A Hand-Me-Down Harvest; Half Root Beer and Half Dandelion Wine

<v Speaker>Now, the leaf is what they used. <v Speaker>[music playing] And she gathered the leaves. <v Speaker>Uh if we had any kind of a puncture or a burn... <v Speaker>When I was a kid [woman]: a scrape, [man]: you used to get these puffballs that ?ya see? <v Speaker>That were actually uh toadstools that that were <v Speaker>round, you'd squeeze 'em and that dust would come out and 1 of us kids <v Speaker>would step on a nail or cut the finger [other speaker]: First, a flax seed [man]: mother <v Speaker>would take a- <v Speaker>Whole flax seed is a very pure blood purifying <v Speaker>herb you might call it, and an- it take the whole uh <v Speaker>flax seed 'n put oh, 'bout 5 tablespoons-. <v Speaker>All customs and beliefs are often considered superstitious. <v Speaker>But think of it this way these beliefs are part of folklore. <v Speaker>And what folklore really is, is that body of traditional knowledge <v Speaker>and activities which have been passed down from one generation to the next. <v Speaker>Folklore include such things as songs and fiddle tunes like those collected <v Speaker>by Mrs. Flanders in New England in the 30s, 40s and 50s and which are still being

<v Speaker>performed today. It also includes stories, beliefs, <v Speaker>customs, sayings, whether in planning lore, folk medicine, <v Speaker>recipes. All these things had to be useful. <v Speaker>They had to work or they wouldn't have been passed down. <v Speaker>After all, our ancestors were practical people. <v Speaker>They may not have gone to agricultural school and they didn't listen to <v Speaker>the local TV forecaster. <v Speaker>They couldn't go to the doctor for everything that ailed them. <v Speaker>Instead, they had to cope with these things themselves. <v Speaker>In Vermont, the weather signs that have been most useful and the cures that were <v Speaker>most effective. These are the signs. <v Speaker>These are the Vermont traditions that have been passed down to us today. <v Speaker>Yeah th- th- the old folks used to say, yeah, ya know uh, even generations before <v Speaker>my folks uh that they used to say if if there was a lot of uh corn silk <v Speaker>and a lot of uh husks around the car.

<v Speaker>If they were extra heavy, they always said that's a sign of a hard winter. <v Speaker>Eh my father always believed that that the last Friday in the month ruled <v Speaker>the next month, whatever the weather was, he believed in that and he believed <v Speaker>in the full of the moon that i- it gets cold and it does. <v Speaker>It always does. I believed in that myself and he planted quite <v Speaker>a lot. By the uh the way the moon was. <v Speaker>There was ?even uh? older people that wouldn't uh <v Speaker>plant certain crops in the spring until a new part of the <v Speaker>moon was that when the moon was growin', so would the crops. <v Speaker>I've heard my grandfather and father talk out a lot of times ?and to? <v Speaker>plant your crops when the when the moon is uh growin'. <v Speaker>Not when it's going down. <v Speaker>The only thing I remember about planting was a little story my mother used to tell about <v Speaker>her father. Course he had the farm and he was out planning his potatoes

<v Speaker>one day and this neighbor came along and he said, Oh, Lyman, you're planting those at the <v Speaker>wrong time in the moon. And he said, but I'm not planting them on the moon. <v Speaker>[fiddle music plays] <v Speaker>An' I remember my grandfather put quite a lot of stock in uh as many ?thaws? <v Speaker>as you had in January, uh would work out <v Speaker>that you'd get that many runs of sap in March. <v Speaker>I've carried buckets in certain places when the snow was ?clean? <v Speaker>up to my waist, so I know ?inaudible? <v Speaker>I've heard lot of holler referring to the time uh you call it the <v Speaker>frog run. They'd call 1 of the last 1s of ?chagrin?

<v Speaker>the frog run. It uh it ?inaudible? <v Speaker>and say, well, ?might as well take your? buckets down because uh you're all <v Speaker>your- you're all done now. <v Speaker>Ice goes out of the ponds at that season of years an' frogs begin <v Speaker>to sing. Uh nature heals the wounds that we've made in the maple tree. <v Speaker>The season is all over. <v Speaker>I remember my grandmother when spring came, she'd always say <v Speaker>it's time for you to have some ?sulfur? <v Speaker>Molasses. And I said, Why? <v Speaker>She says, don't ask questions. It's good for ya. <v Speaker>The general idea was that when spring time came, you you had <v Speaker>uh house cleaning in the house where you lived and you took some sulfur and molasses <v Speaker>to clean out the channels of your own inner being. <v Speaker>There's nothing any better for people than horseradish in the spring. <v Speaker>This is a man uh plowin'.

<v Speaker>And 1 fellow well on 1 side of the fence plowin' and so and pair of oxen, the other 1, <v Speaker>the other 1, when it come noon, 1 fellow's oxen all tired out. <v Speaker>He said to him, he says, how is it that your oxen can plow <v Speaker>all land mine can't. He said I feed 'em the same and everything. <v Speaker>Well, he said, I grate up horseradish and I put into <v Speaker>the grain. No, they don't allow land because there is <v Speaker>something about it. Good for 'em. <v Speaker>And I think it's good for people. <v Speaker>Farms were uh uh a farm was uh 12, 15 <v Speaker>cows was quite a common occurrence back then. <v Speaker>They'd have a few pigs or a few hens and a few sheep and some <v Speaker>uh oxen. <v Speaker>Uh when I was young, we kept uh uh drivin' horse to go get groceries with <v Speaker>or go to neighbors or go ?fishin'? <v Speaker>And a pair of work horses to do the ?inaudible? <v Speaker>and we also kept a pair of oxen to work in the woods with in the wintertime.

<v Speaker>I've heard my father telling about 1 the first years after he was married my mother he <v Speaker>and my mother was married. They was living up on what we call ?inaudible? <v Speaker>in Stockbridge and Dad was telling about going down to store and buying <v Speaker>a barrel of flour. 100 pounds of sugar and a <v Speaker>couple gallons of molasses and some salt and pepper <v Speaker>and they figured they was all set for the winter. <v Speaker>They done their own cooking, had their own meat. <v Speaker>Far as clothes is concerned uh I think I was probably <v Speaker>10, maybe more years old before I had bought any clothes other <v Speaker>than shoes. My mother made all of our clothes. <v Speaker>Mmm stockings we'd she'd in the wintertime, uh stockings was all knit <v Speaker>wool from her own sheep. <v Speaker>They didn't depend on uh going to the store to buy everything then. <v Speaker>They never had anything but homemade bread.

<v Speaker>And once in a while we would have a loaf of boughten bread and <v Speaker>boy, they couldn't wait till they could have a piece of boughten bread [laughs]. <v Speaker>And so we always had to save a little piece of of slice it ?inaudible? <v Speaker>boughten bread for the ?inaudible? Kids 'cause that was a real treat [laughs]. <v Speaker>[music plays] <v Speaker>They had the use for all the different things that growed like red clover

<v Speaker>and course red clover. <v Speaker>[clears throat] Somebody make off a nice wine out of 2. <v Speaker>Just take prick blossoms and put 'em into the into a <v Speaker>crock. And add these ?inaudible? and you've got the whole business. <v Speaker>And it'll work very good on me. <v Speaker>Uh 1 time, I had made some dandelion wine. <v Speaker>Gone long into the summer. I didn't care anything about it. <v Speaker>But used to like to treat people and I had a lot that lived oh, <v Speaker>boutta half a mile from us. <v Speaker>She came 1 afternoon. I put wood into the woodshed. <v Speaker>I'd also made up some root beer I liked at home. <v Speaker>Made root beer very well. <v Speaker>So [laughs] I just put down half root <v Speaker>beer and half dandelion wine in her glass and she drank it. <v Speaker>Boy, she'd like that awful lot of the best root beer she ever had. <v Speaker>Well, my father was coming home work and he saw she going

<v Speaker>down the railroad track staggering from 1 side to the <v Speaker>other. And uh he came out home. <v Speaker>And while he said, what's been going on, up ?inaudible? <v Speaker>And I said, ?inaudible? Why? <v Speaker>Well, he said uh, you've been feeding Aunt Viola a <v Speaker>little uh that uh wine dandelion wine. <v Speaker>He said, you fool said she could have fall an' broke her leg or somethin' going down <v Speaker>the track. You'd better cut that out. The next day she was up to have some more of the <v Speaker>wine [laughs]. <v Speaker>They used to use em and spice jars. <v Speaker>Now the old fashioned tea roses make a spice jar. <v Speaker>And when I was a kid, spice jars were something that I always <v Speaker>wanted to see when I got here, but I they wouldn't let us kids in the parlor without <v Speaker>somebody adult with us because parlors were just for the minister and special <v Speaker>company and funerals. And uh my grandmother always take <v Speaker>us boys in there. And on a tour of us, let us smell the spice jar, which is rose petals

<v Speaker>with ?inaudible? in it to ke- preserve it. <v Speaker>And every time that the roses like these out here were to get ready to fall, my <v Speaker>grandmother would would uh take them and put them on a screen and dry em and put <v Speaker>em in there to keep that spice jar. <v Speaker>My mother was a great herbist and she used <v Speaker>all sorts of herbs, sweet flag, garage and <v Speaker>places uh damp places. <v Speaker>Marshes. We used to pull it up and cut off the end <v Speaker>and the reeds and my mother would uh <v Speaker>slice it and dry it. <v Speaker>And during the 1918 flu epidemic, my <v Speaker>father worked for a paper. <v Speaker>He was a field representative and he had to go into many homes and he <v Speaker>chewed this dried sweet flag and he never caught the flu and neither <v Speaker>did any of the rest of us. For an ear ache, um they put some black

<v Speaker>pepper on a piece of cotton and soak it in <v Speaker>hen soil and put it in your ear. <v Speaker>I remember my father. Uh he didn't smoke, really, <v Speaker>but he always had a cigar, too, around that somebody had given him. <v Speaker>And if I had an ear ache he would blow uh tobacco smoke <v Speaker>in my ear. And this was supposed to help. <v Speaker>For sprains and bruises and reumitis all this kind of <v Speaker>thing, there was a poultice for everything and all kinds of poultices. <v Speaker>1 they baked onions until they were soft and then they mashed them up <v Speaker>and wrapped them in a cloth and applied them to the sore muscle <v Speaker>and uh kept heating it up in the oven. <v Speaker>Skunks oil was 1 thing they used to use years ago. <v Speaker>If you had a coal rubbed on your throat, you see, rubbed it on your throat. <v Speaker>Fact is, upon the farm, there's several bottles of skunk oil leftover from his

<v Speaker>grandparents days. <v Speaker>I threw 'em all out. <v Speaker>And they had an idea that if you wore ?inaudible? <v Speaker>around your neck or drank ?inaudible? <v Speaker>tea, it will keep you from getting in a family way. <v Speaker>So that was the original pill, you see. <v Speaker>And uh and then they had catnip and catnip make <v Speaker>catch and drunk and ?inaudible? <v Speaker>passionate. So they said that uh a lot of <v Speaker>uh elderly people came around to make a husband <v Speaker>and the wife more compatible, you see. <v Speaker>Yeah. They used to have catnip tea. <v Speaker>But if you aren't feeling well, I used catnip tea and they used all kinds <v Speaker>of different uh sage and like that. <v Speaker>The ?inaudible? <v Speaker>for uh colds. <v Speaker>Grips. And the home remedies seem to cure people.

<v Speaker>Some people believe for every illness that there is a cure <v Speaker>in nature if we only can find it. <v Speaker>In thinking about the past, there are 2 things that really stand out. <v Speaker>1st off, everything that could be used was used. <v Speaker>Everything in the natural environment, everything in the home. <v Speaker>In fact, there was even a little rhyme. <v Speaker>Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. <v Speaker>And the 2nd thing is that time was never considered to <v Speaker>be worth money. You simply worked and worked and worked until the job <v Speaker>was done. [music plays] <v Speaker>It it's amazing to see uh how little work is done

<v Speaker>today by hand compared to what it was when I was 10, 12 years old. <v Speaker>We didn't think anything of going out and chopping wood all day or going out and picking <v Speaker>stones all day or building fence outta <v Speaker>trees or uh poles or anything. <v Speaker>'Cause you didn't you didn't have the money and you didn't have no way to get the money. <v Speaker>Back in the early days we didn't have electricity. <v Speaker>So uh twice a week. <v Speaker>Once on Saturday, once on Wednesday night. <v Speaker>Home from school had to wash all those lantern and <v Speaker>lamp ?inaudible?, fill them up with kerosene. <v Speaker>And in the middle of the week, I had to wash a big pan of potatoes for baking from my <v Speaker>mother to last her until Saturday mornin'. <v Speaker>I remember Doreen, 1 of the older girls, was out teaching <v Speaker>school. By the time she was 16, in fact, she married one of the <v Speaker>8th grade boys [laughs] who wasn't a bit older than she was.

<v Speaker>[music plays] <v Speaker>Ours was a simple life. But a happy life. And we were a family. <v Speaker>But where's the family gone today? <v Speaker>1 goes 1 way and 1 another. <v Speaker>Well, now if you hitch a pair of horses up. <v Speaker>If 1 wants to go 1 way in uh and 1 another or 1 wants to go in <v Speaker>the other don't? Well you really don't get to town very fast. <v Speaker>You know? <v Speaker>People used to uh ya know share work together.

<v Speaker>Uh, somebody had to have a bind fixed or somethin', everybody pitch <v Speaker>in, and they'd have it ?inaudible? <v Speaker>women to get up a big dinner and fix up the barn or build a barn. <v Speaker>And I can remember one ?inaudible? <v Speaker>there was an old couple lived up there. <v Speaker>And uh they ?inaudible? <v Speaker>around the neighborhood that uh Mr. Mrs. [Hibben] hadn't gotten <v Speaker>a wood for winter and he didn't know what he was going to do. <v Speaker>Well, we just ain't gonna let that happen. <v Speaker>And a couple of guys says well I'll go. And <v Speaker>?inaudible? fellow working for me and just my brother. <v Speaker>We all went up and cut wood and they stayed there with the sawing machine and people <v Speaker>hauled logs into wood, and split it and put it in the shed for <v Speaker>the winter and we just end up leftovers. So we had enough for the next winter. <v Speaker>I know they figured we put up 20 logs of wood there was about 40 people there that day

<v Speaker>hauling that wood and and cuttin' it up that ?inaudible? <v Speaker>Why do you see anything like that happening today? <v Speaker>You just don't. Round here. <v Speaker>They used to have help for the corn husking because it's such a <v Speaker>big job. The farmers, they used to get the corn husked. <v Speaker>I mean, they they ?inaudible? the stocks out in the field and they bring <v Speaker>it in and they dumped it in the barn floor. <v Speaker>But it took such a long time to husk the corn that the neighbors used to come in and do <v Speaker>it. They'd make a party of it. <v Speaker>The young people would do the husking and the older folks would be making supper <v Speaker>for a sort of midnight supper, you know, and then a dance afterwards. <v Speaker>So the young people would be up there husking the corn. <v Speaker>And when you found a ready ear of corn that mensch could kiss <v Speaker>your best girl or the girl ya chose, but after corn's all husked, <v Speaker>they go into the house and have music and eats and

<v Speaker>really a fine time. <v Speaker>You got the work done. You didn't even know you were working. <v Speaker>All of the neighbors would gather in 1 place. <v Speaker>They had large houses at that time. <v Speaker>They gathered in 1 place and they put all of the kids out in <v Speaker>1 bed in 1 room and they all went to sleep. <v Speaker>I don't know how they slept with all that racket going on. <v Speaker>Then they would have fiddlers, banjos, and so forth. <v Speaker>And they had they didn't call them refreshments. <v Speaker>It was a great big supper that the ladies had prepared <v Speaker>uh before they came. <v Speaker>We used to go up there on Sunday night, and after the milking <v Speaker>was done, they would um bring warm milk up from the barn. <v Speaker>And my mother an' an' Vera would have made popcorn in <v Speaker>huge, great big dish pans. <v Speaker>And we would go into the parlor where the piano was. <v Speaker>And Vera played the piano and Harry played the fiddle, and

<v Speaker>young Harry played the squeezebox and Donald played <v Speaker>the spoons. <v Speaker>And we'd eat popcorn and drink warm milk and <v Speaker>sing. Hour after hour. <v Speaker>And it was a Sunday night ritual. <v Speaker>[singing] [music plays] I remember, a lot of laughing and a lot of listening at the <v Speaker>register when I was supposed to be in bed [laughs]. <v Speaker>[laughs] And uh you know dance until midnight and then they'd stop and have uh start and <v Speaker>have uh oyster supper on the supper table. <v Speaker>Then we go to furniture again in another room somewhere and make room for <v Speaker>3 for a couple to dance and then more square dancin' and then uh foxtrot

<v Speaker>or nah 2 stepper. Uh back in my day when we was going to country dances <v Speaker>it wasn't all like the square dance like you see today. <v Speaker>Ah they had a <v Speaker>?inaudible? oh my ?fishing hornpipe? and [music plays] uh there were so many different <v Speaker>dances. <v Speaker>Some of 'em was a string dance like the Virginia Real or similar to that and or <v Speaker>some of em were 2 couples facing 2 couples and they went all the way around the hall. <v Speaker>In those days, there's more leisurely time than it is now. <v Speaker>But of course, a lot of us younger fellows in the 20s and 30s used <v Speaker>to go up some the neighbors and have what they call a kitchen junket. <v Speaker>Kitchen. They used to call it kitchen junket and kitchen kitchen ?tunk? <v Speaker>And whatever you and they would dance uh contra dances and

<v Speaker>square dances and round dances. <v Speaker>And they'd usually have a violin player, harmonica player and a piano <v Speaker>player, 2 or 3 instruments. <v Speaker>And usually had 1 of 'em 1 1 person there that would call and he <v Speaker>would sing out there. There's a singing caller we used to call him and <v Speaker>they'd played uh a lot of contra dances and very few <v Speaker>square dances. 'Course they call it the drills, but every other <v Speaker>dance was a round dancing ?used to have? foxtrots and ?inaudible? <v Speaker>and 2 step and <v Speaker>waltzes [music plays]. Waltzes was a favorite.

<v Speaker>And because they were kind of a nice swingin' dance ?inaudible? <v Speaker>Now's good music. <v Speaker>When the play had the ?inaudible?, those 1 that 1 t- <v Speaker>2 couples, it was really good. We'd get on there and do the dancing and is course <v Speaker>they got 1 piece through ?inaudible? <v Speaker>through and then the other people would get in. But they liked to see 'em dance <v Speaker>and that was what we would do after they midnight. <v Speaker>And I got home 1 time at about half past 4 in the morning, <v Speaker>went to bed at 5 o'clock. Dad trapped on the door. <v Speaker>He said, You can dance all night if you wanna, but you're gonna work all day. <v Speaker>So up I got. [music plays] <v Speaker>Well, when we were kids, we used to slide on this hill [clears throat] this hill goes

<v Speaker>way up here a long ways. We used to slide on this hill all winter. <v Speaker>Ya know uh that there were no snow plows then. <v Speaker>They rolled the roads, ya know, with a 4 horse team and these great immense <v Speaker>rollers. Well, you know what? <v Speaker>After the sun had come out and uh on that uh roll snow, <v Speaker>2 or 3 different days and then it would freeze at night. <v Speaker>And when I was a kid, I've seen people in the way in their 60s would <v Speaker>be sliding down this hill at night, sometimes till midnight. <v Speaker>Well, you know uh, this uh this hill I I've seen over 100 people sliding <v Speaker>on this hill. [music plays] <v Speaker>The producers of this program would like to thank the following people for their <v Speaker>participation. Cora Bardwell, ?Elo?

<v Speaker>Benoit, Otis Prickett, Edgar Butterfield, Lucille Ceruti, <v Speaker>Edgar Jackson, Bernice Lanphear Clark, Faye Levit, <v Speaker>Harry Morse, Vera Perkins, Anna Bates Remick, ?Mertsage? <v Speaker>Von Trubel, Edwin Wakefield, Ethel Winsor <v Speaker>and Lillian Ward. <v Speaker>And we thank the following musicians. <v Speaker>Harold Luce and Gertrude Larken Roberts for their performances of <v Speaker>Maple Sugar, Speed the Plow, Crystal ?Shotish? <v Speaker>And Phishers hornpipe. <v Speaker>Ron West and Jay West for Dreamers Waltz, Minstrels Fancy, <v Speaker>and Star Spangled Waltz. Ron West and Ronnie West for <v Speaker>Black Velvet Waltz and Russell Nut Brown and Nancy Nut Brown <v Speaker>for Redwing. <v Speaker>Thanks also to ethnomusicologist Jennifer Quinn and director of Public <v Speaker>Relations Ron Neith, both of Middlebury College.

<v Speaker>Special thanks to Vermont state folklorist Jane Beck of the Vermont Council <v Speaker>on the Arts. <v Speaker>The engineer for this program was Sam Sanders. <v Speaker>The program was produced by Bonnie Morrissey and Ed Grimes with <v Speaker>funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. <v Speaker>I'm the executive producer, Betty Smith, and this is a production <v Speaker>of Vermont Public Radio.