“Sulae, you’ll be cooking with these long after I am gone and in the ground.”
– Granddaddy
It was the early 1990s. I had entered my 3rd decade of life at around the time when I started to appreciate family that I had otherwise taken for granted during my teen years and even into my early 20s. Not fully appreciative as many (meaning most) of my kin will likely keep to themselves but most of us 50-somethings know what kind of a snot we were in our 20-somethings…not you…but folks I know.
My Grandaddy lived with Grandma Ellamae on her farm in Franklin Parish, Louisiana. They lived a bit out from Wisner, Louisiana. You’d head down the 425 and turn left (if you’s heading down from West Monroe) just before the veteran’s memorial gazebo. Then, you’d go until you see the sweet potato field on the right. Then look left for the white house down the long drive along rows of cotton. If you end up at Turkey Creek Lake, you went too far. That’s where my Granddaddy lived.
Ellamae’s husband had passed a handful of years before the 90s and my Grandmamma that same year. Granddaddy and Grandma Ellamae married after reuniting at a high school reunion and the two picked up the flame that burned those years before World War II.
After Grandma Ellamae had come down with dementia and she was getting cared for down at the home, I’d visit Granddaddy more often.
He’d call once in a while and ask for a visit. Well, not really ask specifically for a visit. It’d be more like, “Sulae, figs are in on the tree. You’d better get you some picked before the birds get them all.” Or, “the Brat (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_BRAT) is full of sweet ‘taters; come get you a box before they’re all gone.”
A day or two later, I’d drive out for a visit. We’d have an iced tea on the carport and in the patio’s shade and talk about the way things were and a bit of how things should be. He’d tell me stories that I ain’t even sure mamma knows about. Then, when the sun dropped low enough to let the heat in under the porch cover, he’d get up and give me a box of sweet potatoes he’d already gathered together. And, I head back home.
He was lonely in that old farmhouse way out there by himself. He really didn’t need to do anything more than just ask for me to come out for a visit. But, that wasn’t Granddaddy’s way. Asking for a visit made it seem like he needed something. He was the kind of fella that wanted to make sure you were taken care of instead of seeming like you were there to take care of him.
I had gotten my own first apartment and furnished it with a nice folding lawn chair and a black and white TV in the early 90s. It was perfect. Granddad found out about my move and called me, “Sulae, when’s the next time you’ll be in Wisner? There’s something I want to give you.”
I drove down for our visit. This time he was giving me all kinds of things: wooden box shoe shine kit, large metal pry bar, and some other stuff. Wasn’t sure at the time why he was giving me all these things. I said the things we say when folks are giving you stuff they really feel you need; it is the polite exchange of talk that we Southerners do. “No, really. You don’t have to give me these things,” quickly morphs into, “This is really nice; I appreciate it so much.”
I filled my car with this and that. Then we sat for a spell, drinking a bit of tea and watching the light “move” from the edge of the carport and slowly up the three painted, concrete steps to the porch as the sun lowered in the sky. That sunlight was like an hourglass of light that would “time” our visits together. Back then it seemed that light moved too slowly. Looking back, I feel that light moved too quickly.
The afternoon heat had picked up there in the sunlight and Granddaddy took my empty tea glass in the house. I got up, stretched a bit in anticipation of the hour-long drive back home. An hour didn’t consider you getting stuck behind a fella on a tractor hauling a loaded cotton trailer.
He came back out of the house with a box. “I want to give you one more thing.”
He handed me a heavy rectangle box, “Wagner’s 1891 Original Cast Iron Cookware. 3 Piece Natural Skillet Set.” This wasn’t something he’d had laying around the house. The box was new. It was a gift. He didn’t let on that it was new; he gave it to me like his other items as if he’d had it all along and no longer had a use for it.
“Sulae, you’ll be cooking with these long after I am gone and in the ground.”
I wasn’t a “cast iron guy” back then; I was a “Chicken Tonight” kinda bachelor. But, I happily took the 3-piece set home and decided I’d make some of that chicken…tonight…that night.
These skillets have been with me ever since. I’ve always re-seasoned these skillets; I’ve never stripped them. And it shows; they are kinda gunky. There’s likely a bit of some of that “Chicken Tonight” there, buried in some of that build up. Heck, there’s a little “something” from thousands of meals over the past 32 years. But, I pay that no never mind. The chicken I cook tonight in that skillet will be just as perfect as the biscuits I made this morning.
Those three skillets are still our go-to users. They sit on our counter near our stove along with a couple of Lodge griddles and 2 quart pocked-but-restored, Asian-made sauce pot. I’ve been cooking with them skillets now long after Granddaddy has been “gone and in the ground.” And, one day I’ll be joining him and my son will “be cooking with these long after I am gone and in the ground.”
