I grew up in a household where saying a cuss word would result in getting my mouth washed out with soap. My mom never actually put that promise into action, but like any young boy with an aversion to soap in the first place, I didn’t relish the thought of getting my mouth washed out with anything but toothpaste.
That thought popped into my mind last week when my wife was in the process of canning several pints of plum jelly, and a few pints of — of all things — relish. Our friends, the Vandykes from Rocky Gap, Va., gave me a box of plums that Evonda transformed into jelly. The next day, she started working a bunch of cucumbers into jars of relish, and in my effort to try and lessen her chores, I decided to husk a couple dozen ears of corn we bought from the Monroe County kids that park out on Bland Street in Bluefield.
Husking corn comes second nature to me, even though it has been at least a half-century since my dad farmed my husking services out to a neighbor in exchange for baling our hay. Dad didn’t mind it at all if I would hoe, pick and husk corn all day long in the hot summer sun. I learned the art of husking corn at the tender age of five when my Uncle Don took me out to mom’s home place and put me to work husking field corn that went into the old corn crib.
Field corn is different from sweet corn. Husking sweet corn is a far more time-consuming endeavor. There is nothing more aggravating than getting strands of corn silk or bits of husk caught in your teeth. I wasn’t the fastest husker in the field, but I tried to be the most thorough, patient and steady. The most important thing I learned from husking corn was that a steady pace seemed to win the race in the end.
I could shell field corn too, but I wasn’t nearly as good as regular field hands who did it every day. I admired their work, but I thought I could hush and clean sweet corn with about anyone. After we moved into the town of Claysville, Pa., I started mowing lawns in the summer and shoveling snow in the winter to earn extra cash. However, I still had a knack for cleaning corn, and one afternoon, I decided to pass that knowledge on to one of our 5-year-old neighbors, Jeffy Lee Molson.
Jeffy Lee’s front teeth were missing, so when he said his name, it sounded as though he was saying, “Jeffy Wee Molson.” My family really liked him. He was eager to learn new things, and would pop into the house at about any time. He lived in a house across Back Alley from our yard, so it wasn’t dangerous for him to visit. He loved to play, but he didn’t mind working either.
One rainy, summer afternoon when I didn’t have any grass to mow, I was sitting in the kitchen husking corn when Jeffy Lee sauntered in the back door and asked: “What ‘cha doin’?” Of course, I saw it as my chance to pass the skills I learned through untold hundreds of hours of husking on to a new generation of corn huskers. I jumped at the chance, and started patiently explaining how to peel each layer of the shuck from the ear of corn and how to examine each clean ear carefully to insure that all the silk had been removed.
I was five when I started learning that skill and I was really proud to be able to start another 5-year-old on that journey. I was probably 15 or 16 at the time, and I knew in my heart that it was important for me to share the skills I gained with someone else. Although Jeffy Lee was learning, I praised his actions and encouraged him to be as thorough as he possibly could. I inspected each ear of corn, cleaned out the errant leftover silk and cut out the worms he encountered along the way.
My mom came along and added her words of praise to Jeffy Lee Molson, and he responded in an excited tone that he had husked the corn and came upon a worm. “God, it’s a big-en,” he exclaimed.
I didn’t say that. He brought that particular expression along with him, but in our household, “God, it’s a big-en,” became a catch-all phrase for just about any situation. We always laughed, but we always cited Jeffy Lee for sharing that expression with our family. I think it saved us all from getting our mouths washed out with soap.
Bill Archer is the Daily Telegraph’s senior editor. Contact him at barcher@bdtonline.com
Columns
July 26, 2010
Husking corn with a neighbor became a lesson in language
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