My Missing Cousins

Advice from my aunt on picking a husband

 My darling, tiny little Aunt Lemie (Lena) was visiting Texas when I had the chance to talk to her about the man I was dating.  With a 20 year age gap I had some concern.  She gave me this advice:  Be sure you don't go all the way through the cane field!

Wait. What? I don’t recall ever seeing a cane field, although once my parents did bring home some sugar cane and were quite excited to share it with us girls.  We were underwhelmed!  A plain old sugar cookie would have been better.  So was "sweet and tasty" the message? I definitely needed more information.

She explained that my grandparents, rather than lecture, used parables to teach their children.  There was the one about the farm down the road where the sons always had some reason they just couldn’t get to the field to help their dad.  One would forget the rake so of course had to go back to the barn to find it. Another was sure he had seen a snake in the field which needed taking care of before any work could be done. But first he had to find a weapon to kill it.  So, back to the barn. That poor farmer was always the last to get his fields planted.  You get the picture.

Back to finding a husband:  Aunt Lemie explained that the best sugar cane grows in the middle of the field.  Everyone probably knows that, but the picky person will keep going down the row looking for the plumpest, juiciest piece.  There’s probably a better one just a little bit farther.  And still a bit farther.  This continues until the person gets to the end of the row, to the part of the field that gets the least moisture. Here the cane is spindly and dry, and not worth harvesting.  Oops.  Again, you get the picture.

My husband and I laugh often about this story.  He’s convinced my family must think I went way too far through the cane patch!  I don’t think that’s true (most all the time, anyway). 

Lena Murrel Bond, b. 1917, d. 2000.  RIP  Because Aunt Lemie lived in California we rarely saw her and that was our loss.  We thought her children the most beautiful and sophisticated of all.  We were farm kids mesmerized by the glamour of the city.