Later,
Aunt Flora, the best cook in the South, would concoct a most extraordinary
supper,
made
with fresh garden vegetables and fruits. I loved the warm, yeasty
monkey bread that
melted
in your mouth and the heavenly broccoli and cheese.
Don’t
forget those desserts – chocolate pie with skyscraper meringue, giant tollhouse
cookies,
rich
apple butter stack cake and velvety chocolate fudge with black walnuts
shelled by Uncle Ronald.
A
boy had to keep his strength up.
There
were creeks to stomp, minnows to trap, hills to climb, barns
to
explore, hummingbirds to catch and lightning bugs to jar.
On
a good evening, Mama Benton’s small black and white TV could almost pull
in a station from Lexington.
Better
yet, everyone would gather by hissing lumps of cannel coal in the fireplace
to tell stories until bedtime.
A
requisite bedtime snack (possibly leftover strawberry delight) always hastened
sleep and provoked
dreams
of adventure amongst the endless rows of vegetables and tobacco plants.
You
knew it was your lucky day indeed when Uncle Ronald would let you drive
the tractor!
It
was at the foot of this mountain where the seeds of my Appalachian heritage
were germinated,
so
many years ago, in a much simpler time.