Little House in the Kudzu Patch

THE LITTLE HOUSE IN THE KUDZU PATCH

(From the Chapter "Don't Cry For Me, Cheyenne")

Our first domicile in Americus was one large rented room in a large house on the corner of West Lamar and North Dudley Street. We lived in that single room and shared the kitchen and bathroom with another family. That was pretty tight space for a family of four, but we made do, and were just glad to have a place to stay. We soon rented a small house about four miles out of town. The brick house had electricity and indoor plumbing, but no bathroom, just an outhouse. Cooking and heating was by propane gas. The little house was fine, even thought it was located smack-dab in the middle of a Kudzu patch.

Kudzu was supposedly imported from Japan as a miracle cure for soil erosion. The only thing it has cured so far is to cover up hundreds of old houses and shacks that would otherwise be eyesores. Kudzu is a nefarious, vicious, good-for-nothing rapidly growing vine that bears a strong resemblance to English ivy, except its leaves are much larger and more plentiful. . The main difference is that Kudzu grows about one thousand times faster than ivy. It has been said the only place Kudzu won’t grow is in the middle of a solid steel bank vault. Any other location will support its growth, including the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Agricultural engineers have for years tried to find a use for Kudzu as a feed for animals. The problem is the plant is tender enough to be eaten for food for such a short period of time that by the time you harvest it, it is too tough for animals to eat. It has no natural predators as not even wild animals, much less dairy and ranch stock, will eat it. In fact, there are cases on record where cows have gotten a mite lazy next to a stand of Kudzu and dozed off, only to wake completely covered with the fast growing vine. Only immediate action from the rancher or farmer could rescue the hapless bovine. If you are ever in the environs where Kudzu is prevalent and you are bored, stare at the Kudzu and you will actually see it growing. If you want to go traipsing gaily thought the woods through the dark green “ivy” with your honey with romance on your mind remember, if you stop, sit, or lay down, you will inevitably be consumed by the rapidly growing Kudzu. Make sure your will is current.

There used to be a small farm between Leslie and Leesburg, Georgia in the 1950s that just up and disappeared one day. Tuesday it was a thriving dairy farm with dozens of cows; by Wednesday morning it was completely covered, including the house, barn, vehicles, feed lot, light pole, and well, with thick Kudzu vines. None of the people, dogs, or cows were ever seen again. A rescue effort was not undertaken because the sheriff’s deputies and volunteers were afraid of being swallowed up themselves if they tried to penetrate the thick layer of Kudzu and look for survivors. Some of the old-timers in the area opined that the dairy farmer had tired of the continuous encroachment of Kudzu, and had tried to kill it with dynamite and fire that Tuesday afternoon. The Kudzu had bided its time and attacked during the night, obliterating the dairy farm and any evidence of its existence. All official County records of the dairy farm were quietly expunged, and the other farmers in the area never mentioned that dairy farm again, fearing a similar reprisal from the Kudzu patches on their own farms. None of the local farmers ever fooled with trying to control the Kudzu again.

It was revealed several years later that the dairy farmer had managed to rescue his family, the dogs, and the livestock from his farm the night when the Kudzu attacked. The onslaught of the vine was so intense that the farmer figured he would be better off leaving and relocating to Alabama, never looking back and only willing to reveal his location a decade later, when the Kudzu would have forgotten all about him.

Meanwhile, let’s go back to our little house in the Kudzu patch. During the war, soldiers’ bodies were sent home in coffins, boxed up in large wooden crates. Our landlady had installed one of these crates in the main bedroom of this little house, to be used as a closet. My father was very skittish about things like dead bodies and coffins and was not at all comfortable with the idea of sleeping in the same room with that coffin crate. Who knew if the dead soldier’s ghost might be lingering around in the box, or close by?

One night, while my parents were asleep, the door on the coffin box closet mysteriously swung slowly open, making a squeaking sound in the process. Dad’s eyes sprang open, his heart rate doubled, his goose pimples got as big as BBs, his hair stood up like Don King’s, and he prepared for an immediate departure from the bedroom. He adopted the mantra of the actor Mantan Moreland in the Charlie Chan movies: “Feets, don’t fail me now.” They didn’t. He would have spent the rest of the night sleeping in the car, but he was too scared to stay out in the dark yard by himself, so he slept on the couch in the front room. The landlady removed the coffin box closet from the house early the next day, and we removed ourselves from that house, shortly thereafter, as well. That property is now a defunct mobile home park, with the abandoned trailers completely covered with, you guessed it, Kudzu.

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