Git Togethers

In the fall of the year, when I done finished with all my cannin’ and jelly and preserve makin’, it used to be time fer cane grindins’ and peanut boilins’. You know, good ol’fashioned community git-togethers. People used to have things like this all the time, but ya almost never hear of’em anymore. When did box suppers, peanut boilins, barn raisins, taffy pulls and gitar pickin’ and fiddle playin’ on a fall evenin’ go out of style?

Sometime soon, I’d like to throw a real ol’fashioned peanut boilin’ party some evenin’. The kind we had when I was still a young’un. I could git out a couple of my cast iron washpots, set up some saw-horse tables out by the barn, and invite the whole community. I’ll tell ever’body to bring somethin’ fer supper so‘s we can have supper first. The little young’uns won’t be so hungry and so apt to get into mischief, and the older young’uns won’t be so apt to complain when they got a full belly. There aught to be enough gitar pickers and fiddle players around to make us some music. It should turn out to be a right nice little git-together.

People used to do things like this all the time. Ever’body knew ever’body else, and all had a good time. It gave the woman folks a chance to catch up on their gossipin’, men folks a chance to talk about farmin’, the little young’uns a chance to play, and sometimes, the older young’uns a chance to sneak off and smooch a little bit! You’d prob’ly be surprised as to how many married folk got that way because of community git-togethers such as these!

Maybe if more people had git-togethers like this, we wouldn’t have so much trouble with our young’uns. It would give’em somewhere to go, a chance to have some good ol’fashioned kinda fun, and would help keep’em out of trouble. If’n the young’uns now days had places to go that was decent, and had grown folks to kinda over see things, maybe they wouldn’t be so many mamas and daddies wonderin’ where their young’uns was at.

I’ve heard so much about some of today’s git-togethers that I’m almost glad I’m old now. About all I ever hear is about the fightin’, the drugs, and the other bad stuff. I know about the drinkin’ too. It seems such a shame that people now days don’t know how to really have fun without addin’ some bad stuff to it. Now I ain’t sayin’ that people now are all bad, er that years ago that the people was better. Why years ago, shore, sometimes the men folks would sneak a little shine, or some young’un would bring a ceegar that he’d stole from his daddy, but we dealt with things a lot differnt back then.

If’n a man got out of line ‘cause he’d been drinkin’ too much, his wife or the other men folks would embarrass him so bad he’d be too ashamed to even show his face in town fer a month. If’n the young’uns really smoked that ceegar, they’d all show up by the bonfire lookin’ a little green about the gills, and too sick to enjoy the rest of the evenin’. It really taught’em a lesson!
Communities are differnt now too. People move about so much now that it seems there ain’t a soul that’s settled any more. People may live side by side fer years and never know their neighbors. They may see each other ever evenin’ when they come in from work er when their gittin’ ready to go to church, but they never even speak! Ya got people that retire and have two places they live, and they don’t know their neighbors in neither place!

People used to make it a point to know their neighbors, whether they lived in town and right next door, er out in the country a half mile apart. When a new family moved into the community, the women folks would often bake a cake er some cookies and take’em over to the new family just to say howdy and to welcome them to the community.

When a woman in the community was down, either sick er just from havin’ a baby, the women folks would all pitch in and help out. They’d some do laundry fer her family, er cook meals, er sweep the house, er do some weedin’ in her garden. If’n a man was down sick er injured, the men folks around would do what they could, like plowin’ his fields er feedin’ the live stock ever evening’, er even takin‘ his crop to be sold. If’n a family was down on their luck and was needin’ help, they got it, without ever havin’ to ask er without ever knowin’ who done what. If’n a families barn er house burnt down, it got rebuilt. No bunch questions, no bunch of papers to sign, nothin’. What was needed was jest done. It seems such a shame that communities ain’t like that no more. I think we aught to try and change it.

Now that I think about it, that git-together I been plannin’ sounds better and better. If’n more communities would throw git-togethers, maybe people would git to know their neighbors, maybe even make a friend er two. Ya jest never know. After all, like it’s been said before, strangers is jest friends ya ain’t met yet!