Prose about salvaging the fragments deep in memory

Yao Laowo Fort

When I am salvaging memories piece by piece, what I can never avoid is this village that looks and sounds very inconspicuous.

Yes. In a practical sense, this village, like the names Xue Dayuan, Wujiahu, Xiaoxindian, Xiaomenli, and Xilin, are all names given for easy identification.

Because the name is too casual, it naturally proves the smallness of the village on the other hand: from the first house in the east of the village to the last house in the west of the village, there are only a dozen households. people's distance.

Moreover, there are only five rows from front to back. In other words, there are only fifty or sixty families living in this village.

It can be said that because the village is too small, any rooster's crow in the early morning can accurately tell the time for any family to get up early; any early-rising cattle are excited. The sound of mooing can reveal the joy of sowing; any watchdog that is still loyal in the dark night, when it detects that a stranger is coming, the bark of the dog can turn the dark clouds that are much darker than the night Drive away so that curious children can still see the twinkling stars in the sky even through the window...

Such a small village is great for me, both in childhood and now. of.

It is so huge that it even includes my cheerful laughter when I was a child, my cry when I was wronged, and my voice when I was a young and ambitious person, expressing my desire to be a hero in front of my friends, etc. etc., are stored in the village. After leaving home at a young age, when I set foot on the village of Yao Lao Wo Pu again, I could still accurately describe what I felt in the village when I looked at the scenes that were slightly different but still familiar. There was a fight with Lin Wenhe somewhere, and somewhere he and Bian Xiaoju sneaked into the melon patch of Gao Jiang's house to steal melons. And on a night when the rain was pouring, he and Lu Erhaier broke into the yard of Yu Gaya's house and climbed into the yard. Stealing crabapples from his family's crabapple tree...

I have too much to say about Yao Lao Wo Fort, but I don't know how to say it for a while, so I can only talk nonsense. But no matter what, in my heart and in my life, Yao Lao Wo Fort is not small, but great and full.

Now, abandon all personal memories and emotions, and simply talk about the sky above the village. It is tile-blue and as transparent as a huge drop of water, causing the sunlight shining down from the sun to be shaken into thousands of golden threads. It seems to be telling an eternal truth: to be a human being, one must be clear and transparent. Don't have any impurities.

Let’s talk about the land that carries this great village. I am as familiar with it as my body. No matter what the situation is, I can clearly tell with my eyes closed where there is a pit, in the corner of whose home there is a flower blooming, a piece of grass green, or something. There will often be a piece of sparse sheep dung, and a big pile of cow dung... Yes, the land where the village of Yao Laowo Fort is built is so virtuous, whether it is beautiful or contrary, They are all being accommodated inclusively. Including me who was born here, left here, and finally came back here. No matter whether I left or came back, she always accepted me and never disliked me.

Why did the hero bleed and shed tears

Who dares to say that there are no heroes in Yao Lao Wo Fort, or even in this black land?

In the village, these poplar trees standing on the vertical and horizontal lines that cut the irregular land into pieces are heroes, aren't they?

In Yao Laowo Fort, no, in this black land in the Northeast, there may not be bamboos with sharp mouths, thick skins and hollow bellies, and there may even be no fruit trees that simplify complexity, but there cannot be no poplar trees. .

Since these poplar trees, which are easy to plant and survive, have been planted into the deep soil by pairs of hard-working hands, they have a responsibility in their lives: wind protection!

Yes, the sky is full of wind and sand outside the Great Wall. Without these heroes standing shoulder to shoulder and holding hands to resist the wind and sand, then the beautiful and rich black land will be invaded by the desert and will not become a Grain production base.

Therefore, even after experiencing countless winds and rains, and being buried in dust and sand, the scarred spine is still standing upright, supporting the heavy head, holding a spear in hand, and fighting against the intruders. The enemy fought fiercely to defend the territory of their homeland. Not giving an inch of ground.

I don’t know why those people, like me, who are protected by these heroes, always want to praise the green pines and cypresses, but forget these heroes who are closely related to their own lives?

If it is just ignored, the hero still has no regrets;

If it is just forgotten, the hero still has no regrets!

But why, while receiving all the blessings from the hero, did he also aim the butcher knife at the hero? !

Standing at the entrance of the village of Yao Laowobao and looking around, you will find a phenomenon that makes your heart ache and make your blood flow wildly. On the land of other villages, there are also lush poplar forests, which are blowing in the gusts of wind. When it blows, it makes a sound like a tsunami. However, on the land of Yao Laowobao, on the land where he was born, especially on both sides of the cement road in front of the village, the poplar trees that were the same age as his father's generation can no longer be seen. What emerged were saplings only as thick as a thumb.

The majestic figures of these heroes can only be seen in memory.

I don’t know what happened to this village and why they treated their heroes like this!

All I know is that even these saplings, which are only as thick as a thumb, have been broken off.

I only know that the poplar tree growing a little further away from the village is enduring the smoke and fire day and night until its hair falls off, it goes from middle age to dusk, and finally turns into a lifeless tree. The dead trees were cut down, dragged back home with tractors, and turned into firewood, contributing their last bit of strength!

What is left behind is a wooden pier only twenty or thirty centimeters above the ground. The growth rings on it, which may be plump or thin, open into unwilling eyes, looking at the sky, looking at the sky and asking: Why do we cry after bleeding? !

DaZiLiuErHua

DaZiLiuErHua is a Northeast dialect. Although the pronunciation may be different in some places, the difference is not big.

In Mandarin, dazhiliuerskating means skating. However, this way of skating does not require professional tools such as skates or skates.

The only tool he has is to provide his owner with warm shoes in the harsh winter. Even though the styles or names of these shoes are different: cotton shoes, jingtao shoes, big-toe shoes...

Of course, the shoes I wore when I was a kid were leftovers from my mother’s clothes. They cut out scraps from the corners, or cut out old clothes that are really unwearable, and then glue them together and use needles and threads to hold them together firmly and tightly to make shoe soles. The shoe uppers are made of fluffy and soft cotton. Although they are not beautiful, the shoes with my mother's body temperature are very warm, and they keep the cold that freezes into my bone marrow out of my body.

This means that every winter, as long as the road is icy and the big puddle in front of the village is frozen, I will wear cotton clothes, trousers and shoes, and a cotton hat and gloves just like my friends. , flying like a bird all the way to the big puddle in front of the village.

Every time I fly to the big puddle, other friends will come early and occupy some of the terrain to the south of the big puddle that is conducive to sliding farther, like small Playing like birds chirping.

First take a few steps or a dozen sprint steps as a run-up, and then use the relatively high terrain to the south of the big puddle to rush into the big puddle with two feet in tandem, while kneeling Bend slightly to maintain balance.

In an instant, the whole person will feel like a lightning bolt. As the body slides forward at high speed, a layer of mist-like ice will be generated on the soles and the ice surface, which looks like it is coming from the sky. Like the jets of flying airplanes, the whole body and mind are closer to the sky and nature, and I understand the joy of bird flight.

When the power of gliding is exhausted, the whole person will stop in various strange postures, and the posture in which one can stop depends entirely on one's own control of balance: some They have a good sense of balance, and in the last period of time, they will bend their knees slightly, lean forward, and then complete a perfect flight in a very safe posture; some are like those who have just learned to fly, but have not fully mastered the flying skills. Like a bird, it falls out of the way at the last moment, or falls directly on the ice...

Due to human beings' desire to fly, no matter what method they use to reach the end , regardless of whether it is like a bird that flies blindly and falls to the ground before mastering the flying skills, it will walk back to the starting point on the south side of the big puddle, and then start up again, sprint, and do it again or again in pain and joy. Perfect or slightly defective flying...

Childhood in winter is spent slowly in this seemingly boring, but full of fun, skating.

Even a pair of brand new cotton shoes will wear out in a few days, but for any child who yearns for the sky, his heart will remain in the moment of flying. middle.

People who have never experienced flying will not understand how wonderful the feeling of gliding is, nor will they understand why children with purer souls do not even eat lunch or dinner, and return to The family also had to bear the charge of being playful and received a kind condom from a broomstick, but on the second day, I was still willing to repeat the results of the first day.

Many years later, as an adult, after countless fusions and sorting out of memories and real life, I seemed to have found an answer: Except for birds, no one yearns to fly more than children!

When I understand this truth, I will spontaneously have a feeling that the sunshine was so beautiful at that time for everything in my memories, even the places on my body where my father hit me with a broom. They are stronger than other places.

Window

Window is the eyes of the countryside, the eyes of farmers, and even my eyes.

In Yao Lao Wo Fort, people want to watch the wind and grass outside, the flowers blooming and falling, and the chickens flying and dogs biting. Then sit on the kang, turn your head, turn your head, or glance sideways from the window, and you can basically see the person or thing you want to see clearly.

In my memory, the windows are not the clean and simple-looking plastic steel windows now, nor are they aluminum alloy or iron window frames, but the kind of wood window frames.

Although the three types of window frames just mentioned look beautiful, they have lost the most important thing: simplicity.

I still remember that when I was a child, the windows at home had an up-and-down structure. The opening direction was not outward, but the upper window opened inward, and then lifted up and hung on the On a hook hanging from the purlin.

Although the lower window cannot be opened inward or outward, it can be lifted up and removed. If opening the upper window and hanging it on a hook is considered to open the window of the heart, then open the upper window and hang it on the hook. When the lower window is removed, it becomes a door closer to the outside world.

Of course, when I was a child, the rural areas were relatively poor. Most of the window frames made were wooden strips sawn from poplar wood and joined together with mortises and tenons. Only those with slightly better family conditions used pine wood for window frames. But no matter which kind of window frame, it exudes a natural fragrance.

If I really want to make a difference from the current windows, then I would say that the wooden windows are more in line with the atmosphere of the countryside, and even more agricultural, as if a drop of water merges into the sea, without any abruptness; Today's plastic-steel windows or the previous aluminum alloy windows and even the earlier iron windows may look beautiful and grand, but they give people a nondescript urban-rural fusion feel.

Even though the window paper when I was a child was not the clear glass product now, but just kraft paper or plastic sheeting instead, when I opened that window, I still saw people enjoying themselves in poverty and hardship. In the peaceful days, we could still keep out the cold and hunger; later, fragile glass replaced kraft paper and plastic sheeting and became a new generation of window paper, which allowed people to see the outside world more clearly, but it made me Looking horizontally, vertically, left, right, etc., you can only see that there is no wood, no earth, no water, only the thirst of gold and fire.

In Yao Lao Wo Pu, or other villages in the northeastern countryside similar to Yao Lao Wo Pao, you will see your own vegetable garden through the window. If you have good eyesight, you can see through the window that the leeks have grown two centimeters after last night's spring rain without leaving the house. You can't help but think in your mind, if you continue to grow at this rate, how long will it grow? In three or four days, you can fry a plate of scrambled eggs with leeks.

Originally, the farmers in Yao Laowobao have always been confident that their harvest will be guaranteed despite droughts and floods. However, this year’s rain came very late. The seeds have been in the ground for more than half a month. The expected rain has not yet come. Every day, When I went to the fields to check the dryness of the soil, I was filled with uneasy anxiety. I was afraid that if the drought continued, the seeds that I had worked so hard to plant into the fields would die.

So, every morning when I get up, I will look out the window at the sky outside, and every time I will be filled with disappointment. Although the window was speechless, it must have kept all my emotions in mind.

Until I woke up on the morning of May 11th, when I looked out the window at the sky as usual, I saw pearl-like raindrops falling on the window. Before I had time to put on my shoes, I rushed to the window and looked out, fearing that the raindrops I just saw were a lying flower. In this reconfirmation of my eyes, I saw that the rain that broke through the drought siege had really fallen on Yao Laowao. The land of the village of Fort really came to my window. At this time, my lover was calling me in the rainy city in the south. I picked up the phone and told me this piece of good news. She, let her also calm down with my heart that is agitated by drought.

After that, I put down the phone and stared blankly through the window at the vegetable garden at home. My heart was full of spring, full of vitality.

Kang mats

Kang mats are unique to the north, just like fire beds.

And it is essentially different from the plastic kang leather that is sold by some businesses in the town and has entered thousands of households.

Kang leather, in detail, should be a product that emerged after the 1990s. Its predecessor was floor leather used to spread the floor in the city to keep it clean. Of course, this is not the main content I want to describe, so I will briefly mention it.

Let’s talk about Kang mats. In the endless years before the emergence of Kang leather, the Kang mats made of sorghum straw were spread on plate after plate of hot earthen beds.

Before the 1990s in Yao Laowobao, crops were grown freely in the fields, with a wide variety of crops. In addition to the corn that is used to pay the public grain and maintain life, we also grow sunflowers, potatoes, soybeans, and sorghum. Everything is just like what Pang Long sang. My home is on the Songhua River in Northeast China. There are soybeans and sorghum all over the mountains and plains.

Because sorghum is a crop that is densely planted, its body is not as strong as corn, and because its fruits are at the top, every autumn, people remove the ears at the top of sorghum. The torches, like towers pointing toward the sky, were harvested and the remaining body of the sorghum was forgotten. It won't be until next spring that he will think of these brothers who depend on him for life.

Of course, only most farmers forgot these sorghum stalks. Some farmers did not forget them. Instead, they cut down the sorghum with sickles, or carried it back to the village with horse-drawn carriages or donkey carts.

Then these farmers began to weave a dreamy life with their hands and a sickle head during the slack days after the autumn harvest and before planting.

First, carefully select the sorghum stalks that you cut back, and select out those that are thin or have too many insect holes to make firewood. The rest is used to process into strips.

The processing process is very simple, but it requires a lot of patience. For farmers, who often take care of the land, the most indispensable thing is patience.

So those who have the conditions will turn on the radio and listen to the programs played on it while working. Those who have no conditions will hum a few lines of duohuan, as for which one of the nine tunes and eighteen tunes The tone is not fixed, it all depends on personal preference.

Listening to the program or humming the tune, the first step of weaving the kang mat began. First, take the selected sorghum stalks and cut them in half from root to tip with a sickle head. Half.

After cutting all the required sorghum stalks in the middle, remove the pulp from the sorghum stalks cut in half, and sprinkle a little water on the scraped strips to keep them soft.

After all the preliminary work is ready, the formal weaving begins. The weaving method is very simple. First, take three strips and add them one by one, gradually increasing the strips so that the strips have wavy lines. This is why a knitted Kang mat, no matter it is Whether you look at it horizontally or vertically, you can see the reason for the texture.

Sometimes, I am thinking that although my ancestors have never seen the sea, they already have the shape of the sea in the kang mats they weave. This is truly a magical thing.

Under normal circumstances, one kang mat does not count the preliminary preparations. The final knitting time alone is not enough. One day is not enough. If your hand speed is faster, you can finish the kang mat in two days. Slower ones take three days.

After the kang mat is woven, it cannot be laid directly on the kang for use. It needs to be placed in a cool place to dry in the shade, and some can be dried directly in the sun. However, relatively speaking, the kang mat that is dried in the shade is better than the kang mat that is dried in the sun. More durable.

After drying in the shade, the original kang mat will be replaced like a charging warrior when the original kang mat has been damaged beyond repair. Then its life meaning will officially begin: cleaning and cooling. , heat insulation.

At the same time, people on it can smell the breath of nature again, which is something that the current Kang Leather cannot provide to people.

Shimo

When I was a child, my family lived in the east of the village. Counting from east to west, it was the third family, and Shimo lived in the easternmost part of the village. Living next to the old well.

When I was young, especially in the summer, my favorite thing to do after school was to climb on the stone mill and stick my butt out and do my homework. Perhaps at that time, I unintentionally inherited the essence of farmers. Like my fathers, I bent my body closer to the land, even though I was lying on my stomach with my butt sticking out. However, whether it is my fathers plowing the fields or me doing my homework, it is all a farm work, and neither is suitable for arrogance.

Okay, these are not important, let’s continue to talk about the stone mill that is still rotating and grinding in my memory.

It is said that a long, long time ago, our village could not be called a village at all. There were only three families, and they were long-term workers who worked for a landowner named Yao. In order to better serve this village, On a piece of black land where crops could be harvested regardless of drought or flood, these long-term workers built shacks, and later turned them into earthen houses for drying.

Now that the roots have been planted like the corn that can be seen everywhere around Yao Lao Wo Fort, you have to live a down-to-earth life.

Food is the most important thing for the people.

However, you cannot eat the whole corn, you need to use a stone mill to grind it into flour.

So taking advantage of the slack time, three long-term workers drove three large carriages and went to a distant place.

When they came back, the two large carriages were pulling two huge stones, and the third carriage was pulling a mason.

The stonemason used a hammer and a chisel, just like the Tang monk who had to go through ninety-nine and eighty-one difficulties when he was studying for Buddhist scriptures. It took him ninety-nine and eighty-one days to grind and carve these two pieces of stone from autumn to autumn. In winter, with the arrival of spring when the apricot blossoms are flying, the digging was finally successful.

To celebrate being able to eat fine corn noodles in the future, the three long-term workers and the stonemason got drunk for three days and three nights.

Ever since the old stonemason turned this irregular stone into a mill, and gave it a round face with a unique heart, a mouth that is not picky about food, and two rows of fan-shaped teeth, it has no intestines. The stone mill in the stomach begins to spin in a spinning manner, constantly grinding the complete corn grains into the milk that feeds life over time.

And the village that gradually became more abundant, and the life in the village that grew like leeks.

Later, with the rise of electricity, there was a processing factory in the village. Whether it was grinding rice or flour, or anything else, everyone would go to the processing factory. But in the past, the hard teeth, which were indispensable in the countryside, are now casually thrown into ditches, kept company with weeds, or placed somewhere to serve as foundation stones.

However, no matter where he was abandoned, Shi Mo was not angry or annoyed. He meditated and became a Buddha in the posture of passing away.

I just don’t know if in a few years, when archaeologists discover these two round millstones, they will find out that they were the teeth of the village and once fed the village during that long period. What about years?

Old Well

The old well in the east of the village is the eye of our Yao Laowobao Village.

No matter whether Yao Laowobao Village has a good harvest or a bad harvest, Lao Jing will see it. There may even be birds coming and going, flowers withering and flowers blooming, but Laojing still sticks to that tranquility, gathering up all the storms in his heart and becoming as quiet as Zen.

Just inadvertently, with the help of a piece of feather that fell off in the spring, it tells some old things that happened in the village of Yaolaowobao while gently spinning and falling.

When facing such an old well that looks as kind as an elder, and listening to it tell about the people or things that happened in Yao Laowobao Village, you need to clear out your irritable heart. It should be as sweet and clear as well water. Only in this way can you feel the weight and temperature of time when you touch the moss on the edge of the well. Only then can you clearly see the clear water at the bottom of the well, and the scene of a good-looking village girl from the past washing her clothes reflected in the clear water.

Even under the clear moonlight, you will see the crescent moon hanging in the sky, and you can’t wait to throw your shadow into the well, and use your hook-like body to catch a certain year. One day in the month, I left my thoughts in the well.

The moon is like this, how can people be embarrassed? Why is it not as good as the moon?

Perhaps, because of such a world where machines are rampant, even the human heart is running like a machine, and the great tranquility is scratched by the louder noise, causing people to become deaf and blind. Like blind.

However, the old well located to the east of the village is still full of water even after many years; even if the grass and sand encircle a large area of ??its living space, it still remains silent.