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Prologue
I am writing this under the pen name A. A. Asbury since
I wish to keep my identity a secret. I want to walk the streets of
Alderson, West Virginia in the future without fear and with impunity.
There are three mountains in the surrounds of Alderson that people often
mention, Muddy Creek Mountain, Flat Top Mountain and Keeney's Knob. I was
raised on one of these mountains, but I won't say which one since that
might lead to information that would give away my identity. Even if you
think you know who I am, you are probably wrong and I couldn't possibly
comment.
The names of the characters in the story have been changed to protect both
the innocent and the guilty. But on my best Scout's honor, I assure you
that the following story is true. The facts of the story have not been
altered nor have they been embellished.
Growing up on the Mountain
Growing up on the mountain was good for me. It was the
isolation that I endured on the mountain that I think contributed to
making me the person I am today. As I am older now, solitude has become a
comfort for me and I don’t suffer from the lack of companionship of
others. Of course, there were chores to be done that occupied a bit of my
time. As Dad’s main interest was in tending the still, my job was to turn
the cattle. You see, our hillside farm was quite steep and Dad’s theory
was that if the cattle were allowed to face one way too long, their legs
on the upper side of the hill would grow shorter than their legs on the
downhill side. He felt that the meat on their body would also shift toward
the downhill side and that cattle in this condition would bring less at
sale. He was concerned that when the cattle were driven into the sale ring
that cattle with two short legs and meat shifted to one side of their body
would cause buyers to consider the cattle diseased. So each day after
school, regardless of the weather, I would go to the pasture, lead the
cattle to a small flat piece of ground and turn them to face the opposite
direction. I would then drive them back to the hillside with an abiding
hope that they would grow to maturity in a balanced way.
Going to school did present some difficulties. We lived about 8 miles from
the school bus pick-up point. So I had some distance to travel. Every
morning I would jump on our horse and ride him bareback two miles to a
neighbor’s house, where I went with them by truck to catch the bus. I
always rode in the back of the truck, suffering the cold in the winter. I
was somewhat distressed by this until Dad informed me that in his day he
had to walk 5 miles to school, uphill, both ways! Dad didn’t finish high
school. It seems that a boy made an unflattering remark to Dad and he gave
the boy a good “whippin”. The principal, who shall remain nameless, wanted
to punish Dad with a few licks from his “holey paddle”, so Dad never went
back.
I spent quite a bit of time on my school work since I knew that I didn’t
want to remain on the mountain forever. Our home didn’t have electricity,
so I did my school work by kerosene lantern. But I can report that, even
under these conditions, I graduated from high school with high marks.
Taking a Wife on the Mountain
I met my wife while traveling to the “back forty” to repair the tin roof
on our barn. A wind storm had blown through and tore the roof from one
side of the barn. Each day, I would throw two burlap feed sacks filled
with tools and nails onto the back of our mule and head for the barn. I
traveled to the barn along a road on the edge of our property that was
really just two paths where cars and trucks once traveled. The road was
not often used as evidenced by the fact that it had small trees growing up
along its center. About half way to the barn there was a small house that
had recently been occupied. Each day, I would halt my walk to the barn to
talk with John who had just moved in with his family. One day while
talking with John, I noticed a very nice looking girl who seemed to be
about my age sitting on a log. She had her hair done up in pig tails with
a red ribbon tied on the end of each tail. She was sitting on the log with
her feet in a puddle of mud, squishing the mud between her toes. She
seemed quite happy and she smiled at me, all the while keeping the mud
going squish, squish, squish between her toes as if maintaining some
silent rhythm in her head. I kept eyeing the girl and I noticed that John
was eyeing my mule. So to make a long story short, after some discussion
with John over several days, I traded the mule and a bag of rusty nails
for the girl. Do not be distressed by this! You see, that was the way it
was done on the mountain. The understanding was that the girl, whose name
was Christy May Higgenbottom, was to become my future wife. First however,
she would have to take instruction from my mother on the “Asbury Way”.
This included, among other things, how to make Balled Sausage, Lye Soap
and Light Fluffy Biscuits.
The Instruction Begins
Christy moved into my home where she was to take instruction, all the
while being kept under strict supervision by my mother. Mother was aware
of hanky-panky that could take place, so at night she would sprinkle flour
along the hall floor. She arose first in the morning to inspect the flour
for any tell-tale signs of foot prints in the flour from my room to that
of Christy May during the night. This took place every night until Christy
May and I were married and I can truthfully tell you that foot prints in
the flour were never found.
Christy had never worn shoes before. I got her a pair, but she wouldn’t
keep them on her feet. At first I thought that they were too small, but
later I learned that she preferred the feel of the bare ground. She
particularly liked the feel of gravel on the bottoms of her feet. Dad
cured this problem. He put a small layer of fine gravel in her shoes and
she seemed quite content with this. One time each week, when she was in
the yard barefoot, we would remove a small portion of gravel, and finally,
there was no gravel in her shoes. Due to this bit of sneakery, I can now
report that Christy has adapted quite well to shoes and that she, like
most women, has several pairs. Furthermore, she is always on the lookout
for another stylish pair.
Due to Mother’s control of Christy during her instruction, I didn’t have a
lot of contact with Christy and I was somewhat concerned with how our
future marriage would turn out. This concern was alleviated one summer
when I spent a week at Camp Greenbrier in Alderson helping a friend paint
a small house. When I returned home, Christy came busting through the
screen door to greet me with a big hug around the neck and with her legs
wrapped around my waist. But you see, the screen door was locked and
Christy had actually run through the screen on the door. At that point I
knew that Christy had feelings for me and that our marriage would be a
solid one.
Christy’s instruction for the most part went well. Each year when we
slaughtered hogs, Christy and mother would form balls of sausage and fry
them. With this done, the sausages were placed in a canning jar and the
frying grease was poured over the sausages until it reached the top of the
jar. This and a lid was all that was needed to keep the sausages from
spoiling. During the winter months, when sausages were a favorite at
breakfast, a jar of sausages was placed in a pan of water on the stove to
melt the grease, so that sausages could be easily removed.
The lye soap didn’t present a problem either. Dad kept a wooden barrel
full of hardwood ashes from the cook stove. We would pour rain water into
the barrel and collect the lye that dripped from a hole in the bottom. The
recipe for making soap was one handed down by generations of the Asbury
family. Christy mastered making lye soap quickly, but her soap was pretty
caustic, particularly if it was used immediately after it had hardened. In
fact, it would “take the skin right off” if used too soon after it had set
up. It was better to let the soap sit for about 2 months before it was
used.
It was the light fluffy biscuits that caused Christy problems. She just
couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. Her biscuits, no matter how hard she
tried, turned out to be much heavier than what the Asbury family would
call light. In fact, her biscuits were downright heavy. This failure was,
at times in the future, to cause me great pain and at times great joy. But
it was also this failure that eventually led Christy to join the research
staff of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and to
train to be an astronaut.
Getting an Education and Pulsating Biscuits
After I finished high school and after Christy had finished her
instruction satisfactorily, she and I were married on the mountain. Having
received high marks in school, I was awarded a full scholarship to West
Virginia University to study physics. So we were off to Morgantown. Even
with this scholarship, financing my education was somewhat difficult. Each
summer Dad and I would sell enough “shine” to tide Christy and me over for
the academic year. So with these dollars in hand, we made out quite well
and I stayed on at WVU until I received my Ph.D. in physics. My first
teaching job was at a university in eastern Tennessee and that is where
the Biscuit Chronicles began. What I am now about to relate is not the
complete Biscuit Chronicles, but only two of the many events that have
taken place over the years.
During the first 7 years at my university, I received tenure and was
promoted to associate professor. At that point, I wanted to broaden my
experience in physics, so I was able to obtain summer positions with the
Savannah River Nuclear Power Plant located some 15 miles south of
Savannah, Georgia. It was a light water reactor and this led to my first
experience with Christy’s biscuits. Usually when Christy made a pan of her
biscuits that were too heavy to eat we would set them on the back porch
for me to dispose of the next day. At the end of one summer, when
preparing to return to Tennessee from Savannah, I noticed a jug of water
in the back of our SUV. I gave this no thought since Christy was always
complaining about the taste of chlorinated water and she often bought what
she considered to be better tasting water by the gallon. On returning
home, Christy announced that she thought that she had solved her problem
with making biscuits, so she prepared a pan of them for dinner. Well, as
it turned out, she hadn’t solved the problem, so as usual we set the pan
of biscuits on the back porch. Sometime during the night, I awoke to
flashing red lights and a knock on my door. A fireman asked that I and
anyone else in the house to please exit the premises. It seems that a
neighbor had called the fire department thinking that our house was on
fire. As it turned out the biscuits on the back porch were glowing red and
pulsating. In fact, the biscuits were radioactive and the Environmental
Protection Agency had to be called to remove them. It seems that Christy
had somehow obtained a gallon of light water from cooling towers of the
nuclear power plant in Georgia. She did not know that this water was
radioactive. Her only thought was that light water would make light
biscuits!
Ballast for My Truck
Christy continued with her efforts to make light fluffy biscuits and time
after time we would set the biscuits on the back porch for me to dispose
of. I had a small 2 wheel drive truck that I often drove to work. During
the times when snow was on the ground, I would place several pans of
Christy’s biscuits in the back of the truck for ballast. Of course, I
didn’t tell Christy of what I was doing, fearing that her learning of this
would set me in “bad stead” in my own house.
Over the years, we had saved enough money to purchase a few acres of land
a couple miles from town and after each winter was over I would sprinkle
the biscuits from the back of the truck over the land thinking that they
would break down and fertilize the soil.
Geologists Discover New Rock Formation
One day while at school, I picked up the student newspaper and read the
headline, Geologists Discover New Rock Formation. I didn’t give this much
thought, but one day I visited the Geology Department where the geologists
were holding a conference and giving talks on this new rock formation they
had discovered. They had samples of the rocks spread out on a table for
everyone to examine. It seems that these rocks presented quite a conundrum
for the geologists. They hadn’t seen anything like this before in the
world and they were quite puzzled about how they could have formed due to
the geological history of the earth. In fact, they didn’t think these
rocks were natural and said so. During a lull in the conference, a Tibetan
monk who was visiting the Philosophy Department came by. He had a long
white beard, a turban on his head and he wore a long white flowing gown.
He immediately took one of the rocks in his hands, jumped onto the table,
sat down and crossed his legs in the familiar meditating position. He went
into a trace and began his mantra; Hmmmmmm, Hmmmmmm, Hmmmmmm. After about
5 minutes of Hmmmmmming he awoke and pronounced that the rocks were
actually spent fuel pellets left on earth by space ships from outer space.
As it turned out, geologists all over the world were studying these rocks.
They had tried to cut them with diamond tipped saws with no success, they
had subjected them to intense heat with no effect on the rocks and they
had even cooled them to almost absolute zero and it did nothing to the
rocks. They had also subjected the rocks to 25 tons of pressure in a
hydraulic press and they couldn’t crush them. What a rock formation!
NASA Comes to Town
The Geology Department was so thrilled with their discovery that they
decided to hold an internal conference at our university, where geologists
from all over the world could present their research findings on the
rocks. A National Aeronautics and Space Administration official was
present at the meeting. It seems NASA was interested in the rocks as a
covering for future space flight vehicles. That is, if a method could be
found to cut and shape them. As we know, the current tiles in use are
subject to cracking, breaking and coming off. During the conference I
decided to inspect one of the rocks. I picked one up and couldn’t believe
my eyes. Great Balls of Fire, GREAT BALLS OF FIRE, these rocks were
Christy May’s biscuits! A little darker perhaps, and a little weathered,
but Christy’s biscuits nonetheless. After the conference was over, I spoke
with the conference director and with the NASA official. Of course, they
didn’t believe me until I showed them the biscuits that I was carrying in
the back of my truck. The NASA official immediately wanted to meet
Christy. This led to her being invited to Washington D.C. to speak with
scientists working on the space flight vehicle that is to be used for a
flight to Mars. President George W. Bush had recently announced plans for
our astronauts to land on Mars and NASA scientists were interested in
covering the vehicle with a material that would withstand the extreme heat
and cold that it would encounter on the trip. Christy was invited to
become a member of the NASA research team that was to prepare the space
vehicle. The last I heard, the plan was to make enough biscuit dough to
completely cover the vehicle except for the windows, bake it in a large
oven and let it sit outside to weather for at least a year. Christy has
told me that everything is coming along nicely and that the space vehicle
will be ready soon. Christy is also in training to be an astronaut. The
officials at NASA thought that if anything went wrong with the “skin” on
the space ship on the way to Mars, who better than Christy May to repair
it with her biscuit dough.
Due to these events, I stand in wonder of Christy May and I have great
admiration for her accomplishments. How about that for a girl who grew up
barefoot on a mountain in the surrounds of Alderson, West Virginia!
Christy, the nation wishes you and all the astronauts a safe flight to
Mars. Thanks Christy for your biscuit dough.
Postscript
Christy and I plan to have children in the future. After some discussion
with Christy I learned that her mother couldn’t make light fluffy biscuits
either. So I wonder, is this genetic? If so, and we have a daughter, will
this gene be passed on to her and will she also be unable to make light
fluffy biscuits? But then what is to become of the Asbury Way?
One disturbing fact has resulted from this all of this. The Secret Service
agents that accompany Christy whenever she leaves the house are somewhat
intrusive. NASA was afraid that a foreign government might want Christy’s
recipe for her biscuit dough and try to kidnap her. NASA has given her
around-the-clock protection. Two agents guard the house 24 hours a day and
two agents are with Christy wherever she goes.
Christy has decided not to seek a patent for her biscuit dough, even
though it would mean riches for her and for me. She believes that due to
global warming or to over population of our planet, there will come a time
when humankind will have to leave mother earth for distant inhabitable
planets in order to survive. Should this come to pass, we thank you again
Christy May for helping to make these space flights safer. |
