Missing Irma

She was the one who stayed home.  She went away, but she came back.  Her sisters moved far away from Rainelle, West Virginia, and stayed there.

Irma Belle Amick, about age three.

Except for some unhappy years spent in Richmond, Virginia, she lived in West Virginia.  It didn't matter to her that she didn't have much money; West Virginia was her home.  She was the queen of "make do with what you have."

My mother, Irma Belle Amick Tuck Ballengee, died 13 years ago on March 30, 2000.  I've thought of her a thousand times this week.  As my daughter nears the delivery date for her first child, I remember how my mom came to stay with me when Katie was born.  I don't remember her being as anxious as I have been.  To me, she was calm, cool and collected.  "Sometimes if you set them up and rub their back, it helps," she told me when Katie's crying would not be comforted.  It worked.  When I was a child, she was not always so calm, if the truth be told.

Irma Belle was born 13 November 1915 in Runa, Nicholas County, West Virginia.  Her parents were Irvin Starling Amick and Lelia Clingman Humphries Amick.  In August 2012 I wrote a blog about the family of Irvin and Lelia that has more details about their history, "Our Amicks in Modern Times".  http://secondchances-jbestep.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=Ke_5sz0BAAA.DZvkKGyVZC6s-l4lv93XQA.FBNZI1AIimrY63wGDddX5w&postId=767519147010026813&type=POST

Irma was the fourth of five children who grew up in the rolling farmland of Nicholas County.  On 25 April 1931 she married Charles George Tuck with whom she had three children:  Charles, Martha Jane, and Carol Ann.  Charlie Tuck worked in the mines in southern West Virginia, and the family lived in Beards Fork, East Rainelle, and other mining towns.  When work was scarce, they moved to the Newport News area where Charlie worked in the ship yard.

But things were not peaceful in the Tuck household, and it came to a point where Irma filed for divorce, which was finalized 10 October 1947 in Richmond, Virginia.  Irma and her children returned to Rainelle and lived with her parents.

Irma Amick Tuck and Red Ballengee.

She worked to support her family as a waitress and also as a clerk in the Men's Quality Store on Main Street.  A certain railroader began coming by the store every morning to help Irma work the crossword puzzle in the newspaper.  On 1 July 1949, Irma and Austin David (Red) Ballengee were married in Richmond, Virginia.

We lived a rather contented life in the Osborne Addition outside East Rainelle, my dad working on the railroad, my mom dragging the box springs outside to clean them every spring and cooking dinner after church every Sunday.  In those days women always wore dresses, even when cleaning house, and all meals were cooked at home.  It was exciting when we were driving home from church, and my dad just drove right on past the street to our house.  "What are you doing?" Mom would ask.  "Let's just go down to Thelma's and eat," Daddy would say.

One spring day Mom had all the windows open and was cleaning away in her bedroom at the front of the house.  A salesman saw the windows open and walked right up and called out to her.  It scared my mom so badly that she couldn't speak.  When the salesman made his pitch, she said, "Oh, no.  We couldn't buy anything.  He (my father) hasn't worked since the fiddle of Mebruary."  That story was told for years at our house.

Her sisters and their families came to visit from California, Arizona, Ohio, Texas,and North Carolina.  Cousins, nieces, and nephews came to visit.  Once Aunt Carrie brought the fixings for tacos in her suitcase from Phoenix, strange food indeed to eat in East Rainelle.  All our visitors seemed so successful, but they were really no more successful than we were, wearing our home-sewn dresses and eating our home-canned vegetables. Irma much preferred the comfort of making-do-with-what-you-have in the mountains of West Virginia.

My mother and me at Anthony's
Creek in Greenbrier Co., 1951.

My parents were married for only 21 years; my dad died 3 July 1970.  Then began the most difficult years that I can ever remember, for both my mother and me.

Before my dad's funeral, Mom went to the beauty salon to have her hair done.  The stylist pinned up Mom's dark hair in beautiful small curls at the back of her head.  For the rest of the summer, until I returned to college, once a week she sat in front of the dresser with the big round mirror while I pinned her hair up into those curls.  I never saw her wear her hair like that again.

I debated whether to return to college after my dad's death, but I did.  My mother's two friends, Merlene McClung and Zora Smith, drove us to Berea.  After depositing my things at the dorm, we ate lunch at a restaurant in the town.  As I stood on the street watching them drive away, my mom turned around in the back seat to take a last look at me.  She was facing a long, cold, lonely winter at home.

Irma resting after cooking Sunday dinner.

Somehow we made it through.  She was absolutely  joyous to find that Larry and I were going to have a baby.  When she came to help me after the birth, she plugged along like a trooper.  She took loads of wet wash up the stairs from the basement to hang the laundry on the clothes line.  Did I mention that she was 70 years old?  When I wanted to do things on my own, like giving Katie her first bath, she stood by to advise and support.  She never complained.  But she was always available anytime to come and sit with Katie while Larry and I worked.  They watched Batman on the little TV in Katie's room; she waited for the preschool bus from Westminster Presbyterian; she read the same books over and over; she made a doll who wore a dress that matched the one she made for Katie.

Irma Belle was devoted to Christ.  She did her best to instruct me in Christian ways, and now I can see that I should have heeded more of her instruction.  During the time that my dad worked at Charleston and was gone for a week at a time, she and I read the Bible and prayed every night before going to bed.  It was a little awkward for me at the time (I was a teenager, after all), but it makes a tender memory for me as I recall her devotion.

As we prepare for another new life in our family, I am sure that she (and my dad, too) would be elated to welcome little Lucas James.  I think of my mom and dad even more often now, thinking how nice it would be to have her here so that I could fix us lunch, maybe we would crochet baby blankets together.  But this was not to be.  She has been gone from us for 13 years; it hardly seems that long.

Irma Belle Ballengee, we miss you still.

Irma Ballengee in front of her
parents' house in East Rainelle.

A Tribute to James Estep

James Franklin Estep
in 1952

He was a man of a thousand stories.  When we visited him, the real business started after lunch was done and the dishes washed.  Situated in the family room in his recliner, James Franklin Estep carried forth with stories.  Boyhood stories, stories from his days as a police officer, coal mining stories.  There just seemed to be a never-ending fountain of stories. James Estep passed from us on February 19 at the age of 92.

There was a question about his age.  Records say that he was born 4 August 1920, which would make him 92.  But his real date of birth was 1921.  He said that he had a hard time getting a copy of his birth certificate because the house in Cannellton, WV, where he was born, sat directly on the county line.  Part of the house was in Fayette County and part was in Kanawha County.

Bill and James Estep (with hat).

James' parents were George Virgil Estep, a World War I veteran who was born in Eagle, Fayette County, on 17 August 1892, and Bessie Boyd Estep, born 28 March 1905, in Vanceburg, Kentucky.  He was their first child, born 10 months after their marriage which was on 2 October 1920.  Virgil was a red-headed coal miner who played short stop on a coal camp baseball team.  Reports are that he was quite good at baseball.  He loved the Cincinnati Reds and often took the express train from Charleston to Cincinnati on Friday to watch the Reds play all weekend.  He'd come home on Sunday night to go to work in the mines on Monday.  After he retired, Virgil was intense about the Reds games on television.  Bessie came in during a game once to tell him that she thought she was having a heart attack, and she needed to go the doctor.  Virgil said, "Wait until this inning is over."

James’ grandmother, Sarah Sally Cook Boyd, lived on a hill side in Cannelton.  She fixed “salt fish” for James when he was a child.  The fish came in 5 and 10 pound wooden tubs.  She bought the 5 pound tubs because she couldn't afford the 10 pound ones.  There was a spring up behind her house, and she would take the lid off the tub and set the salt fish in the spring for a few days which rinsed all the salt off the fish.  She fried the fish in lard, and the fish came out really crispy.  Virgil told James' mom, “Bessie, Sally is going to kill that boy if she keeps feeding him that fish.”  

James Franklin Estep

Bessie and Virgil lived in various coal camps around southern West Virginia.  They had three more sons:  William Edward, born 9 March 1924 in Cannellton; Thomas Vernon, born 31 December 1927 in Dankwood; and Robert Quintin, born in 1933 in Elkridge.  Bessie became a mid-wife and traveled with Dr. Davis around Elkridge and Powellton when he was called to deliver a baby.  She could be called away at any time, day or night, so she taught James how to cook.  He became the care giver for the younger boys.

James Estep and Mr. Carl Armstrong,
taken behind the company store at
Elkridge, which was earlier known as
Armstrong Creek.

It wasn't long before James was working in the mines beside his dad.  When he was 16 years old, he sold powder at the company store for Koppers Coal Company in Elkridge.  He started hand-loading coal in 1937 for 30 cents a ton in six-ton cars.  "I was on one side, and Dad (Virgil) was on the other," he once said.  He was never without a job after that.  He said, "They used to say we had three meals a day:  corn meal, oatmeal, and miss a meal."

In May 1940 the census reported that James worked as a "salesman" at a pool room.  During the week of March 24-30, 1940, he worked 75 hours.  His dad, up to March 30, 1940, had been unemployed for 12 weeks.  In 1939, James had worked 44 weeks for which he was paid $386; his dad had worked 28 weeks and earned $800.  The family rented a house in Smithers for $15 per month; in 1935 they had lived in Fayette County.  James was listed as 18 years old (making his birth year 1921) and had completed the eighth grade in school.

Helen and James Estep

Around this time James went to work in the mines near Rossmore in Logan County.  He happened to notice a young, dark-haired woman walking by his boarding house on her way home from church.  I imagine it didn't take him long to strike up a conversation with Helen Nagy, the daughter of Bill and Mary Kvitka Nemeth Nagy.  I don't know where you could go in Rossmore on a date, but James said he would buy a bunch of hot dogs and take them over to the Nagys' house for all of them to eat.  Word is that James and Helen were quite good dancers, so maybe they passed their time dancing to swing music.

James and Helen Nagy were married in Logan County 21 November 1941 which was the day before Thanksgiving.  They went to the court house to get a marriage license on November 19 http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=10222718&Type=Marriage, and Bill Nagy, Helen’s dad, went with them because she was only 17 years old.  James borrowed a car, and they went to the preacher’s house (J. G. McNeely, who was also the county clerk) where they were married.  James asked the preacher how much he owed, and the preacher said most people gave him $2, so James gave him $5.  They spent their first married days with Virgil and Bessie Estep.  

James in his work clothes in the back yard at Crichton.

In 1942 James and Helen moved to Quinwood where James worked for the Imperial Smokeless Coal Company as a day laborer underground.  He was the leader of the local union which led to some disagreements with the mine superintendent at the time, so James left there and went to Logan to work. He was charged $84 to move. When the Imperial Smokeless mine superintendent left Quinwood, James came back to Quinwood to work. He went to the same man who moved him to Logan to see how much it would cost to move back. He said, “Nothing. That first price was for round-trip, because I knew you’d be back.”

When James called Quinwood to see about coming back to work, they told him he could start on Monday, so until the family could move back to Quinwood, he stayed at the Club House in Quinwood and paid for room and board.  The price of room & board included a packed lunch every day, which usually consisted of a peanut butter sandwich with lettuce on it.  No coffee or anything else.  Each man picked up his bag lunch as he went out the door.  One man threw his lunch away after he got out the door and went up to Zerze’s and bought two hot dogs to take for his lunch.

James Estep in his role as police officer of
Quinwood with unidentified men.

For dinner the men sat six to a table, and they were given one piece of meat each, so at each table there would be six pork chops or steaks or whatever they were having served.  At the time a tunnel was being built near there, and there were “sand hogs” (men who worked digging the tunnel) staying at the club house.  James said that one of the men was huge, “six inches between his eyes”.

A club house resident, Dick Fain, was sitting at this sand hog’s table one evening when the pork chops were brought out.  The sand hog reached over and took all six pork chops.  Dick Fain said, “You son of a bitch.  We each get a pork chop.  Those are for all of us,” and the sand hog stood up, showing his full size.  He said, “What did you say?” 

“Nothing,” said Fain, “I don’t even like pork chops.”

James and Helen at Christmas with Gale Kerns, their
son-in-law who was a POW in Vietnam.

James continued working in Quinwood, becoming a section boss in 1949 and receiving his mine foreman's certificate in 1953.  At first the family lived in an apartment over the company store but moved to a house in Marfrance with their growing family:  Patricia Ann, born 1942; Rebecca Lou, born 1945; James Larry, born 1948, and Gary Franklin, born 1951. After the family bought a house in Crichton, the family was completed with Thomas Vernon, born in 1956, and Christine Elizabeth, born in 1966.  

James was a member of the original Imperial Smokeless Mine Safety Team.  On 28 October 1958 he participated with the team during the recovery operation after the explosion at the Richwood Sewell Burton Mine near Craigsville.  The Spring 2010 Goldenseal magazine published an account of the safety team http://www.wvculture.org/goldenseal/Spring10/Mine.html .  

Still cooking!

James worked a second part-time job as police officer for the town of Quinwood.  Route 20 from Charmco to Quinwood used to be a one-lane road that followed the creek from Quinwood down through Leslie and Bellburn.  In winter when the snow was deep, it might be impossible to get to Rainelle for several days because there was no modern equipment to remove the snow.  The current two-lane asphalt road was built about 1956.  When James was working part-time as the town police officer, a man committed suicide.  James said the man’s body lay in bed covered up with a blanket for two days because the ambulance couldn't get up the hill from Charmco because of the snow.  He said that public drunkenness was a major problem in Quinwood which was home to around 3,000 coal miners.  The town had seven beer joints, a movie theater, two barbershops, and many other stores. 

A cousin, Jean Plassard, who lives in Ohio, remembered that when they came to visit, James killed a chicken for Helen to fix for supper.  My husband, Larry, said he remembered that when Jean and her family came to visit, they called saying they were lost.  Larry rode his bicycle from Crichton to Leslie and waited for them.  Riding his bicycle, he led the car to the house in Crichton. After James died, Jean's son showed her a $2 bill in his wallet that James had given him when they visited.   

James and Helen at their 50th Wedding Anniversary
dinner.

James and his grandson,
Carson.

Years passed.  Children graduated and married.  Grandchildren were born.  James stayed involved with the Masons and Shrine organization and continued working in the mine.  Christmases were celebrated, and flowers were taken to cemeteries for those who passed from the family.  There was a son-in-law who was a POW in Vietnam.  Eleven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren were born.  A grandson was killed in a plane crash.  Thousands of biscuits were baked, and gallons of gravy cooked.  James retired in 1982, and he and Helen spent the remainder of their lives at the house in the coal camp of Crichton.  He occupied his time by serving with the Quinwood Volunteer Fire Department Board and on the Public Service District Board for water and sewer services.  But Helen became ill and required constant care.  James took care of her at home, managing home health care visits, medicine, and personal care.  He cooked chicken and dumplings. On 21 November 2011, they celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.  He stayed by her side until she died 8 February 2012.  Last week his broken heart could take no more. 

Sometimes people we love leave little surprises after they're gone.  When my husband, Larry, got in James' car to drive it, he turned on the CD player.  The last song to which James was listening?  Dolly Parton singing Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us.  Amen.

Lessons from Genesis

In January I had the good fortune to read daily from the book of Genesis.  Scripture Union (http://www.scriptureunion.org/) produces a daily devotional, Encounter with God, that I have used for years.  The readings began 2013, well, in the beginning, and continued for 31 days up to the death of Sarah, Abraham's wife, at the age of 127 years in Hebron.

The stories were familiar:  the creation of the earth, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the tower of Babel, but there was a freshness in them.  This happens often while reading the Bible; the old, old stories open up in a new way to teach the very lesson that the reader needs to hear.

It happened this way again as I read about the "fall of man".  Moses, the presumed author of Genesis, tells us that Adam and Eve were pleasantly strolling in the Garden of Eden when they encountered Satan disguised as a serpent.  Yes, in chapter 3, verse 6, we find that Adam was with Eve when this all went down.  Things so far had been pretty good, but Satan could not stand that God's creation was functioning well.

Before Satan could really begin to work on Adam and Eve, he had to soften up their hearts and make them fertile ground for the temptations he had in mind.  He introduced the most subtle of doubt into Eve's mind.  "Now, did God really tell you not to eat from any tree in the Garden?"

Eve then had to clarify exactly what God had said.  Eve could eat fruit from any tree in the Garden, just not from the tree in the middle of the Garden.  If she touched that tree, she would surely die.  "Oh, fiddle faddle," said Satan.  "You will not die.  God just doesn't want to share the knowledge of good and evil with you."

Does this sound familiar?  The Bible is a myth.  The existence of God can't be proven through science.  There is no life after death.  If God loves us, he won't send us to Hell.  Jesus wasn't really dead after he was crucified and that is how he was seen alive afterwards.  An embryo is not a person.  I can go on and on, because Satan is very good at getting that little doubt into the mind, just enough to mix up the thinking process.  Then he laughs.

Once Satan had Eve defending her beliefs and wondering if her memory was actually correct about what God had told her and Adam, he went in for the kill.  "That fruit on the tree you think God told you not to touch?  Take a good look at it," he said.  "It's good to eat, nourishing and tasty.  It makes a beautiful presentation on the plate--pleasing to the eye.  It will give you wisdom; who doesn't want to be wise?  It's a good thing!"  First the doubt, then the convincing argument that sin is good.

And the thing is, everything that Satan said about the fruit was true.  It was nourishing, beautiful, and instilled wisdom.  But to eat the fruit was against the will of God.  And therein lies the problem.  Life is full of wonderful gifts from God.  Daily messages fly around us about all the good things we can have in our modern lives that were prohibited in less enlightened times.  They're good things:  pretty, attractive, fulfilling, fair.  But they are against the will of God.  Satan lies.

Time passes in Genesis.  We find Abraham with the apple of his eye, his son, Isaac.  Young, naive, innocent Isaac.  Abraham follows God's command to travel to Moriah to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, but he doesn't tell Isaac or his two servants what the sacrifice will be.  Although Abraham's heart must have been as heavy as a steamer trunk full of bricks, he followed God's instructions and tied up his precious son and lay him on a pile of wood, ready to kill him with a knife.  God intervened at the last moment to provide a substitute offering, a ram that would be offered in place of Isaac to atone for sin.

And so it is with us.  In fairness, we should pay the price of our sins; we should be the offering on the pile of wood.  But God provided a substitute offering in our place:  Jesus.  I imagine that Isaac worshiped that day with a renewed sense of awe, love, and appreciation for the sacrifice of the ram that God sent.

These are lessons I learned in Genesis.  Satan lies and will make us doubt the love of God.  Anything that is outside the will of God, no matter how good it seems, is sin.  God substituted Jesus as the sacrifice that we should have paid, but couldn't.

"This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."  Romans 3:22-24

    

It's Hard to be Humble on Facebook

Recently I gave up Facebook.  I say that in the same way I would admit to giving up cocaine, beer, or betting on the horses.  I loved Facebook in the same way an alcoholic loves a drink of Drambuie.  But you get the picture.

When I worked as a counselor, I often communicated with students through Facebook.  We posted pictures from our school trips, and quite honestly, sometimes I discovered problems our students were having by their quite honest posts.  I found long-lost family members, old friends from high school, and cousins from internet family trees.  I had hundreds of "friends".  It. Was. Awesome.

There was at times, though, an  undercurrent of discomfort.  How much information was too much information?  Had my account just been hacked?  Was that new "friend" really the FBI tracking my political statements?  I became increasingly disturbed by posts that other people made, and often found myself wishing that someone would just hold back a little.  On some deep, basic, intuitive level I knew that I needed to make some changes.

So I deactivated my account.  Facebook said I could come back; they sent me an email wanting to know why I'd left.  Holy status update, Facebook, leave me alone.

Eventually they did.  Leave me alone, I mean.  So I want to share with others, who may be facing the question of how you can be "friends" with, in some cases, thousands of people, five signs that you, too, may need to face life without social networking.

1.  Your right thumb is numb.

2.  As soon as you wake in the morning, your first thought is to wonder how many people have "liked" that photo you posted right before you went to bed.  You know, the photo of you looking extremely good at that party last night. It is extremely difficult to be humble in the egocentric flare of "likes" and "shares" on a Facebook post.  If you have a meltdown, your friends respond with concern and advice.  Others tag you in photos.  It is all about you.

3.  You remember things you used to do when you had more time. Things like cooking a complete meal, hitting fly balls in the backyard, knitting a sweater, sorting your stamp collection, or reading a book are remote memories.   It gets increasingly difficult to get all your work completed on time because you check for status updates or new photos every few minutes, and Facebook is the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see at night.  Your self-esteem is minimal because you find it increasingly difficult to finish a task; your self-worth is determined, not by accomplishments, but by how many "likes" and "shares" you can get from your friends, many of whom you've not actually met and wouldn't recognize if you saw them in Food City.

4.  You've run out of people to stalk.  You know you do this.  You check the profile of any people you've ever known, from the curmudgeon down the street to your prom date in 1965, but this becomes increasingly boring as you find their lives are just as drab and dreary as everyone else's.

5.  You were not alarmed to find that Facebook is running a trial program of charging $100 to receive services that have previously been free.  If the trial is successful, it doesn't take much imagination to foresee that the fees will be extended to everyone.  You think that Facebook is crucial to your business and/or personal life, and you will pay whatever fees they charge.  You have too much money.

I deactivated my Facebook account for several reasons, some of which are not listed here.  At first I really, really wanted to get back on Facebook to see what people were doing and saying, but I resisted.  I kept busy.  I read more books--a lot more books.  I took long walks.  Time passed, and everything was ok.

If you feel the need to make changes, turn off the computer, stand up, and go outside.  The air is fresh, and life is full of things to do where you can meet real people.  

The Day of the Pickled Bean

Today was the day.  It was marked on the calendar on my kitchen wall simply as "Beans".  Six weeks ago today I entered upon an experiment to determine a method of pickling beans just as my husband's grandmother, Bessie Boyd Estep, did years ago.  I held in my hand a copy of her recipe gleaned from an old copy of the Charleston Gazette.  As is the case in most old recipes, some of which use ingredients like lard and fat back, the instructions were not crystal clear, so I did the best I could and ended up with four jars of pickled green beans, two which sealed when the hot lids were put on them and two which were sealed by boiling them for five minutes.  All four jars were duly installed in the closet in our basement which is appropriately cool and dark.

After the first week I had a little clue that the two sets of jars were not going to cure identically.  I came in from the garage one morning and smelled something "funny".  I couldn't quite figure it out, but after a few moments of investigation I deduced that the smell was similar to sauerkraut.  Oh, no.

The seal had broken on the two jars which had sealed simply by heating the lids.  The smell came from the liquid which had spilled out.  Everything was nice and tight on the two cooked jars.  I wiped them off and put newspapers under all the jars to absorb spills in case my worst fear was realized:  the jars would explode from the pressure of the fermentation taking place.

I checked the jars every once in a while.  In four weeks I noticed that there were bubbles rising from the bottom of the two jars with the broken seals.  This is not ever good in canned vegetables.  

The jars survived without exploding.  The day arrived that we had eagerly anticipated.  When Larry saw the jars sitting on the kitchen table, he, of course, reached for one of the jars whose seals had broken.   He removed the lid and foamy pickled bean juice spewed everywhere.  Again, not good.  Anytime I cook a meal that doesn't require a trip to the emergency room, I consider that meal a success, and I didn't want to ruin my record with a jar of pickled beans.   As Larry held the jar over the sink, he tentatively picked one of the beans out and held it to his lips.  Now I did not scream "NO" and leap over the table to slam the jar from his hands and slap the bean from his lips.  But I thought about it.

"Don't eat that!" I said, rather forcefully.  "Look at how foamy that is!  You can't eat that!"  So he put that jar down and opened one of the jars with an intact seal.  No foaming.  He smelled the beans; he tasted the beans.  He said to me, "Try one!"

"What do they taste like?" I asked.  He replied, "Salty beans."  Well, great.  All of this to have a jar of very salty beans.  Having never eaten pickled beans before, I had to rely on Larry to tell me that, yes, this is the way pickled beans are supposed to taste.    

This evening I have two quarts of pickled beans in the garbage can downstairs and two quarts of pickled beans in the kitchen, the result of the great pickled bean experiment of 2012.  Bessie Boyd Estep, if you'd been more specific I could have had four quarts of beans in the kitchen.  But now I know what she meant by "seal the jars tightly".

Keep Your Hands Off My Birth Control

The last few weeks before a national election truly leads some people to leap off that deep end.  Watching television is like listening to three wigged-out crack addicts discussing the best method of making chicken pot pie.  Each of them has an opinion about it, each has repeated their version of the recipe until only key words are spit out (BROTH, PEAS, CELERY SEED), and none of them will deviate one whit from his or her postulates on chicken pot pie.

Phrases are repeated so often (intentionally so) that explanation is not needed:  47%, re-distribution, Bain, fair share, empty chair, words repeated until they push those emotional buttons.  One of those buttons that is pushed as often as is humanly possible is the phrase "reproductive rights".

In the Facebook world, I have many friends, a pleasant mixture of young people and retirees, old high school friends and college students that I knew when I worked at Virginia Highlands.  I find it interesting in a droll sort of way that the people on Facebook who are the most twisted up about reproductive rights are the white-haired women who haven't worried about reproduction in years.  Not just on Facebook, but everywhere that women are given a voice, the white-hairs are the ones who keep re-focusing the topic back to reproductive rights, long after they should have set other priorities in their lives.

Sandra Fluke testifies to Congress
about her hardship in obtaining
birth control.

These thoughts were brought to a head this morning when I received a political advertisement in the mail.  Beside a picture of a young woman is the statement:  "It's my decision.  Politicians and my employer should keep their hands off my birth control."  The statement is attributed to Sonya Breehey of Falls Church, Virginia.  And you know what?  I agree with Ms. Breehey.  I absolutely, flat-out believe that the government should stay out of the bedroom.  Ms. Breehey should make decisions about birth control, make arrangements to get it, and then pay for it herself.  Leave me and the government out of it.

I'm flabbergasted that women of any age would welcome the government subsidization of their sexual lives.  As of this very second, I've not read or seen any reports of women who have been denied birth control or even an abortion.  All of these services are legal in this country.  No one will tell you to go to the rear of the building so that they can slip a pack of contraband birth control pills to you out of the sight of government agents.  Access to birth control and abortions is provided to all women without regard to race or socio-economic status.  Women can stop screaming that their reproductive rights are endangered.

Not to say that I have never worried about these things.  When Larry and I were first married, our income was extremely limited.  One of the ways that we managed our money was to write down in a notebook every last cent that we spent.  On February 4, 1973, we paid $3 for 9 1/2 gallons of gas.  Really.  I'm not kidding.  And $1.35 for cat food.  On March 5 I spent 82 cents on barrettes.  June 3 was a big day:  $2.50 for Colonel Sanders, train ride for $1.00, and a watermelon for $1.80.  I have no idea where we were, but it sounds like we had a good time.

Our resources at that time were so restricted, and yet, once a month there was a payment to Super-X Drug Store for our birth control.  You see, we paid for our own even though we didn't have much money.  It never occurred to me that the expense should be paid by someone else, whether it was the government or anyone else.

Nancy Pelosi, proponent of
government intervention in
reproductive rights.

How ironic that any woman would insist that the government stay out of her birth control, while asking the same government to pay for it.  I learned a long time ago that I'd rather have less that I earned myself than have someone provide for me.  There is always a price to pay; if you take the money, you submit to the strings that are attached, and before you know it, you have no choice but to be tied up in the strings because you can't survive without the money.    

The Great Pickled Bean Experiment

First.  Let me be, well, just crystal clear about something.  I do not like pickled beans.  I don't like pickled corn or pickled peppers, either.  However, my husband's family likes all that stuff.  My father-in-law has consistently "set a churn" of Hungarian wax peppers every fall for at least the last 39 years, because that's how long Larry and I have been married.  One of my first memories of being at the Estep house is of Larry offering me a carrot from a crock of hot peppers.  When I resisted, he said, "Go on.  Taste it.  It's not that hot."  It was that hot.  Cracking hot as I remember and very, very salty.  I can't remember a time when I saw Larry's uncle from California that he didn't ask me if I knew how to make pickled beans.  No, no, I do not know how to make pickled beans, but Larry has talked for 39 years about how his grandmother made salt brine pickled beans in jars, not a crock, and how good they were.

Oddly enough my neighbor, just this week, asked me if I knew how to make pickled beans.  We had a long discussion about it.  He recounted memories of eating beans straight from the crock; I told him about Larry's grandma.  But I wasn't able to help him with making pickled beans.

I relate to a story I read on the internet in which a woman said the first time she had pickled beans, she quietly scraped them off her plate into the garbage after the meal because she thought they were spoiled, and she was embarrassed to bring it up in front of her hosts.  That's the way I feel about pickled corn, which I have made.  It really, really stinks.

Recently I signed up for a service on the internet that allows the user to search and view copies of old newspapers, some dating back to the 1600s.  I've been scouring over those pages, looking mostly for obituaries but eager to read any stories that relate to family members.  As I searched, I found many "hits" for Bessie Estep in the Charleston Gazette.  It seems that she liked to read a column called, "Tell Dottie", in which readers could ask questions about housekeeping and cooking, and other readers responded with answers.  Bessie liked this column a lot.

I found recipes she sent in for pea salad, milkshake pie, and stuffed pork chops.  Then, as if a light shone from heaven, the flickering screen of the computer revealed Bessie Estep's recipe for pickled beans.

"There are two primary ways for pickling beans, and we want to thank Mrs. Ruth McCray of Corley, Mrs. Pearl Wills of Madison, Mrs. Gypsie Vance of Spencer, Mrs. Bessie Estep of Powellton, Mrs. Owen D. Fields of Gandeeville, Mrs. Martha E. Miller of Danville, Mrs. Mack Green of Chesapeake and Mrs. Sarah Hatcher of Charleston for sharing their recipes with our readers.

The first method requires only one step and is quite simple.  The beans should be strung, cleaned, broken and washed as for table use.  Cover with water; bring to a boil and cook for 30 minutes.  Drain thoroughly; wash several times in cold water and let stand until completely cold.  Pack in sterile quart jars; put one tablespoon coarse salt on top and fill with cold water.  Seal tightly; let stand six weeks in cool place.  The beans will be ready to eat at that time."  The Charleston Gazette, p. 29, July 1, 1971.  The article goes on to describe another method using vinegar and salt in jars and yet another method using salt brine in a stone jar.

Larry confirmed that his grandma didn't use vinegar, and she didn't use a crock, so this has to be how she made her pickled beans.  "Are you going to make some of these," he asked.  "I don't like pickled beans," I responded.  "But I do!!," he said.

So this morning I was cooking beans at 7:30 a.m. so they would cool enough to put in the jars by 9:00 a.m. or so.  Things went as well as can be expected.  Other than accidentally sticking three of my fingers in scalding water, there were no major incidents to report.  It didn't take me long to get my fingers out of the boiling water.  Then came the big question.  The "recipe" doesn't say whether the jars should be sealed in a boiling water bath.

Cooked or not cooked?  Can you tell the difference?

You see, people have not always been so careful about canning procedures.  As my neighbor related this week, the canning was done in open tubs out in the yard over a wood fire.  And I'm familiar with canning food by heating the lids or other double-secret canning processes that are not exactly legit anymore.

I ended up with four quarts of pickled beans.  As I was "fooling" with one of the jars, it made that lovely pinging sound and sealed.  Did that mean that all of the jars should seal?  I discussed this with Larry, and he said yes, he thought the jars should seal before we set them away in that cool place for six weeks.  I said that each jar was like a little stone crock.  Corn and peppers set to pickle in a crock aren't sealed, and they last for a long, long time once they've properly fermented.  Does "seal tightly" in the recipe mean the jars should seal?  Should I cook them in a boiling water bath to seal?  It seems to me, I said, that the heat from the cooking might destroy the natural pickling process that would take place.

As things ended up, two of the jars sealed on their own, uncooked.  I turned on the stove and cooked the other two jars in a boiling water bath.  They sealed.  I labeled those two jars "Cooked".  Being of a scientific bent, I will now observe the four jars and note the difference in the product of each of the two types of processing.  I looked on the calendar, and six weeks from today is October 4.  I simply wrote "beans" on that date in pencil.

On October 4 the results of the experiment will be finalized.  A major problem will be that I can't tell the difference in spoiled beans and pickled beans.