Page 9 - Sorghum

Dr. E. W. Branyon’s Bio
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Soon Dad bought a phone, but realized that there was no one to call except our next door neighbor. He got rid of it. Dad and I would swap turns milking our cow in the wet, dirty barn and often the cow would stick her cow- paddy-covered hoof into the bucket. We’d simply strain the milk through a fine mesh cloth to make sure there was no organic particulate matter. That same day we’d drink some of it, churn some into butter, and toss the rest to the pigs.
“I’m not drinking milk that hasn’t been pasteurized in a bottle,” snarled one of my cousins visiting from Jackson, Mississippi. “You’re missing some mighty good milk,” I responded. After that when he visited, we’d pour our cow’s milk in bottles and leave them on the front step so the kid wouldn’t know the difference.
It was a pain in the neck to go to the barn in the cold of winter to milk a cow that was often kicking, had a sensitive teat that had been split on barbed wire, and a tail matted with manure switching across your face. But I did it often. Fifty years later I won a charity contest because I was the only Alabama or Auburn alumnus in the area who could milk a cow. Dad on cows: