Take This Pork Rind and Shove It

 My grandparents, like many of yours, survived the Great Depression.  Granny was born in Arkansas and tells the story of how they moved to Alabama in the middle of the depression.  She used to say, "We didn't know where our next meal would come from.  It was terrible, but we lived through it...  Most of us lived through it".  I've said it before, but I'll say it again, Granny was an unbelievable southern cook.  We live at the foot of the Appalachian Mountain chain, so we have a mixture of a traditional deep south and mountain accent, and our foods are inspired the same way.  My family's music is most definitely influenced by the mountains!  On a typical day in the Spring, Summer, or fall, you could find my Paw outside working.  I can't count the times I have seen him in the field behind his plow and mule, plowing to plant corn or anything he was going to grow.  He would leave the field and bring the mule (or horse) down to the house and call for me.  He would always let me ride the sweaty stinky mule to the barn.  I didn't mind, because I loved it so much.  He let me do this because he knew I wasn't going to do something crazy to get us hurt or cause the mule to take off running and not stop until it had reached the Canadian border.  After he had put the mule or horse away, he would head to his barbershop to "cut a head of hair".  His barbershop stayed busy, but there was a catch.  He had one style!  Many a young boy came through with the expectation of having their hair cut like their favorite rock star or actor.  Buzzed!!  Middle aged man? Buzzed!!  Old man?  Buzzed!!  He had his clippers set to destroy, and that is what he did!  Some men came every week to get the two hairs on their head buzzed, and to pick a tune or two.  After the massacre of the hair was over, Paw would move to the next room and work on whatever instrument he was building or repairing.  He started teaching me how to play fiddle when I was 5 years old.  After I learned to play several tunes, Paw started making anyone who came through listen to me play.  No matter if they wanted to listen or not, he made them!  One Saturday during the summer, he loaded us up and we headed to the flea market.  It was Granny, Paw, my cousin, and myself.  We made it to the flea market and found a parking spot front and center of all of the action!  Granny was the first out of the truck, and I quickly followed her with a bounce.  Paw called for me to come to the back of the truck, where he was getting our fiddles out and told me, "Now Tina, y'all are going to play and make you some money.  I'm going to put out this can, and people will put money in while you play".  Every one of my mental balloons were burst in one whack!  I thought to myself, where is Granny?  I turned to cry to her, but all I could see was a cloud of dust and Granny's short legs moving as fast as they could in route to the pork rind (meat skins) stand.  At that point I had no other choice but to gather my fiddle and cut loose.  We played and played, and people put money in the can.  People really threw money in the can when I got out there buck danced.  I got after it like a little monkey bouncing around the jungle.  After about 3 songs, I was over it and the drama commenced.  I told Paw, "I don't want to play anymore.  I want a toy.  My head hurts.  My throat hurts.  My back hurts"!  This time my trickery didn't work.  He told me, "No you keep on playing and then we'll go get you a toy".  That worked for about 2 minutes, and the real breakdown began!  I started out with a small crying fit, then it progressed to a full-fledged Opie Taylor tantrum.  At that time, people were avoiding our truck like we all had the plague.  Paw had had enough, and said, "Good God, let's go get you a toy so you will shut up".  He loaded the truck and just as we were about to head to the toys, I saw Granny headed our way.  Her arms were loaded down with 2 bags of every flavor of pork rind the stand sold.  Plain, barbeque, hot, and hot barbeque.  She was walking and crunching, hoping she didn't drop one smidge of grease from her piggy prizes.  She got to our truck and said, "Come on Arlin lets go home"!  Without hesitation, we got in the truck and headed out for home.  Granny was in heaven with her skins, and Paw was sunk down in the seat as far as he could get.  My cousin was sitting there with the "I'm too cool for this stuff" attitude, and then there was me.  Oh Lord!  I had passed the point of throwing a fit, I was just sitting there sobbing and thinking of how my world had just been destroyed.  Granny looked over at me and said, "Here Tina put this pork rind in your mouth"!  The old blue truck made it back to Turkey Hop, and I was told I needed to go home because Mama and Daddy missed me so much.  Yeah right!! Granny and Paw were done with me and needed to take a rest!  Paw never made us do that again, but Granny made many, MANY more trips to the pork rind stand after that.  She was the boss of the pork rind world!!