Pecans

Another Grainola graduate --  guess who?

I love pecans and it is not with a long e so you say it like pecans.  Anyway every year we use to sit around the television (black and white and I don't mean the color of the TV but the lack of color on the picture) at night during the winter months and pick out pecans.  We usually watched "the Beverly Hillbilly's" and not "Dick Van Dyke" at our house while picking.  I think Jed Clampit was hilarious but Granny was the best.  In fact I think Granny looked like my dad.  Here is a picture and what do you think?

Well we would sit there and with hand crackers until we got automated and bought one of those manual lever cracking devices.  It cracked one at a time but it saved your fingers from getting pinched and having blood blisters.  When you pick out pecans the shells are very hard and your fingers get eaten up and tender after hours and hours of picking.  Generally we picked out about 100 lbs. per year.  Mom loved pecans and actually we all did.  Does anyone remember how if you put your finger in your mouth after picking pecans it seemed like yo put lime on your lips?  The dust from pecan shells would make you pucker.

Another aspect of pecan picking is we always went down to the Oolagah and Claremore area to pick pecans where Jess and Annie Lane moved to from Grainola.  Their original house and farm down there is in the middle of Lake Oolagah.  Uncle Don Lane had a pecan orchard and he paid us $7 per hundred to pick pecans up off the ground.  That is right, on your hands and knees for hours, all day long picking up pecans.  Actually for an 8 to 14 year old boy that was pretty good money.  Grandma Annie who was always old could out pick everyone.  I think she weighed about 90 lbs. sopping wet.  She could pick with both hands and generally she would pick 3 to 5 - 100 lb. sacks a day.  Envision this, how long could you be on your knees dragging around a gunny sack filling with pecans?  This may seem strange but I always wanted to have a pecan orchard.

Now that I look back those were great times sitting as a family watching the ONE TV show together while doing something productive that we all enjoyed later.  Just to explain the "later", my mom and sister made the best cookies and candies WITH PECANS in the world.  If you don't believe me find Jon Tanny and ask if he liked my mom's cookies.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• a little work and a little play make for great memories
• $7 is $7 and when you don't have any money $7 dollars is a lot
• My folks would have killed me if I did not work, there never was an option for me to get something for nothing even from the government

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com