A Story . . .

So, like yesterday my pictures have nothing to do with the subject matter.  It's been snowing all day long and, while it's absolutely gorgeous, my eyes are ready for some flowers.

And I'm not yet done with yesterday's topic.

This story took place about thirty years ago. I'd taken my boys to Tampa to visit their grandparents and great grandparents. As we drove the long weary miles through South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, I discussed with the boys  (ages 3 and 8, as I recall)  what kind of behavior would be expected of them in suburban Tampa -- no running around naked, no peeing outside, yes ma'am and yes sir to their elders and then there were certain words not to use. . .

Now this was foolish on my part. The boys didn't use 'bad' language at that tender age. But I knew they'd heard it so I just wanted to make sure they understood the rules.

And they did.

One morning as the boys and I were having breakfast with my grandparents, the three year old, angelic little Justin, his spoonful of cereal half-way to his mouth, fixed me with a solemn gaze and and said, quite clearly, "We don't say 'shit.'

A Christmas Story

The beginning of the Christmas season brings back a sweet nostalgia for the days when the air trembled with magic and I really, truly did listen for reindeer on the roof. 

 I think I was probably five or six and I was at my maternal grandparents’ house.  It was a few weeks before Christmas and the decorations were up and stockings hung. (Rather spoiled only grandchildren, my brother and I had stockings both at home and at Ba and Hudy’s as we called these much-loved grandparents.)

Ba was in the kitchen, making cookies just like a proper grandmother. As I have always remembered it, no one else was in the house that day except for Annie, the taciturn cleaning lady.

I was ‘helping’ Ba and lamenting the fact that all her implements and pans were too big for me. “I wish I could have some little cooking things just my size,” I said.

Just then, again, as I remember it, a door slammed somewhere in the house. 

“Run see what that was,” said Ba, and off I went to investigate.

And in the living room, on the hearth, right under where my stocking hung, was a set of little pots and pans – just my size.

I ran to show them to Ba, and she only said that Santa must have heard me and made an early delivery.

Years and years later, I asked Ba how she managed this surprise and she claimed not to know what I was talking about.

It’s just as well.  I like to believe in magic.  May there be some in your holiday season!

Gene's Girls

Gene wanted a son but what he got was Nancy and Frances.
He made do, teaching Frances to ride and shoot,
Taking her hunting and fishing.
She glowed in the light of his attention.
Years later, Charley came along -- a son at last.
Frances was deposed and returned to her mother's orbit.
"Pretty don't hurt," her mother said,
As Frances struggled with high heels and girdles,
Longing for those carefree tomboy days.

(Tampa, Florida -- late Twenties -- my husband's aunt, grandfather, and mother.)






 

It's Not About the Food

Monday I went grocery shopping and yesterday and today I've been getting ready for Thursday's feast -- making chicken broth and cranberry sauce, stirring up a double batch of thyme and pumpkin dinner rolls and putting them in the refrigerator for a long slow rise, mixing up a big mold of my grandmother's cranberry, celery, and pecan gelatin salad . . .

The turkey -- from the grocery store, not one of the wild one we watched all summer -- is defrosting in the basement.   I've made some smoked salmon and cream cheese spread to go with the Bloody Marys before the feast. I've even made some almond brittle to top the pumpkin chiffon pie I'll be making later today.

There'll just be seven or eight of us this year -- and as I work my way down the list of things to do, I think of a piece I wrote about five years ago. Apologies if you've read it before.

It's Not About the Food

 It’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I’m at the grocery store.  The weather is cold and snowy and I’ve skipped painting class to get ready for Thursday.  My shopping cart is piled high with raw ingredients – a 20 pound turkey, celery, onions, kale, cranberries, butter, whipping cream – okay, there are two bags of cornbread stuffing and several cans of pumpkin puree and chicken broth, but in my mind, these are raw ingredients.

            In the checkout line, I study the tabloids; I have only the vaguest idea who Jen and Brad are so I turn my attention to the shopping cart ahead of me – paper plates, plastic cups, pre-made pie crusts, a can of lemon meringue filling (I mentally taste the artificial flavoring and my worst fears are confirmed as six jars of pale brown gravy slide down the belt.)  There are two large bags of frozen broccoli florets and I silently congratulate the benighted shopper for not having succumbed to the lure of the canned green bean, mushroom soup, and canned fried onion casserole.  But I am inwardly appalled at the idea of a Thanksgiving dinner with such uninspired ingredients.  Then the cashier says to the tired-looking woman, whose groceries these are, “Big family Thanksgiving?” 

               A beautiful smile illuminates the weary shopper’s face.  “Yes, we’ll all be together,” she replies softly, as though caressing each word.

                 Her happiness is transcendent and suddenly my perceptions swing around in a dizzying 180 degree shift.  It’s not about the food.  

  

Great Grand Parents

William Benjamin Northcutt

Born just after the War Between the States

Into red clay Reconstruction Alabama.

A farmer and a farmer's son.

At twenty-two he married

Red-headed, eighteen year old Lucy Camella Glenn

And they moved from Forest Home to Evergreen.

Just over a year and their first child was born

My mother's father, Victor Huborn,

Who told me, how when he was young

His mother took him and his brothers and sisters

(John and Lillie Belle, William and Lallah)

To visit her parents -- a day's drive away.

Coming back at twilight, drowsy children wrapped in quilts ,

A storm came up and the creek they had to ford

Was running high and wild.

"The mules didn't want to cross it,"

The old man told me, leaning forward, his eyes ablaze,

"But that girl, she slapped the lines across their rumps,
Told those mules to 'Git up!'

And we all got home that night."

Eighty some years ago and the memory was so fresh

That I could see my great-grandmother -- 'that girl,'

Determined to get her brood home safe

And out of the wet Alabama woods.

Lucy Camella died when my grandfather was twelve --
And widowed William, no time to grieve
with six young children and a crop in the fields,
Married a  handy cousin. 
Minnie Lula Northcutt Northcutt
Gave him two more children.
But my grandfather, still grieving
Left home.

 

Were You Raised in a Barn? (Repost)

My older boy is able to answer that question affirmatively, if not entirely accurately. He did live with us in this barn for three summers -- the last summer stretching till the end of October.

The first summer was 1973. Our son was not quite one, not quite walking. We had just bought our farm and were camping out in the upper part of the barn, getting to know the place and our neighbors. The following summer my husband and a friend were building our house -- getting it to the 'dried in' stage before we had to return to our teaching jobs in Florida. And the third summer, we were back with all our belongings and various helpful friends and family, making the big push to finish the house before cold weather.


Unfortunately, it began to get cold toward the end of October and when we awoke one morniong to find snow on our sleeping bags, we moved into the unfinished house where we at least had a wood stove. What bliss!

It was a wonderful experience though, living like in the barn -- cooking on a Coleman stove, bathing in the branch or in a washtub, the big entertainment at night watching the lightning bugs. When we moved to the house we actually said that we should move back to the barn every summer -- but of course we didn't.

I made use of the experience in Old Wounds -- the barn that Elizabeth's family is living in is based on our barn and that dark rectangle there on the front is a shutter which, when pushed up is the window Rosie sat at to watch Miss Birdie and Cletus come up the road.

And my older son has an excuse for all time for any less than polite behavior he may commit.

A Family Story - Sepia Saturday

Tampa, Florida -- the early 1900's. An early autumn afternoon and C.L Knight, the family patriarch, and his sons and grandchildren are taking their ease on the front porch  while the women of the family are inside -- resting after the exertions of Sunday dinner.

The house is located in what is now downtown Tampa and many a fashionable couple is out strolling, parading in their Sunday finery.  The Knights smile and nod and comment privately on their passing neighbors.

A newly-wed couple, arrayed in particular splendor, approaches and the men lean forward with special interest for the blushing bride was, before her marriage, one of the ladies of pleasure in a well-known brothel. All three men grin and nod to the couple who acknowledge the greeting and continue on.

"Well, boys," says the patriarch to his sons, as he leans back in his rocking chair and watches the shapely bride out of sight, "there goes a mighty fine piece -- and we all know because we've all had some of it."

A sound -- a muffled word . . . an intake of breath -- behind them and the men turn to see Mrs. C.L. standing there just inside the screen door with a face like doom.

The family story -- as told by C.L.'s grandson, Charles Lafayette Knight II -- says that C.L. took one look at his wife and set off for his hunting camp in the Everglades where he stayed till just before Christmas, returning laden with gifts for everyone.

That's just one of the stories Uncle Charley told. Another was how when C.L. the first died  (much later and of natural causes -- nothing to do with his wife)-- Seminoles from the Everglades  appeared the next day in Tampa and camped in the yard for three days, singing songs to help their friend's spirit on its way.

My husband's family is full of story tellers -- and they all adhere to that fine old Southern tradition of never letting the facts get in the way of a good story.  

  For more Sepia Saturday posts from hither and yon, go HERE.

Everyday Goddess has honored this post with her Blog Post of the Week Tag -- Thanks, E.G.!

Birthday Memories ~ (Sorta) Sepia Saturday

Since my older son's birthday is today, it seems appropriate to commemorate the occasion with this blast from 1979. I think it was '79 -- and Ethan was seven.

The blow-up light saber was a hit. The rocking horse (named Philly) was a survival from my childhood.

Thirty one years ago --and several of these little children round the table have children of their own. Sadly, three of those grown ups in the picture below are gone -- my neighbor Betty, Vicky Owen, my friend from college, and my mother-in-law Frances --- Frannie, in an earlier Sepia Saturday post. 

Bittersweet, the passage of time. . .

Go HERE for other Sepia Saturday posts.

Camp NoFun

Back in the closing decade of the last century -- which is to say in the 90s -- our young nieces used to visit for a week or two every summer.  We called it Camp NoFun and it was meant to give us a chance to get to get to  know each other better and to introduce the girls to country living -- baking bread, picking blackberries, gathering eggs, learning to sew -- all that good stuff.  There was still lots of time to do other  things like playing dressup in my old skirts . . .

...and the ever popular trick of dyeing Queen Anne's Lace by sticking the cut stems in a container of water and food coloring.

Of course, the flower is quite pretty in its natural state. But it's irresistible fun to watch osmosis at work.

It works within a few hours -- except when it doesn't. The stem I put in the red dye keeled over rather than osmose. So did its replacement.

Note to self: Avoid red food coloring.

No Worries.

So, there were seven of us for dinner last night, plus a three year old and a lap baby. And our four dogs plus three more.

(Miss Susie Hutchins decided to observe from afar.)

It was very, very hot.

And then the oven quit working.

No worries -- move the sweet potato oven fries to the grill-- the chicken's in the new smoker. Forget the cobbler or tarte you were going to make -- ice cream and blueberries will be just fine.

The shower drain is clogged and one of the visiting dogs has just rolled in cow poop.

No worries -- point the guest to the other shower and get out the Liquid Plumber. Give the dog owner some soap and a towel and point him to the outside hose.

The smoker seems to be taking longer than it should to get those three chickens done.

No worries -- open another bottle of wine and pass the tortilla chips.

The chickens are done at last -- several hours later than the original estimate but it is so delicious that we forgive the slow smoker and open another bottle of wine to go with the meal.

Time for coffee and the abbreviated dessert. An unexplained light on the coffee maker is blinking red and the coffee is not happening.

No worries! It's time to go to bed anyway.

(In spite of one thing after another going wrong, it was a delicious meal and, I believe, a good time was had by all.)

No worries!

No worries, at all!