DUST, MUD, GUMBO: POST #50

Every road in the Herman Junction area was dirt except old highway 63 that ran right in front of our house. No, I did NOT say GRAVEL road, I said DIRT road. The roads in every direction from our house were just dirt roads and that made life interesting at times.

Herman Junction was the only place that I knew of where one could stand in mud up to his butt and have sand blowing in his eyes! Things could change that quickly it seemed. I hated DUST! It was awful to be walking down the road and a car or truck meet you or pass you and the dust would be so thick that you could not see and you could just feel it filling your lungs in spite of any effort that you made to keep it out. Dust was everywhere and covered everything. It could even get in the house around the windows and you could write your name on the end tables and other pieces of furniture. One would anxiously await a little rain and then it would come. When it came, we had......

MUD! I mentioned earlier that when I was very young I enjoyed riding in the wagon with the family and leaning over the side boards and watch the mud squshing up on the wheels and leaving a trail behind us. Even as I got older I enjoyed riding the tractor or a bicycle through the mud. It was kind of fun to make mud balls and fight with them unless you got hit square in the face with one and I have had that experience many times. Mud doesn't taste too good. A lot of time could be used taking a stick and making all kinds of designs in the mud only to have your little sister come along and mess it all up. But, I didn't really like the mud all that much and I was happy to see it dry up some. But then that dad gummed dust would come back and mess everything up again.

GUMBO! Do you think that I am talking about Louisiana Gumbo that one eats? Well, I am not! I am talking about the dirt out of Ben and Pete Harpers farms. It would be dry and dusty, then the rain would come and there would be mud and gumbo. We often wore shoes that were called, "Gumbo Boots or Shoes." I can hardly describe the feeling of trying to walk in a pair of boots or shoes through gumbo. I mean that stuff was like some kind of plaster or cement. You would get stuck and the only way out was to pull your feet out of the boots and then try to pull the boots out of the gumbo and carry them to dryer ground. When you pulled those boots out of the gumbo it made a sound kind of like we make when we put a big sucker in our mouth and remove it quickly. We would go to chop cotton and that gumbo would stick to your hoe and about every third strike you would have to stop and clean the gumbo off your hoe. When you were picking cotton because the cotton was dry but the gumbo was still a bit wet, when you got to the end of the row you would have about sixty pounds of cotton in the sack and twenty pounds of gumbo on your sack and feet. Barbara and I slid off a road one time and there was no way to control the car in the gumbo. We were going very slow and just gently slid off in a ditch. We had to walk a few hundred yards in the gumbo and you never saw such a mess in your life. We had it all over us by the time we got to a nearby house. It is cold black and as sticky as glue.

There are still come dirt roads at Herman Junction just exactly like those in days gone by. And, they are still dusty and muddy and that gumbo remains on those farms where we once chopped and picked cotton. Ain't it good to have nice paved roads?