Old Sayings and Superstitions

[Texas Slim]

Something reminded me of an old saying this morning, and I got to thinking about the old gentleman who enlightened me when I was still a kid in my early 20's. I stopped to talk to this old black man, who lived in one of the poorest areas of town. It was a freeman's settlement back in his father's time and he'd spent his entire life there, raising pigs and rearing his family. He was in his late 80's and wore his age with a wonderful grace that I will doubtful never match. It was late afternoon and he was tending to his vegetable garden (itself a lost tradition) when I stopped to take his picture. His attire was well worn overalls with a spotless white button down shirt topped with a straw hat. The photo was of him leaning on his hoe, looking into the camera, with approaching storm clouds in the background. And while the image is long lost to a haphazard filing system, the memory of that afternoon is as sharp in my mind as if it were yesterday.

We stood and talked in his garden for an hour or so after I had taken his picture and during that time he taught me a thing or two about life-- whether intentionally or not. One thing stands out in my mind. We were talking about life on the farm and the approaching storms when he said "Many's the time I've heard the thunder that it never come a rain." He wasn't talking about the weather necessarily, but saying that in life some things are not what they seem. Turns out, this is an old saying that had no doubt been handed down to him at some point in his life and I am eternally grateful that he handed it down to me.

As for superstitions, I can remember messing with a turtle in my Grand Dad's pond one day. I had him cornered and was squatted down, getting a closer look while poking him with a short stick. Observing the scene, my Grand Dad told me that if that turtle got a hold on my finger, he wouldn't let go till thunder clapped. Well, it was a bluebird day and the thought of that turtle hanging off my finger for a week or two really got my attention. I didn't know if what my Grand Dad said was true, but I sure as hell didn't intend to find out. To this day, I can't look at a turtle without thinking of that day with my Grand Dad.

So I ask you, what old sayings have been passed on to you and what sayings or superstitions are you willing to pass along to the great unwashed?

I hope this is the right forum to post this thread. I just figured that these were men who spent most of their lives outdoors and would have the most to offer here.

 

[tonym]

Well if it isn't the right forum to post on, I am sure glad you did. Thats a great piece of writing you did there. I felt like I was there with you talking to that old man.

Well I do not have any great wisdom to share with you, but I felt like thanking you for sharing yours.

 

[bladeNUT82]

Im not sure if this is relevant, but...

My best friends dad(my cub scout leader) used to tell us that there was a $500 fine per square inch if you peeled birch bark off of a standing tree. Now, I realize that there is no such fine, and that he made it up(or heard it from someone else) so that we didn't peel the bark off of a live tree. However, to this day, I still don't peel the bark of a standing tree. Will I tell my kids this when they are older? You betcha!

 

[chewbacca]

Not really about wilderness...but maybe about survival.

One day before my dad's boss left the farm to go to town, he told him, "If anyone comes around looking for a job, tell them we're not hiring, but if someone comes around looking for work, we have plenty of that."

 

[Tom Sotis]

This is more life-survival skill than actual survival but for what it's worth...I met my Great-grandfather only once, I was four, when he visited from Crete and my only memory I was sitting on his lap and he said, "Tom, show me your friends, and I'll show you who you are."
That one always stuck with me.
T

 

[dougo83]

My grandpa always said "Don't bare your teeth if you ain't gonna bite." Love this quote. People know me as one who won't ever talk my way into a fight. Oh, and "Running away don't make you much a coward as running your trap does." He had alot about fighting and about common sense stuff. Some other timeless truths from my opa:

1. When a turtle crosses the road it means it's gonna rain.
2. Unusually wet summers mean cold winters.

I have a bunch of these I have written down somewhere. I'll add more as the day goes...

 

[paulhilborn]

Not really about wilderness...but maybe about survival.

One day before my dad's boss left the farm to go to town, he told him, "If anyone comes around looking for a job, tell them we're not hiring, but if someone comes around looking for work, we have plenty of that."

Chewbacca, I hadn't heard that before today, but that is "SO TRUE". We should listen more to the elderly. They're wisdom is well earned.

Thanks,

Paul

 

[pitdog]

Red sky in morning,
Sailor take warning.
Red sky at night,
Sailor' delight.

 

[pitdog]

A summer fog for fair,
a winter fog for rain.
A fact most everywhere,
in valley or on plain.

 

[Chosen-frozen]

Your old black man sounds alot like my Grandpa....except the shirt would be fed flannel and Grandpa Young was Scottish.

He passed away before I started school, but I remember him well because we wentto thier farm every day to give Grandma Young shots of insulin. He always grumbled alot and smoked Camels. But when he was done grumbling he always had a bag of pink wintergreen candies in his pocket to share.

As far as superstitions go, he always said that if it rained on Easter Sunday it would rain every sunday for 7 weeks. And If you saw a white horse or a wagon full of hay you could make a wish.

 

[Texas Slim]

This is good stuff guys, I love it. Some of these I've heard, some not, but it's all great and brings back some memories.

Speaking of old sayings, my Grand mother used to say "there's more than one way to skin a cat." Now, this is not an uncommon saying but I always wondered why in the hell you'd want to skin a cat in the first place and even if you did, why you'd need more than one way to do it??? Maybe we ought to ask Cougar?

I remember a time I was building a little bird house in my grand parents backyard. My Grand dad leaned out the back door and told me no good would come of working on the Sabbath. Well, he'd no sooner got the words out of his mouth than I smashed my thumb with the hammer from my Handy Andy tool set. I couldn't believe it. Like he'd somehow foreseen the future. I still have that little tool set. It was satisfying not so many years ago to see my son out puttering in the garage with those very tools and to warn him not to swing a hammer on Sunday.

 

[Texas Slim]

Not really about wilderness...but maybe about survival.

One day before my dad's boss left the farm to go to town, he told him, "If anyone comes around looking for a job, tell them we're not hiring, but if someone comes around looking for work, we have plenty of that."

Very true. Reminds me of the old Edison quote:

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work."

 

[Mack]

[QUOTE= We should listen more to the elderly. They're wisdom is well earned.

That is a piece of wisdom we should all listen to.

 

[dipbait]

Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will keep going back to your fishing hole.

 

[Horn Dog]

When I was a boy of about 9 or so, I was staying with my grandmother out at her farm in Tennessee. There was a severe draught that Summer. The radio weather forecast no relief. My Dad and Grandfather went up to Kentucky for something. My grandma heard the jaybirds screeching and told me to get her 22 rifle and one bullet. She found the chicken snake and dispatched it with one clean head shot at about 30 ft. She told me to go hang the snake on the fence with its belly up and it would bring rain. I did so. Within hours, dark clouds billowed up and it rained hard. I was so impressed with this power over weather that Mother Ross had, I couldn't wait to tell my Dad and grandpa about the snake. Grandpa said that "Ma is part Indain and knows these things". Dad laughed and said it was just chance and superstition. I still don't know which it was, for sure.

 

[rickppoole]

I remember one hot summer I spent at my grandfather's farm in Alabama. I was a 13 year old punk from suburbia and sort of moping around one day when he asked me what was wrong. I proceeded to tell him about a list of problems I had that I thought were earth- shattering. This man who had fought in two wars, lost many loved ones and friends, and seen seen 70 years of life listened patiently to my rant and nodded solemnly.

When I had finished he asked me to take a ride with him. We climbed into his rusty old pick up and after ten minutes or so of bouncing along an old dirt road we arrived at the crumbling remains of a Civil War cemetary out in the middle of the woods.

It was spooky quiet, and I can still hear my granddad's gravely voice as he explained to me "If you want to find a place where no one has troubles, here it is. Nobody here's got a single worry to fret about. The rest of us, we all have problems now and then, that's part of what keeps life interesting. Not the problems, but the chance to do something about 'em. Get up early in the morning and whip your troubles, or at least you give 'em some trouble right back. You'll have plenty of peace when they bury you."

At the time I thought he was just trying to creep me out so I'd shut up and stop whining. A few years later I thought he was trying to impart some hard won wisdom to me. These days... I figure it was both.

 

[dougo83]

I remeber one hot summer I spent at my grandfather's farm in Alabama. I was a 13 year old punk from suburbia and sort of moping around one day when he asked me what was wrong. I proceeded to tell him about a list of problems I had that I thought were earth- shattering. This man who had fought in two wars, lost many loved ones and friends, and seen seen 70 years of life listened patiently to my rant and nodded solemnly.

When I had finished he asked me to take a ride with him. We climbed into his rusty old pick up and after ten minutes or so of bouncing along an old dirt road we arrived at the crumbling remains of a Civil War cemetary out in the middle of the woods.

It was spooky quiet, and I can still hear my granddad's gravely voice as he explained to me "If you want to find a place where no one has troubles, here it is. Nobody here's got a single worry to fret about. The rest of us, we all have problems now and then, that's part of what keeps life interesting. Not the problems, but the chance to do something about 'em. Get up early in the morning and whip your troubles, or at least you give 'em some trouble right back. You'll have plenty of peace when they bury you."

At the time I thought he was just trying to creep me out so I'd shut up and stop whining. A few years later I thought he was trying to impart some hard won wisdom to me. These days... I figure it was both.

Sounds kind of like "life is hard, people are just dying to get out of it"

 

[kgd]

The OP's old guy reminded me of my stepmothers dad.

He didn't have a lot to say but he was the toughest guy I know and a true survivor. When he was a boy in Ugoslavia, he and his brother and sister were abondoned by his parents at the age of 14 during the dead of winter. He looked after his brother and sister through that winter and they almost starved to death after having to slaughter what livestock was left.

Later in life he moved to Canada. He and his brother bought a farm in Manitoba and worked it for many years. Eventually he moved to northern Ontario in Sudbury, where he worked in the mines in Falconbridge, leaving the farm to his brother. He built three houses by hand, not using a single powersaw. In the summers, he'd go off in the mountains and pick blueberrys on the weekends for spare money. His hands were a permenant purple stain from blueberry picking. He used to scavange wire and scrap metal from everywhere, strip off the plastic and bring it to the metal scarpyard company. As I said, he was a quite man. Never bragged, never complained, didn't drink much. He built his son a house and gave everything he had to ensure his kids were successful.

I took this shot of him 2 years before he died of cancer at age 67. A remarkable man!

 

[Tuxdad]

My uncle always told me, when borrowing a knife or sharing it, make sure it's given or taken back the same way, otherwise you wished bad luck on that person of being cut by their own blade..

That's just one of many I remember from him..

 

[willis]

Papaw was watching me crack walnuts with a dull hatchet once and said "if your'e gonna' be dumb you gotta' be tough".Damn if a dull hatchet don't hurt when you miss the walnut,still got the scar 40 years later.