Page 222 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

LEARNING TO MAKE TRADES

When I was in about the first or second grade, I had a friend named Blanton Larramore, and
occasionally Blanton and I would sit together on a bench attached to large Oak tree behind the school
and share lunch time together, and eat whatever our mother’s had put in the brown paper sack for us that
particular day.

One day, I opened my paper sack and took out a sandwich that mama had made for me, and it was
obviously a scrambled egg sandwich. Blanton took out his sandwich, and I thought how fortunate he
was because his mother had apparently made him a sandwich out of fried steak.

1 just loved fried steak, and still do to this day, and so 1 asked Blanton if he would want to trade
sandwiches. He of course saw that I had a scrambled egg sandwich and he agreed to the trade.

I did not take but one bite of the sandwich I had gotten from him before I learned that it was not fried
steak at all. His mother had battered and fried some beef tripe, and made him a sandwich out of beef
tripe, and after one bite of his sandwich I realized what a terrible trade I had just made. 1 don’t recall that
I ale the rest of the sandwich, but I do recall that he ate the rest of mine.

There was a lesson to be learned there, and it may perhaps be that I used it as my first lesson in trading.
Much of my life has been spent in trading, mostly land, and I will have to credit Blanton Larramore with
giving me the first lesson in how to trade, or maybe I should say in how not to trade.

Incidentally, for those readers who may not know what beef tripe is, the source of beef tripe is the lining
of a cow’s stomach, and of course would fall in to the same category as chitlins, except that it is from a
cow rather than a hog. I have heard of people who actually like beef tripe, but personally I cannot
imagine such a thing, not because of where it comes from, but because it simply tastes terrible to me.

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