Busy autumn harvest, it is the time when sweet potatoes are on the market, we can often see people pulling carts to sell sweet potatoes, happily picking this beautiful fruit from the countryside, and now people like to eat sweet potatoes, just for healthy nutrition and food diversification, but in the sixties and seventies, it was a staple food on the table of rural people.
In the 1960s, sweet potatoes were the most important food for rural people. Sweet potato nuggets, sweet potato chips, sweet potato noodles, sweet potato nests, sweet potato soup, and even sweet potato stalks and sweet potato leaves have become beautiful dishes on the rural dinner table.
My hometown belongs to the northern Henan Plain area, that year, the village also planted sweet potatoes, because there are many people and less land, the planting is not enough to eat, there is no more planting in the countryside on the North Ridge, where the village is sparse, the ground is wide, and it can be called rich in resources. What is more attractive is that there is a lot of dry land on the North ridge, and the purple-skinned sweet potatoes produced are particularly delicious, whether steamed or boiled, and they are fragrant and sweet. Therefore, a group of young people began to discuss the march to Northridge. What to do, sweet potatoes go.
At that time, I had just been admitted to Anyang County No. 1 Middle School, and I needed to prepare my own dry food. Without saying a word, I decisively joined the sweet potato team. Every Saturday when I got home, I set off with my friends on this street before dawn the next day.
The so-called sweet potatoes are not picked up on the ground, but by local villagers who have shaved the sweet potatoes and picked up the 'missing potatoes' under the ground.
Sweet potatoes, one must have good tools, and the other must be willing to contribute. The ancients: If you want to do something, you must first use it. At that time, it was best to use a pointed hammer to turn the ground, use this iron shovel to save energy, and turn the ground quickly. I asked my mother for a few dollars to run to the supply and marketing agency and bought a shovel. But there are no pickaxes in the store. I thought about the reed ditch.
There is a large reed ditch in the west of our village that is more than ten miles long, and there are many trees in the reed ditch, which I have seen before, and sometimes the branches of the trees will hang down when they are broken in the wind, saying that they are dead or alive. Thinking of this, I swept an old kitchen knife into the rattling reed ditch.
I searched through the reed ditch and finally found a broken willow branch that could be used as a pickaxe handle. So I climbed up to the tree and cut it down. When I was full of joy to bring back the victory, I looked up and was surprised that the stood behind me at some point. His dark face, tall man, and his eyes stared at me viciously:
"Whoever told you to cut down the tree, this is our squad."
I said, "I cut a dead branch." ”
He said, "Do you still want to spend a lot of money on the mouth of the flower?!|" As he spoke, he snatched the kitchen knife from my hand, grabbed my arm, and called out to me: "Let's go to the brigade and tell you to sharpen your mouth again." ''Cut one penalty three plant five' rule' You know?! ”
Then he and I went to the brigade to meet the militia battalion commander, who, after hearing my defense, asked me to drag the branch into the brigade yard. A few elderly people saw it and helped me, and they pointed to the branches and said, "This can't be called a tree, it can only be called a branch." 'Nigger', raise your hand high." Then, someone gave me a look: "Drag it away, put it in the courtyard of the brigade to get in the way." "That's how I got the hammer."
I learned the seriousness of the problem afterwards, and if it wasn't for the elderly people who helped me speak, it would be really bad. It turns out that 'cut one penalty three plant five' is the money to cut down one tree and fine three trees, and then responsible for planting five trees, and who reports and rewards whom. 'Nigger' didn't get the prize money in his hand, I think he must have been angry at the time, haha.
It was autumn, after planting wheat in my village, the farm work was not busy, and after the matter of sweet potatoes in Beiling was ready, I made an appointment with about seventy or eighty young people in this street, took dry food, shovels, and cloth bags, and set off for Beiling at dawn.
North Ridge, is the Taihang Mountain towards the direction of Anfeng a remnant of the vein also. The soil is more rocky, standing majestically, when I was a child, the deepest impression was the heavy snow, it crossed the north of my village, stretched for tens of miles, looking like a white dragon from a distance, silver shining, very good-looking. The main crops on the Northridge were sweet potatoes, cotton, corn, etc., and the harvest was very low at that time. Because of the large area of sweet potatoes in Northridge, it just provides us with a 'place to use'.
From our village to Beiling to the north, you need to go through one road, two rivers and three villages, one is the Anli Railway, the second river is the Pearl River, the Fenhong River, and the three villages are Jijiatun, Jiang Village, Zhangjiadian and then you arrive in Beiling. After passing through the north end of Zhangjiadian Village, our sweet potato team divided into three roads, one way to the north, one way to the northwest, and all the way to the northeast, so that there would be no scramble for territory, but also convenient for small troops to fight, and they were not too far away from each other, once there were foreigners bullying us, they could get in touch and support each other for a short time, and we discussed waiting until sunset to go to the south of Zhangjiadian and the north bank of the Fenhong River, and then go home together.
After the autumn harvest, except for some sweet potato stalks and some corn stalks scattered on the ground, the golden yellow earth shines with seductive brilliance everywhere. Due to the small labor force and wide ground in the local area, some sweet potatoes are harvested with pickaxe heads, some are turned over with ploughs, and the members of the society are careful to pick up, and the potatoes that slip through the net are inevitable.
When we chose the plot, we desperately used a sharp shovel to peel the ground hard, and suddenly found a piece of sweet potato that was picked up in surprise, so the strength was greater, and then I shook it vigorously, so I was tired and sweaty, and I didn't feel tired in my heart. And with the small partners around each other to report good news, mutual encouragement.
Depending on the size of the sweet potato harvest, some plots have more potatoes that leak the net, and some plots have very few potatoes that leak the net. In view of this situation, it is necessary to frequently shift the "battlefield" and choose the "treasure land". Sometimes you can get a cloth bag a day, and sometimes you can get half a cloth bag a day. On average, you can get twenty or thirty pounds per day. Whenever we carry "booty" down the ridge to go home in the evening, on the way we always like to sing the popular song of the time, "The return of the rake": "At sunset, the red light of the western mountains flies, and the soldiers rake to return to the camp and return to the camp." Sweet potato cloth bags reflect the rainbow, and happy songs fly all over the sky..."
Sweet potatoes in Northridge can sometimes run into trouble. Because the local villagers found that the local villagers came to Beiling to pick sweet potatoes, sometimes turned the ground very unevenly, so they began to "look for stubble".
It was me and a small friend in Gaoyu Village, Jiangcun Township, sweet potatoes, that day we were in the West Ditch of Gaoyu Village with a sharp hammer to turn over the ground, suddenly running behind a strong man of about fifty years old shouted: "Child, who told you to come to Li Village to pick sweet potatoes?" Give me the shovel. ”
At that time, I pulled out my leg and wanted to run. Turning his head, the strong man had already grabbed his little friend's sharp hammer and held the dry food cloth bag of both of us tightly in his hands.
There was no way, we were "captured", so we had to obediently follow the strong man to Gaoyu Village.
When I fixed my mind, there were only about a dozen families in Gaoyu Village, which could be said to be the smallest and smallest village I had ever seen. As soon as I entered the village, through the Villagers of Gaoyu, I learned that the strong man was the secretary of the Party branch of the Gaoyu Brigade.
This branch secretary was bad enough, and he confiscated our only fighting tool, the sharp hammer, and tied our dry food cloth bags to the small elm tree that we could not reach, and said to the people of their village: "Look at these two children, with small oil cakes of green onions, and come to our poor place to make sweet potatoes." ”
I said, "We don't eat bread every day at home, it's an accident." ”
The book said, "There is also sophistry." Then you write a letter of guarantee, saying that you will not come to Gao Yu Sweet Potato in the future. ”
I said, "Okay, then you have to return the dry food and the sharp shovels to us." ”
The book says, "I still want something." It would be nice to let you go. Why don't you send you to the brigade for a few days? ”
I said, "We're going to school tomorrow!" At this time, a middle-aged woman in the village saw that my little friend was scared and crying, and she said to Zhishu: "Zhishu, let these two children go, let them be anxious." Then he said to us, "Don't say two good words to the branch secretary yet." ”
When this branch secretary heard the village members intercede for us, he remembered that after half a day of interrogation, he did not know where these two young people were. He changed his tone and asked me a little softly, "Child, where are you?" ”
"We are from the ancient village."
"Which ancient village?"
"Xiguzhuang."
"Then do you know Ji Baosheng?"
"That's one of my neighbor's uncles."
"What is the name of his child?"
"It's called Ding You."
That book saw that I answered very fluently. He smiled, and untied our dry food cloth bags from the tree and gave them to us with a sharp shovel, and said even more kindly: "Follow me to the house to eat." ”
At that time, we dared to believe that this book was good-hearted, picked up the sharp hammer and left. The book grabbed my arm and wouldn't let me go. We had to follow him to his house.
It turned out that this book was an old friend of Ding's father. His wife warmly served us rice and brought us a pot of sweet potatoes for the "little captives" to eat.
We were lucky enough to be "acquitted."
Sweet potatoes are very tired, especially at noon, our friends shout to each other "open the meal". After eating dry food, lie on the spot for the afternoon.
One day, we were taking a lunch break when we were suddenly awakened by a silver bell-like song:
"The sky is full of stars, and the crescent moon is shining." The production team has a meeting...
It was a new song that had just become popular at the time. We were very surprised to hear this, and quietly crawled on the shore to look into the ditch, and it turned out to be several girls from Xishi Village, walking back and forth and singing. Five or six of us young people secretly watched and listened, I really didn't expect that there were such beautiful girls and good songs on the North Ridge, and I still remember them vividly.
Whenever the sun sets on the West Mountain, the various armies of sweet potatoes in our village will gather sooner or later on the shore of the north end of the Zhangjiadian Nandi Bridge. This is a river with a wide surface, but the water flow is not large, called the Fenhong River, and there is a small bridge on the river. While we waited for people, while resting, while thinking about making a fun game, someone proposed: rating.
What is a rating? It is to rate the passing women according to their looks. The method is to take ten small stones in each hand. After the girl walked by, we began to 'bright treasure', that is, to show the stone held in the palm of the hand, to see who had the highest score, the highest 10 points, the lowest 1 point.
The first one to come over was a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl. She wears a pair of checkered shoes on her feet, a pink square scarf around her neck, a melon face, a fluttering hairstyle, and her eyes are not too big but still better. Most of the evaluations are seven or eight points, only Zhang Zhengming is five points, he said that this girl's eyes are too small.
The second one who came over was a woman in her thirties, who looked quite good, but Ji Xiaotang discounted her sentence, saying: "This female comrade seems to be married, and it is okay to comment on it." Then, some people said: It is not called an object, the score is scored, or the evaluation. ”
When the woman walked over, a bright treasure, and sure enough, she did not get a high score. Because the eldest of our young people is only eighteen years old, and the youngest is only thirteen or fourteen years old, they are all concerned about young girls, and who has the heart to pay attention to young women.
I waited for a long time, and I didn't see anyone from the south side of the bridge. Suddenly, a sharp-eyed man spotted the target, and he shouted, "Look! ”
On the other side, sure enough, came a girl riding a bicycle. At that time, there were not many cyclists. So a few of us young people waited patiently for her arrival.
She was getting closer and closer, and seven or eight young men stared wide-eyed, and this was indeed a beautiful woman: about fourteen or fifteen years old, with a pair of thick and black braids. Safflower cloth shirt, blue pants, white and red face, a pair of beautiful big eyes, as if they can talk, look very handsome. She came galloping on a new bicycle, almost like a flying phoenix bird.
Wait for the girl to ride over. Seven or eight of us young people turned their heads to a bright treasure, all of which were full marks. A young man added two more stones, and he rated it as 12 points. Ask him why he rated 12 points. He said mischievously: "People are still riding a new car, so I added 2 points." Everyone laughed very happily together, and when the people arrived, we picked up the sweet potatoes and sang songs and went home happily.
For many years, whenever I pick up the hot purple sweet potato, I always think of Northridge, always think of the funny things about the sweet potatoes on Northridge, and always have a sweet feeling in my heart.
About the Author:
Ji Yun, a member of the Anyang Writers Association, has won the first prize, second prize and third prize of the national, provincial and municipal essay competitions for many times. Ji Yun has been rated as an advanced worker in literary and artistic creation in Anyang for many times. His works have been published in Newspapers and Online Media such as Chinese Writers, Chinese Poetry, Chinese Dictionary, Renren Literature, Chinese Prose, Dahe Network, Henan Daily, Land Daily, Anyang Daily, Anyang Evening News, Selected Writers, Qinghai Lake, Labor, Wenyuan, Qiushui, Xiangjiang Literature, Workers' and Peasants' Literature, And Yuji.
On July 19, 2017, Anyang TV's "Live Anyang" reported on Ji Yun's literary creation deeds with the special feature "Grassroots Poet Ji Yun - I Infect You with Poetry".