Nimble Fingers

I sat and watched a child play a video game the other day. He was holding a controller in his hands and his fingers were moving 90 mph pushing buttons and leavers. The mother commented that video games were very good at promoting dexterity. Since I always considered myself to have good dexterity, good hand eye coordination, I wondered how I was able to manage so well since there was no such thing as video games when I was a child. Finally the answer came to me. Butter Beans! My favorite pastime as a child was shelling butter beans (lima for you city folks). I recall many summer nights sitting on the front porch with a bushel of beans by my side and a pail between my legs. Oftentimes we would have a bean shelling race between my brother and me or my mother and me.

I remember as a child living on Anderson Rd. I could not have been any more than 6 years old, I wanted to shell butter beans but there were none. I announced to my mother that I would go to the garden and pick some. Mother tried everything she could to talk me out of the notion but I was determined. In one final desperate attempt she told me that if i went to the garden the male cow (otherwise known as a bull. However, "bull" was considered a vulgar word and ladies did not use the term) would get me. undeterred I started to the garden, barefooted and bucket in hand. Mother decided to teach me a lesson so she slipped around the far side of the house and hurried to the garden ahead of me and hid in the bushes just outside the gate. As I approached the garden I heard a rustling in the bushes and the bellowing sound of a bull. Suddenly convinced that picking butter beans was a bad idea I dropped my pail and began running back toward the house screaming all the way. Mother realized that she had to somehow get to the house ahead of me otherwise her little trick might backfire.

Years later she confessed that she had never run so fast before. It was all she could do to get back to the house before I arrived and keep a straight face while I told her about almost being attacked by the mail cow.