224 JULY | AUGUST 2019
MHERITAGE & CULTURE
On Being Southern
the truth about the thistle wars
anything on Earth. He raced every
car, cow, dog, or pig that came his
way. PaPa was standing on their front
porch, and suddenly Bruno came
running right at me. I swerved to miss
him, and all five mph of the blue and
white truck hit the “bob wire” fence.
When I got to the porch, PaPa scolded
me, “You don’t run off the road for no
dog.” Like Grandma, PaPa was won-
derful, but intimidating— with
overalls, snuff, and a white straw
hat. When he talked, everyone
listened, but Grandma winked at
me, and later, she went with me to
tell Daddy what happened. With
my “law yer,” AKA Grandma, at
my side, Bruno took all the blame.
I helped Grandma and PaPa all
that summer and, usually, it was just
them and me. It was a great experi-
ence; however, I began to see the dif-
ferences in a man’s work and a wom-
an’s work. Grandma got up first and
went to bed last. She did all the same
fieldwork PaPa did and all the house-
work, too. I saw what was meant by a
woman’s work is never done.
Honestly, though, Grandma was
happy. She was healthy. She had her
husband, the farm, and a reason to
get up every morning. And she loved
these reasons. Life was wonderful.
PaPa passed away two years later,
and his passing broke Grandma’s
heart. He was her everything. To-
gether, they had made the most of
anything they needed. Now, sud-
denly, the one thing she needed most
was gone. Her whole world began to
change. She still milked the cows,
but her son helped. She cooked some,but when the family came now, they
cooked for her. Her life had always
had so much purpose, but now it
seemed, her body and spirit were
struggling to keep up.
It was then that I noticed the this-
tle wars starting. Grandma would
call me, and we would take a sharp
hoe and head to the pasture, and she
would chop thistles down like they
were the Devil himself. She wanted
them gone; all the way to the roots,
and she dug them out so deep, I was
sure the Devil himself was going to
pop up and grab the hoe. Sometimes
we mixed in picking berries, but we
were always on a hunt for thistles.
I never see a thistle now that I
don’t think of Grandma, although
I’m not sure she would be happy
that thistles trigger my memory of
her but then, there was a time when
those prickly, not particularly pretty,
not particularly ugly plants gave her
a purpose—and it was a time when
she desperately needed one. Now that
I’m a grandmother, and I find myself
beginning to see the world behind
me a little more than the one in front
of me, I understand more of the war
Grandma was facing, and the few bat-
tlefields she had left to fight it on. But
like the resourceful, resilient woman
she was, she found the one battle she
could still fight and win—because
sometimes a body needs a war just to
keep living.
And that’s the truth about the
thistle wars. It was never about the
thistles. It was all about the war.writer LISHA HINTON HOPPER illustrator SAM BEIBERSMy grandma hated thistles. When
I was younger, I never really under-
stood why. A thistle plant is a prickly
plant that grew in the pasture. It
wasn’t particularly ugly. It wasn’t par-
ticularly pretty, and I couldn’t tell if it
was hurting anything, but Grandma
hated them.
Grandma was like so many grand-
mas. Wonderful. She worked hard
all of her life. Married young. Raised
seven kids. Had two dozen grandkids.
She had the patience of Job and a great
sense of humor.
PaPa and Grandma had a milk
barn, and when I was 12, I spent the
whole summer helping them milk
cows. I had my first wreck that sum-
mer. I got up early, got in Daddy’s ’65
pickup, backed out of our driveway,
drove up the hill, turned left, and
started down my grandparents’ long
gravel driveway. Bruno, PaPa’s brown
cattle dog, believed he was faster than