Donovan Kelly

Warning: This story contains several actual facts, for which I apologize. It begins a long time ago, when what is now one of the main roads into Washington, D.C., was a dirt trail that ended in a mud puddle called Swampdoodle in northwestern Virginia. There a hungry traveler from the east came upon one of the last remaining local Native Americans at breakfast time.

“What’s that you’re eating?” the hungry traveler asked.

“Pawcohiccora,” the old Shawnee said. Which could mean “Kiss my dog and the horse you rode in on.” Or as is more generally accepted now, “A gruel or porridge made from small roasted nuts.”

The traveler tasted the gruel and thought he had found the Promised Land, a place of gruel and honey. He would start a new town on this very spot and call it “Pawcohiccora.” A name that his real estate agent immediately shortened to “Hickory.”

Over time, my little town changed its name from “Hickory” to “Harmony” and finally “Hamilton.” Why? I don’t know, except for the obvious“H” fetish.

Around the town pump house the hickory nuts still fall so thick that it is dangerous to walk, what with all the rolling nuts on the ground and the falling nuts in the air.

“All these hickory nuts,” I said to myself, “What can I do with them? Is there a story here?”

With conversation as boring as that, I soon stopped listening and began filling a bucket with nuts.

So how do you find out what you can do with a bucket of hickory nuts? You call your local librarian and ask her to check up on hickory nut recipes. Turned out Susanne had a beautiful old nut cracker that she was willing to use on my hickory nuts. Which we did, right there in the special nut section of the Purcellville Library. As we cracked away, a nearby patron looked up and said, “I know that sound. That’s the sound of my mother cracking walnuts.” Now I had two experts.

Further research revealed that there are about a dozen kinds of hickory trees, but only two earn a AAA rating for cooking purposes. The pioneers learned which were the best nuts by following the squirrels and eating what they ate. Really. Alas, my Hamilton pump house nuts were being ignored by the squirrels. I dumped the nuts and the story.

Until this morning. As I sat writing a different, nut-free story, a squirrel came to my window and looked in. And in his mouth was a hickory nut.

An omen. I was meant to write a story about hickory nuts.

It is a thankless, grueling task, but what the pawcohiccora. I will follow my squirrel until I find my sweet hickory nut tree. Shake your head if you must, but it's much safer than chasing a white whale.