Of course, we would! Beside the treat of riding in the wagon, we knew what else came when we got to town and visited Uncle Arthur’s grocery store.
Would I go back to those times of no air conditioning, limited medical care, no running water, long days of back-breaking work? – I think not. All the same, I wouldn’t mind another trip with my three sisters in the green wagon hearing Papaw call out, “Giddyup Bill, Giddyup Bob,” on the mile ride to town in Sturgis, Mississippi to get a “cone ‘a cream.”