My daddy was a farmer for most of his life. He never learned to drive, never owned a tractor. Instead, he worked the West Virginia hillsides with a horse and plow, or maybe a harrow, or a horse-driven seed planter or harvester. Of all the horses he owned, the last was the best, and his favorite. Prince was a big black and white stallion, colored almost like a palomino. Throughout his long life of twenty or so years, he served Daddy faithfully, without complaint or rebellion.
I watched them work together many times, and was always amazed at how the horse responded instantly to commands. Besides working on the farm, he also worked in the timber industry, hauling logs out of very difficult and dangerous areas. My father never tired of telling stories about how Prince had brought them both out of places where either or both of them could have been injured or killed.
Prince wasn't just a workhorse, though; he was also a family pet. He was very gentle, and Daddy delighted in giving the children in the family rides on him. When I was about 10 or 11 years old, I was with my daddy about a mile away from home, where he was working a garden for a neighbor, or maybe a hayfield. At the end of the day, he set me on the horse's back, and told him to go home. Prince immediately set out for our home, and one of my brothers took me down from his back a few minutes later, in our driveway.
When the horse finally died, it was as if my father had lost his best friend. He mourned Prince's loss perhaps more than he had some of the people close to him. I don't think any of us appreciated at the time that the horse really was a gift of God, a blessing for our entire family. Animals don't have souls; if they did, Prince would probably be in animal heaven.
I was born as a more or less normal child. Besides having poor eyesight, though, there was one eensy weensy thing out of the ordinary: I had three thumbs. I realize that some people are all thumbs, and I have been accused of that, too. But, no -- really, I had three thumbs. The extra one was just a little ball of skin with a fingernail, and a flap of skin connecting it to my right thumb. My mother's fear was that I would get it caught in something, and I do recall doing that a time or two. For the first eight or so years of my life, though, my extra thumb and I survived without major incident.
When I went to the first grade, I don't recall being teased about the superfluous appendage, though the other kids must surely have noticed it. My family was too poor to have done anything about it, and I don't know how long things might have gone on that way. Fortunately, though, my first grade teacher, Lorene Skaggs, did notice, and she took pity on me. When I was in the second grade, she personally took me to a doctor in a nearby town, and he cut off the dire digit. I don't remember much about the actual surgery, escept that my blood squirted higher than the doctor expected. I've never forgotten my teacher's kindness, which has been a lifelong blessing.
When ever it's raining or snowing, or about to, my phantom thumb still reminds me of its presence. The scar that shows where it was, is still there. I can't say I miss it; I just wonder why it came to be there to begin with. Alas, poor appendage, I knew you well.
I grew up on a little hillside farm in West Virginia. We had an assortment of animals, from cows, to pigs, to horses, and a few chickens. The nasty birds resided in an equally nasty shack behind our house, though for the most part they ran free during the day. One of my jobs, from my childhood years through high school, was to be the resident chicken herder.
During the spring and summer, my father raised a big garden, which went a long way in helping feed our big family. Our chickens, never more than twenty or thirty, thought they were due a part of the vegetable bounty, a postion to which Daddy took violent exception. One of my duties was to sit on a tree stump near the main part of the garden, and chase the chickens away when they ventured into the Forbidden Ground. I spent many evenings, more than I can count, with my homework on my lap, and one eye on the chickens. At least it made for good exercise.
My chicken duties didn't end there. Rain, snow, or sunshine, I had to go out to another shack, which we called the gran'ry, and collect ears of corn that were stored there to feed the chickens. That involved removing each grain of corn from the husks with a little thumb action, often resulting in sore spots on said appendage. I also had to collect eggs from the henhouse, and collect chickens from trees in the yard at night, when they decided that the great outdoors made for better accommodations.
Other chicken memories include being flogged by hens guarding their new chicks, accidentally stepping on the little critters, and being chased by roosters with chips on their wings -- I don't think they had shoulders. On occasion, though, I did have my revenge. From time to time, Daddy decided we should have chicken for Sunday dinner. Seeing a headless fowl flopping around on the ground wasn't a pleasant sight, but it looked a lot better cut up in pieces on a platter.
I don't know when I had my first encounter with the chocolate monster. The first brown delights I remember for sure were the little chocolate drops we got for Christmas, especially at church. Back then, candy bars were nickel bars, but even that much money was beyond my means most of the time as a child. As I got older, I craved chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream, which we had on rare occasions at home. Once I was in high school, I could get candy bars like Milky Ways or Reece's Peanut Butter Cups just about every day, but my favorite was Almond Joy. Then, of course, there was chocolate milk, or, maybe, Ovaltine or Nestle's.
It was not until I was about 25 or so that I noticed that I got an upset stomach and heartburn shortly after eating or drinking chocolate. Eventually, I started to swell up. Undaunted, I continued indulging until I was about 45 or so; at that point, the after effects were so severe, I could no longer ignore them. Sadly, and with great regret, I surrendered my membership in Chocolate Lovers, turning instead to Chocoholics Anonymous. As often happens with recovering addicts, I have occasional lapes, for which I pay the price.
We can't always have what we want in life, of course. This was one of those "harmless" vices, seemingly affecting no one but me. Any time our behavior makes us miserable, though, it does affect others around us. If we're physically ill, irritable, or less than our best, that affects not only what we do, but how we act and react toward others. Alas, poor Chocolate, I knew you well.