Dear Jim,
I just got my new (old) set of The Foxfire Books. I sat down and began to cruise through the pages of the first one. What a wealth of information!
Then it happened. I turned over page 370 and there was a picture of Hillard Green. He is almost 80, (the book was published in 1972) and here is what it says, unbelievable:
Excerpt from the facing page: “The last time we visited him, he was busy peeling tomatoes he had just gathered and scalded. He waved us in, put a fresh plug of tobacco in his cheek, and went on with his work chuckling as we got our camera ready.
‘People’ll look at those pictures,’ he laughed, “and say, ‘What is that crazy old man a’doin’? You tell’em I’m puttin up ‘maters for th’ winter, that’s what. People might laugh at such stuff as this, but I’ll tell y’, I’m not about t’let’em rot. And when you’ve got old, you’re not a’goin’t lay down and die just because you’re old. Feller’s got t’have somethin’ t’do. Well, this is one of th’things I do, and I’m proud I can. Let’em laugh. I’ll be eatin’ good this winter and laughin’ back.’
The peeling process over, he next sliced and cored them, put them on to cook, and began to heat the canning jars.
‘Everyone ought t’learn how to do such as this. One a’these days, times might get back hard again, and then what will they do? Nobody not knowin’ how t’do nothin’. Might have t’live off th’land again, one day. We never had nothin’ fer th’winter only what we put up. What we put up was what we had. Goin’t be a lot of hungry people someday.” – Northern Art
Letter Re: Preparedness Wisdom from The Foxfire Book Series
