Pro Wrestling, Hot Peppers, Beer, and Early Morning Tears

      Rustic they were, but, my Uncle VD and Aunt Trudie truly enjoyed TV. They had an old black and white TV with only three channels. I remember my uncles watching Pro-wrestling together. By the way, VD was not my uncle’s initials. It was actually his name. His mother was asked why she named her only son VD, and here response was, “It was the only thang I could think of at the time.” anyway, Uncle VD was jumping up and down crying out, "Hot diggity damn!"

      My Uncle Antonio was not much into watching wrestling. But, as long as he could crack open a beer and an occasional pint of hot peppers while enjoying a few smokes, he could tolerate what would otherwise have been a terrible boring time for him.

      The women (my sister Lynn, Aunt Angie, Aunt Trudie, Nana, and my mother) all sat in the kitchen talking woman-stuff and about what my mother planned to do. Occasionally, my Aunt Angie would come out to nag my Uncle Antonio and bitch at him about drinking too much.

She also nagged and cussed him out about eating all of those hot peppers. "Damn it Antonio," she would shriek, "There you go again! You know that you are not supposed to eat them damn peppers. You know what they do to you!"

      My uncle just yukked it up, his body shaking with laughter, his face red and sweating from the peppers.

He said, "Aw, get on with it woman, Can't you see that us men in here need to be left alone," and he winked at my brother and me. I felt a thrill to be included in his exclusive, males-only club.

      She bitched some more, "God damn it! Then, you better not come crying to me later. You know what those damn things do to you."

She spun around and left in a huff. My brother and I exchanged glances, wondering what on Earth those damn things did to Uncle Antonio. It was a complete mystery... until late that night or, rather, the wee hours of the morning.

      In those wee hours of the morning, we heard an awful moaning and wailing coming from the other side of the house. Evidently, my Uncle had to go to the can. It must have been so bad that my Uncle VD sacrificed his bathroom to poor Uncle Antonio, so he could process that yummy barbecued raccoon, beer, and hot peppers in relative comfort.

      Rumor has it that my uncle suffered from an almost terminal case of what is sometimes referred to as "those damn bloody piles." The beer and the hot peppers waged bloody hell on his tender sphincter.

      My brother and I looked at each other while we listened. Uncle Antonio -- twentieth-century Conan-the-barbarian, ex-coal miner, ex-Marine, survivor of some of the bloodiest conflicts in World War II, slayer of animals, builder of stone houses, brutalizer of tough men -- laid flat on his ass upon the commode, by the lowly hot pepper.

      His piteous moaning, traveling to the far reaches of the house, was unnerving. Every man has his Achilles heel. I guess my Uncle Antonio’s was his sphincter.

      For an hour or so, my uncle wept and moaned pitifully, "Angie, it burns! It burns!"

He repeated this heartbreaking mantra a least a dozen times, while my Aunt hissed reprimands and nagged him to keep quiet. (For years, she loved to tell people how the tears just poured down his face). She would always recount the story with a mixture of self-satisfied contempt and humor. Yet, somehow, there always seemed to be an odd mixture of pride and love for her man as she told the story.

The next morning at the breakfast table, we all were greedily wolfing down the wonderful breakfast spread that was common fare for the farmers of the south.

      My Nana and Aunt Trudie were asking my Aunt Angie if my Uncle managed to get any sleep.

My aunt said that his affliction had kept him up the entire night and that he suffered from those piles so bad that they were like inflamed and swollen clusters of bloody grapes.

"The Grapes of Wrath," my child’s mind mused.

      At least that was the image that came to my mind when my aunt was merrily sharing my uncle's affliction with everyone that day at the breakfast table.

My Uncle Antonio came out quietly and, walking a bit gingerly, he sat down (carefully) for his share of the grub. He was uncharacteristically subdued. My mother and Aunt Trudie joked with him about "those damn peppers," while my Aunt Angie chided him with a bit of gloating.

I couldn't help it; the visuals of those damn swollen red ass grapes would not leave my mind.

The three of us kids sat around uncertainly. Embarrassed for our Uncle, especially since he seemed embarrassed. That morning we all avoided his eyes. Uncle VD was both embarrassed and amused. He tried to smooth things over in a countrified, Buddy Ebson or Andy Griffith diplomatic sort of way.

      This little bit of adult scandal and embarrassment, however, did not put much of a damper on my appetite, and I enjoyed the feast immensely. We northerners did not usually eat much at breakfast; maybe a bowl of shredded wheat, or coca puffs, or some such thing. On rare occasions, if we ran out of cereal or my mother thought we needed variety, she would make eggs and bacon, or give us grits or oatmeal. In the south, at least on the farm, breakfast was the second largest meal of the day. My Aunt Trudie and Nana would whip up scrabbled or fried eggs and homegrown bacon, or fat back, every day.

      Usually, there were fried collard greens and fried mustard greens, if there were any left over from the night before. In addition to all of these goodies was scrabble and/ or sausage.

      There were usually grits and the best biscuits and cornpone ever created this side of Heaven. My Grandmother made the best biscuits and cornpone in the world. Her biscuits were thinner than most people would make, and they were a bit crispy on the outside and hot, soft, and a bit doughy on the inside. Her cornpone was very thin and crispy - the crust was crunchy on the outside with the inside still crispy, but not as crispy as the outside.

It had the right amount of flavorful greasiness and her it was crunchy, coarse, and rich in flavor.