Daddy swore by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and good molasses. He was born in 1913 and grew up chopping and picking cotton on the same hardscrabble farm where his father had been born in 1865.

According to him, hard work solved most of life’s problems. He didn’t have much formal education, but he knew farming. He could stand on one side of a 40-acre tract and hear a mule pass gas on the other side and tell you what size collar it wore.

He and Mama married on a cold January day in 1935 during the Great Depression. The country was on the verge of economic collapse. It’s said that folks were so hungry that doorknobs had to be removed because kids thought they were biscuits.

The second year of their marriage, it didn’t rain from April 1 until July 4. Then Army worms marched across the cotton field, chomping and eating the cotton squares.

“We made bumblebee cotton that year,” said Daddy.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That’s stalks so small that when a bumblebee lights on top his tail drags the ground.” They netted $35.

I was born in 1941 and grew up, according to Daddy, “rid’n on a gravy train.” He was right. The only thing I ever wanted for was another helping of Mama’s butter roll pudding. When I felt deprived or depressed, Daddy always knew how to lift my spirits with encouraging words.

“Young’un, you’ve never had it so good! You don’t know about hard times,” he would say. “Why, if it hadn’t been for molasses me and yo’ Mama would’ve starved to death and you wouldn’t even be here.”

After a pep talk like that I couldn’t help but feel better.

“So, you think I should start eating molasses?” I asked.

“Young’un, don’t get smart alecky with me!”

Getting smart alecky with Daddy usually landed me in the cornfield chopping waist high buck grass. Worse still, there was no clear definition of “smart alecky.” It depended on Daddy’s mood at the time.

Once when I was whining about something, Daddy gave me a good pep talk. “Young’un, if it hadn’t been for Franklin Roosevelt and the TVA, me and yo’ mama would’ve starved to death and you wouldn’t even be here.”

“I thought you said that molasses was responsible for me being here.”