In the twilight glow I see
Blue eyes crying in the rain
When we kissed goodbye and parted
I knew we'd never meet again
Love is like a dying ember
And only memories remain
And through the ages I'll remember
Blue eyes crying in the rain
Some day when we meet up yonder
We'll stroll, hand in hand again
In a land that knows no parting
Blue eyes crying in the rain
Source: Musixmatch
C.: (ring, ring, ring). That’s strange. d.c. isn’t answering his phone, and I know that he’s off work today. I can see his truck in his driveway, and there are no football games scheduled today. so I know he's not watching one of those I’ll keep letting the phone ring until he answers (ring, ring).
d.: Hi, Cal.E., I’m sorry that I didn’t answer the phone, but I was securing tickets to the next Willie Nelson concert when he returns to Greater Houston in five years.
C.: Isn’t he like, ninety years old?
d.: Yes, and that’s why I wanted to get tickets to this concert. He’ll probably only be touring for ten or fifteen more years!
C.: Okay, well, I thought that you might have stayed up too late last night celebrating the random day that marks a new year on this planet.
d.: I didn’t, but this date is a little more significant than I realized.
C.: How so?
d.: Well, on December 31, 1862, the president of the Untied States, Abraham Lincoln, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. That document set the slaves in the slave states free.
C.: But, wasn’t the country already involved in a “Great Civil War” at the time, as that president said in one of the most memorable speeches of that century when he dedicated a battle field to the fallen in that war?
d.: That’s true, and it was over this issue.
C.: I don’t understand what this has to do with you, though. Were any of your ancestors slaves?
d.: Not as far as I know, Cal.E. Nor did any of my direct ancestors own slaves, even though they lived in the south.
C.: I feel a story coming on.
d.: You do. I’m going to use my dad’s cousin, as well as my grandmother for reference in this story. My grandmother’s version was more interesting, but my dad’s cousin‘s account of the story is probably more factual, so I’ll use both as my references.
C: Your dad’s cousin? That would make her your first cousin once removed, and y’all even lived on the same planet! Her kids would be like siblings to you!
d.: Well, we were close growing up, since her two daughters were close to my age. They also dated my two best friends in high school briefly, so there’s that.
C.: But, wasn’t your high school so small that they were the only two girls your age at your school?
d.: No, it wasn’t quite that small. I need to get on with my story before the ticket office calls me back, though.
The man who established my family’s name was from Germany. He left his native country in the middle of the nineteenth century because of political unrest. It’s an interesting story, if you like history, but that’s not what this story is about.
Anyway, my grandfather six generations ago left Germany without much money. He stowed away on a ship carrying supplies to the United States from Europe. He got off the boat at Ellis Island because he knew that he could seek asylum there. He first went to North Carolina because he thought that the weather was too cold in New York. Being in such a hurry to leave the north is probably why he didn't get a good price for the land that his family owned in downtown New Amsterdam..
C.: Where is that?
d.: It's now known as New York City, New York.
C.: OUCH!
d.: Ouch is correct! Anyway, even though he was from Northern Europe, he still thought that climate was too cold in North Carolina, so he eventuated to the southern part of Mississippi, along the river. That area has very fertile land, so he purchased a tract of land and began to farm it, just as the American Civil War was at its zenith. While he was plowing his fields one day, the Union army came and commandeered his mule. My grandfather didn’t speak English, only German, so he didn’t know what was going on. He was mad, though, so he joined the Confederate forces because he was mad at the soldiers in blue. The next day, the war ended.
However, my grandfather, not being able to speak English, didn’t understand that. He only knew that his side had lost the battle, so he hid out in the woods from April until August, using his survival skills to keep him alive. When he was alerted that the war was over and he could come out of hiding, he discovered that he had lost his fertile farm land.
C.: So, then what did he do?
d.: Like a lot of landowners that lost their land in the southern states, he began to share crop to feed his family. Most of the share croppers though, were former slaves. They taught my grandfather how and when to plant his crops in his new home. He then taught those skills to my dad’s dad, his grandson, who worked at three jobs during the Great Depression to keep his family fed. My grandfather handed his work ethic down to my dad, who also worked one fulltime and two part-time jobs until he retired.
C.: I still don’t see what this has to do with your family and the first day of the year.
d.: That’s more from my mom’s side of the family. The Irish weren’t well respected during the nineteenth century in the United States, and that’s my mother’s main heritage. As a result, my ancestors on that side of the family were also share croppers, because that was about as good of a job as an Irishman could get in those days. .
Anyway, my great grandfather worked alongside former slaves for rich landowners and learned how to farm, as well as take care of livestock.
Most people don’t realize this, but the much-romanticized cowboys of the late nineteenth century were mainly former slaves. They were the ones who worked with the livestock, and those animals don’t trust people they don’t know. That’s why the former slaves were hired by the landowners to work with the cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, mules, and other animals.
Those former slaves taught my great-grandfather the skill of breaking horses without breaking their spirit, a skill that he handed down to my grandfather. As I’ve said many times, farming and ranching don’t pay well, so my grandfather broke horses for other people to bring in supplemental income.
Those former slaves also knew how and when to plant crops. Before my grandfather lost his sight and his sanity, he farmed a one-hundred acre tract of land and kept a family of seven fed. He handed his knowledge down to his children.
My mother worked for the extension service for many years, but my dad believed that her dad was the person that she inherited her "green thumb" from. My mother planted her large vegetable gardens according to the phases of the moon. She was so accurate that my dad would take days off work to help her when she said that it was time to plant her garden. She also enlisted the help of her children. Since it was usually during a full moon, we had light to keep planting much past sundown, and we worked hard.
However, Cal.E., if you've never tasted a fresh tomato right off the vine, you've missed one of the great culinary pleasures of this planet. Her watermelons and squash were to die for as well...
C.: I thought you didn't like squash?
d.: I don't That's how good her squash was, even I would eat it! I think some of her flowering plants that she planted when I was a kid...
C.: Many, many years ago
d.: Yes, many years ago, may have even still been alive ad producing flowers when my parents finally sold their farm a couple of years ago.
You see, Cal.E, this story also indirectly affects you. If farming and ranching paid well, that’s what I would be doing now. My first degree is in agriculture, but I couldn’t make enough money in that field to feed my family and stay healthy. That’s why I went back to college to earn a nursing degree. That led me to work at The Kennel, where I met you. If I hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be talking right now.
C.: I thought that you said that you had an uncle who did quite well farming cotton, even without the benefit of a college education. What about him?
d.: That uncle was an outlier in many ways, He…(ring). Oh, I must take this. It’s the ticket office calling me back to tell me how much they want for the tickets to the Willie Nelson concert, so I guess that we’ll need to continue this conversation tomorrow, right here on Cal.E.’s Korner.