Wednesday, December 29, 2010
»
The Kings Mountain Herald
Publisher
The first frost of the year has al-
ready, visited. It was a ‘clear, still
night with just a sliver of a moon to
light up the countryside. Breath
was rolling out of mouths in a fog.
Jackets were pulled tightly around
bodies out for a stroll. Persimmons
took that big leap from bitter to”
sweet.
And in Rusty Springs, the town
where I grew up, my Dad and men
like him were sharpening knives,
cleaning up butchering kettles and
laying in hickory wood for the
smokehouse.
That chill in the air means
sausage, hams and cracklins. And
ours didn’t come from Ingles or
Food Lion. They came right on the
hoof. 1
Butchering day was an event of
gigantic proportions. Because eight
hands could do three'times the
work of four we usually pooled our
resources. (for you math students:
in real life two plus two isn’t al-
ways four).
That meant that at daybreak my
Uncle Johnny and cousins Jim and
Virgil would roll into our driveway
with a. couple of 250: pound hogs in
the back of the truck: Grandpa
would be right behind with another
hog in his truck. Dad would have
already sorted out the two he
wanted and have them penned up.
The day before Dad had hung a
rope and pulley from the big beam
over the door of ourymachine shed
and attached a single tree for hoist-
ing the hogs. He’d also built a
“scraping platform” out of saw-
horses and some sturdy oak boards
under the pulley and leaned a cou-
ple of 50-gallon barrels at about a
60 degree angle against the end of
' Front Porch
Music
By Ron Isbell
It’s butchering time
in Rusty Springs
the platform.
Our two big 30-gallon charred
black cast iron butchering kettles
were sitting not far away on their
tripods with a generous pile of split
firewood under them. The first job
the younger generation faced that
morning was to carry water from
our well — five gallon bucketsful at
a time — to fill the kettles.
The blazing fire under the ket-
tles soon shook off the early morn-
ing chill. We stoked and stayed
close to the fire until that “watched
‘pot” finally did begin to boil. Then
we transferred the hot water to the
barrels. And started all over again.
After the “crack” from Dad’s
.22, he and Uncle Johnny would
muscle the first hog onto the scrap-
ing platform and dip it into the hot
water several times before pulling
it out onto the oak planks. We.
joined in with the tedious task of
scraping all the hair off the hide of
the hog using either knives or a
special tool with a very sharp cir-
cular, convex head with a wooden
handle. Then we did it all over
again, and again, and again until
we were so wet and cold our fin-
gers hurt.
It was amazing how clean an
white those hogs looked after their
final dunking. They bore little re-
semblance to the grunting, muddy
animal they had been 30 minutes
before. But until they were hoisted
up on the singletree and gutted they
still didn’t look like the ham and
bacon they would become 30 min-
utes later.
Deftly cutting away strips of fat
that lay just under the skin, Dad
would soon have those hams and
slabs of bacon isolated and ready
for rubbing down with salt and sea-
soning. They would be hanging in
Grandpa’s smoke house later, soak-
- ing up the hickory-scented smoke
for days. Pork chops or tenderloin
were carved from the carcass, des-
tined for the freezer.
While we didn’t quite adhere to
the old adage of using everything
but the squeal, we did keep the
liver, heart and brains from the pile
of “innards”.
While Dad and Johnny would
carve up the carcasses, Grandpa su-
pervised the rest of us in cutting all
the meat that wasn’t destined for
the smokehouse or freezer into
strips that would be fed into the
sausage grinder. The tubfulls of
sausage would be seasoned with
spices that assaulted the nose with
pungent aromas. Hustled off to the
freezer it would later give pancakes
a life of their own on a cold winter
morning.
The last chore was to cut all that
fat into small pieces that we fed to
the gaping mouth of that big black
kettle.
With the fire re-stoked we
stirred the pot with a wooden pad-
dle and cooked the fat down into
lard. The final job was to dip the
contents of the kettle into the lard
press that would squeeze the last of
the lard out of each piece of fat. All
that was left was a tin can full of
lard and a mound of cracklins. If
you’ve ever butchered hogs I know
you're tasting them right now, like
‘em or not. Personally, I'm in the
“not” category, but it seems my
share never went to waste.
I was a bigger fan of the lard. I
knew it would grease the cast iron
skillet that cooked my eggs and
would mix with flour to make the
crust that would hold a cinnamon-
apple mixture that would make my
mouth water the entire time it sat
on the window sill cooling.
Somewhere during this cooking
process Dad would pick up the
paddle and pull a piece of tender-
loin he had wrapped in cheesecloth
out of the kettle and let it cool. We
all stopped for a real treat...the
sweetest, most tender piece of meat
ever prepared for man’s mouth. It
was like appetizer, entrée and
dessert all rolled into one bite.
Funny how thinking about such
a cold day can warm your heart,
but that’s the way it is in Rusty
Springs.
Cleveland
COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Things Te
Page 7A
Police log
ARRESTS
DEC. 20: Kristy Leann
Lail, 29, Grover, driving
while license revoked,
$500 bond, secured. She
was also cited for no insur-
ance and for borrowing a
license plate, fictitious tag
and no seat belt.
DEC. 20: Daryl Scott
Ransom, 23, 208-9 Bell
Rd., felony possession of
Schedule VI marijuana,
possession of drug ‘para-
phernalia and resisting
public officer, both misde-
meanors, $50,000 bond,
secured. Ransom was also
charged with an FTC
money compliance in the
amount of $370 cash dat-
ing to August 2005.
DEC. 20: James Harley
Allman, 20, Lowell, pos-
session of non-tax paid al-
coholic beverage and
possession under 21, $500
bond secured. Officers
confiscated 3 1/3 quarts of
moonshine:
DEC. 22: Chrystal
Dawn Petro, 35, Charlotte,
DWI, resist, delay, obstruct
and worthless check, $300
bond secured and $2500
unsecured bond for the
DWI and resist charges.
CITATIONS
DEC. 20: Danny Ray
Vanover, 42, Gastonia, no
insurance. :
DEC. 20; Cynthia
Faile, 36, Lowell, no in-
spection, expired tag.
DEC. 20: Terrell Lee
Badger, 26, Bessemer City,
speeding, revoked license.
DEC. 21: Wanda Hord,
52, 106 Urban Dr., expired
tag, no inspection.
DEC. 21: Claressia
Fuller, 23, Lawndale, re-
voked license, expired tag,
no inspection.
DEC. 21: Wendy Inman,
35, 119 Mountainside Dr.
Lot 9, expired tag.
DEC. 21: Anthony
McGill, 44, Bessemer City,
no inspection, expired tag.
DEC. 21: Bradley
Gilliam, 19, 146 Hickman
Dr., speeding, stop sign vi-
olation.
DEC. 21. Tammy
Heath, 46, 119 Countryside
Rd, revoked license.
DEC. 22: Edgar Flores,
19, Grover, underage
drinking.
DEC. 22: Alonzo
Badillo, 39, Gastonia, no
operator’s license.
DEC. 23: Jessica Cain,
22, 105 Wells St., posses-
sion of marijuana.
INCIDENTS
DEC. 20: Rupp and
Woody Associates, 606
Charles St., reported $8000
damage to a central air
unit.
DEC. Norfolk
Southern Railroad,
Clarksville, TN, reported
theft of diesel fuel.
DEC. 20: A resident of
Cleveland Ridge Dr. re-
ported theft of $45.91 in
motor fuel and damage to a
gas cap.
DEC. 21: A resident of
Northwoods Dr. reported
damage to a mailbox.
WRECKS ;
DEC. 15: Officer R.S.
Davis said Alfred Payne Jr.
of 103 Jeremy Drive was
backing from a parking
space at the high school
and struck a 1997 Jeep op-
erated by Reba Hudson of
Grover. Damages were es-
timated at $2100.
DEC. 20: Pt. G.L.
McKinney said a parked
1997 Nissan was damaged
$300 by a hit and run
driver. The vehicle was
parked at the Community
Thrift Store.
DEC. 22: Officer Bryan
McGinnis said that Mary
Krieger, Grover, was at-
tempting to parallel park
her 2002 Buick on the side
of NC 216 and struck an
unoccupied 2006 Toyota
owned by Jason Hughes,
107 Country Grove Rd.
Property damages were es-
timated at $1800.
20:
000
of Complete an online application for
admission or print and mail to:
Cleveland Community College
137 South Post Road
Shelby, NC 28152
oi Apply for financial aid. Complete the
FAFSA at www.fafsa.gov.
(Cleveland Community College school code: 008082)
o
Call the ccc Student Success Center
at (704) 484-5325 to schedule your
placement tests.
nd
Call your high school and request an
“official” high school transcript be
sent to the College or deliver it in
person to CCC Student Services.
Spring Registration January 5
9:00 am - 1:00 pm
4:00 pm - 7:00 pm
clevelandcommunitycollege.edu -
.
704-484-4000