Spit

The spittoons at my feet in the truck, or tractor, or dairy gave the sweetest smell, almost enough to disguise the stale grease, old dog, and boot manure.  Turns out, if you spit in your palm and slap your hands together, tobacco juice is easier to track as it flies, an essential part of the art of the strawberry shortcut.  Red Man, the only tobacco of a true farmer, should be credited as the original duct tape.  Did you know that fish love tobacco?  Pop and I shuffled off to the old slate quarry every Saturday morning with walking sticks and Nazareth in tow to entice the shad to the surface of the water and climb the four-county peak. Splattering palm spit led us to some wild places.  That German shepherd, old and blind, followed Pop’s spit trail back to the truck when we lost our way.

The farm produced about as much tobacco juice as yellow jackets and wasps.  Once, the tractor spun a ground nest back into the hay wagon with a gaggle of my cousins.  We lined up, according to the number of stings, to be spit on.  Meat tenderizer didn’t exist on the farm.  Everything was piping fresh.  And nothing worked better on a bee sting than slobbery sweet nicotine.  Nanny seemed impervious to Pop’s chew, aside from the time she mixed up her RC Cola with a spit bottle.  She sure appreciated the Red Man when Pop put every lad in hot pursuit of his 12 granddaughters through his own litmus test.  My cousin Nora lucked out as the one and only to bring a boy to the farm she didn’t intend on marrying.   Pop plopped his teeth in the cup by the kitchen sink, threw on his coveralls, subbed his walking stick for a shot gun, and handed the chap some chew.  Yeah, he swallowed.  Even with Pop’s constant references to “just being out for the weekend,” the vomit on Nora’s feet did the trick.  ‘Marriage material’ boys were never given Pop’s blessing until they proved they could chew; his nod roughly translated: “Welcome to the family!” 

Red Man meant extra trips to Eenie’s store for whoever jumped into the back of the truck.  Although he allowed us grandkids full access to all of the chew we wanted, sugar was certainly okay with Pop.  Tootsie roll pops and the pouch of tobacco coexisted in his shirt pocket.

The 13 of us kids were as fanatical about Pop as he was about us; Pop made every kid feel like his favorite, I was no exception. He and I watched beavers forge their damns until sunrise, searched for salamander streams, played Smurfs in the random circle of ferns, and skated the ice to the cave in the quarry wall.  He sure could weave a story, yet I knew his tell.  The Indian grave never held the bones of Chief Conowingo, but the mound under the lye and burlap near the dairy did cover the cow who died giving birth to the two-headed calf.  When the corners of his mouth pulled in while spitting, Pop kept himself from laughing.  Puckered lips never teased.  As he spat on the ground next to ‘oh mama,’ the thought first crossed my mind – this is where he would have buried my father - if he knew what he did.          

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Have you ever questioned how a loving, sovereign God could stand to see the suffering? You are not alone. (And really, isn’t God big enough to handle our emotion: doubt, inquiry, rage?)

Who made you want to stay? A smile, a hug, a story, a level of acceptance; what act or person told you – stay alive, stay here? Maybe you’ve yet to put your finger on who or what influenced you, but you never gave up.

Pop made me want to stay. As man of few words, my grandfather communicated brilliantly. I heard: you are loved; I want you around; I see something unique in you. This girl, whose dream involved invisibility, felt seen, accepted, loved. This short, Spit, summarizes our relationship.

Could this type of love, grandfather to granddaughter, be God’s too? From the bottom-of-the-barrel of desperate times, I knew somewhere within - I was been cared for…and loved…and seen. What if God put someone in place to ease the pain and aftermath of destruction? If I believe in a sovereign God who allows his creation autonomy, could I have missed the life-lines? Perhaps there is no satisfying answer to the why of suffering. Like chewing tobacco and Tootsie Pops, can desperation and a life-line of hope coexist in the same pocket and we miss it?  And, is twenty years too long to realize who made me want to stay? Nope. I’m here. I made it. Realizing the presence of life-lines – even after the fact – now that’s satisfying.