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almost makes me sick.
Syrup Making Time
The farmers all used to plant and grow Blue Ribbon Sugar Cane for syrup and in October they cut their cane and stacked it up in the field and covered it up until they got all their wood hauled and everything ready to make syrup. They had a machine with wheels and cogs which would grind the juice out of the sugar cane, then they'd pour the juice into a big (vat) a pan about four feet long and nearly the same width where they'd have a fire under it and boil for several hours or until it would begin to thicken. Then when it would begin to foam and bubble then they knew it was ready to put a little soda in so all of the trash or dregs I should have said would come to the top and could be skimmed off. A man had to stand right by every minute stirring and skimming. There'd be a pole about twenty feet long and about half the size of a telephone pole and they'd hitch a mule or a horse to the other end of it and that horse would go around and around grinding the juice out of the cane. And they always had a man to keep a steady fire going under the vat. They wouldn't only make syrup for themselves but for lots of others. They'd make hundreds of gallons sometimes. People didn't know anything about this old sorghum cane at that time. Now it's hard to find the Blue Ribbon cane syrup any more. I've explained this as best I know how, for the benefit of the younger generation. Folks used to gather out where they were making syrup, drink the cane juice and laugh and talk. That was the good old (sticky) time. One time we had just killed hogs and I had put up several gallons of sliced ham in gallon cans and poured boiling hot grease over it and sealed the cans and we had a big table on the back porch, so I put the cans of meat out under the front side of the table and when Willie brought our molasses to the house he put six or eight gallons under the back side of the table, so when he went to get the syrup one of our neighbor men went with him on his own accord and helped him to load and unload the syrup so Willie gave him three gallons. And the next morning when I went out on the porch I noticed all of my gallon cans of meat was gone. Willie said he thought he was getting syrup because he didn't need the meat as he had plenty of that hanging in his smoke house. The reason we knew who it was, was because we were used to it. When ever I'd leave the house to go to my
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