Posted on 08/03/2002 3:55:10 AM PDT by 2Trievers
THE OLD-TIME DRINK, Switchel, frequently called by different names, was used as a thirst-quencher on the farm in days gone by. I have always known this special summer-time drink by the name of switchel. However, over the years it has acquired many names, possibly as many as the ingredients it was constituted with.
A Dover reader recently phoned to inquire what the ingredients of switchel were. Having never made up a batch myself, I turned to Peter Farrows The Yankee Trivia Book, with the added sub-title: Rescued from Oblivion, published in 1985, by Lance Tapley of Augusta, Maine.
Farrow wrote: Switzel, sometimes called swizzle, occasionally miscalled sprill, most commonly harvest drink or harvester, it was a concoction of vinegar, molasses or brown sugar, pure, cold spring water, and whatever else you might care to add in the way of spice ginger, cinnamon or nutmeg, or a handful of crushed mint. Made up by the gallons for the harvest hands, particularly during haying. Right bracey!
As a lad of five or six, I may have tasted this drink, but I cant be sure. Somewhere about that age while visiting Grandfather Coles farm, he allowed me to go into the field with the hired men during haying. When the men got thirsty they would pour a drink from a large jug into a dipper. As the dipper was passed around from hand to hand, I was offered a swig. I remember thinking how grand it was to be treated as an equal by the hired hands. I must confess, though, as far as the taste of the concoction was concerned, I have but one recollection that being the taste of chewing tobacco left on the dipper rim by the men who drank before me. As much as I admired the men as they worked at haying, I did not enjoy the taste of chewing tobacco. When the dipper was passed around again, I denied being thirsty even though I was. I chose to remain so until I could ride back to the barn on top of a load of hay.
Back at the farm, after the wagon was backed beneath the hay fork to be unloaded, I was unloaded. One hired hand man handed me down to another that was standing on the ground. Free to run, I hustled into Grandmas kitchen to quench my thirst. The water was cold, piped into the kitchen sink directly from a hillside spring.
Thirst taken care of, I hurried back to the barn to watch the hay being unloaded. The giant fork was positioned by a hired hand just right so that a great gob of hay was lifted straight up until it engaged with a track and was shunted into the barn. The oldest man worked the fork at the load while two other men in the barn decided where in the mow the hay should be dropped. Disengaging the fork for a return load was their easy work. Their hard work came mowing away the hay into the far edges of the barn. One had to be rugged to mow-away loose hay. Years later when I first had to mow away hay, I found out for myself how uncomfortable strained stomach muscles could really be.
Although haying in Grandfathers time was mostly by hand, by the time I came along he no longer mowed his fields with a scythe or raked it with a bull rake. Pitching hay on the load with a pitchfork also had been mechanized. He used a two horse team to mow with and a one horse side delivery rake to gather the hay into windrows. A mechanical loader was used to pick up the hay from the windrow to be dropped onto the wagon. Hay balers, even if they had been invented at that time, were certainly not in common use. In 1929, grandfather sold the farm and never did use a tractor for field power.
Although my memory has somewhat dimmed, I still vividly recall one experience while riding on top of a load of hay. Navigating the road out of the field was a bit tricky as it was a steep and narrow way that led up to the main highway. The two horse team was pulling the heavy load up grade when one of them became startled. Suddenly it crowded back on the other horse and the load overturned. Quick as a wink, I found myself eating gravel. Slightly stunned, I remember hearing one of the men holler, Staceys under there get him out!
I recall having a difficult time breathing and after what seemed to be an eternity I felt the tight grip of a hand on one arm. Shortly thereafter, I was pulled out. While the horses were being unhitched and the wagon uprighted, I chose not to wait for another ride and walked the a quarter-mile back to the farm.
At the house, Grandmother gave me a glass of ginger ale, my favorite drink. I found it much more acceptable than that swig of what may have been switchel.
Mr. Coles address is P.O. Box 55, West Swanzey, 03469.
COUNTRY BOY
HAYSTACK CALHOUNHaystack Calhoun hailed from Morgans Corner, Arkansas. He was soft spoken and kind to the core. Standing 64 and weighing 640 pounds, he had measurements of: 24inch arms, 72inch chest, 67inch waist, thighs 54 inches and calves 32 inches. A normal breakfast included a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, a pound of sausage, a dozen and half-hot biscuits and at least a half dozen gallons of milk. The tempo increased for dinner when the table was loaded with five pounds of meat, a mighty healthy serving of spuds, beans, carrots, corn, peas, and a repeat on the breakfast portion of milk and biscuits.
How did Calhoun get his start in wrestling? He was scuffling behind the barn on the family farm at Morgans Corner when spotted by a couple of strangers who were hunting. They talked him into heading for the big city. Training for months on the fine art of wrestling, he first appeared on a card in Texas.
It would take him little or no time to pin one opponent. So that often he was booked against two grapplers who both weighed more than 200 pounds.
The horseshoe Calhoun wore around his neck was a good luck charm from the farm. It went around the ring post before action started however. When strength was considered, Calhoun ranked up there. He could toss two bales of hay into the barn loft with just one pitch, lift a steer, bend a horseshoe into an S shape, and they say he once smashed two by fours into kindling merely by jumping on the timber.
Yeesh ... good thing about copperheads is that you can usually smell them before you see them. They smell like cucumbers.
Once, I was cleaning out a corner of my property where tall grass had grown around the water meter, and a copperhead had wrapped itself around the water cutoff valve down in the hole. If I hadn't smelled it or if the wind had been blowing in the wrong direction that day, I would have stuck my hand down in there to clean it out.
As it was, Mr. Copperhead met Mr. Ratshot after I flushed him out, which I found out later was illegal (they're protected now).
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