Winter's Cold

As I drove to church toward Cumberland this morning, I took the time, as I always do, to look at the mountains surrounding me. It is not very cold this day, but as one gets older, the cold seems to seep into ones' very veins, and at nearly seventy one, I consider myself as older.

There is only one way in my mind, to describe the mountains in the winter time: they are stark sentinels of bare beauty, resting for the full blaze of glory come springtime. They reach tall and graceful toward a thin wintry light that covers the heavens. We wait in anticipation and yet dreading the full onslaught of winter: snow, sleet, and cold, cold weather. We long for hot summer days and yet we know full well we will complain and pray for the cold weather, when indeed the heat forces us to stay in doors where the air conditioning will cool and soothe us.

I think perhaps the older people did not dread the elements as much in the old days as we do now. They dressed accordingly and although they might complain, they took it simply as a way of life. My grandmother Lonia Cornett Noe Ison dressed with layers of clothes, summer and winter. I never saw her without a couple of feed sack petticoats, feed sack bloomers, and long sleeve dresses. She didn't own a coat for she did not get out in winter time...at least in my lifetime. If she was hot in the summertime she would shed a petticoat or two and fan with one of the paper fans that were mostly given away by funeral homes. All churches had them and I still have Grannie's--it is a trifold one with roses on it, advertising a funeral home on the back.

Winter time reminds me of those days when the coal pile was getting empty, and Mama and I would dress warmly and walk the railroad looking for coal, while Daddy tried to find work. Dressing warm meant wearing a pair of my brother's pants under my dress and a pair of bobby sox on my feet. Snow or ice or just water would usually soak into my shoes and my feet would be nearly frozen when we got home. Mama didn't fare any better. There were times when Mama had to wear an old pair of Daddy's shoes for hers were worn out and there was no money to buy anymore. Once she had to wear a pair of high heeled shoes that someone gave her for there were no others. They were horrible clunky green shoes and I hated to see my poor Mama wear them for she would be in tears at the end of the day from the pain.

Toward the end of winter, long before springtime salad fixings came in, food became scarce. There were plenty of pinto beans, but the potatoes were small and sprouting and everything seemed to be crying for springtime. The hens weren't laying and Mama had killed about all of them that she dared for she loved her laying hens and treasured them for their faithful laying of eggs. We were often out of flour and Mama made cornbread for breakfast, dinner, and supper. (We called lunch 'dinner'). She would make cornmeal gravy and although I love it now, it was a sort of shameful thing to make cornmeal gravy for breakfast. There was no coffee and Daddy would buy a bag of chicory to use in its' stead, if he had a little change. There was no sugar and Mama would use molasses if she had any for sweeting. We had no milk either, but Mama would try to have evaporated milk on hand, but sometimes that was not possible. There were times when we had water gravy and the chicory coffee would have the thin bluish powered milk in it for evaporated milk. We had no meat, but we never went hungry. Pinto beans and cornbread went a long ways back then. Many of the neighbors had the same problem but not all. Times were hard in Harlan County back then for many of us. When I hear of poverty in today's world, I think back of those cold winter days. Poverty had a different face when I was growing