MISS FLOY AND SARGE

 

Miss Floy Whitten is Paxton's other writer for the county paper; her Floy’s Flittings has its own little lattice-roses-bordered corner on the inside back page, and her regularly-printed poetry rhymes “hand” with “time” and the meter changes line to line, stanza to stanza. She leans toward flowers and trees and old times, and mostly Christian topics.   Her late husband, Frank, was the Farm Agent for the county, driving from farm to farm every day, and buried in piles of mysterious paperwork of numbers and bushels and bales and acres  at the office.   He was one of six brothers in a big, laughing, gathering family, who all took Miss Floy right to their hearts the minute she said “I Do.”    And his several Aunts treated her like a daughter all their days.  Miss Floy's own daughter is Amanda Bridger, the young woman who caters parties around Paxton.

Miss Floy is newly retired from the county Welfare Department, where she worked for thirty-something years. She’s still known as the “spare-made” lady amongst the clients who came into the office, in contrast to the abundantly-contoured Mrs. Waddell who lives way out in the country over at Expedia.

Miss Floy wears her hip-length silvering hair in a beautiful upsweep reminiscent of a Gibson Girl, the soft roundness of it like a shining brioche, and the effect completed by the little round bun atop. When she works in her garden, it’s as if a beautifully-coifed woman from the Gay Nineties has suddenly donned saggy-butt jeans and an old shirt, picked up a hoe, and landed for a time amongst the bean-rows, with the sun glinting from that glorious hair.

She calls people for news from their section of the county, and will sit there with the phone tucked aside her cheek, writing down the names and places they’ve been. And if there’s been a party---she’ll put down every detail, including tablecloths and menu and the honorees’ attire. If they haven’t been anywhere special or if they’ve just had their in-laws over for supper, she’s happy to jot down the recipes for the pot roast and Bundt cake, and print that---sitting there as serious as Scripture, getting every word, every step, taking down Cream a’ Mushroom like it’s foie gras, and asking “Now do you cream the Parkay first?”

Miss Floy will also shell your beans and peas and pick out your pecans; she keeps her flour and sugar and coffee and other dry goods in a Camistry Set on her red-formica counter.   And one of the prize wedding presents for any Paxton bride is a set of Miss Floy's crochet-edged pillow-slips, with the variegated edgings and little patterns stitched around the edge with a stencil-foot on her Singer.


She has a happy little dog named Sarge, taken in a year ago when her sister at Moon Lake fell heir to her elderly neighbor's three Pee-kanese. The old lady hadn't been able to care for the dogs very well in her last days, and the two females cost Sis ninety dollars apiece at the vet just to have that long, clotty hair got back in order. Miss Floy took one look at that miserable, tangled mass of long blonde hair on the little boy dog and had him clipped, high and tight. Even his long flowing ears are squared off at the bottom like the little Dutch-Boy on the paint can, and his muscular little body, clipped close to show his stance, looks so much more like Pug than Peke, it led to her nephew's calling him a Puke. He doesn't seem to mind, and seems to REALLY like his haircut.


And Miss Floy also writes little vignettes of local interest for the REA newsletter, published every month by the Power Company, and has quite a following amongst the rural set. Her piece on the Civil War autograph book, amazingly carried by Mr. Morris Steele's great-grandfather from his injury at Shiloh all the way through incarceration at Ft. Warren, collecting autographs and messages on every page, from Generals to guards to doctors to fellow prisoners, was picked up by the Commercial Appeal and printed almost word-for-word, though they DID send their own photographer to make the pictures.

PAXTONISMS

 

Do come and sit at our table---you're welcome any time. The coffeepot stands ready, the tea kettle can reach a cheery boil in the time it takes to reach down a teapot, and there's usually something sweet in one cake dome or another.

You may or may not understand the language, for it's foreign to many of our visitors, at least the first time---we speak Southern, and it translates easily.

Some of the things you hear may be:

I Wishta gosh-----I do sincerely hope.

I hopeta shout----- I couldn’t agree more; it's as fervent as my hope of Heaven.

Hind Wheels of Destruction-----My first MIL’s description of either a messy house or the looks of a lady whose grooming left something to be desired.

Omtombow-----I am speaking of . . .

Hissy fit-----Angry outburst ranging from actual hissing at the object of wrath, when others may overhear, to a screeching, plate-throwing tantrum. Usually indulged in by females, but a Good Ole Boy, who has witnessed these all his life, may surprise you with quite a creditable one of his own, on occasion. Such as being on a charter boat and having the marlin get clean away. With his $700 Star Chair Rod.

Screamin’ heenie-----Ditto, but starts out full-blown, without any of the hissy buildup.

Slick over cloudy-----Raining and gonna get worse.

Come up a wind-----Started to storm.

Commenceta rainin’-----Began to rain, especially spoken by someone WAY out in the field when the storm started.

Takin’ on-----Crying or wailing or gnashing of teeth.

Don’t let on-----Do not dare speak of what I just told you.

Havin' a Dog in the fight-----An interest beyond curiosity in whatever’s happening. If the proceedings will affect you personally, you can complain, speak up, or sue. Otherwise, hush up about it.

Lit a shuck-----Ran fast, usually AWAY from something. Paralleled by Bat-outa-Hell.

Puttin’ on the dawg-----Putting on airs; or dressing, entertaining, or purchasing beyond your means.

Puttin’ the big pot in the little one-----Entertaining a big crowd.

Might could-----Perhaps I’ll be able to.

Ditten GO to-----Did not meant to.

Don't know Pea Turkey-----Has absolutely no knowledge of the person, place, happening or idea. (but is usually willing to talk lengthily about it, anyway)

Ain't seen Hide nor Hair of him-----Have not been in his presence, nor have I even waved at him in the road

A Coon's Age-----A LONG time, as referenced by the supposed years of a long-lived raccoon. Spoken mainly to someone you haven't seen in a while----Why, I haven't seen YOU in a coon's age.

Drunk as Cooter Brown-----WAY past inebriated, up into the territory of the mythical (or factual) Cooter, who seems to be the epitome of tosspots

Great Day in the Morning!-----Exclamation of surprise, shock, or admiration, depending in inflection

Shine-----Moonshine---the clear, distilled corn squeezin's sold in quart jars from the back of pickups. Usually in the dark.

I DO declare!-----Exclamation of mild astonishment. I'd totally forgotten the froufraw when my Sis' college roomate was all up in arms that her Not-from-the-South Sister-in-Law was about to name the new baby niece Heidi Claire. Poor thing just didn't know. I don't remember how that came out.

I Swannee!-----I DO declare, but exasperated

You DO beat all-----Also depends on the inflection and voice---can be a form of approval, in expressing admiration or thanks. In an exasperated tone---getting close to ON MY LAST NERVE.

Which brings us to various levels of anger:

There's spittin' mad, and there's "it 

flew all over me," and there's "I could 

just pinch his head off," as well as 

"so mad I could fly." REALLY bad 

occasions are reserved for "I could 

just go to bed and eat Velveeta right 

out of the box."   

There is one more that just popped out

 of my mind and mouth one hot day;  Leah 

says it makes MY kind of sense.  "He's 

mad enough to go out in the yard and 

shoot PEEPS off a stump."  

And Chris' personal favorite: The 

famous last words of Good Ole Boys:

"HEY, Y'ALL!!  WA-CHIS!!"

POPULATING PAXTON

 I've long had a whole townful of folks circulating through my head---they're folks I've known, or would like to, or composites of two or three interesting or memorable characters of the past or present.   Perhaps forty of them have been introduced in here, and on my PAXTON PEOPLE blog, and I hope to someday combine the whole town into a story or two.   I get going describing folks---their talents, their houses, their attributes and afflictions, and their interactions with other folk, and I can do pretty well up to the point of GIVING THEM SOMETHING TO DO.   A Plot.   A Story that would be worth reading, interweaving lives and actions into some semblance of a book.   Someone will suddenly come to me, with a whole personality and whims and a life of their own, and it seems as if I've actually known them, and there's no trouble putting down whatever comes to mind, but then there they sit.   

And I have whole gaggles of Paxton folks circulating through my head---church folks and townfolk and folks scattered on their farms and little bits of land. They are from memories, wishes, and imagination, with no insinuation of which is which, since they feel like long-worn quilts from a fragrant old cedar-chest: scraps and pieces of whole cloth, aprons and dresses and shirts and a bolero or two.  There might be a small swatch from the minuscule Barbie-skirt on Harliss’ plate, or a small snip from the MOTHER pillow sent from Japan by Carey Luke Bishop, while he was overseas.  Perhaps a bit of lace from one of Mrs. Keen's dainty handkerchiefs she always had tucked into the sleeve of her silky blouse.   The imaginary black-as-night silk cloak swirled in Miss Mavis’ wake makes an appearance, as well as a whole section of pattern composed of bits from prom dresses, bridesmaid’s dresses, piano recital dresses for generations of Paxton girls, all from the trusty needle of Mrs. Barbee.   The tales behind the stitches in all those generations of Hope Chests in that small town could populate a library, and and I want so much to tell those stories.

 

  All the pieces are separate, thus far, of different colors and patterns, velvet and gingham and denim and suede---good broadcloth and flimsy voile, taffeta and bridal satin folded with khaki, ancient woolen---blue and gray,  sailcloth, stars and stripes, but just as I've never put needle to cloth with any useful or beautiful result, it's an uphill climb to get them all cut and sewn into a quilt pattern and a story and a town.

I'm workin' on it. 

SONNETS AND ROSES

 

About this time twenty years ago, we were in England. Headed for Scotland, of course---the coveted trip of my lifetime, planned for decades.   Our first real stop was at Stratford-on-Avon, home of the Bard, and we toured his home and gardens, with a lot of picture-taking and exclaiming at Anne Hathaway’s lovely thatched cottage. We gazed up at the Juliet window in his house, its mullioned shutters open over the little balcony, and as we entered, we were swept up in a tide of the very young “Up With People”-type crowd that had surrounded us in the airport, their red polos and khakis their admission to the club.

I lost sight of everyone in my tour group, so I just explored at my leisure, seeing the canopied bed (a rope-suspension affair that I cannot fathom being comfortable, no matter how many geese were sacrificed to the mattress), and the rough tables at which I imagined seeing him penning his magnificent verse. The fireplaces still held ashes, the candle-drip still clung to yellowed, bent tallow, and the windows looked out upon the colours of Spring.

I stood for a moment in the Juliet-window, not imagining a young swain come to sweep me away, but trying to grasp the universe of ideas and words and contexts which must have whizzed through that amazing mind as he gazed out. His words poured onto the paper, onto the stage, into minds and hearts and down through wars and changings and evolvings of our world, making the phrasings and idiom of yesteryear into a part of our own vocabulary, sometimes understood, sometimes lost to Time, but an integral part of today’s theater and language, fresh as from the Globe.

I wandered on through, emerging into the gardens. Our guide had said that we had two hours to see the site and the town, with a hand-waved direction toward the souvenir shops branching out on almost every street. I stepped into the first shop and bought ten postcards and a tiny, pocket-sized golden book of sonnets.

Walking out and around, I headed away from commerce and tourist confusion, in the direction of the big parking lot where waited our bus. Within a couple of blocks of there, I spied a little gravel-paved courtyard within a small gateway, which framed an enormous yellow rosebush with branches reaching up to the housetops. I couldn’t resist stepping in for a moment, and since the sign advertised only weekday hours and the "closed" sign on the door greeted anyone who might enter that deserted, walled place, I realized that my Saturday presence would probably be of no bother to anyone.

Whilst all my traveling companions were strolling and looking, buying garish bits and pieces of take-home and send-to memorabilia to commemorate their time in this place, I walked to a low stone wall encircling the plot, sat beneath the great golden umbrella of roses, and read all the sonnets in the Summer sunshine of the place they were created.

Try buying a keychain or a coffee mug that can top that.

WILTED LETTUCE SALAD

If you had any kind of garden in the South, a warm Spring morning could engender a craving that lasted for a whole morning of hoeing and watering and maybe picking those first tender little mustard greens or early lettuce or spinach; just thinking of that gentle vinegar tang and the bacon dressing could keep you craving so's you could finish up or at least get to a good Quittin' Place before eleven.  Small green onions, still akin to chives---those are worth picking early, before their growth is fully on them. A cousin-onion or two, fifty-cent-size white ones above the dirt and beginning to widen their shoulders,   a handful of little ruby radishes unearthed gleaming in your hands, lots of grabs into the mustard-bed---these comprise one of the glories of the Southern cooking lexicon: Wilted Lettuce Salad.   You can even put in a pan of crusty cornbread while you're out picking, so as to get the oven done early and the heat abating in the house. 

It’s a last-minute dish, with the cool little greennesses washed and spun and snugged into a bag with damp paper towels, or it cooperates quite well with a quick trip to the garden to pick the best leaves, then a sluice of cold water and a dry-patting with paper towels, and not even a trip into the house. Set the patio or arbor table, put out all the food, pour the iced tea, THEN bring out the dressing and dress the salad at the last possible second.

Use any lettuce but iceberg to make this salad. Redleaf and frilly Simpson are good. Any combination of looseleaf lettuce or arugula or spinach meld beautifully. And best of all, if you can get away with it: the tiniest, just-unfurled leaves of curly mustard, with the bittery-ness not QUITE developed, just enough to punctuate all the mild shyness of the little lettuces.  It takes a LOT of greens, folks, because of the shrinkage in the heat of the just-poured dressing, and also because there's a tendency to just fork up great mouthfuls of the tender vegetables with that salty/vinegary tang, more than if they were just greens from the pot-likker or pole beans in their juice.   

You can start the bacon frying while you go prepare the lettuce and slice thin-thin little moons of the onion,   Get the bacon crisp, remove to drain, then crumble, but leave all those drippings in the skillet. Make sure the drippings are still hot; stir a teaspoon of sugar into a good glug of cider or wine vinegar (or rice vinegar, our favorite), along with a scant teaspoon of salt. Then pour this gently into the hot skillet, stirring with a long spoon.  

Have the torn greens in a big deep bowl, with the sliced onions and any other additions you choose. Pour on the hot dressing, add the bacon, toss quickly and serve---the aroma will make you swoon.  Set one of the chillun to grinding the peppermill over all while you toss and serve the tangy, more-than-salad mouthfuls with thick wedges of cornbread or thin, crisp ones---the marriage of limpening vegetables, in the best possible window between freshly-picked and gently cooked, is an unctuously sumptuous amalgam reached by few ingredients, with each lifted higher by the other.  

This sublime dish was the favorite of a neighbor, made in a huge crockery bowl with the heft of five bricks, and called "Wil-did Leddis Sallid" by her family. She sometimes threw in a several chopped boiled eggs, and the lagniappe was the saved-til-last treat: dipping that big ole long stirring-spoon into the bowl, hearing it scrape gently across the crockery, and spooning up some of the luscious, vinegar-y, bacon-y bowl-drippin's onto your cornbread.

A wonderful restaurant here used to make the dressing, bringing it out hot and fragrant in its own little pitcher, for pouring onto your spinach salad, which already had slices of the whitest lengthwise mushrooms, rings of red onion, and a little dish of crumbled bacon for sprinkling,. Each addition led the next, with the whole warm dressing/cool salad mixed at the last second and eaten while the flavors and temperatures were still at their best. That’s the closest restaurant version to the centuries-old Southern treat.

I'm thinking a table set out under our arbor space, candles flickering in time with the fireflies, and wide soup-bowls of this salad set before each guest, a gentle-fried egg atop, with a quick grind of pepper, and some thin cornbread wedges snuggled alongside for sopping up the last delicious juices.      I can't BEGIN to think what course could follow that. Maybe just a whole punchbowl full of Strawberry Shortcake---for four.

BAUBLES, BEANCURD AND BEADS

 One day during the first year of our marriage, Chris took me to a little Chinese restaurant in Alabama. When we walked in, we saw that the room had an odd décor: one wall consisted of wood panels a couple of feet wide, punctuated by shining panels of what looked like rainbowed waterfalls cascading to the floor.

The waitress walked us past all the tables, taking us right up to the corner wall, where she rustled back an armful of ceiling-to-floor strings of beads, revealing our booth in a small alcove. There seemed to be maybe five more of the colorful caves down the wall, lit by rosy lamps and candles on the tables.

She brought our drinks and took our order, standing in the little doorway with the beads clicking and hanging around her, with her body in a cleared space, and her hands materializing out of nowhere to hold the pen and pad. She would go away and return; with a swishing sound, a covered plate would appear between the strings, hanging there disembodied til the hand, arm, person followed behind. Then her exit would be accompanied by a sweeping, clicking rattle, as she left dragging yards of beadwork like a potentate’s glistening robes.

We spent the meal alternately enjoying the delicious food and giggling at the unintended floorshow---the acoustics were quite muffled, but we could hear similar whitewater rafting sounds coming from adjacent booths. And her gyrations to enter, set down plates, refill water, turn and exit gracefully with all that clinging daycor were just hilarious.

It was an Alabama parody of the classic geisha maneuvers to kneel in the hallway, slide the shoji, set in the tea-tray, rise, enter, close door, kneel-rise-kneel, with all the sinuous hand motions in graceful ballet, moving around the table in an up-and-down glide like a graceful carousel figure. Ours had none of the Kimono cachet of the originals, in her crisp white shirt and black apron, but she bravely did her best to subdue the long strands of clicking pastel which hampered her every move.

I don’t remember where this happened, or the name of the restaurant. I just remember its lofty pretensions and extraneous efforts at romantic privacy, both of which are lost in the mists of time and absurdity. And I remember that graceful young woman who fought her way time after time through a thicket of baubles just to serve our dinner.

JUNE, ON THE CUSP OF SUMMER

 

WANDER HERE, WANDER HERE

When the heat of the day has wilted your energy and left even your imagination at low ebb, Wander here, Wander Here.

Take the shady path, through the gate, out and around beside the water, past the magic gazing ball in the marjoram---the exotic fragrance rising with each sandal-step.

A small, hopeful sunbeam ignites the white silk of a Peace Lily bloom beside the lane. 

Perhaps fortune will allow us a glimpse of a small fairy, deep in the wood,  before she flees at the sound of our steps.

And as we stroll around the circle and near home again, take your rest, take your ease, and listen to the birdsong.

And to complete the concert, linger beneath the silver web for  more ethereal music, like a gossamer CD spinning out the haunting notes of a Glass Harp:

MRS. COPPER'S BIRTHDAY

 

It was a lovely small party yesterday at eight. A.M.  My dearest-ever neighbor turned 97, and we held her 17^th Annual Strawberry Breakfast.  We started the tradition on her 80^th, thinking often time in the interim we’d have a LAWN TEA---indeed, we planned one numerous times.   I’d named my blog LAWN TEA because it connoted those lovely Southern parties with all of us ladies in pastel sundresses, our sandals on the new-mown grass and a julep or punch cup in every hand on the long-shadow lawns of our past.  It just seemed the thing TO DO, for this lovely neighbor whose childhood was spend in War-approaching Germany, whose teens were eked out  during the War, when she and her mother depended on scant rations and a lone pear tree in the back yard for a taste of sweetness occasionally in those worry-fraught years. 

 

She met and married a sweet young soldier in 1947 and came to America a War Bride, of which I had heard much, and met just this one.  Their four daughters were raised in the little ranch house-to-match-ours next door, going to the school just around the blocks and achieving wonderful careers and lives for themselves, and all still look after their Mother at a gentle remove, looking in and calling and visiting, bringing her groceries and taking her to appointments and going to lunch every weekend, with a great respect for her independence and active mind and her wish to “do things as long as I can.”

 

I tease her that SHE and The Tree in the backyard and the second kitchen downstairs were the “selling points” twenty-five years ago when we bought this house---we made and cultivated a devoted friendship across that back gate for a year as Chris and I wavered over the purchase, with my trips every few weeks to Mississippi in my Mother’s last year.  And now we’re here---fast friends and happy neighbors for these decades.  She’s watched the grandchildren enter our lives, taught several of them to knit, to bead, to crochet.  She was a firm shoulder all those last years, when Chris was declining, and a steady, interested visitor and caller all these three years since. 

 

Yesterday was a quiet, just-us-three-at-table little breakfast, just her and Leah and me, with pink cloth and dishes and deep cups of the strong coffee we both like; we had a broccoli/tomato quiche and two kinds of pastries and a lovely ham steak, sizzled just as we sat down.   The strawberries seemed to know about this special occasion and put on their best, plumpest, sweetest selves for our party.   I don’t think we’ve ever served any more plump and sweet, they were huge, ringing a little chocolate bundt cake on the pink stand.   She smiled a lot as usual, and ate more than I’ve seen her in a long while, taking seconds of the quiche and several berries, and we sent her home with all the leftovers. 

 

We sat at table for three hours, eight to eleven, talking about her childhood and courtship and that long journey here, and all her daughters and their families, and so many other things about her long life.   Memorable day, bestest friend of my heart.   

 

PASSING ON THE TORCH

 

I've just received a sweet Thank-You text full of pictures from our latest Graduate---her response to the "please send a list and link" of my gift-giving occasions was "The Goblet of Fire, Illustrated, and some Jane Austens," so she showed me their new homes in all her bookshelves.    I just LOVE that all our Grands are readers---and I love seeing their choices come "home," so to speak, when I'm delighted and surprised that they want several of my own favorites from my decades-ago childhood.

In most of my posts on here, my reminiscence will change fonts as I go back in time, remembering those hot Delta days of the past.  

Our house when I was growing up always smelt of BOOKS. We had lots of new BOMC ones which I read much too young, all the ones from our school library, and the loads I lugged home from the little smoky-green board-and-batten library which dispensed books and a cookie now and then. And the old crumbly ones, whose pages would shatter at the corner if you didn't turn with your gentlest touch.

My own personal trove was a gift from a between-generations cousin, who was exactly ten years younger than my Mother and that much older than I. Jenece was the Nellie Oleson of our time, an absolute terror, a hitter and pincher and tattle-tale whose parents owned one of the two little grocery stores in a neighboring town, and who had an enticing gallery of exquisitely-dressed dolls, ordered from "OFF" for her childhood Christmases and birthdays. She also had BOOKS.

“Bought” books of her own---whole series of Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton and the Maida series and the Hardy Boys and every Tarzan in print. I would look at the dolls (not allowed to touch), but I coveted those books with a grievous avarice, and when I was in third grade, we got the CALL: Come get something she was giving away.

She was putting away childish things, and my Mammaw's joy at the idea that I would be receiving all those gloriously-attired dolls was boundless. She had even discussed shelving with my carpenter Daddy, hoping to provide them with the perfect display area.

We arrived to find three huge boxes, all packed and taped, and so heavy that they required the dolly and the help of a couple of bystanders---they had BOOKS inside, and Mammaw was NOT happy. And I was absolutely mortified that my Dad was handling a big container with "KOTEX" emblazoned on the side, RIGHT THERE IN DAYLIGHT.

But the bubble of joy that displaced all the feeling in my stomach---that anticipation and pre-enjoyment is still a milestone in my life for sheer happiness. I spent the entire Summer immersed in places and lives outside my own realm; I was right there in the front seat of that roadster (in my own smart outfit and dashing hat) as Nancy sped toward the solution to the mystery.

I passed whole days up an enormous pecan tree, trekking the steaming jungles in pursuit of elephant burial grounds and wicked traders, joining in the Jane-rescue with an echoing yodel and a swift vine-swing.

Jenece gave the dolls to the younger sisters of her boyfriend, and I have no doubt that they were soon scattered around that tatty yard, all those satins and velvets, little feathered hats and tiny, intricate shoes, trampled and whisked away in the wind, but I can still close my eyes and be up that tree in the deep Summer heat, keeping watch for lascivious Jane-stalkers and angry tribesmen.

The scent of old paper, the Johnson's wax we used on the hardwood floors (my Saturday polishings were carried out to rocking music, as I put on Daddy's old socks and danced the floors shiny), the flowers which were always present, the faint scent of my Mother's Pall Mall's, the aura of Chanel and Joy and Estee Lauder wafting from her dressing area, the delicious odors from the kitchen, where we would all be chopping and cooking and baking, the Summer tang of vinegar simmering in the latest batch of pickles, plus the Coppertone richness of a hundred days in the sun---those are still the scent-memories of my life, and my own home replicates these in its own way.

We have no idea of the complexities of our own homes' personae---the scents are just one of the points which go into their makeup; a friend used to come to our house often, and several times she said, "This smells like rich folks' houses." It was just a little house on a little street in a VERY little Southern town...but she was WAY right about the rich part. Books and music and really good food and friends to visit. Wealth beyond wishes, and BOOKS are the kind of wealth I love to hand down.

TORTOISE CHEF

 

PAXTON PREPARES US A NICE WALDORF SALAD FOR LUNCH.  

OLD TRUCKS

 The door of an old truck reaches higher on your face than a car door, and the creak/thunk of open and close have a more important sound, the way a bass guitar outranks everything onstage.   As the dusty heat of truck air grabs you and lifts you in, you settle into a waft of old motor oil and sometimes old ashtrays, with the whiff of good honest sweat, yesterday’s KFC, and a lingering reminder of whichever ole Dawg goes along for the ride.

 

A heat-crisped, flutter-edged checkbook and several topless Bics wedged down into the seat-corners are a must, as well as a few empty Dr. Pepper bottles rolling the “flow-boards,” countless coffee-ringed cups---bought and “from home,” various tools and weapons, and at least one greasy seed-cap hanging from a rack-post beside the well-oiled 410 and a .22.

 

 Old trucks don’t take off or peel off or even start off like their younger counterparts; they Ease Off, with a dignified rattle and huff, much like arthritic turtles hearing rabbit snores.  The words “ease off” have already entered the vocabulary of many a farmer, trucker, and any other owners of trucks in general.   My Alabama brother-in-law hardly ever goes anywhere, or goes home from where he's been---he just says “I think I’ll ease off down to WalMart,” or “I better ease off home,” and is away with barely a whisper.

 

The aura of a well-used truck is of the dust of gravel roads and plowed fields, the dried coffee-rings of countless planting dawns and chaff-filled midnights, of cargo too varied to name, of gun oil and accumulated paper and worn seats and grimy handprints and scuffed, buttery leather and the boot-scars of a thousand harvest days.

 

Some may hold relics of past Saturday nights’ gatherings in an empty field or down by the gravel-pit, with a few sun-bleached Bud bottles rolling out their days in the truck-bed beside a ratty old blanket and an empty Coleman, testament to 2 a.m. dancing to four radios at once, blaring Kenny and Johnny and Garth into the late-night air, as boots and sandals and bare feet raised more dust into the circle of headlights than a midnight combine.

 

There should be a joke about “Where’s the one clean spot in an old Pickup?”  The answer would be just THERE, where the countless shirt sleeves and bare arms and occasionally the fur of a happy, lolling old dog with the wind in his face have polished the resting-spot in the middle of the open driver’s-side window to the sheen of a well-loved Camaro. 

 

If there’s ever an Anthropology course in Pickup Ephemera, I’m signing right up.  Old Trucks are Rolling History.

THERE AND BACK AGAIN : ROCK CONCERT

Returning to the world after such a long absence feels unreal, somehow, like floating in space---vaster and more unfamiliar---empty and hollow, and then in stages and bits, like the re-entry of astronauts---kind of a great faith in They'll Get You Home, then an exhilarating burst of acceleration UPWARD in the takeoff (many, many thanks to Ground Control at lifeandlinda for her fabulous guidance and support), with a long float of How to Start and then just bracing for the final re-entry, hoping the seat doesn't catch fire in the descent.

All the absence and all the real ABSENCES have been long and difficult, but just the possibility that there was a chance to return always hovered there, right on the lip of the horizon.   Many, many things to tell, little to report, so I went to some of the musings of the Long Nights and Empty Days and found a little piece I wrote long ago, when Sweetpea was very young, and our days spent in such lively, lovely imaginary places and with such friends as are rare and strange.   I'm glad to be back, just for this one moment to have a place to emerge.   This is from my endless WORD shelves,  verbatim as it hit the page way back then.    If there's ever anyone to peek in, after so long a time away, Welcome!

Back in the hothot days of Summer, far back into the TIME BEFORE, when school was out and Sweetpea and I were mostly confined downstairs where it was COOL, we ranged our imaginations far and wide for fun stuff to do.  One day she brought an immense case of LITTLES, collected over several years of occasions and holidays, and we had all sorts of indoor “outings” with the tiny folk.
 
One day whilst waiting for our pedicures to dry (my first EVER, and it consisted of her painting my toenails with a vibrant shade of pink as she sang several songs from FROZEN to keep the temperature down), we just laid out all the wee beings and she devised a great gathering for a Rock Concert.   There was quite the audience of big-eyed fans, with more species of plastic than Noah could have dreamt.
 
The dining table, still laden from a trip to Sam’s, the orchid greenhouse, and a farm stand, as well as several usefuls from the past week which hadn’t been returned to their proper places, was the venue, with all the boxes from the Sam’s trip improvised into auditorium seats and stage.   Small creatures mobbed the gates as the taciturn ticket-lady (the only one of the littles who is simply a blue dress on a dress-form) quietly and calmly ushered everybody in.   It took quite some time, as this event stretched from clearing-after-breakfast to well past lunchtime.  One thing which took quite A While was transporting the audience a bus-ful at a time.  
 
The bus happened to be a much-opened BandAid box, with all the attendant dents and wonky angles, but it was red-and-white and rectangular, so all specs met.    The participants were loaded on, one at a time, with a slip and fall now and again, as they tried to keep their collective balance on top of the slick box as it was driven by hovering hand like a matchbox car, for trip after trip from loading dock to door, perhaps six or eight folks at a time for what seemed hours. 
 
Nobody got restive, nobody complained (well, maybe a buzz or two from the bee and the butterfly when they had to squeeze past the frog family to get to their seats), but all in all, they were quite well behaved for a rock crowd.  A few re-plays of Joe Cocker’s FEELIN’ ALL RIGHT from the Bose, a lot of sashays around the floor for the bus driver/host/deejay and me, and a Good Time was had. And have you ever seen a centipede DANCE??  Whoa!
 
Moire non,