The Old Gray Mule Vegetable Stand

   A MEMORY

Wow, this sounds like a title to a great book.  Recently, I was in Alexandria for sister Becky’s funeral and drove out to my daddy’s farm where he raised Shetland ponies and sweet corn.  Yep, strange combination, isn’t it! 

            Daddy had bought this place years ago just outside of town near LSU-A.  We lived in town at that time.  In 1963, the year I went off to college, my parents moved to the farm.  I love to tell people that they moved when I left for college and didn’t tell me where.  It used to irritate my mama.

The house was located on highway 71S before they expanded the highway to accommodate the traffic to the college.   So, they moved into a house further back that they used to rent out. The garage stayed the same just off the new side feeder road and became a vegetable stand. 

            There was that beautiful old oak tree right next to it.  Daddy sold vegetables at that stand for a while.  There was always a gallon jar sitting on a table filled with money.  A sign next to it said, “I’ll be back shortly.  Just take what you need and leave your money in the jar.”  A funny thing: Daddy believed in the honesty system and that jar was never stolen and it always had money in it.

            In June and July, when the corn was in season that vegetable stand was an extremely busy place. Daddy would sit back in an old cowhide rocking chair in his overalls smoking a cigar or chewing tobacco and enjoying seeing and talking…well mostly telling tall tales…and sell his corn.  If people stopped by that didn’t know him, he’d let them think he was the hired hand which was seldom.  Everybody stopped by to see senator Cecil Blair whether it was to talk politics or just to sit back have a drink and chew the fat.  Hired workers brought the corn up front and the fresh corn would be piled into his fishing boat sitting under that beautiful oak tree.

 

         Dr. Glynn Bryant                         one of the parties                               food galore

            At the end of the corn season, we always had a party to celebrate the last harvest. Well, daddy had the party, mama would go nuts because he never took care of details.  She would be running around, fussing, and fuming because paper plates, plastic cups, paper towels had to be purchased. What side dishes should she serve always drove her up the wall.  Thankfully ladies stepped in and called friends to bring side dishes and we would provide the brisket and of course the corn.  Lights would be strung from the shed to the tree and wherever.  The day of no matter how many seasons we had the harvest meal party, always brought mama into a tizzy.

            Hay bales would be brought from the barn and spread all around the place for seating.  A borrowed table or two would be ready for the side dishes.  Daddy would hold court while boiling the corn, a huge pot would hold the melted butter while a friend or two would take care of the brisket.  Huge washtubs and coolers held the drinks.

                  

Me and Marty                         The Trinity: Dr. Larry Taylor, Bishop Greco, Rabbi Hinchin

            Mama was always cool as a cucumber once people began to arrive.  There was so much laughter, a lot of hustling and bustling about.  Rabbis, preachers, priests (Bishop Greco), politicians, mayors, sometimes a governor, professors, would drop by, including the plain folks.  And always, one of the clergy would be asked to say the blessing.  And, as always one of them would become the butt of a joke where daddy would pile all the corn cobs from others on a plate in front of them for a picture.

We’d all be sitting on the hay bales eating to our hearts content the last of the sweet corn.  The food never seemed to run out.  Children would be running around looking at the animals in the lot next to the shed that had geese, deer, mules, ducks, llamas, pigs, peacocks.  Some would be brave and climb on the hay bales in the barn.

The party would go on into the night.  This is a favorite memory.  I’m so glad that we stopped by the shed which was still there and used by the current owner as a crawfish shack.  It brought back a flood of memories of those carefree days. 

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