Happy Birthday Grandpa T

WILLIAM LLOYD TAYLOR

AUG. 5, 1892-1969

It was a Saturday night and Daddy had made a humungeous pan of popcorn. The next step was for him to carefully pour a sweetened thickened syrup over it as one of us carefully rotated the pan. Then we all greased our hands with lard and grabbed handfulls to squeeze into pocorn balls. Experience gained from making snowballs made this easy.

Now, if we were lucky, he continued on to cooking taffy. When boiled to the proper stage he poured it into a greased pie plate and as it cooled enough to handle, gave us each a portion to work, once again with greased hands. Well, greased or larded, as this stuff was hot at first! The main job here was to pull the lump between your two hands, stretch it out, fold it back upon itself and start again, the object being to incorporate air into the mass. The more stretch, the more air, the whiter the taffy.

Do I even need to tell you that Daddy’s and Mamma’s were white as snow, Arnon’s almost, Ruth’s too pretty good, down to Harold’s and mine. Our’s never rose above a sickly yellow! When enough elasticity had been achieved and it had cooled, you greased your kitchen shears and snipped it into one inch pieces. If you were clever, and had stretched it to thin strands, you might even braid three together for an artistic look. All these pieces rested together on the greased pan, until hard and cool to the touch, we were allowed to eat some.

Popcorn balls and taffy, the culmination of a good evening. It must have carried memories for Momma and Daddy too as taffy pulling evenings were common in their courting days.

Picture One: Lloyd 1912
Picture Two: Lloyd & Ethel on their 50th wedding Anniv. Sept 1965