Every time the month of December gets here, I’m sort of in the reflective mode, and they seem to get here a little quicker every year.
I have been gifted with seventy-seven Decembers thus far and each year has been filled with so many, many memories. Those Decembers awaiting me in the future are becoming less in number every year.
As a kid growing up in the woods of Dargan many moons ago, I still recall the cold winters that came to visit our home in some of those early years. The snows would cover our village like a huge white blanket during those younger days of my life.
After my grandfather died in 59, my grandma Gen, Pee Wee and I lived in a house made of logs with a small dirt basement and foundation made of stones. Our bathroom was an outhouse across the garden, and our furnace was a ‘Home Comfort’ wood stove; water was fetched from a mountain spring to cook with and drink.
My cousin Pee Wee and I would check our rabbit boxes to see if we might catch one of those critters now
and then to visit my grandmother’s black cast iron skillet in hot lard, and a fried breakfast like no other. Pee Wee was always good at building those rabbit traps as we sat them throughout the woods.
The Dargan village would be filled with many hog butchering’s during the coming winter where all families would gather to help their neighbors with this annual event. Some of the meat would be sent home with each family as an element of thanks for their help.
I still enjoy fried Pon Haus with molasses.
Deer hunting was popular back then and venison was also a staple of meals in those skillets.
December was always a time of ‘giving’ throughout our little community. It was, too, a time of visits to those homes situated on that hill in South County. Neighbors would always gather in someone’s home for a ‘card game’, visit, and conversation about local happenings.
You could smell those kitchen aromas too and the many cookies and cakes that were being baked there as the winds of winter carried those smells throughout the trees; it was a smell like no other.
The smoke from the chimneys of the homes would add a smell of the burning wood that dissipated into the sky in a white cloud. Warmth and good cheer were bundled together in those houses of Dargan families.
The times back then were a lot different than today.
No telephone, no computer, no inside bathrooms, and a hard life for many living in the woods. Local carpenters, laborers and workers were often laid off and drawing unemployment to survive, but the community and families would often work together and help each other as the winter days made their annual visit.
Christmas was a time of celebration too. Gifts were always a surprise and delight at Christmas for the children. A two-wheel scooter maybe, some marbles, a bicycle here and there, some clothes, and games were often found under the tree.
A local Santa Claus from the Antietam-Dargan Ruritan club would make his rounds but I think he drove a truck instead of a sleigh of reindeer back in those days.
At least I always remembered a truck when he came to visit and leave some oranges and candy while collecting our wish list for Christmas.
Every time Santa came to visit us he always asked if this Dargan Boy was good before he gave me my orange, candy and took my request for gifts.
What was I too say?
I sometimes told a fib, I confess, and said ‘yes, I was very good’ but had my fingers crossed behind my back. I normally did pretty good at Christmas, but always felt a little bad about crossing my fingers when Santa asked me that question.
As I grew up with each Christmas, and later in life, I remember some antics of a few other Dargan boys.
The Potomac River would sometimes freeze over, a sight not seen by many these days. Four adventurous Dargan boys would travel in a vehicle out over the frozen river one day as this story is still told in the mountain.
They did a circle with their car in the middle of the frozen water, turned around, and drove back to the boat ramp, a feat never before or since seen by any other known to mankind.
Winters were always most interesting in these Dargan woods.
Now for another cookie and some root beer.
