The Chicken Story (Part I)

Grandpa and Grandma, circa. 1950-ish

A Guest Post by Grandpa Al Willingham

Two years ago family scooted down church pews while my granddad sidled up to a microphone. He’d been preparing his birthday speech for a long time. Years, I think. He rustled a few note cards between his fingers, but it seemed they were there just to put something in his hands. I noticed after the first two or three he never looked at them again.

We sat riveted, hardly breathing unless it was to fuel the next belly laugh. Partly because it was Grandpa, and he always captivates. But partly, I think, it was never having heard a 100-year-old guy deliver a monologue. For nearly an hour, he cracked jokes, told stories and passed out sage advice to a room full of friends, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That year in his Christmas letter he observed that he’d been told the first 100 years were the toughest. He was looking forward to the next 100. He’s now two years into that second century.

My grandpa raised a family in wartime. He worked through the Great Depression, never out of a job more than two weeks at a time I’m told. He’s buried two beautiful wives and more friends than a guy should have to. He’s seen things I can only imagine.

Grandpa Al is Rock solid, passing down a heritage of loving and serving Jesus that could cause the best Baptists I know to covet. He served as chairman of his church’s elder board into his 90s and can still fix anything with a little prayer,  duct tape and baling twine.

I asked Grandpa if he’d help me complete four generations in this place. (My dad posts regularly, and Isaac guested here once last year.) Remembering a favorite story from the birthday party, I wondered if he and Dad could get it onto paper for me.

They did me one better. They puttered around with a digital recorder and for the next couple of days, we have the results of that here. I edited very little so you can get the feel for Grandpa’s conversation. In Part I, Grandpa sets the stage for the times with the sure sign of coming of age: he wore long pants at age twelve. In Part II, he describes his uncle’s grocery store where he held his first job off the farm. And in Part III, he tells a story of chickens, customers, and lessons learned about honesty.

All About Chickens and Chicken Soup and So Forth

Grandpa in 1912, not quite old enough to work

In order for you to understand the situation at the time, I was in my early youth. Upon reaching twelve, you lost your childhood one day and the next day you were supposed to be a man, a tradition handed down for many years from the Jewish people.

On my twelfth birthday — I had never had a birthday party before — I came home from school and nobody was home. I started doing the normal chores assigned to me. I got mine all done and started in on the ones that my dad would be doing.

Mother and Dad showed up along with a couple of cousins of mine from town and Dad and I continued with the chores. We got back to the house and it was supper time but I didn’t see any evidence of supper. I had noticed my dad had been carrying some wood into the front part of the house and I wondered what that was all about.

We had a peculiar house that had two huge living rooms. One was called the parlor and that’s where you put your best furniture. And when you had company you used the other sittin’ room. That was the showplace. You also had a parlor bedroom where the fancy bedclothes were on the bed and the bed never got used.

She’d made several trips in there and I wondered what that was all about. Finally she sent me in there to get a book of some kind out of the small library that we had. Lo and behold, the house was full of people from my school. I think all of my school chums or associates were there. I was attending a one-room school and we had about 20 students first through eighth grade. They immediately started singing happy birthday to me, something that was a total surprise to me.

Birthday parties had never been celebrated as far as I knew in my family. And of course they all brought gifts, not a very wide variety but I got about ten or twelve red bandana handkerchiefs and some more delicate ones presumably from the girls. After the presents were all open, my mother brought me in my present.

Mother and dad served them ice cream and cake – and ice cream was a real treat back in those days. You had an old freezer you made it with and you turned a crank until you couldn’t turn it anymore. You packed it with ice, and ice was also pretty much of a new thing they had learned how to make ice in the big city of Charleston. We lived about six miles from there. Anyhow we had that fun, and after everyone left then my Mother brought out a big package for me and it turned out it was my long pants suit true to tradition.

The dress code in those days for boys was knee pants or knickers, long black socks, a blouse and either a homemade knit sweater or jacket. I’m talking about Sunday-Go-to-Meetin’ clothes now. After you were twelve years old the dress code changed. Boys wore long pants, regular type suit, shirt and tie, white shirt and tie, and then that was designated as your Sunday-Go-to-Meetin’ clothes.

Maybe the oldest NBA fan out there, Grandpa saw the Heat and T-Wolves play for his 100th birthday

My mother was ill most of my life. Well, she lived anyhow. She thought since I was growing up now I should have a little business training. She had a  brother that had a little grocery store in town. She conned him into allowing me to work on Saturdays for six weeks. The reason for the six weeks was that during that six weeks spring was coming along and there wasn’t much to do on the farm. By the end of the six weeks they would be starting to prepare the soil for planting and they would require me to be one of the helpers.

So I rode horse back into town. The store opened at 6:30 in the morning. My uncle was just coming across the street when I arrived on horseback. He showed me where I could put my horse where she’d be in the shade, and gave me a bucket of water to sit beside her. I could change the bucket at noon. I thought it was very thoughtful of him.

-to be continued-