[Granville-Hough] 21 May 2009 - Dueward F Hough
Trustees for Granville W. Hough
gwhough-trust at oakapple.net
Tue May 23 05:15:00 PDT 2017
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 07:02:00 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: DuewardFHough - 21 May 2009
Dueward Franklin Hough (Recall)
The Bedpartner. Dueward did not elect to go to college, so he was with
us as an elder brother until he married. He was ten years older than I
and fully grown before I remember much about him. For about the last
three years before he married, I shared a bed with him in the ôboyÆsö
room. He could have slept across the hall in the north rooms, but they
were unheated. We had a fireplace in the boyÆs room, and we kept a fire
going until bedtime. He and I shared one bed, and my three youngest
brothers had the other bed. He was a most critical bed partner. When he
got in bed, the springs sagged from his adult weight so that the child
with him automatically rolled downhill onto his side. This made him mad
as a wet hen. Finally, I solved the problem by sleeping on my stomach
and anchoring my right arm under the mattress on the right side. Then I
did not lose my position when he got in bed. So he tolerated me as a bed
partner, and I learned to sleep on my stomach as a preferred position.
Corn Beer. As a teen-ager, Dueward learned to make beer and wild-grape
wine. He generally had these operations out in the woods away from my
fatherÆs sight. He frequently spoke of ôhome brew,ö which I learned
later was a generic name for any alcoholic beverage made at home. At the
time I thought it was something special, but the only thing I ever saw
different was the addition of brewerÆs yeast to the fermenting corn meal
or to wild grape juice. The brewerÆs yeast was passed from home to home
as it multiplied and could be divided. In the manufacture of bourbon,
the corn beer would be the mash stage. Anyway, Dueward became quite fond
of corn beer, and I liked it too. I have been told he made it all his
life. Many of the episodes people recall about Dueward were associated
with his consumption of corn beer, sometimes the result of too much. The
amount of alcohol must have varied greatly, but it was enough to give
strong reactions.
I recall that a favorite place for DuewardÆs beer-making operation was
under the wild grape vines in a little valley we called the ôHollow.ö
Wild grape vines covered the trees, and underneath was a cool, damp
shade that seemed to make wonderful corn beer. I never understood why
until years later when I studied the properties of yeast. It happens
that yeast, particularly fermentation yeast, occurs naturally and the
spores are blown about, and moved by bees and other insects. The spores
winter in the soil. So year after year ripe wild grapes on these vines
would pick up spores of yeast which would fall with the ripe grapes to
the ground. When Dueward set his crock of corn meal, molasses (or sugar
if he could sneak it) and water under the vines, he covered the top with
a piece of cloth like an old sheet, so that the brew could air, or
breathe, so he said. What actually happened is that the bees and other
insects picked up the wild yeast spores from the earth and they went
right through the old sheet into the brew. So Dueward quickly got beer,
even though he had no brewerÆs yeast.
RolandÆs Overhalls. One night after Dueward was out late, I know not
where, but perhaps down in the ôHollow,ö I woke up to a thudding sound
on the floor. I opened my eyes and I could see Dueward sitting up on his
side of the bed. He then gave a long ôAaaaagh,ö and lay down. I went
back to sleep. (Now, Roland, Clifford, and Donald all wore their
overalls each day and, at night, they simply dropped them to the floor,
stepped out, and got in bed. So, what you saw when they were in bed were
three sets of overalls sitting on the floor, just as they had left
them.) Next morning, when everybody got up, Roland said, ôSomebody peed
on my overhalls,ö and he would not put them on. Soon Clifford and Donald
found their overalls were also wet. So my mother was soon aware of the
situation and had to find some other clothes. She naturally asked me if
I had done the deed, and I could only say absolutely not and report that
I had heard a noise, then heard Dueward give a long sigh of relief. I
was sure he had done it. Dueward was indignant that anyone would accuse
him of such an act. I think my mother had an unscheduled clothes wash
that day and let the matter drop. I believe Dueward just had too much
corn beer and remembered nothing. But the rest of us never forgot
RolandÆs ôpeed-on overhalls.ö
Exchanging Work. Before we were able to do heavy work, we exchanged work
with Dueward. He did our heavy plowing and specialized work and we did
his light work, hoeing, picking cotton, pulling corn, weeding, grubbing,
etc. He complained constantly, so one day when I was 13 I had enough and
told him we did more work for him than he did for us. I told him I would
keep a record and prove it. I asked him how much my work was worth
relative to his, he said about one-half. Then I asked about Clifford and
Donald, and he said, each one-third, then for Roland, one-fourth. I was
sure I did three-fourths as much as he, but I let that rest. I just kept
the record for a week. I went down to his house at the end of the week
and told him I wanted to compare work. He and Dorothy were still
newlyweds and seemed to want to do something else; but we added it up,
and he owed us half a day. Dorothy then said something about the record,
so I gave the book to her and told her to keep it the next week. But she
gave it back to me and said, ôOh no, you boys work it out.ö Dueward was
very quiet and finally said, ôWe are at least even. DonÆt worry anymore
about keeping that record.ö But he did not complain again about that issue.
Sabbath Day Work. Dueward was the only one of us who never joined a
church, and he even considered the prohibitions against work on Sunday
to be outmoded. One year after he left home and was working for Dolphus
Yelverton five days a week, he decided to grow a separate crop on
Saturdays and Sundays. He got some land from Dolphus back in the Big
Woods out of sight of any highway or dwelling and planted what he
thought he could handle on Saturdays and Sundays. He was successful, but
the effort wore him out. His wife Dorothy let him know that she
preferred a livelier husband than to have the small crop he had managed
to harvest. After that, Dueward admitted God had it right when he
decreed a day of rest each week. Late in life, he even took Dorothy to
church on Sundays.
(Note: I never intended to include my brothers in these little stories,
but I got a request for one on Dueward. He was born 21 May 1913 on
Little Cohay, 96 years ago, not long before my parents moved to Concord
Community near the railroad.) DFHough1, 7 Jul 2005.
PS. "Eighty-five million Americans have experimented with illegal drugs.
Since the object of criminal law is to detect and punish the wrongdoer,
should we reason that 85 million of us should have spent time in jail?"
William F. Buckley, Jr, Founder, /National Review./
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