Hot smoke and Sassafras . . .

I went to the farm last week-end.  The farm is not really a farm anymore.  It is just a beautiful hunk of land that is surrounded on three sides by the Locust Fork of the Warrior River close to beautiful downtown Snead, Alabama.  We call it the Bend of the River.

It was a beautiful spring week-end and I enjoyed spending a little time with Tommy, Betsy, Erin and Gus as they bravely camped out.  It was the kind of week-end that many have spent at the farm over the years, a time when memories are created that will never be forgotten, only embellished.  Memories of walking to the river, through the woods and fields,  sitting around a campfire, fishing, playing guitar and singing, flying kites, making s'mores,  catching critters, collecting treasures, trying to sleep amid the strange sounds of coyote howls, beaver slaps, and other permanent residents of the area, and mostly just enjoying time spent with others, or sometimes, time spent alone.

It being spring, a particular memory caught up with me as we sat and talked.

Sassafras.

My grandmother, Ma Ma (pronounced Maw Maw) Bentley, served us hot sassafras tea every spring.  Not at the farm around a campfire.  By that time I think she had done enough "roughing" it during her younger days.  No, she would serve us sassafras tea in china cups set in deep saucers.  If the tea was too hot you were supposed to pour it out into the saucer and let it cool a little. She said it was a tonic. That it would thin your blood.  I didn't know whether my blood really needed thinning or not, but it tasted wonderful.  Sassafras tea is a sensory experience.  It is a beautiful rose petal pink, and smells of licorice and root beer.

When I was young, probably a little older than Erin, maybe about seven or eight, I was at the farm with Ma Ma.  She taught me about sassafras.  We were walking down the sandy ruts of the farm road when she saw it over by a fence row.   She showed me the leaves. There were three different shapes of leaves on the same tree.  Even I knew that was a little odd.  Then she broke off a small twig and let me smell it.  The twig smelled like lemon and cinnamon, or at least that's the way I remember it.  Then she told me that the roots of the sassafras tree were what you made the tea with.  You just had to dig them up in the spring, wash them off, and boil them in a pan of water.  We did it.  And we drank the tea. Back at her house in cups and saucers.

That is a memory I have never forgotten.

And it is a memory that I have re-lived often throughout the years.

But it had been awhile. Tommy had a shovel. Truthfully, Tommy had just about anything I could have asked for in his camping equipment, including a new Taylor six string which I covet, but that's a different story.  But all I needed was a shovel.  I had only walked about twenty yards when I spotted sassafras.  It spreads with a root system, much like my nemesis, Privet.  But sassafras is much less aggressive, and much more useful.  I shoved the blade deep beneath the sapling and turned up the roots. It was a good find.  My harvest effort took only a few minutes.

And now I have enjoyed sassafras tea for three nights in a row.  Not in my coffee mugs.  I retrieved cups and saucers from the top shelf of my cabinets, rinsed off the dust (and a couple of dead bugs), and poured the boiling pink tonic. First into the cup.  Then into the saucer. Not so much to cool it off.  Just for the sake of a sweet, sweet memory.

Sometimes its healthy to get back to your roots.

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