OVER MY SHOULDER

Several days ago, Mitch Ricketts was telling me how he and Susanne had found a couple of wild grape vines, and how good the grapes were at this time of the year. I recall as a kid how fortunate we felt to ‘run on to’ a wild grape vine that had grapes on it. It seemed that the varmints and birds enjoyed the wild grapes just as much or more than we did.

I do recall many times spending several hours gathering the wild grapes in our jacket, a gunny sack, or any other thing that we had, so that we could take them home for Mom and Grandma Murrow to use to make wild grape jelly. I recall how good the jelly was on fresh hot biscuits that had been liberally spread with home made butter.
It did not make much difference whether it was for supper or breakfast it was good.

Grape vines in the timber were always good for at least one squirrel when you were squirrel hunting---often there would be a squirrel’s nest high up in the vine, or a squirrel would be hiding in the vine. You could ‘grab hold’ of the vine and shake it vigorously, and the squirrel would usually become ‘spooked’ and run out into a near by tree.

If you found the correct one, they made a good ‘swing’ on which you could play. Of course I never tried it, but the ‘big boys’ always said that you could ‘smoke’ the smaller vines if it was dry, as it had a hole down the center-----I am told that it did not taste too good, and would leave a burning sensation on your tongue. The smaller vines could be used for a stem on a home made ‘corn cob pipe’ if you had a pocket knife, and knew how to make the pipe bowl out of the cob.----(so I am told)

We always kept the vines ‘staked’ out, so as to try to beat the possums, coons and birds to them when they got ripe. In addition, it was a good place to visit on the night hunts when we would take Corky and go to the timber possum hunting. I recall that ‘come fur season’ we would take our single shot rifle, and a kerosene lantern--- and we would ‘hit’ every grape vine and persimmon grove in the area. Usually, the fruit was starting to get ripe, and it would be a good time to find a possum----after all the pelts may be worth 60 or 75 cents each. Sometimes, in the cool crisp evenings, it was moon light enough that we did not even light the lantern. Such a moon light night borders on a thing of beauty.

All you had to do was find the possum---due him in, skin him and stretch the hide over a ‘stretching board’ to dry. We always had better luck when we took Corky, as he could get up to and into the patch quick enough to force the possum up the tree---without the dog, we made enough noise that they would ‘run away’ rather than run up a tree. Once we had ‘hit’ all of the persimmon groves, and grape vines in the area, we would wonder around the timber, waiting for Corky to ‘tree’.

I recall the fun that we had in ‘trying’ ---or having someone else try---the persimmons before they were quite ripe. They are quite tasty if they are fully ripe, and they make pretty good persimmon bread if they are ripe. Often we would find the ‘tail end ‘ of an apple or pear crop where some of the fruit was left on the tree. It is funny how much better these taste at 10:00 or 11:00 at night in the moon light and you are cool enough to ‘almost’ shiver.

Although the pelts were worth a few cents, we were never very excited for Corky to tree a skunk----seemed that Corky always came out on the wrong end of those ‘treeing’ processes, and the odor stayed with him for several day---besides that we never cared much about ‘skinning out’ a skunk. It was rare that we would tree a coon---as they seemed much harder to find and to catch.

Those ‘hunts’ were always a lot of fun, but is was also great to get back to the house, skin the ‘catch’ and hang it up in a safe place, go to the house and ‘back up’ around that old heating stove---usually, we had chilled enough that the heat felt good---I recall that sometime Mom would have some hot chocolate for us. Of course we would have to ‘relive’ the ‘hunt’ before we went off to bed. However, after standing and soaking up the heat from the stove, and with the warm chocolate in our stomach, we were quick to drop off to sleep once we were under those warm covers.

I don’t recall that I ever took my boys out for a night’s hunt---certainly I have never taken the grand kids out---guess that I better do that in the near future---of course we won’t have Corky, but it would be fun anyway----particularly if I could get them to taste a green persimmon----of course it does not take the hot stove and warm chocolate to make me fall asleep any more---seems that an easy chair can do that.