THIS EVERYDAY LIFE

MAKING SYRUP, LYING AND GATOR TAILS. Wintry night and we were grinding sugar cane for syrup. My father had a couple of acres he’d plant each year and it made enough syrup for the family and friends. Just got into the boiler house, through grinding cane stalks for the night. Got to tell you the warmth was welcomed. It was freezing around that mill. Blue the mule didn’t make matters any better. Rascal would leave the circle path it seems about every fifteen minutes and I’d have to place him on the right path again. Swear Blue did it just to make my job that much more tedious and hateful. Believe me even in Hinesville, a fourteen-year-old boy had a lot better things to do than grind sugar cane on a wintry night. A family friend from the community, who’d gathered around the grinder to retrieve the grinded cane stalks, was no good either. You see the guy was an adult and a friend of my father’s. His sole purpose for being there was too gather and retrieve the stalks for later use in the creation of “cane buck”. Cane buck you see was a form of rum made from the fermented grinded cane stalks. From what I was told it was a hell of a lot more powerful than the shine the guy was used to making. From what I was also told the guy turned a pretty profit form both “shine” and “cane buck”. So you see his focus was on the grinder results and not any problems I was having with Blue. Made me mad as hell, but couldn’t say anything because the guy was an adult. And as much as my mother frowned upon the guy and his vocation, she’d knock hell out of me if I were in any way disrespectful to an adult. Inside the boiler house and the first vat was reaching the stage where it the cane juice was beginning to really boil and my father was skimming the surface. You see as the juice boils and begins to thicken a crust like mixture is formed and has to be constantly skimmed from the top of the will be syrup. The skimmed residue when cool takes on an elastic like characteristic and is referred to as “taffy”. That’s right sugar cane taffy. My mother used to box the stuff up in small quantities and at X-Mas present them to every kid she came into contact with. The stuff was pretty tasty. Well anyway back to the boiler house. The gentlemen were passing around a jug and the conversations were centered on things they did in their youth. Well anyway the discussion got around to wild game and their favorite wild game recipes. Well one guy reminisced about gator tail and how great it tasted. Shock to me because up until that time I’d never heard of eating gator tail. Heck the thought ran through my naïve mind, how in the boogieman do you get a gator tail? After refocusing on the conversation I realized----oh hell the contents of that jug have started some lying time. One member of the group piped up “man we really killed some gators during our time for those tails. Another chimed in, hell we didn’t kill them just chopped of their tails. Goodness the lies are about to really start flying now. “That’s right, go down to the floodgate, ain’t nothing left but bob-tailed gators. Yeah they even started having little bob-tailed gators.” “Oh hell Cepheus, I was down at the floodgate the other day, thought it was some oversized bull-frogs I was seeing. Yeah!! But you know I did wonder about those long mouths. Glad you said something, I’ll put the word out before somebody get ate.” HAW, HAW, HAW. Remember I was fourteen at the time. Swore I’d never get old. Well I did get older, much older. Since that time I have on many occasions had the opportunity and pleasure of partaking of alligator tail. Some people prefer it in soups, other smothered, some fried, and still others just don’t give a hookie as long as its gator tail. Me I prefer it smothered in onion gravy. COUSIN TINA’S FRIED GATOR TAIL RECIPE Kill the gator Chop off his tail Skin it, need some new shoes, a bag maybe, got traveling on your mind—a suitcase? Tan the hide. Wash his tail and cut it into strips fit for frying Make you up some frying mix Egg Salt and pepper Flour Heat you up some lard in an iron skillet get it good and hot. After rolling it around in that mix, slip the slices into the skillet. Let it fry until its golden brown. Then eat y’ll.