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    Backwoods College
    Backwoods College
    Backwoods College
    Ebook116 pages1 hour

    Backwoods College

    By Dr John McElhaney

    ()

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    About this ebook

    This book is kind of a continuation of my book, “When God Will Not Let Go”. I have added more experiences in my early life and show how a back woods education is so much superior to an Ivey League education especially in the things that are importin. I talk about the morals we learned growing up in the back woods. Also, the respect for others and especially our elders. I talk about the joy of living with what we had and not even knowing we were poor. I talk about Coon hunting and Goats milk, fishing and White Trash. I have my family tree all the way back to Ireland on my father’s side and back to Germany on my mother’s side. I also talk about Church, rearing children, travel and many other things. I think you will enjoy this book.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDr John McElhaney
    Release dateJul 18, 2018
    ISBN9780463469194
    Backwoods College
    Author

    Dr John McElhaney

    Dr John McElhaney Graduated sums cum laude with a Th.D. He has pastored churches in Tennessee and Florida for almost fifty years. He has been Married to Margaret Leffew for forty seven years and they have three children, eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren. His passion is writing, preaching and teaching the sacred scriptures. He is available for speaking engagements by appointment. You may contact him by E-mail at jmcelhaney@aol.com , by phone at 423-836-7231 his mailing address is 1104 Christianburg Lane Sweetwater, TN. 37874

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      Book preview

      Backwoods College - Dr John McElhaney

      Backwoods College

      When the Education You Got Wasn’t Ivey League

      By: Dr. John McElhaney

      Copyright © 2018 by John McElhaney

      All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

      may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

      without the express written permission of the publisher

      except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

      Printed in the United States of America

      First Printing, 2018

      ISBN-13:

      978-1723310140

      ISBN-10:

      172331014X

      This book is dedicated to my loving wife Margaret who has stayed by my side and been my rock for over forty-seven years. I would never have made it without her.

      Contents

      Chapter one: Lesson in Food

      Chapter Two: Work Ethic, Integrity, Fishing and Exploring

      Chapter Three: Grammar School and Goat’s Milk

      Chapter Four: Guns, Building, Cooking, Doctoring and Respect

      Chapter Five: The Bible, The Sexes, The Family and the Church

      Chapter Six: Morals

      Chapter Seven: Family Tree

      Chapter Eight: Stupidity

      Chapter Nine: White Trash and Coon Hunting

      Chapter Ten: No Discipline, No Preaching, No Morals

      Chapter Eleven: Traveling, Places You Need to See

      Chapter Twelve: Parenting, Rearing Your Children Well

      Chapter Thirteen: The Best is Yet to Come

      Chapter Fourteen: Finial Thoughts and Experiences

      Chapter One: Lesson in Foods

      When you grow up in the backwoods there are a lot of things you relate to differently than people who have been raised in the city. And when it is the backwoods in the south it goes a step further, but when it is the backwoods of East Tennessee it takes it to a level that is beyond most people’s comprehension.

      Because of that I want to be very careful with this book and not write in such a way that it will be over-the-heads of you Ivey League folks. Also, we will put the Northern folks in that category as well.

      We lived without the things most people thought were necessities and didn’t even know we needed them. It is amazing how bad off we were told we were and we didn’t even know it. We just lived and enjoyed life to the fullest with everyday a joy to live, and then people talking about the poor people of the country how needy we were.

      We cooked on a wood cook stove and the food tasted wonderful, you can’t get food like that today. We eat wild greens that tasted better than anything you can get today. Polk salad grew wild and, in the spring, when it just started to come up we would pick it when it was tender, cook up a mess of that, scramble some eggs in it, make a pan of yellow cornbread in the iron skillet and you have never ate so well.

      The greens that grew wild were many different kinds, there was Field Lettice, which was really Dandelions, we ate Plantain, brier leaves, wild mustered, water cress, that grew in the springs of water. Along with the greens we would get some wild onions that grew everywhere. They were strong and when we went to school we would eat wild onions while we were out for recess, when we would go back in the class room the teacher would say who’s been eating them wild onions because you could smell them everywhere.

      We would also suck eggs. We would find the chicken nest where they lay their eggs and suck them. The way you suck an egg is to break a little hole in the end of the shell put it in your mouth and let all the contents pour out in your mouth and swallow it. I have sucked as many as a dozen eggs at one time. You had to be careful to make sure you didn’t get the egg from a setting hen because if you did then there would probably be a young chicken that was not fully formed in it, those are not too good.

      Another thing that was good were wild blackberries, we picked tons of those in the summer to make cobblers, we also picked them to can, and make jelly. There is no jelly like good old blackberry jelly. We would also sell them for fifty cents a gallon.

      Another thing we ate were mulberries that grew wild on trees, they were like a big blackberry and were pretty good. Another berry that grew wild was huckleberries’, these were good. When we came upon a bush or plant that had wild huckleberries we would stop and eat till they were all gone. They were small, but they are good, they look like a small blueberry.

      There were also Locus trees that had some good fruit on them. The fruit looked like a large bean or pea pod that you opened, and it had this sweet substance like honey on the inside. There were also wild strawberries that grew wild, but they were very small and not enough of them to really be worth your while. There were wild cherry trees that produced a lot of fruit, the cherries on a wild cherry tree were a lot smaller than the others but tasted pretty good. There was a plant that we called hen pepper we used to eat. The little pods on it was very small but they were very hot, like hot pepper. There was also sour dock it was a small plant with small leaves and was very sour.

      There was also Persimmons, they grew on a tree and when they were all the way ripe they were good. You could use them to make pies or just eat them, but you better make sure they are all the way ripe, because there is nothing like eating an unripe persimmon, it will pucker your mouth in ways you could never think of. Opossums love persimmons, you can usually find an Opossum in a persimmon tree if you find one.

      You had to be careful when you cooked some of these things because some things are poison and you must cook them just right. Polk Salad is poison, so you must parboil it first to kill the poison then cook it to eat.

      Living in the backwoods had its benefits. There was no law ever around, the people handled their problems themselves. Everyone helped each other and mostly family lived around family.

      Everyone had chickens that just ran wild in the yard. Those who had dogs, they were outside not inside. No one lived with the animals like they did with their children. Dogs were never allowed in the house and people did not treat them as anything but a dog. Some people had turkeys, ducks, genies, etc. My grandfather McElhaney had all these that just lived in the yard.

      You had to be careful at anybody’s house when you were walking in the yard because of the chicken manure that would squish up between your toes, for nobody wore shoes in the summertime. Our feet were just like leather in the summer where we didn’t wear shoes. We could walk over any kind of rocks and things without it bothering us at all.

      We all ate the same thing, so if you went to anyone’s house and ate you knew what it was going to be. Beans, cornbread, fried potatoes, chicken if on Sunday. Breakfast was gravy and biscuits with a piece of side meat from a hog. And coffee. My grandfather made coffee stronger than anybody. Everybody made it strong, but Grandma McElhaney made it where the spoon would stand up in the cup

      I remember one-time Grandma gave granddad some coffee he took a sip and said to grandma, Mom, would you bring me a grain of coffee to hold in my mouth while I drank this water. The coffee was a little weaker than normal. Grandad would always saucer his coffee, so he wanted it hot, strong, and black, no cream or sugar for him.

      One of the things I ate a lot and still eat today all the time are biscuits and coffee, I will get me a bowl put a lot of cream in it then pour the coffee in, then I will break the biscuit open, take the tops off the bottoms and place them in the coffee, let them sock up and eat them, we called them soakers and that is some good eating.

      We ate wild meat, squirrel, rabbit, Hogs, goat, deer, turkey, duck, chicken, I never was hungry, or want for something I didn’t have. The food we had was satisfying, taste good and we hadn’t had anything else to compare it too. You know something, I still eat that same food today because I still like it better than anything.

      Chapter Two: Work Ethic, Integrity, Fishing, and Exploring

      We have more charity given today that would feed a good side country and still people clam to be starving. People don’t want nor, will they accept anything that would meet their needs, they must have the luxury items. You can’t give

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