When I was in my mid-teens we lived on Nat's Creek in the old Blessing House. And it was old. In fact, my dad (who was born in 1902) told me it was an old house when he was a kid. There was barely a road there and in some place on up the creek there was no road. Well it was officially a road but in reality it was the creek bed.
At the head of the "Julie" fork of Nat's creek lived Julie Ratliff. I suppose one would call her an elderly woman at the time but I've found what was elderly to me over a half century ago and what is elderly to me now are quite different things.
Anyhow, in the summer when I was fourteen or fifteen Julie needed the horseweekds in her back yard and up to her barn cut down. I borrowed a mowing scythe from somewhere (I don't remember) and set off one morning EARLY walking up the creek to get to her house and get rid of those horse weeds. I don't recall if I had breakfast or not but the probability is I did not. It was a good walk there and once I got there I started swinging that "mowing scythe" for all I was worth. And in a short time what I was worth was not very much. But, I kept on knocking those horse weeds down until Julie called me for dinner.
Now, in spite of my wife's feelings and those of some other people, dinner is what you eat in the middle of the day. Supper is what you eat in the evening. That is why they call it a "dinner" bucket. So I put down that scythe and went into her kitchen to eat. I will tell you this... I almost could never eat bologna again.
Back then we got bologna in long, round rolls instead of a small packet of neat slices and when it was sliced it was done with a 'butcher' knife and only as well as whomever was holding the knife could do it. And bologna was what I had for dinner that day. And Julie was not much of a slicer in my opinion. The one slice of bologna (baloney) was about an inch and a half thinck on one side and paper thin on the other. The thin side was charred black and the thick side was still cold. She had prepared it in an iron skillet half full of used grease of one kind or another.
But swinging a scythe makes one hungry and I was most certainly that. So, when she flopped that mess down on a plate I started in on it and managed to get the whole thing down.
I don't remember how long it stayed down but I do know I finished cleaning up those horse weeds and collected my pay. Five dollars as I recall for one full (and hard) days work interspersed with that wonderful dinner bologna.
I think I probably kept it down though I'm sure I might have preferred the alternative. And, for a good many years after that, I could not stomach bologna at all. In later years I've gotten to where I kind of enjoy it again but now I'm old. Man, I will never forget that day and that chunk of cold/burned bologna I was given after a full half day of swinging that scythe.
I can't say how long Julie has been dead now but it is probably over thirty years. They strip mined the head of that hollow our and there is a lake sitting now where that old house and barn sat. A little bit farther up the hollow (across an dirt road) is a much larger and prettier lake. Nothing left to be seen from my little bologna adventure. Nobody left to remember it but me.
I can eat a bologna sandwich now but I still remember that one and my bologna has to be COLD. Do not put it in a skillet to heat up. I shudder still to even think about that. I mean, how difficult is it to run a knife through a roll of bologna and get it half way even?
Just one more wonderful, childhood memory.
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