Newspaper, Grass Roots & Cockleburrs, Life at the End of the Truck, LaSalle Parish, La. GRASS ROOTS AND COCKLE BURRS- Life at the End of the Truck… By Jack Willis Transcribed by Pat Ezell, PatEzell@worldnet.att.net Submitted by: Kathy LeMay Kelly, P.O. Box 219, Trout, La. 71371 From the Jena Times - Olla Tullos Signal, December 13, 1995, Section B, Page 5 Thank You to the Times -Signal for allowing the following to be added to the Archives. ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** LIFE AT THE END OF THE TRUCK As previously discussed about "sawmilling," there was a lot more activity took place than just the board and timber production at the mills. One important beginning facet of supply, was taking care of the logging stock that the average citizen knew nothing about. My grandfather, Samuel Woodridge Graham was hired to look after the barn and the stock. Water had to be hauled from the tall timber mill pond out to the barn in a tank car. Feed also had to be delivered in rail cars for upwards of a hundred head of horses, mules and oxen. Every evening and night there was harness to be patched and stitched together to make ready for the next days operations. Sick and crippled animals had to be nursed and tended to also. My grandfather was like me in some ways in that we were not the least bit mechanically inclined. If my grandmother wanted a chicken coop built, she had to do it herself. Mr. Woodie as he was known by the teamsters and bull punchers was a marvel in the woods or training animals. He augments his meager income by trapping. Like we've said before, in hard financial times everything around a "place" was saved; nothing was thrown away. My mother told me that the tinfoil off of gum wrappers was even saved. My grandfather would put it as bait on the trigger of his coon traps at the time of month when there was a full moon. It would reflect the moonlight in the stream bed where the trap was set and the coon's insatiable curiosity would cause him to check it out with his paw. The end result was his pelt stretched and drying on the smokehouse wall the next day. One wild life incident is worthy of mention. My dad and mother were "courting" and he had given her a German Shepherd puppy. His feet were huge and seemed out of proportion to the rest of his body, so she named him "Boots." He was fiercel protective of my mother and wouldn't allow anyone to walk between him and her without growling. One night a pack of wolves came up around the barn and pre-fab company house that my grandparents lived in at the end of the track. To keep mother's dog from getting killed, my grandfather had to lock him in a crib in the barn. There were no deer for food because all of the deer had been killed out either by pestilence and disease or over hunting. In fact, Mr. Monroe "Preacher" Enterkin killed the last whitetail out behind the Rosefield Baptist Church in the fall of '32. There were no deer in this area until 9 does and buck were imported from Wisconsin in 1940 and turned loose in the Rosefield area. All of the present day deer population was derived from this implanting. When my mother would conclude a weeks teaching she would come to Good Pine and stay with friends until early Saturday morning when she would catch the logging train out to the barn for a weekend visit. Mr. Chris Francis would allow her to ride up in the cab of the locomotive, where in the winter time it was warm and toasty. One of her big thrills was Mr. Chris letting her pull on the whistle cord. The house my grandparents lived in was a two piece house that could be moved on flat cars in halves. When it was set up for house keeping, it was sparsely furnished at best. It had beds in the back room, and in one big communal room there was a big wood cook stove with a warming safe on the top, a big wooden table, and a cupboard to keep dishes in. It was usually situated near a flowing spring to keep perishable items like dairy products from spoiling because there was no refrigeration. They would occasionally send some ice out packed in saw dust to retard melting, to make homemade ice cream with. This was a cause for celebration. My grandmother got up at 4 o'clock to cook breakfast for her husband and other men that would drop by. She made up biscuits in a big old dish pan and the recipe called for at least 2 quarts of milk plus a lot of shortening. This resulted in 6 to 8 pans of biscuits. Served with the biscuits were sometimes oatmeal, grits and gravy, apple sauce and jelly, homemade butter, fried ham and sausage. To wash this all down there were two big coffee pots brim full. You kept the fire in the cookstove going all winter and summer. The children spent their idle time, pulling their little home made sleds or "slides" out into the woods to gather pine knots, to be used for quick heat in the stoves. Sometimes the super hot fire would burn some of the biscuits, but it didn't make any difference, they were all "et" anyhow. The log train would bring out hay once a week for the stock and groceries. There'd be slabs of fatback and buckets of shortening. The house had a dirt floor and to sweep it out, you used a "brush broom" made up usually from dogwoods or persimmon branches or limbs. At weeks end everyone was exhausted from their labors and they were glad to see Sunday roll around, so they could "remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy" usually by resting. All of this, and more too, was growing up in and around Jena and LaSalle Parish.