<TITLE>19. Par 203-215</TITLE>L-203   You know, we was raised awful poor, down in Kentucky. My grandfather was a hunter, and a--a real well-known hunter. And he used to coon hunt. I don't know whether you people out here... Not enough water in Arizona to have coons, I guess. But they--they have, down there, they had coons. They hunted coons.

L-204 How many knows what a coon hunter is? Well, look at the Kentuckians in here. My! All right. Well, I feel like I could take off my coat now and preach a little while. I was kind of bound up a little, but I feel pretty good now. My!

L-205 How many knows what a straw tick is? Hum! Hum! Well, Tony, thank you. I got back home, at last. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes. That's fine. My!

L-206 Corn bread, hominy, grits, oh, my, black-eyed peas, and turnip greens! You ever eat any? Oh, my! That's, now, we're fine now. Yes, sir. That's good.

L-207   And grandpa used to catch coons, and he would render the fat off of them. And what... They had a little can. We used to keep that little baking powder can.

L-208 Mom had one she cut biscuits with, the... with a baking powder can. And she would make them great big biscuits. You could pick up the top, and the bottom would drop off; and put sorghum molasses in there, and a hunk of homemade butter. It was really good. It'd go good right now. And I kind of got skimped up on molasses this morning. So, you know, and something like that would really go good.

L-209 And mama used to take this coon grease, and it--it was the cure-all at our house, that and barbed wire liniment. And she... We'd get a cut, and they'd pour that old barbed wire liniment in us, and turpentine. And then when we'd get something wrong, we'd take coon grease.

L-210 And we had one little room, and there's a--a loft. We had to go up a--a stairs, like this. The banister is made out of saplings. And us kids would sleep up there on a straw tick. And then above the straw tick was a feather bed, feather tick. And then the clapboard shingles was put on in the light of the moon, and so it would make a hole. And--and the snow would blow through, so she'd put a piece of canvas over the top of us, to keep the snow from getting in our faces at night, this bunch of little Branhams. And we would be two at the foot, and two in the head, and two in the middle. We just had all kinds of ways of sleeping, wallow in there like little pigs, and kept one another warm.

L-211   Once in a while, one of us would get out from under that canvas, when the cold wind was blowing, and we'd get a cold, and we'd get it in our eyes. And, you know, that sticky stuff gets in your eyes. Mama called it, "Matter." Said, "Getting matter in your eyes."

L-212 Well, I'd wake up at morning. And mom would say, "Billy, come on down. Time to go to school."
And I'd say, "Mom, I got matter in my eyes. I can't see."

L-213 And, Humpy, my brother, he would wake up. Edward was his name, and we called him Humpy, just for fun. And he would say, "I got matter in my eyes."

L-214 I'd hear the old coon grease can hit the stove. She'd get it all thawed out. Then mama would come up the steps, and she would rub and massage those eyes. And, believe it or not, the matter would go out. The coon grease was a cure-all for mattered eyes.

L-215   But, I tell you, there has come a cold spell across the church, and coon grease will never work. But Jesus said, "I counsel of you to buy eye salve," the Holy Spirit. You are becoming so blind, the church is, until it--it can't see God. It only sees its organization. It only sees that what it can see in front of us. It never looks out yonder to the soon Coming of the Lord. Coon grease will never do that any good.


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