He’d bring goodies to town, even possums

Jerry Caywood recently spoke to the Milam Count y Genea log y Society about his legendary grandfather, the late Mr. Lee Caywood who lived to be a ripe old age and drove a mule-drawn wagon to town regularly from his Talbot Ridge farm.

Many a Rockdale resident can remember Mr. Lee and his wagon because he gave generations of kids rides in that wagon.

He was the last of the oldtime farmers who paid for his Rockdale Reporter subscription with vegetables from his farm every year. He was a survivor of the Great Depression, when bartering was part of life. Most folks didn’t have any cash money, so they paid for services, including doctor bills, dry goods and repairs in trade, or by their own hand.

Jerry said his grandfather’s mules were named Jack and Jerry, and now he wonders if he was named for the mule or the mule for him.

Mr. Lee liked visiting The Reporter, particularly with my grandfather John Esten Cooke, my father, W.H. Cooke, and finally with me. He brought lots of stuff f rom h is f arm t o o ur office over the years, including arm loads of walking sticks he made from mesquite roots. “Just give ‘em to anybody who needs a good walking stick,” he would say. And we did.

One presentation he made to me really stands out in my memory.

Mr. Lee, his eyes gleaming with pride, brought me two cleaned and dressed possums “for Peggy to cook.”

Now wife Pegaroo is a very accomplished cook, as our four children would attest, but she wanted no part of those possums, and neither did anybody else I tried to call.

Mr. Lee said to “cook ‘em up with sweet potatoes.” Finally, I stuck them in the microwave for about 20 minutes (no sweet potatoes) and then put them in the back yard for my faithful Dingo to eat. Dingo was a “good ole’ mixed-breed yeller- eyed dawg” who would eat anything. But Dingo never touched those possums, and neither did any insects. I finally put them in the garbage. Pegaroo came home from playing bridge the night that I microwaved the possums and she did not like the aroma that remained in the house, and reminded me for several days as the fragrance lingered.

Back in hard times, two possums and a mess of sweet potatoes would have fed a family several meals and they would have been thankful for it.

Mr. L ee would have remembered plenty of those times. He was born in 1890 and died in 1982 at the age of 92.

(Publisher emeritus Bill Cooke wrote this column about Mr. Lee Caywood in 2015.)