Memories brought back by corn

Memories evoked by corn

Seeing the piles of golden corn cobs in my hometown, the sweet and bitter past events about corn came to mind again.

I remember that when I was in elementary school, there was a famine and my family had a large population. The two meals a day were mostly wild vegetable soup, chaff cakes, and sorghum noodles. I almost ate the last meal of this kind of food. Didn't finish the meal.

One autumn day, my mother fainted while working in the fields. The production team leader sent someone to carry her home to rest. I came home from school and saw my mother, who was sallow and thin, lying on the bed, unable to even speak. I knew in my heart that the reason why my mother's body became like this was not fatigue, but hunger. Because, every meal, my mother always let us brothers, sisters, grandpa and father eat first. Sometimes, when the food came to my mother, there was not much left, so my mother would eat some leftovers, or mix it with some fried dough to satisfy her hunger, and then , she also has to work in the fields. As time passed, her body naturally collapsed. Seeing my mother's haggard face, I felt unspeakably sad.

After putting down my schoolbag, I carried a basket to the production team’s bean field to look for hogweed as usual. When passing by a corn field, I saw the big corn cobs on the corn stalks, and suddenly I had an evil thought in my heart - I secretly broke off a few corn cobs and cooked them for my mother to eat. So, I came to a bean field, and while using a sickle to cut bitter herbs and gray grass, I thought about how I could steal corn and take it home smoothly. Because the production team was afraid of people stealing the corn, they sent people to guard each corn field.

Soon the basket was filled with hogweed. I returned to the cornfield and saw the old man who was looking at the corn sleeping in the shed with his back to me. I looked around and found no one else, so I asked him. I slipped into the cornfield with the basket, my heart pounding. But when I saw the bulging corn cobs and thought of my mother who was fainting from hunger, I couldn't help but look at this and touch that. I spotted a big, fat and tender corn, and I broke it off from the corn stalk. The corn fell steadily into my hand. I observed carefully that the coat of the corn was green with yellow. After taking off the coat, there is still a layer of underwear wrapped inside. Apart from the underwear, there is also a bright green gauze skirt underneath. After lifting the gauze skirt and lifting up its golden hair, its red and white fruits are exposed. The grains are crystal clear, like pearls, tightly together. I unscrewed 8 corn cobs at one go, poured out most of the pigweed in the basket, carefully put the corn cobs into the basket, then pressed the pigweed on top, and shook the basket with my arms. Feeling that the corn would not be exposed, he quietly slipped out from the other end of the corn field, took a detour to the bean field, and slipped down from the high bean field with a basket. The pigweed in the basket was scattered on the ground, and he didn't care. I picked it up, slipped a few places, and returned to my hometown smoothly by another road.

After I got home, I quietly told my sister who was cooking that I had stolen the corn from the production team. My sister was so frightened that she covered my mouth. I said, "Hurry up and cook it for mom. Otherwise, what will happen if mom gets hungry?" Although my sister was anxious and scared, she peeled the corn and put it into the pot together.

When the corn was ripe, I asked my sister to bring it to my mother. I ran outside the yard to watch the wind, because I was afraid that someone would come to the house while my mother was eating corn, and that would be terrible. Who knew that when my mother saw the corn, she not only refused to eat it, but also scolded her sister for being ignorant and daring to steal the corn from the production team. My sister went out crying. I had no choice but to go into the house and lie to my mother: "The grandpa who was looking at the corn heard that you were hungry and fainted, so he asked me to bring it back to cook for you." My mother was dubious, so I held the corn in both hands and put it in her hands. , maybe my mother believed what I said, or maybe she was too hungry, so she picked it up and finished it in a few bites. I felt happy and worried at the same time.

Years later, when I tell people about this disgraceful incident, I still feel a little ashamed and uneasy.

The production team finished harvesting the corn, and the chopped corn stalks were piled on the ground. Every afternoon after school, my brother and I would carry a basket to the pile of corn stalks and look through them one by one, hoping to find the corn stalks that had been torn off or those that had been discarded and not yet ripe. Corn on the cob with very few kernels.

Surprisingly, I can still touch most of the baskets of corn cobs. After a few days, we rummaged through all the corn stalks in the production team and peeled more than two bushels of corn kernels. My mother would grind it into flour, or make cornmeal and chop it into noodles for the whole family to eat, or steam it into cornmeal cakes to make dry food for me in school.

In that famine era, corn almost became the "life-saving" staple food in the family. However, because I often ate rice made from corn, my gastrointestinal discomfort was extremely uncomfortable. Acidic water in the stomach as a reflex.

After finally implementing the land contract responsibility system in rural areas, the family finally has enough food and is away from the dilemma of relying solely on corn to survive. Later, I was admitted to a normal school, graduated and joined the workforce. I was far away from my hometown and the land. Unknowingly, I also forgot about corn and the past events related to corn.

The etiquette of corn harvest, I returned to my hometown, and when I saw the corn stalks releasing the last color of their lives on the ridges of the fields, the thick smoke seemed to pay homage to the departing heroes. They may not be described in words, but I can feel the "majestic life" of each one. It's a pity that I'm not a historian, otherwise I could write them into the endless annals of history; it's a pity that I'm not an artist with colors, otherwise I could use the paint in my hand to paint their portraits, or take a camera to take a "final photo" of them ". Standing in this field where the fragrance of rice once filled my nose, I can only think about it in my mind.

It is not easy to eat corn when you live in the county town. My love for corn only grew stronger. To say that corn can be eaten every year, it is only a few corn cobs given by relatives, or some corn cobs sent by the elder brothers and younger brothers in the hometown, and then cooked and eaten. Sometimes, my wife would spend money to buy back a few corn cobs and cook them, but she could never taste the sweetness of the corn in her childhood.

Moreover, every year during the National Day holiday, I always go back to my hometown and accompany my father and younger brother to the cornfield to break corn and talk about trivial matters at home.

During the National Day holiday last year, I went back to my hometown to break corn as usual. However, without my father by my side, I always felt that the corn cobs were heavy in my hands.

After the National Day holiday this year, I didn’t go back to my hometown, so naturally I didn’t break the corn. Although I thought about breaking the corn, I thought more about my parents who had passed away.

When I saw the photos of corn posted by my friends on WeChat, it suddenly reminded me of the bitter past about corn, and the memories of working in the cornfield with my relatives. Situation, think of the corn that once saved his life.

As I thought about it, my eyes became wet. I didn’t know whether it was because I regretted stealing the corn back then, was it because I was grateful that the corn had saved the lives of the whole family, or because I missed my parents under the Nine Springs.