Grandpa Gus and the Country

Let me tell you about growing up in the country.

My grandparents were Gus and Wessie Pearson, both of them descendants of slavery. My grandfather lived to be a hundred and three years old. My grandmother made it to ninety-nine. Now you stop and think on those numbers a minute. That's not just old age. That's a whole century of watching this world change, and holding your family together the whole time.

I was born and raised out there on the east side of Dade City, over the railroad tracks, in a place we all just called the Country. From the day I came into this world until I was about twelve years old, that little piece of ground was my whole world. And what a world it was.

My grandfather owned a little store. Nothing fancy, just a small place, but everybody in the neighborhood came to it. They'd buy their cold drinks, their bread, candy, potato chips, pastries. And if somebody was short on money that week, my grandfather would let them put it on credit. That's the kind of man he was. He made sure nobody went without.

He had a little farm too. A couple of cows, some hogs, and a garden so big it looked like it ran a clear mile. And all of us children worked that garden. His grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, and every other 'kid in the neighborhood, we all worked it together. We were one big family out there, and that took in the neighbors too. Now they didn't call him Mr. Pearson. They called him Uncle Gus. He fed that whole neighborhood, vegetables out of that garden and meat off that farm, and he never once made anyone feel low for needing it.

He had a storehouse, and chickens and ducks and geese. Us children, we had our jobs. We'd go gather the eggs. And when it came time to clean a chicken, now that right there was a whole event. Somebody would ring the neck, or take it clean off, and that bird would go flopping and flapping all over the yard like it had somewhere to be. The little ones would take off running and hollering, just knowing that headless chicken was coming after them. And when it finally lay still, we'd sit right down and pluck off every feather. You never forget a thing like that.

But hog-cleaning day, now that was the big one. The men would be working, and while they worked they'd bring the cracklin', from previous slaughtering, and drop it right down in the hot grease. And we'd sit in a circle, all of us young ones, eating hot cracklin' straight out of the pot while the men did their work. They'd dip that hog down in the scalding water, scrape off all the hairs, and hang it up on a tripod they'd rigged. We'd watch them cut and carve, real quiet and careful. And when it was all done, every last family got their share of that meat. Every one of them. Nobody was forgotten.

Now here's the thing that tells you who my grandfather really was. He and my grandmother had eight children, five girls and three boys. And my grandfather Gus had bought up enough land in his life that he could give each and every one of those children a lot of their own to build a house on. You think about that now. A man descended from slavery, and he owned enough of God's earth to hand a piece of it to all eight of his children.

So that's how come I say it was beautiful growing up out there. Because I came up surrounded by all my aunts and uncles, right next door, every which way you looked. And every one of them had a house full of children. Some had ten. Some had thirteen. I believe my own family was the smallest bunch, just eight of us. We were rich in kinfolk, if nothing else.

And we all lived out there together in the Country, until the world started calling folks away. Work got scarce, and one by one they started to go. Some moved on down to St. Petersburg. Others left Florida altogether, went on up to Ohio and Michigan and got on at the General Motors and the Ford plants, building those automobiles that were carrying America on into the future.

Now I would be telling you wrong if I only told you the sweet part. There is another part to the country too. Right, in front of our property, and around the back were juke joints. Come Saturday and Sunday you would hear loud music all hours, and a whole lot of drinking going on. Our parents did their best to keep us shielded from it, but it surrounded us just the same. Dad knew it was time to move when he caught my oldest sister, Liz, on the porch dancing and singing to one of the worldly songs "Put on your red dress baby cause we going out tonight." Liz did not know Dad was standing around the corner listening to her with a switch in his hand. Well, he caught her and she found out real quick what Dad was not going to tolerate. He loved us so much he wanted the best for us.

Our family, seven of us kids by then, we finally moved just a couple miles down the road, into Mickens-Harper Subdivision, a more upscale neighborhood and in close walking distance to our school, which was segregated at the time. That's where we finished growing up.

But I'll tell you this much. A man can move two miles, or two thousand, and he still carries the Country with him every day of his life. I carry Grandpa Gus & Grandma Wessie. I carry that garden, that hot cracklin', that headless chicken running crazy across the yard, and eight houses full of family that loved one another.

Those were my humble beginnings. Looking back on it now, I see we were poor by the world's measuring, but we were wealthy in every way that lasts. The bonds of that family, the lessons in that garden, the love that ran house to house, that's a richness no money can buy and no hardship can take from you. And a man who has that has been given more than most.