Open Writing

We were not the only ones who endured the drafty cold of the sawmill shacks on winter mornings. All the families living in company housing suffered the same fate. P.G. told the story of Lem Goforth, a fellow sawmill worker, who heated his shack with an old wood stove. Lem came to work one frosty morning walking straddled-legged, his face filled with pain, and a blister on his bulbous nose. The blister on his nose accounted for a good part of his pain, but what caused his curious walk stayed a secret.

Uncovering the truth required masterful interrogation by P.G. "Now come on Lem," P.G. coaxed, "tell me what happened to you. Whatever it was must have been awful."

After much prodding, Lem confessed. He got up early and started a fire in the wood stove. The fire quickly burned hot, heating the surface of the stove as well as the stove pipe that vented through the roof of the shack.
Lem, in his long handle underwear, stood close to the stove, bending forward, warming his hands. He didn't know that the back flap of his underwear had come unbuttoned and was hanging down. His old hound dog, Skeeter, saw the opening as something to be investigated. When he sniffed with his cold nose, the startled Lem jerked forward. As Lem thrust out his hips, his most prized possession escaped the front of his underwear and pressed directly on the hot stove. The searing pain caused Lem to jackknife the lower half of his body away from the stove only to have his nose hit the red hot stove pipe. The result was a brand for all the world to see.

"By danged," Lem swore, "I used to like ol' Skeeter a lot 'til he poked me like that." From then on, Lem Goforth's fellow workers referred to him as Limp Goforth.

We lived so far from medical assistance, that unless our injuries were
life threatening, Mama dealt with them as best she could. One day after I climbed down from the school bus, and in my hurry to get to the house, I accidentally ran into the barbed wire that was stretched between posts by the shack to serve as Mama's clothesline. Because it was a face wound, I bled profusely.

I ran crying to Mama, who was changing Reita's diaper. "Bertie, it's going to be all right," she reassured me. She soaked up the blood with a clean diaper, sterilized the wound with alcohol, and then taped it together with the hope it wouldn't scar too badly. After many years the scar finally faded.

We were generally healthy and fought colds and childhood diseases with home remedies. We shared these ailments just as we once shared our bubble gum. I remember one piece of gum that was passed around for at least two weeks before someone either swallowed or misplaced it. "You lost it, you had it last," I said to Jessie.

He shook his head adamantly. "Last time I saw it was when I stuck it in the knot hole on that pine tree by the back door."