As a kid Charlie lived with his Grandmother and Grandfather during the summer months. They lived on a small farm about three miles from the little town of Pontotoc, Mississippi.
Although they lived on a farm all that they raised were animals. They had goats, pigs and chickens but only about an acre vegetable garden that was Charlie's grandmother’s private domain.
When he turned ten years old his grandmother decided he needed to have a job on the farm so she taught him how to dress fryers (chickens) to put in the freezer. (Yep, they had an ice cream freezer that his grandfather got from the local drugstore.)
Now Charlie kept this job until he was in high school.
On Saturday morning his grandmother would help him pick out ten or twelve fryers for him to dress. He would then skin them, cut them up and divide them into frying parts and rough parts (back, saddle, neck and part of the wing).
He would bring them into the house and package them with just enough pieces to a package to feed the family and put the packages in the freezer.
When he finished that his grandmother would go pick out an old hen and give it to him for his pay. He would tie it’s feet together with a strip of cloth to keep it from running away. The tie was made long enough to be a handle also.
He would take the hen by the home-made handle and walk the three miles to town, swinging it while he walked. Downtown Pontotoc on Saturday was an amazing place but that is another story.
There was a produce house in Pontotoc that would buy the old hen from him for a quarter.
Charlie would take the quarter and go to the Town Café for lunch. He could get a big hamburger with mustard, pickles and onions and a Grapette drink for a nickel each.
After lunch he would go to the Ben Franklin Five and Dime store for a large bag of popcorn, which took another nickel from his fortune. Now in the hot summer the business' kept their doors open for ventilation and the popcorn smell was all over town.
On Saturday afternoon, the Joy Theater showed a double feature movie and his last dime went to them. He would ration his popcorn so that he had about a half a bag left for the second feature.
The Bowery Boys, Hopalong Cassidy, The Durango Kid, Tom Mix and Lash LaRue (among others) became part of Charlie's world every Saturday.
After the movie, he would take the three-mile walk from town back to his Grandparent’s house. It would be after dark some days and he would make sure to carry a handful of rocks in case something tried to get him and he would walk right in the middle of the road.
In all those years he can only remember one or two cars passing him on the way home.
That was a wonderful time for Charlie and he was always looking forward to the next Saturday.
