“If we want to find you, we’ll just Look for the Salt Shaker,” her mother joked.
She was told to go outside and play. Really she liked nothing better than to wander the one hundred acres her great grandmother called “Home.” She grabbed the salt shaker from the side table in the kitchen and set out to explore. She loved these hours alone to be nameless and full of wanderlust.
She headed for the loquat tree first. From there it was easy to survey the scene down below. There were at least a dozen clothes lines usually full of clothes drying in the sunshine, but no one was doing laundry today. She ate about twenty of the ripe orange sweet loquats rolling the smooth seeds over her tongue before spitting them out on the ground below. If a train came by, she would have a good perch to wave to the caboose. The engineer always waved back and usually blew his horn.
She climbed down and went to check out the lemon tree. If there were any ripe lemons that she could reach, she would pick two or three and eat them doused with the salt she had thought to bring. The fig orchard was next. If the figs were ripe, she would feast on as many of those as she could. Does anyone ever get enough figs in their life? While she was eating the figs, she pulled off the yellow centers on all of the Calla Lilies. (She would get in trouble for that later.)
She went into the wash house or the “War-shh House” as her grandma called it. Like are we going to have a war with the wash? Nobody else in the family pronounced it that way… still it was charming. No one was doing laundry today, so she snuck into the storage room where the dog bisquits were and filled her pockets.
The dog kennels were her next stop. She wasn’t allowed to go in there, but if the gate wasn’t locked and no one was around, she could play with the dogs, feed them some dog biscuits and maybe eat a couple herself. She liked the green ones the best, the black ones tasted like charcoal.
Up at the play field there was plenty of room for baseball, if her cousins had been there. There was a tether ball pole with a crusty old worn out ball attached, and a teeter totter. Her main interest was the swings. There were three really big swings. She liked to pump herself up high enough to almost touch the sky.
Just on the other side of the play field were the animal pens. The bull pen was empty. Last year they had a bull that her mom helped raise for the meat. That bull was dangerous! He would charge whoever came in to feed or water him. She was not allowed to come even close to the pen. She saw her mom take a couple of dives over the fence to avoid his ire on more than one occasion.
Rabbits and pigeons were kept for their meat and for fun. The pigeons would home. Sometimes her grandad would send her a message on a pigeon’s leg. She would write a note back to him and the pigeon would fly home. That was cool! She went into the pigeon coop to check for cold eggs like her grandad taught her. She found a couple and threw them at the fence watching them crack and then slide down in a gooey mess. She had heard that these pigeons helped get the family through the Depression. People like to eat squab.
She petted the rabbits. She called them all “Pinkie.” People also liked to eat rabbits. She had noticed the freezer filled with frozen rabbit meat that would be served at a family bar-b-que in the near future. Her aunt also had a beautiful new white rabbit fur cape to wear with her formal gowns. “Poor Pinkies,” she thought.
Once when she was younger and she had been out on the back forty playing, she wet her pants in desperation before she could get back to the house. Her aunt Levina (who really wasn’t an aunt at all, but a very mean old spinster friend of her grandma’s) spanked her, called her a baby, and put diapers on her. She was mortified. Her grandma pulled her aside and said, “If that ever happens again, you just do your business under a tree somewhere and don’t worry about it.” Still, when Levina died, she was glad.
The avacado grove was another place for her to find things to eat with salt, which she did if they were ripe. She had a one tree that she considered her own. There was an open canopy beneath the leaves. This was her own special “t-pee” tree and after her grandmother’s talk, she made it a ritual to go there and squat.
She hiked down the path by the railroad tracks, picked some anise, squashed it up in her hands to get the smell of the licorice, and then popped some of the weeds in her mouth. She chewed it for awhile and then spat it out.
She ended up out at the back road which was lined with red rose bushes. The road had been so well traveled for these many years that the gravel had been reduced to a fine dust like powder. She loved to take her shoes off and run her feet through the soft warmth of it. All in all it had been a great day! Just then she heard her mother’s loud call, “Whoo-eee! Whoo-eee!” She knew it was time for her to get in for dinner even though she somehow wasn’t really very hungry.
“We were just about ready to go out and Look for the Salt Shaker,” her mother said smiling. ” Smothered pork chops, mashed potatoes, lima beans, green salad, and chocolate cake for dinner.” She sat next to her grandma at dinner and was even allowed a half a cup of coffee with cream and sugar!
Look for the Salt Shaker
(First published 11/17/11)
