Remember Peanut Harvest

My parents came to dinner one night back in 1981 and I shared the following essay that I had written that week with them.  I could tell Daddy was getting choked up at the end, but true to form he never expressed any emotion.  It just wasn't in his nature to share the emotion of sadness.  He always said there was enough sadness in the world without adding to it so we never even had Dr. Kildare or Ben Casey on in our house.  (Sometimes we girls would sneak a peak if he was not in the house.  He probably knew that.)

In the third paragraph I reference "the hands".  I am talking about the neighbors and local teenage boys.  Since not everyone had a peanut combine, it was important that the neighbors work together going from field to field to ensure that the combine was used at it's maximum potential and that the peanuts were pulled at their peak.  This story was about the earlier days of peanut harvesting when I was very young.  By the time I was 12, the way of harvesting peanuts had changed tremendously.  I will write more about that time in a future post.

I am copying this word for word as I had written it then including the grammar and punctuation - no word processing program in 1981.  Had I written this today, I would have changed it up a lot, but word for word this is how I saw things in 1981.  By the way, according to the last paragraph I was wondering if my own kids would have their own pleasant memories.  Only yesterday, my daughter reminded me of one of her own pleasant childhood memories so I guess we were developing good memories for them after all.

REMEMBER PEANUT HARVEST by Regina Dawkins Tucker 

As I gaze out of windows of my new home this beautiful fall day my mind wanders back to a quieter more serene time in my life - fall peanut harvest!  Oh how those fresh peanuts did smell.  Peanut brittle was just around the corner, which meant the holidays would be coming soon.

Each fall the two-room school I attended let out two weeks for peanut harvest.  The boys had to work in the fields and my brother was no exception.  He drove the tractor which pulled the combine.  My dad was sacking the nuts and Mom had her huge needle and string sewing as fast as she could to keep up with Dad.  I still remember her with her head tied up to keep the dirt out and oh, how they did get dirty.

While the hands were working, Grandma was baby setting and cooking dinner for the hands.  We had a sort of tradition in our community that a huge lunch (we called it dinner then) would be served by the family whose peanuts were being harvested.  Even though it was a busy time for the families of the community, everyone helped each other.  Everyone had to get their peanuts out before frost.  As I think back, I wonder if they didn't help each other just to taste each others' wonderful cooking, especially my grandmother's.

Grandma did not have a large kitchen so we set up a long table in her living room.  The table was covered with wonderful dishes - pot roast, potatoes and gravy, at least a half-dozen vegetables and even homemade dinner rolls.  I always thought of it as another THANKSGIVING DINNER and really I guess it was.  God had been good to us for another year.  He had seen us through planting; hoeing - I did hate to hoe peanuts but we made a lot of money hoeing; drought; and the rainy season....NOW THE HARVEST.

When Grandma finished getting lunch on the table she would send one of us kids to get the hands.  Since I was the oldest I usually got that job.  I remember wading through knee-high grass with the hot sun beaming down on my hair.  Even though the day was hot it still had a feeling of fall in it.  Maybe it was the beautiful fall colors of rust, reds, browns, golds and greens that made it seem cooler than it really was.  My family has always been great admirers of nature's seasons and colors, but I can remember Mom and Dad saying that the most beautiful fall colors are in our own fields at harvest time.

Since Grandma didn't have indoor plumbing all the hands had to wash outside with water from the rain barrel.  Then they would tramp inside and set down at a beautiful table.  Never did I hear Grandma complain about them coming into her house dirty.  She was just thankful that another harvest season was drawing to a close.

When harvest was over for another year we went to town to get material for Mom to sew into dresses, shirts, and jeans.  Sometimes we even got store bought dresses.  What a treat.  At that time we didn't appreciate Mom's talent for sewing.  Now that my sisters and I are grown and have children of our own we finally realize the time and effort it took for her to sew all those beautiful clothes.  Hindsight is really a lot better than foresight.

So as I set here thinking about the "Good Old Days", I wonder if my own children will have pleasant memories of yearly events in their childhood.  I know that they won't have peanut harvest to look back on for we only have five acres not hardly enough to have a garden let alone peanuts.  But just maybe, just maybe they'll remember watching leaves falling from the front window.