Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Artie Sharp
September 20, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Rhonda Haygood and Patti Hannah
(Also present are: Lee Freeman and Mrs. Sharp’s son, Jack Sharp)
Clip 8
Artie Sharp: One day we was sitting there in the home on old Pea Ridge Road and there was no food and babies was crying and Mama would chew her tobacco and she’d throw it out in the yard and the chickens would scratch in under the rose bushes. We’d go to old home places and dig up roses where people moved and plant them. We had a lot of roses growing. And Mama was bad to burn her bread. I don’t know why Mama always burnt the bread. We cooked on a wood stove but she’d put on anything and she’d sit down and get her a dip of snuff and Daddy’d say, “Honey, I smell your bread burning.” Or, “Your potatoes is burning. You better go check it out.” “Well, it’ll be all right.” Go in there and it’d be so hard and burnt and you couldn’t eat it. Well, us kids would eat the bread and throw the crust out in the yard. We couldn’t even eat it. Just throw it out in the yard. And the chicken would scratch over it and we’d throw it under the rose bushes out there and let the chickens scratch on it. And one day we was hungry and didn’t have a thing to eat. Nothing. Mama’s gone somewhere. She’d go see her sick pappy. He was sick downtown and she’d go down there to see him. And I got out there. The kids was crying and wanting something to eat and we had a little bit of meal left. She said, “You better not cook that while we gone, now. Her and Sally. Mama had an old woman lived with us. I grew up around that old woman. Anyway, she said, “And don’t you bother that churning milk either. I can tell if you touch it. If you break that cream on there it won’t clabber and we won’t have no butter. And I’ll tear you up if you break that cream.” “Well, Mama, what are we suppose to eat?” “Lick you some salt and drink you some water.” “Well, Mama, you can’t live on that. The little kids can’t eat that.” “Well, I got some pickled pepper in there.” Well, we just had plain flour, a little bit of plain flour. And she said―, this is one day she said, “Go in there and cook some of that plain flour and make the kids a pepper sandwich.” I said, “Mama, them little kids can’t eat pepper. We can’t do it. We’d die.” And we was always sick. We was always sick with stomach problems. Anyway this one day Mama’s gone and “You better not cook that meal while I’m gone. That’s all we got for supper. When I come back that’ll make one cake of bread.” I got to thi—, ‘What will I do? What am I gonna feed these kids on?’ And I got to sitting and watching them old chickens scratching that old hard bread crusts out there in under them flower bushes, the rose bushes and they couldn’t eat it either. The chickens couldn’t eat it it was so hard. They’d peck it and they’d just scratch around it and they couldn’t eat it. I went out there and crawled under them rose bushes—now, this is facts of life. I went out there and crawled under them rose bushes and I picked up every burnt piece of crust I could find. Been laying there for days. Chickens scratching on it. They’d get under the rose bushes on a hot day and scratch and, you know cackle or whatever, you know and whine and sing around and that’s where they laid. I guess they went to the bathroom under there, too. Anyway I picked up all of that old burnt crust and I brought it in and I washed it real good and put some water on it and soaked it and fed them kids. I let it soak until it got soft enough they could eat. And that’s what they eat. You hungry when you got to do that. It’s just either that or nothing. It’s just hard to tell all of it. How hard it was. Wake up in the night, the baby crying. Mama weaned the baby, she started to wean the baby, she never would sleep with it no more. Come put it in the bed with me. And I couldn’t sleep. Get up and walk the floor and keep it quiet so Daddy can go to work the next day. How you gonna keep it quiet when all it wanted to do is nurse? And I’d have to get up and walk the floor and stir up the fire in the fireplace if it was in the wintertime. And get a little fire going. “Don’t burn up that kindling. We won’t have no-, enough to start a fire next morning.” “Well what am I suppose to do?” So anyway, I would get up and walk the floor with that baby, till I’d almost kill me. I’d lay on my back and just shake it to sleep. I’d just shake till I just, I’d just nearly kill me. And little girl, that’s Shelby, the little sister, she got so used to that she decided, I reckon, I was her Mama. Mama didn’t care nothing about her. Mama loved her but she was weaning her. And she’d say, get away and go over there and get on Artie’s lap. Well, she’d come over there and crawl up on my lap and I’d start petting her and I’d make her a sugar-tit or something, something to put in the little thing’s mouth. Then she got to calling me Mama. And one day she was about two years old, Mama’s sitting on the porch. She followed me everywhere. And Mama’s sitting on the porch; we all was one hot summer afternoon. And Shelby was over on my lap and Mama said, “Come over here, honey, and let me rock you. Come here.” She had a big dip of snuff. And Shelby done like that [Mrs. Sharp imitates the motion] and she looked at her and she fought Mama. When Mama tried to get a hold of her she fought her. That wasn’t her Mama no more. I was her Mama. And so Mama started crying. And she said, “Did you see that?” I said, “Yeah, Mama. I saw it.” “She don’t want me. She don’t love me anymore.” I said, “Do you blame her? Do you blame her? You pushed her away all this time. And she don’t care nothing about you.”
