Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

school, taught us to do the Swing. We picked up the Twist on our own. But while we butchered, we sang along to these old songs.
    “How do you remember those words?” Mom asked, shaking her head in disbelief and I also think with a bit of dismay. Mom liked the house quiet. Left to her own devices, she never turned on a radio or the TV, preferring to spend time wrapped in her own thoughts.
    Dad grinned as we mugged our way through songs like “ Breakfast in My Bed on Sunday Morning ” and “ When Irish Eyes are Smiling .” Dad’s smiles caused us to launch into the next song with even greater enthusiasm. For the most part, Dad reserved jokes and laughing for friends and neighbors. So on occasions like butchering, when we could get him laughing with us, we did.
    After the first bird, I got over being grossed out by the guts, came to tolerate the smell, and got into seeing how quickly I could finish off each chicken. When there were no more feathers to pluck, no more crops to remove, no more chickens to gut, no more gizzards to clean out or gall sacs to remove, we all turned our knives to cutting up chickens. About that time, Dad generally found a reason to go outside. Following him out of the house was not an option. Not while there were chickens yet to cut up. After Dad left, Mom took over teaching us the fine art of separating chicken leg from chicken thigh, wing from breast, breast from back. At that point, it became a competition to see who could cut up a chicken fastest, who could make the cleanest cuts between bones.
    As I worked, I looked over to the corner of the basement where we had housed these very same chickens as baby chicks only a couple of months ago. It was amazing to think how fast they’d grown.
    With six people working on the task, we butchered 70 chickens before it was time to start afternoon milking chores. When all the chickens were cut up, Mom released us kids and she and Grandma handled cleaning up the basement. They also washed the chicken parts a final time, picking over each piece for any overlooked pinfeather before they re-sorted all those mixed-up chicken parts into bags headed for the freezer. By the time they finished, each bag contained all the parts of one whole chicken, so we could have one whole chicken for dinner every Sunday.
     
    “Mmm, smell that chicken,” I sighed when we trooped back into the house after church. “When are we going to eat?” Why I asked when we would eat, I don’t know. We always ate at noon.
    Mom looked up at the clock. “We’ll eat at noon,” she said, slipping her apron over her dress as she turned on the heat under the kettle of potatoes. “Get busy and set the table. Aunt Joyce’s will be here soon.”
    “Can we change our clothes?” Sue asked, hope in her voice. Why Sue asked if we could change our clothes, I don’t know. When we had company, we kept our church clothes on until after we ate.
    “No. You can stay dressed up until after we eat. Now don’t look at me like that,” Mom said when Sue groaned. “Get out the good silverware.”
    At ten minutes to noon, Mom waved to me, “Go tell the men dinner is on the table.”
    The men were no more than 15 feet away in the living room, the same place they would park themselves after we ate—in front of the TV, watching a baseball game. After we ate, however, their snores would echo through the house. Enough to wake the dead , Mom would say. We’re just resting our eyes , they would say. They did love their baseball. And their naps.
    Sticking my head in the living room doorway, I yelled at my dad, uncle and cousins, “Come and get it before we throw it to the dogs!” Then I retreated laughing.
    At exactly noon, we all sat down at the dinner table, to a big platter of fried chicken, with liver for me, a gizzard for Jane, and ‘the part that goes over the fence last’ for Dad.
    Some things were always the same. Sunday dinner was one of them. And that was good.
     

     

 
     
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