My barefoot sprint from the backyard, through the Johnson grass, was paying dividends. No farmer or fisherman in sight, but a big blue Cadillac, a baby blue convertible, passing on the gravel road just 20 feet in front of me. The Caddy sported white tags like those from Tennessee.

As I looked for her, a warm summer shower moistened the dusty, dry dirt. The air was filled with that pleasant, unmistakable, earthy smell.

I found Momma walking toward the back porch, raindrops rolling off her bonnet, and a hoe resting on her shoulder like she was carrying a rifle. She’d been working and sweating in the truck patch about 15 yards behind our house. The fertile soil was near a small stream, down a slight grade, bordered by a grove of oaks. 

Momma said she had heard nothing, let alone seen a Cadillac. She thought it was best we keep the story just between ourselves.

So, there was no use in pressing my Elvis sighting story. I had lots of chores to tend to, like feeding the chickens and bringing in “stowood.” (used to heat the stove Mamma cooked on.) If I wanted any dinner, that is. (Noon meal in the South is dinner, not lunch, and the evening meal is supper.) And don’t forget to add those crab apples to the hog slop, Momma reminded me.

It wasn’t inconceivable that Elvis had driven by our house.* Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi,** less than an hour’s drive north of us. His was a shotgun house, a narrow rectangular structure about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. Rooms were arranged one behind the other with doors at each end. It was a symbol of how the poor lived in the mid-20th-century South, and although painted, their house was no better than ours. By now (1955), Elvis had lived in Memphis for seven years.

There was a rumor that he would do a show at the National Guard Armory in Amory,  Mississippi, in a few months. The venue was less than a half-hour drive from where I stood. On car radios, I heard Elvis’ music on WHBQ in Memphis, the first station to play his records. They rightly got the credit for introducing him to the public.

That momentous show with Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins was on Dec. 12, 1955, in Amory. Perkins wrote and performed “Blue Suede Shoes,” a hit for both him and Elvis. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t make the show.

“I went into Sun Records, and there was a guy in there took down my name told me he might call me sometime. So he called me about a year and a half later, and I went in and recorded my first record, That’s Alright,” Elvis said in early 1953. (First commercial release by Elvis, a regional hit, 1954.)

The leader of a popular Memphis band, where Elvis had failed an audition, told him he should “stick to driving a truck” (his job at the time). A year later, in 1956, Elvis had four #1 songs on Billboard’s Top 40, two of which were the year’s top two!

Big dreamer that I was, I wasn’t thinking of being like Elvis, although we had a few things in common. We were born nearby, very close to our Mothers, who thought we might be preachers, and had a deceased sibling. We made early visits to a radio station, grew up poor in substandard housing, and influenced by church attendance. We both went on to serve in the US Army in Germany and to wear size 11 shoes. Finally, we were unpopular in high school until we started performing. Like Elvis, I was looking for an exciting career.

I just wanted a job like those disc jockeys on WAMY in Amory, “working” in an air-conditioned studio. I could do that, introduce Elvis, and play his records. Momma told me that I was a good performer. I had practiced-preached for her many times, using two empty five-gallon lard cans stacked one atop another as my pulpit. Momma, a very religious woman, was pleased by my “sermons” and hoped that one day I might be a minister for the Lord.

My eight-year-old brother, Dale, had a makeshift oil change rack just across the road (from our house) at the crest of a knoll; he secured blocks on the ground and then placed two narrow boards atop for a car to drive onto. I would stand on the rack looking down a gentle slope toward a small apple orchard just before dusk.

I imagined an amphitheater filled with lost souls. I stood tall for a six-year-old. Some of my best sermons, I believe, were delivered with no one listening. After just a few nights of preaching, I switched to a parody of the introduction of artists and singers. I would have a large audience on the radio, as I had hoped to one day.

Interestingly, one of my favorite songs was “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley & His Comets; it would become the Nation’s first Rock ‘n’ Roll hit. Guess who once opened for Bill Haley? Yep, Elvis. I was also drawn to The Four Lads, Dean Martin, Fats Domino, and others. I wanted to introduce those stars and their music to the masses via radio. Deep down, though, I dreaded the day when someone would tell me to stick to Farming.

There would be plenty of time for me to daydream in the coming years. I would fantasize about my aspirations while working on the farm, in church, or at school. And especially when riding the bus to and from Hatley school for 90 minutes daily.

When school started in August, students were dismissed early in the first few weeks for the cotton harvest. Great, out of school early — to pick cotton!

The cotton stalk is around three feet tall, with about 50 bolls open when ready for harvest. Unfortunately, at the first picking in mid-August, it’s still hot, dry, and dirty, and in late September or early October, it’s chilly and wet in the morning for the second harvest.

In the mid to late 1950s, one could earn $2.00 for picking 150 pounds of cotton. The very best pickers were good for about 200 pounds, bustling from “can to can’t or sun to sun” (sun-up to sun-down). Your fingers hurt from constant contact with the prickly stems; you had an aching back, and your knees were sore. But you might have almost two dollars in your pocket at the end of the day. The minimum wage of $1.00 an hour (in the late 1950s) was not paid to casual farm workers.

Sometimes, we had enough watermelons, cantaloupes, tomatoes, corn, peas, and beans left over for Daddy to take to town. He sold them from the bed of his pickup. Except for those vegetables and our acre of cotton, we were subsistence farmers.

We also nurtured a couple of milk cows and a few Aberdeen Angus beef cattle.

We nurtured a couple of milk cows, a few Aberdeen Angus beef cattle, several hogs, scores of chickens, and a couple of colorful guineas. Our hand-me-down dog, Old Jim, and Fuzzy Sue, the cat, were our domesticated animals.

On the remainder of our spread, where crops once grew, stood oak, poplar, cedar, spruce pine, holly, pecan, walnut, and sweet gum trees. Ten-foot wide Weaver’s Creeks flowed year-round through our proverbial back forty, yielding small fish and water moccasin. It also had some excellent swimming holes, especially when the beavers had been at work.

Two aging mules, Momma and Daddy, my older brother Dale, and I provided all the labor for our enterprise. Walking behind Sam and Kate, who pulled the plow attached to wooden stocks, was mainly done by Dale and Daddy.

Sam was undoubtedly the dumbest and laziest mule in the state of Mississippi, or wise like a fox. About twice a day, Sam would stop in the midst of pulling the plows for several minutes for no apparent reason. There he would stay until he was good and ready to move.

Tilling the soil with two mules when many farmers had tractors or at least horses seemed ridiculous. But we had a small allotment for planting cotton, and therefore a small margin for profit.

My contribution to the crops included picking up cotton squares containing boll-weevil eggs and hoeing (and the aforementioned) picking. For the corn crop, I was hoeing, harvesting, shucking, and finally, pulling fodder from the dried-up stalks.

I cut, split, stacked, and delivered wood for the stove and fireplace. I weeded the garden, picked fruits and vegetables, and shelled beans and peas. There’s more: I pulled up, cleaned, and shelled dry peanuts, churned butter, removed deposits from the outhouse, and so on. Momma helped me with many of these chores when she was not otherwise occupied with her countless domestic duties. Momma spent hours preparing three meals daily.

My daily chores included herding the cattle for feeding, milking the cows, attending to the mules, and slopping the hogs. I fed the chickens, gathered eggs, and drew water. Also, I was responsible for the kerosene lamps, ensuring they were filled and the wicks were trimmed and in good working order.

Not daily, but frequently, I had other responsibilities. That included cleaning out stables and mending barbed-wire fences that enclosed about 10 acres of pasture.

During the school year, I had homework in addition to chores. Some of my fellow students were complaining about a rule at their house. They were required to finish their after-school work before they could watch Gunsmoke, the wildly popular western. I didn’t have that problem. No electricity, No TV!***