As a boy I had a rifle and a bicycle and a dog and complete freedom to roam any place I could get back home in time for supper.
I knew every old barn in a five mile radius of Bug Tussle.
Inside those old barns, three pound Folger’s cans outnumbered Maxwell House and after them Hills Brothers and then Prince Albert, and if I ever saw a big Velvet can in an old barn, it’s now forgotten.
My parents, and most of the neighborhood, were Scottish tradition members of the Christian Church—period—full stop.
Think of Amish and Mennonites with gorgeous mothers all wearing fancy clothes, driving shiny new cars, and teaching school.
I never found one whiskey bottle or wine bottle or beer can in an old barn. Those I’d see in road ditches and I’d pick them up and use them as targets for my .22.
The old stories of being given so many .22 shells and being expected to come home with that many head shot rabbits or squirrels did not apply to me. Campbelite boys had unlimited ammunition. I could sometimes hit a quail on the wing with my .22, which was the only wild game Mama welcomed.
Little two ounce pocket tins of Velvet were common, in old barns, more so than little PA tins, to hold screws and bolts.
Why did I always go in an old barn? Two reasons, the first curiosity.
The second was I was expected to kill barn owls that preyed on quail and rabbits. The poor folks ate the rabbits.
I never stole a single little screw or bolt.
God was watching me, and worse if my parents found out, if my father didn’t die of the shame my mother might have killed me with a stove poker. Serious.
If a mother allowed her husband to smoke she bought him a tin of Velvet or Prince Albert a week. Velvet smells better, I think.
But first, came coffee.
We were never even close to being poor, but Tom T Hall nailed it—-
Don’t Forget The Coffee Billy Joe
