Well, to follow that story, I must post one about my mom. As I say over and over, my roots grow deep and strong. Their strength come from my ancestors beginning with my mother, Arora Belle Burkes Huff and my father, Oakley Huff. I haven't told this story orally yet. I want to because I think it can be brought to life with words, gestures and facial expressions. Maybe I'll try it sometime soon.....Again, Please leave your thoughts for improvement or other constructive criticism said with positive words. Thanks for stopping by!

POWER OUT

The snow came fast and furious piling inches of white crystals on the ground and weighing down the limbs of great oaks and magnificent pine trees until they could no longer stand tall. As the mountains loosened their grip the giants crashed to the ground taking power lines and poles with them. An unwelcome quiet and darkness filled homes. For me, it was a chance to return to a different place and time. One I will never forget but don’t wish to relive.

            The only source of heat in my house is a Baby Fischer wood burning stove. Ceiling fans move the heated air throughout our living quarters keeping the temperature almost even. Wood heat has kept me warm all my life.

             Mom and Dad’s cast iron stove was much like mine except it was tall and round with no fire brick to protect the outside from getting red hot. It took a roaring blaze to heat the small uninsulated frame hut. Cracks under the doors and windows and holes in the floor gave room for winter’s breeze to welcome itself inside.

            The darkness that engulfed my house was brightened by candle light that allowed me to move freely and read until late. Circumstance pulled me back to that other time and place. Through the quiet stillness of the night I heard my Dad say “Alright, its time for bed”. As always, I obeyed my father, blew out the candles, laid my head on my grandfather’s feather pillow and snuggled into one of mom’s worn tacked quilts.

            The next day, I heated water atop my wood stove to wash dishes and bathe just like mom did. In my childhood home the stove sat in the corner of the “front” room. Sunday we gathered our frozen jeans from the outside clothesline and stood them behind it so they would thaw and dry for school.

            In today’s world, my clothes were in the washer when the power went down. Instead of a
clothesline, I hung them on hangers and on the backs of chairs close to the heat.

            Memories, like scenes from an old movie came pouring from the closets of my mind. The ringer washer, the clothes line, the barbed wire fence that held “the heavy clothes” tight and safe from winter’s wind, the wood stoves, were all characters in my memoir.

            As water from the faucet filled a pot, an image of a little girl “drawing” water from an open well appeared. The well was only a few feet from the house but it felt like a mile when it was “your turn” to draw water. The frosty chain that ran through a squeaky pulley and hooked to a galvanized bucket was painted with cold frost and sent stinging pains through young bare hands.

            My greatest fear during the power outage was that the food in the refrigerator and freezer would spoil. I remembered how my mom cooked most of a pig during an ice storm years ago. She gave it to the neighbors who were less fortunate than she. They didn’t have a wood stove and the power was off for several days.

            My mom and dad birthed six children, raised three nephews, and kept her parents within the confines of a four roomed home. She prepared their food on a Warm Morning wood cook stove. The aroma and sound of perking coffee, and the mouth-watering smell of her “made-from-scratch” biscuits filled the morning air. She wore her waist length brown hair braided and twirled around her head. A feed sack apron adorned with flour hand prints covered a starch-ironed oversized frayed shirt that tucked neatly into an ankle length patched skirt cinched at the waist with diaper pins, a hand-me-down from my father’s sister. She never complained.

            My thoughts and movements were surreal during the power outage. The fire in the woodstove was hot enough to make chili and cook four chicken breasts, two for chicken salad

and two for dumplings made in the broth. It’s just enough meat for someone to think “one flew over the pot while it was cooking”…. something my mom said when chicken was limited but she had to feed her family.

            There wasn’t enough space on the stove to cook the pork roast so I sealed it in bags and a bowl and buried it in a tub of snow.

            A mushy box of ice cream reminded me of a childhood treat. I heard my mom say, “Don’t get it from the top, get it from the middle. Don’t go too close to the ground; you’ll get dirt in it”. A bucket of packed snow sweetened with a bit of sugar a teaspoon of vanilla and a cup of fresh cream and we had a special treat mom called “Snow Cream”.      

             As I poured the boiling water from my pot into a double stainless steel sink, I saw my Mom dipping steaming water from the reservoir of the Warm Morning stove. She put it in two “dishpans”, one for washing the dishes and one for rinsing them. My mother’s smile and the fresh scent of line dried feed sack dish towels made white with lye soap invaded my kitchen. I squeezed the water from the terry cloth towel and put the last pan away when a puff of warm air disrupted my daydream of yesteryear.

             The power was on but it didn’t stop the images and voices from my childhood when a strong Appalachian woman taught her daughter survival skills. Stored family relics inherited from generations past proving useful most half a century later.

            I spent the power outage with my mom, a young woman with the challenge of cooking for a family of ten using very few resources. The snow storm caused the electricity to go off but if we keep the memories alive the power will always be on.