Published: November 02, 2009 02:05 pm      

CUMMINS: How to keep the family in their seats

In a previous column, I pointed out that modern technology is the cause of anxiety, stress and family disintegration. A family is difficult to integrate when you don’t know where they are. Mom can’t cook dinner unless taking a Coleman stove with her to soccer practice, and Dad is usually stuck at the office with his computer in a glitch mode. You hurry home late but there’s nobody there.

Checking the monthly schedule, the children are either at enrichment classes or practicing organized ball. The calendar is filled until three weeks from this Thursday. On that date, write in and underline, “practice eating a family dinner.”

Back in the old days, we worked long hours at a steady pace, clocking in before sunrise and out when it set. The only time to hurry was in the spring during planting season and then during the harvest time. The harvest provided food for the table, which was the place where the family gathered three times each and every day.

It was a time for nourishment, both the body and the family. When coming together to relax and rest, we’d talk about how the day had been and the good things tomorrow would bring.

We grew our food on our place. The very first harvest each year was in February when sassafras roots were ready. A hot pot of sassafras tea boiling on the wood stove warmed the bones on the coldest day. Then in early spring, we’d uncover the canvas over the plant bed and pick fresh lettuce, onions and radishes. The first big bowl of tender lettuce wilted with a little bacon grease, vinegar and sugar was like unwrapping a special gift.

As spring, summer and fall eased into each natural phase, the vegetables and fruits from the gardens and orchards ripened in progression like turning the pages of a good book. Strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb and cherries came on early, as did new potatoes and peas. Nothing better than a big bowl of small new potatoes cooked with fresh-shelled peas simmered in a thick cream sauce. Before the plums and peaches ripened, we’d pick a few green apples and add a skillet of fried apples to a meal. And then in summer the gardens exploded.

Green beans, ears of corn, beets, cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, onions, lima beans, carrots, kale, mustard greens, red, white and sweet potatoes, red and yellow tomatoes, sweet melons and pumpkins big as a washtub were harvested by the bushels.

The cellar under our house was dark and spooky. In winter, my mother sent me there for jars of food she’d preserved all during the summer. Over the potato bin there were shelves stacked with rows of quart and pint jars of corn, green beans, peas, pickled beets, cucumber relish with peppers and onions, whole tomatoes, tomato juice, tomato chili sauce, pickles, blackberries, peaches and cherries. Smaller jars were filled with blackberry, strawberry, raspberry, grape, peach, pear and plum jellies, jams and preserves. In winter, these treats on hot biscuits replaced the daily fresh-baked summer cobblers—blackberry, peach and apple topped off with thick whipped cream from our Jersey cows. In the fall, I’d gather gunnysacks of hickory nuts and walnuts so my mother could mix them in candy and cakes throughout the winter.

With all the fresh eggs, milk, butter, and cream we needed, the cellar packed and the smokehouse full of cured meat, we were set for winter. And we never worried about a fuel bill increase, because a double-bladed ax, crosscut saw and muscle power provided the means to fill the woodhouse, which kept us warm during the coldest spells.

Money was scarce back in those days, but we were mighty rich in many ways. Work was long and hard, but we had a good time, especially during mealtimes each day when we took the time to rest and talk about our family, friends and neighbors. “I saw our first tomato turning on the vine today,” was good news..

It’s unfortunate our youngins’ are missing out on so many things of value that money can’t buy. When having a “meal,” as it used to be known, you announce to the kids that dinner is ready. They’re off doing something electronically and holler back, “Do we have to, we don’t want to sit there until everyone is finished.”