Before the Meal
46 | Salt | August/September 2012
Couple's years spent farming yield harvest of gratitude On a few acres of land in a small, tight-knit community, a red tractor inches forward, kicking up dirt and dust in its wake. A World War II veteran sits atop and steers the 40-year-old machine. Steady does it. In a separate garden a few yards away, the veteran's wife, a retired teacher, inspects the tomatoes and peppers, gently cupping a small, newly-budding vegetable in her hand before moving on to the next. She takes a moment and peers over her shoulder, smiling at him behind his back. They've been married 65 years this summer.
Many of the couple's days were spent down at “the bottom,” a unique sobriquet which inferred should you inquire as to their whereabouts - that they were not at their home, but were a couple miles down the road. The bottom is actually a valley among the West Virginia trees and hillsides along Big Tyler Road in Cross Lanes, a shallow, gurgling creek separates the hills from the valley. It was another piece of property that Russell and Mary Thaxton, my maternal grandparents, owned and farmed. In their younger days, money was tight. Most people in those parts lived in the country, and grocery stores were few and far between. Growing crops meant eating. The bottom was where they farmed, where survival resided. With time and more prosperity befitting a couple whose children
by Lora Abernathy
and careers had grown, in addition to the yields from their crop making wonderful Sunday suppers and weekday leftovers for our family, they were either shared with neighbors or sold to the local markets. “Nothing like those Tyler Mountain green beans,” Grandpa would declare at nearly every meal. He wasn't forgetful. He was grateful. We grandkids would nod, thoughtfully agreeing how delicious they were, mustering a “Mmm, hmm” in response. Someday we'd catch his other meaning. His enthusiasm about “Tyler Mountain-made” produce had all of us believe we were eating the best stuff on earth, that we were given something special that belonged to no one else. We were. I later would find out that these