Teardrop Fiction

[jan4peace]

I really enjoyed this one! I'd like to think he lived his days out in old Mexico!

[Cliffmeister2000]

Very nice way to start the day!

[Tumbleweed_Tex]

Hog Head Cheese

They say everyone can remember exactly where they were, and exactly what they were doing, just before noon on Friday, November 22, 1963. I was in Granny Tex’s kitchen making hog-head cheese.

For a seven year-old Texas cowboy, just the prospect of making head cheese was as effective as Christmas morning in preventing sleep the preceding night. And long before the sun came up, I could hear the grownups clunking around in the back yard, building a fire and heating up the huge black-iron caldron. How could I possibly sleep? And I didn’t even know what hog-head cheese was…it just sounded like something a mini-cowboy could identify with.

I had to stay on the back porch while the men folk killed the hog, scraped it down, and cut it up, but I got to help carry the head into the kitchen. I tried to act “not chelantâ€

[godskid]

But Granpa's face said he liked it?? Whooo-ee, must've been a good idee you tried!

Sound's liken this mini-cowboy is 'zactly the same age as me, cuz I was 7 when It Happened, too. Just about like ma pitcher at the left -- mebbe a little older than that. I'm the girl in the pitcher.

Deb

[Ratkity]

Oh boy, that young'un was a magnet for trouble.

Hugs,
Ratkity

[jan4peace]

I never thought I would applaud for head cheese, but It was a wonderful story and you make me wonder... should I have given a bite of head cheese a chance?

I still dunno the answer to that one, but I loved reading about the little cowboy again.

[southpennrailroad]

As a 9 year old I was one of the orphanage children who got to see John Kennedy as he was passing Holy Family Institute at 8235 Ohio River Blvd in Emsworth. OH, I just always have to say that address when I think about that place. (avatar on the left was taken there)I wasn't parent less but the courts took four of my parents children off of them and placed us there for 8 years and while there John Kennedy was driving by and with over 100 kids standing on the sidewalk had to just stop. I knew I would never get close but watched from the stone wall that is still there today. A year later I recall while sitting in class in hearing the announcement. So sad!

[atahoekid]

I too was in grade school at the time, sitting in the classroom when we heard the news. I remember the nuns that ran the school were terribly upset about something but I was too young to really grasp the magnitude of the day. They sent us home early that day. I remember the funeral coverage on TV more than I remember the day of the shooting itself. Like Tex I was 7 at the time and I recall theose events, but I don't ever recall making head cheese. I'm quite a bit older now and somehow don't suspect that I ever will make head cheese, even if given the opportunity. But I was born and raised in the big city and except maybe for a couple trips to the county fair and one or two trips to a farm, I've never been within 10 yards of a live pig, never mind slaughtering one. Don't think I'm too wild about consuming head cheese either!!

[Tumbleweed_Tex]

Last Saturday, the History Channel aired a "Modern Marvels" episode entitled Cheese, and they actually included a short segment about Head Cheese. Showed the deboning of the pig head and everything.

Their recipe was chunky, and stuffed in a bologna-sized casing. They used..."other stuff" in their's too.

Um...maybe we should put this subject to bed?

[queeniejeanne]

Living my transit life, as it were, had us in Chowchilla CA that day in history. Being from Oklahoma and in the first school I had ever attended with a TV in every room of the school, we were watching it when it happened......What we were watching and what we saw happen should be right up there among the reasons for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome victims. I was in 6th grade and understood completely what had happened. I will never forget the way the suit Jackie was wearing (I didn't know until much much later in life it was pink)changed colors becoming a different shade of light. We were let out of classes right away and sent home. Most of us lived within walking distance and headed home.
Being from Oklahoma and having lived off the land/animals/truck patches, I remember well the butchering of the hogs. I being the only Little girl in the bunch, I had nothing to do but sit in the shade and eat hot fresh cracklins, lip smacking is what they were. The hog heads all went to my aunt and uncle. My Mom and Dad did not want to do the head cheese.

I am happy to say these two things did not happen to me on the same day.

Great story, Tex.....Thanks for the memories.

[Tumbleweed_Tex]

Bonnie

In the early part of my ninth summer, we took a road trip. Grandpa Tex had passed away one stormy night the previous March, and Momma Tex figured Granny Tex would “greatly benefitâ€

[Ratkity]

W00h00! Luv it!

Hugs,
Ratkity

[queeniejeanne]

No better n Tex.

[SmilinJack]

Another , Tex!

[jan4peace]

That was really good