Smells of Country | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Smells of Country | Previous Challenge Entry
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07/30/10
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I loved growing up in the country as a child. I can still picture everyone sitting out in front of my grandmother’s old wooden green swing. That was our hang out place when we visited there. The kids would sit and carry on all kinds of conversations while the grown where inside and outside preparing the country fish dinners.

You see, these were the really special times of my life. Every summer our family drove in a pickup truck all the way to a little town called Crossett, Arkansas. It was an adventure for us as we would go in the fields and help pick all of these vegetables that we loved to eat.

My grandparents, they really had the green thumb. They grew everything under the sun. Things like corn, purple whole peas, potatoes, snap beans, tomatoes and the list goes on. It was really a treat and a fun time for us kids to be a part of all of this. On a sunny day we’d all sit out in the fields picking until our fingers couldn’t move anymore. Sometimes, we had been smelling these vegetables so much that we just started eating them. That was when we knew it was quiting time. We would take them back to the house and shell them or clean them whatever needed done, while doing so we’d sit in our lawn chairs around this green swing just a laughing and cutting up. You really never knew what would come out next from us all.

Then, there were the lazy afternoons when all of the field picking had been done that I and my cousins would hang out by the pond. I remember as we threw our rods into the water waiting anxiously for a vigorous bite or two just to have that night's supper. We felt so proud to catch one or two and bring them back home to show off.

Yet, nothing was better than when together we had enough for a big fish fry. The smell of vegetable oil is just a simple reminder to me of the memories we made during that summer.

I didn’t care where I was as I could smell them fish at least a good mile back. My uncles—they’d stay in the front yard with the deep fryer while the woman sat and laughed their heads off at the dinner table. They’d all be there snapping them beans. Some were shelling the corn, while grandma would be at that stove working hard getting the cornbread ready.

We did everything just right from growing the vegetables to sitting out by the pond on a sunny day waiting for the fish to bite. I can still smell the fresh corn on the cob and the french fries cooking side by side with the fish.

Today, I wish I could still hold those memories tight in a glass bottle and never let the lid go. All I can remember for now is the smells on a bright sunny country farm day. I loved the time I spent with my family and at times it feels as if it was just yesterday I was there. There was never a better cook than my grandma who was 5’2 in her blue jeans and t-shirts. She knew the meaning of a good dinner and the memories that were made around grandma’s table.

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