My first job that was assigned to me with full parental backing was,
"Waterboy"..
At my age of about four and a half years old we had moved from Atmore to here at our farm in the Barnett Crossroads community.
Our land was purchased from my Daddy's siblings. Their inherited shares of my Smith grandparents homesteaded land lay fallow and waiting. The ending of WWII had my Daddy's work at the shipyard in Mobile phased out, my siblings kept being born, Daddy and Mama were on a hustle to feed us.
So, here we landed feet first in a place of hardscrabble heaven.
Daddy had made good money at the shipyard, saved his money and built us a new house using a few materials purchased at the hardware store in Atmore along with mostly salvaged materials of an old house out near the Kelly Gristmill and pond, the heading of Narrow Gap Creek, called, " The Old Beasley House". That house, a dogtrot type, made of long leaf yellow heart pine was solid as the day it was built. Big fat timbers used as sills and planks were torn down to be moved to our land and re purposed into a home for my family.
Extra materials were used to build us a barn, a smokehouse, a chicken house, and a two hole privy.
Thanksgiving Day 1945 dawned as, move in day.
My indelible memory of that first days arrival was watching my older brothers fighting over the right to draw up a bucket of water from the bored well.
Oh my goodness y'all.............the coldest, best tasting, clearest water this side of the Garden of Eden.
A world opened to me and my siblings, so different from 3rd ave. in Atmore where we had lived elbow to lockjaw against other towns people.
Here we were free range and feral as cats. The whole farm and everything within walking distance was for us to explore.
We had no restrictions on how far and wide we ranged to find new things to play in and on. Daddy and Mama loved how easy life became for them in that sense. Out of the house to play and explore as long as we watched out for each other and kept off snakes.
No problem................
Our house being simply, "dried in" at this stage was finished out with sheet rock walls that first winter by the sweat of Daddy and Mama's brow.
My three older siblings were in school during the day, I was cautioned to keep an eye out for my baby brother Buddy,
" Don't let him eat rocks and dirt and chicken poo".
Buddy was a crawler at that time and full of curiosity.
He learned to walk very soon so as to keep up with me in exploring things on the farm.
Before he walked, he crawled at top speed. he first learned to climb the ladder up to the hayloft of the barn by following me.
HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM.
"MAMA..............Buddy can't get down"..............
Panic!
Poor Mama,...............Daddy made an impression on my thighs before explaining to me about being a better role model.
Snubbing, as I told them,
" But he just wouldn't get down".
Life went on flat out full throttle.
Buddy learned to walk and run about the same time out of pure necessity so as to keep up.
The first of 1946 was for getting the land ready for spring planting.
Daddy cleared old fat liddard stumps, persimmon roots, heavy growth of sage brush, brambles of saw brier and other growth to have a clean field.
The rush to grow our food was full on...................
Dynamite was used to blow out the big stumps.
That was fun to watch as Buddy and I were kept on the the back steps so as to watch the blasting.
We two sat and shared biscuits with holes filled with syrup as the dynamite show was going on. The yard chickens pecked at our biscuits and we kicked at them to no avail.
I clearly remember seeing Daddy and our neighbor running away from the stumps being blown to smithereens.
Loud hollering, loud laughing, loud,
BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Hey John, you okay old man"?
Liddard splinters rained down at our house and barn area. My brothers picked them up to put into the wood box on the back porch for fire starting in the cook stove and fireplaces, our only heat source.
What a life...............
That early spring had Daddy in the fields plowing with a pair of fine mules. "Blackie and Gray"
Daddy was proud of his mules and treated them with care. He brought them in from the fields at noon to water and give them some hay to eat before going back after dinner to work them until dark. They were watered and fed again along with being wiped off of sweat and the curry comb run through their mane and tails.
Blackie and Gray would lift a top lip and snort out big boogers from sheer pleasure of this grooming.
Tails were lifted to pass thunderous gasses caused from hay and oats.
Never stand downwind of a gas passing mule, never.
As the days work grew more intense and the spring temps caused Daddy to need more drinking water it was decided that I needed to be the one to carry him a drink of that delicious, cold well water out to the fields.
My job title was given,
"Waterboy".
I can close my eyes and remember the sounds of Daddy signaling to Mama that he needed a fresh jug of water.
"Whoop-De-Whoo"..........................
Mama would go out to the well to draw up a bucket, pour it into a quart Mason jar for me to take to Daddy.
As I got older and stronger, I carried a half gallon jar. I had learned to handle more weight and not drop it to be broken on the ground as I walked the old gravel road to the fields where my Daddy worked. I learned pretty fast on that one because of the do overs.
Jar breaking caused me to cry.
The road to the "Old Field" was the one my Daddy and his family had walked in all his childhood years. It was sacred ground. I loved that road.
From our house to the field along that road we had names for certain places to tell where we saw a baby quail or a brier patch with good black berries or a plum tree.
Like, the mud hole, the persimmon tree, the sassafras clump, the clay bank, the bullace vines. We knew exactly where to look for what was talked about.
Now to the clay bank, that was where I chose to sit and rest my five year old arms from the tiredness of carrying a jar of water. The persimmon tree had frost nipped shriveled persimmons ready for eating, the mud hole had clumps of tadpoles for catching in a jar. The plum tree was where we found a baby quail struggling to get out of his shell from an earlier hatching..
How wonderful was that?
So the "Waterboy" carried water to Daddy, he stopped at the rows end to prop agains't the Georgia stock and drink. I chattered, he half listened as he looked at the work ahead.
After a moment of rest, Daddy advised me to go on home and watch for snakes.
"Make haste now, don't want to worry your Mama".
I begged to stay and walk the rail fences as he made just one round in that water grass thickened field.
He caved, I walked the top rails. The early spring smells of honeysuckle was heady.
That first job title was an important job for me because in just a short year or so I was given the title of, "cotton picker".
If you have never done that job and you got by without it,
God bless your hearts.
I did multitasking many years as, "Waterboy and cotton picker".
My favorite was.
"Waterboy"..
