Grazing Grace: Purple Fingers

BY GREG A. LANE

When I was four years old, my brother and I stayed with our grandparents for almost a year after our mother passed away. After retiring from the L&N Railroad, my grandfather had relocated from Louisville, Kentucky to his hometown in Decatur, Alabama … more specifically, to the Basham community just outside the Decatur city limits. He and my grandmother lived in a single-wide trailer on a few acres that were left to him by his father. When my brother and I came to live with them space was tight, but we made the best of the situation.

My grandparents were simple, unassuming people, with very little worldly goods to speak of. So, my brother and I learned how to do without many of the modern conveniences and luxuries that our cousins and friends enjoyed. But, to be honest, I didn’t know I was missing out on anything, so the simple life we lived was the only life I knew about.

Now, on those few acres that were left to my grandfather, he planted several summer crops. The watermelons were my favorites, but there were also black-eyed peas, butterbeans, cantaloupes and purple hull peas. Even at my very young age, I was required to earn my keep when it came to harvesting the crops. After my grandmother and I harvested all the peas and beans, she taught me how to shell them. I became rather good at it.

There was one setback, however, to the pea-shelling experience. After shelling the purple-hull peas, I was shocked to discover that my fingers had turned purple. I was quite upset. I cried out to my grand- mother, “Grandma, something’s wrong with me … my fingers have turned purple!” She snickered and replied, “Greggy, that’s just stain from the purple-hull peas that’s rubbed off on your fingers. It’ll wash off.” My grandma got a kick out of it, even though I was practically mortified, thinking I had contracted some kind of skin disease.

Purple fingers … if you’ve ever shelled purple-hull peas by hand, you know what it’s like to have purple fingers. It’s kind of a “rite of passage” if you grew up out in the country or on a farm. If I close my eyes and think back, I can still see my grandma sitting under the shade tree in front of Grandpa’s trailer with a bowl of purple hull peas in her lap, empty hulls being tossed into a brown grocery bag at her feet, shelled peas in a larger bowl by her side. If I look closely, I can see her purple fingers. What a wonderful memory from my childhood … a memory of a much simpler time in my life. Yes, that simple country life was probably just the cure I needed after going through the trauma of losing my mother at such a young age.

Fast forward now to the summer of 2024. My wife planted a small vegetable garden next to our house this year. Included in the crops she planted were two rows of purple hull peas. We got a pretty good harvest from them. My wife had already picked and shelled two bowls-full by herself. One evening while I was sitting in the backyard, relaxing under a shade tree, my wife handed me a large bowl of unshelled purple hull peas. It was just before sundown. “Would you shell these peas for me?” she asked. She was surprised by how agreeable I was to her request, “Sure, that sounds like fun!” I replied. I grabbed that bowl of peas and began shelling and she went into the house. As I sat there under the shade tree shelling those peas, I was taken back in time to my childhood … to a simpler time … to a place under the shade tree out in front of my grandpa’s trailer. In my mind’s eye, I could see my grandma in her purple gingham dress and white apron with a bowl of peas in her lap, joining me. It was therapeutic. Each pea that plopped from those hulls into the bowl in my lap were like drops of stress leaving my body. I felt the cares of the world leaving me. I felt peace come over me.

The sun was going down, and I began to see lightning bugs flicker in the darkness as I continued to shell the peas. I recalled how my brother and I used to catch lightning bugs and put them in a mason jar while my grandmother looked on as she shelled those peas under the shade tree in front of the trailer.

About 30 minutes later, I finished shelling the last purple hull. It was completely dark outside. I had been shelling for almost an hour. My wife was in the house in her pajamas watching the television. I entered the back door with the bowl full of freshly-shelled peas. “You’re already finished?” she asked in astonishment. “Yes, I just now got finished,” I replied. “Wow! That was fast!” she said. I grinned with satisfaction and replied, “Well, that’s because my grandma taught me how to shell purple hulls back when I was a little boy … I know a few ‘tricks of the trade,’” I replied. My wife responded, “I’ve never heard you talk about that before.” How interesting. I was almost sure I had mentioned that part of my childhood to my wife in the past, but after 35 years of marriage, there was still a little mystery to my life that hadn’t surfaced yet. So, I think I got a little bit of newfound respect from my wife that night because of my pea-shelling prowess.

I looked down at my fingers after our conversation. Because it had been dark outside while I was shelling, I didn’t notice it, but now that I was in the lighted dining room I could see the tell-tale signs of my pea shelling endeavors … PURPLE FINGERS. Unlike the first time I saw those purple fingers decades ago, when I practically became unhinged as I cried out to my grandmother, I was able to look down at those purple-stained fingers and smile. I just know Grandma would have been proud of me … purple fingers and all!