A CHRISTMAS MEMORY, REMEMBERED

 

I've long-missed my friend John in Vicksburg, at MISSISSIPPI GARDEN. He faded away way too soon from the blog-world, but I look back often to see his lovely garden, and equally lovely way with words.   It's been more than fifteen years, and the memory of his sweet, lyrical, poignant prose has been a lasting wonder, and his title-page still on my side-banner.  

The first Christmas of my blog, he had posted a piece about his favorite modern Christmas story---Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory. It's also one of my own, for the times and circumstances so nearly mirrored my own raising, with Mammaw and a group of Aunts all chiming in on my welfare and manners and grooming, though they did not actually RAISE me, in the sense of every day looking-after.

And Y'all know I very rarely repeat a post, but this little book bears looking at, bears reading, for a real and stark and stunning picture of a little boy's life in the South of his day, with the devoted, fierce woman who took him in and did her absolute best for him, despite her own meager circumstances. And the almost-zany zeal with which she carries out her own odd Christmas tradition---that bespeaks a Southern woman's determination and grit and sheer strength of will to overcome and outlast and follow through.

I love Aunt Sook, as I loved and remember fondly all the odd group of Aunts of my own---the Aunt who DIPPED and traveled hundreds of miles on Greyhound to come spend summers with us, ferrying tiny Ayres and Avon samples in her vast suitcase---oddly enough, from the big city I now live in.  Then there was the one whose livelihood got her tossed in the calaboose for the activities of the scandalous houseful of young ladies she was "counseling," and the  tall slim one whose quiet, spare reserve sent her deep into the beautiful realms of paint-by-number to escape the constant humming hive and bell of the six-days-a-week dawn-to-dark little country store they owned. And always, my Mammaw.

And so, from LAWN TEA---scarcely a jot on the internet scroll, Christmas, 2008---Reflections on A Christmas Memory:

One blog featured Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” in a daily post, the stark words re-read this morning with my first coffee. I could feel those cold Christmas-morning planks of the bedroom floor, see the hard-won clumsy homemade gifts and tree decorations, smell the scents of Winter-long bacon grease and Vicks in that drafty grim house.

The faded gray tones of the accompanying picture echo those in my own scrapbooks and albums. Little Truman squints and gives a tentative smile into the sun, as the limp skirt of his spare, gaunt kinswoman hangs beside the pants of his short white boy-suit.

I know that woman---called “Aunt Sook,” though she was some distant cousin, as unwanted and unwelcome in the household as the quiet, brilliant little boy. You can see the arthritic clench of her hands which had just made thirty fruitcakes, chopping and stirring, sending them to the Roosevelts and other dignitaries, as well as neighbors and friends---she'd saved every coin and dollar she could spare for the year, hiding them in a purse beneath the floorboard under the chamberpot beneath her bed.

Those same wiry hands had chopped down a Christmas tree, wrestling it home past bayou and brush, for that beloved child, and decorated it with bits and bobs of anything pretty she could scrounge.

I know that scraggy porch, the one “turned” post standing valiantly against the sag of time, the rattly boards of the steps, the GRAY of the whole thing---the house and the porch and the prospects and the people and the time. There are plants on the porch, and contrary to my Mammaw's first porch, the one of my childhood, with the big old creaky swing, there are no coffee-cans in sight. I'd have expected at least one, holding a cutting of something-or-other, to coddle into flourishment in that ripe Alabama climate. Mammaw's Folger's and Maxwell house cans held mostly coleus---plural to her, I suppose, for if she gave you ONE, it was a colea. Just like one amaryllis was an Amarillo---I never GOT the difference til I learned to read, and seed catalogs were some of my favorites.

We have pictures of that hollow-faced woman, lithic as Lincoln at Rushmore, in our own handed-down flaps of Kodak-cardboard; the deep, wise eyes, the scrunched-back, sparse hair, the best-dress for the honor of the event, the still stare captured in its simple eloquence. She even LOOKS like my Mammaw and her sisters, though four of them, including Mammaw, were definitely not slim, spare ladies. They were bright, laughing women, whose conversation and dress and daily doings were not of the gray sort.

And so, his Christmas Memory. Very unlike mine in content, but so similar in locale, in persona, in clime and in women whose lives were of that time and place. My own memories lean more to scratchy dresses and a big noon dinner with kinfolk at Mammaw's house, with her own small tree set on the living room/bedroom dresser and her own bed behind a curtain not six feet from the dining table in the "middle room."

Men sat on the porch, came rumbling in to eat, lifted toothpicks from the tiny vase, and rocked back surfeited, into that tw0-chair-legs teeter which we knew to be the province of Uncles and Grandpas, but never young ladies; they soon vacated their places for Second Table, went outside, smoked, talked, kicked car tires and smoked some more. I think---for they were as peripheral to my ken as I to theirs.

But, like Truman, I DO remember the Women. Christmas and every day of my life.

WHAT IT WAS, WAS FUDGE!!

Reminiscing this bright-on-the-snow cold morning about days past, when we were so energetic and eager to get to the Christmas preparations.   Just about now would be the stocking-up of sugar, of chocolate chips and butterscotch and brickles, the solemn small blue jars of marshmallow creme, and a lot of butter.    It WAS FUDGE TIME!   We had a lot of folks in the local area, family and clients and just friends acquired over time, and we loved to surprise them with at least a pound every Christmas.  

I wish today was Fudge-Making Day, so it could just BE, cooling and being cut and wrapped for delivering around town to clients, so I’m “fudging” with the posts and using  this one from Christmas, sixteen years ago.  Wish I still had as much energy as I did then, when I was looking after a two-year-old three days a week.  She’s quite adept in the kitchen now, herself, and I’m sure she could show me a thing or two 

THESE ENLARGE WITH A CLICK

Here's the tableful of goodies for clients and friends---not nearly all of what we made, but it looks pretty, all arrayed like that. We swap the pretty cloths for an old red vinyl picnic sheet, and use a lot of Windex on the two glass tables, for candy-making is messy work.

Clockwise from One O'clock: Cappuccino Fudge, Plain Fudge, Chex Mix, Chocolate Chip Drop Cookies, Kahlua Fudge with Chocolate Coffee Beans, Rocky Road with the little cut marshmallows showing, more cookies, and a plate of Kahlua Brownies.

And I'm the candy-making Elf---Kahlua Fudge, with a couple of shots of Espresso Syrup and Kahlua:

Cappuccino Fudge, with a shot of Espresso syrup in the recipe:

Just plain Fudge, creamy and chocolatey---I love its color and shine:

Reese's Loaves---the bottom is the old-fashioned recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge, with extra-crunchy, left to sit in the pans til cool and firm, then a small pour of plain fudge on top.

One more look at the original, from whom all recipes spring---cutting those precise, sharp corners.

I wish you all a Christmas Season as sweet as these past

SWEET TIMES!!

MY FRIEND KARLA KAY

In this special season of THANKFULS, I'm doing a lot of remembering of Things Past---those softly-remembered moments and years and people who shaped our selves and beings along the way.   One very thankful for the past few decades has been a mist-softened memory of a childhood friend, whose life we all coveted, I think, in our youthful ways of thought.

Do we all know someone whose life we wished could live---someone with a family whose life together we envied, or who had a talent we’d like to have, or who even just had THINGS which we longed for and never obtained?    Mine was Karla Kay---she of the always-tanned perfect complexion, eyelashes out to THERE, and even longer slimslim legs which made white short-shorts into what they were meant to be. She lived in a house with hardwood floors and beautiful scatter-rugs in front of couches and a long strip of one down the hall to “the girls’ rooms” and an immense thick one beneath the real dining-room table. Our dining room was the end of the kitchen without cabinets, with a round maroon formica table and six matching vinyl chairs.     We knew each other from age four until early in this turned Century, when she passed away and was mourned most deeply by her loving family and friends.   

Karla Kay had long dark curly hair, washed with CONTI shampoo---the drift of scent from her curls was the fragrance of flowers; ours was Halo and a vinegar rinse and whatever was on the shelf at Fred’s. She always smelled of fresh-ironed cotton and the vaguest whiff of her Daddy’s cigars---he drove her and her sisters to school, and since he had a job with the CITY and could leave his office whenever he wanted, he picked them up and took them home for lunch, then was waiting after school to take them home or to the library, dentist appointments, or the drugstore for a Fountain Coke.

She had records and a big record player in the den, and a smaller one in her room; the big one was for when she “had boys over” and we danced in our socks---the closest I ever came to that was on several Saturday mornings when I’d put Johnson’s wax on all our own hardwoods, and was encouraged to call my girlfriends to come over to polish. We’d all wear a clean pair of Daddy’s old socks and dance the floors shiny to Elvis and Jerr’ Lee, and put on a Connie Francis, for long, skating strokes to smooth the boards. 

 

They went on vacations to Rock City and Destin and Mexico; they had subscriptions to Highlights For Children and National Geographic and later, Seventeen; they had girls over to spend the night, and they slept until ten or noon (once I went to a slumber party, and my Mother woke everybody up when she came to get me at eight to come home and tend to my sister, when we were supposed to go for Huddleburgers for lunch for KK's birthday). Her parents belonged to the BOMC and her mother smoked Old Golds with a little short white holder, the smoke drifting lazily up into her premature salt-and-pepper hair. They had a wonderful life.

I ran into Karla Kay and her husband in the ER one night in the Eighties, when I had to take my MIL in; she barely spoke, sitting leaning against him, as he whispered, “one of her headaches.” A couple of years later, same circumstance, same ER---his whispered, “We’ve come for her SHOT,” explaining all. I knew then that the coincidence was too far-fetched, and that she must have been there like clockwork;   Marjorie exasperatedly confided later that they made the rounds of several counties---one hospital here one night, another on another.

She wasted years of her life, her beautiful family, her own lovely existence, on a haze of nightly oblivion. And they adored her, lost her much too young, mourned her with fierce tears, and still speak of her as a saint who bore her travail with grace and honor. I remember her as a beautiful young friend whose life seemed to outshine mine. But not forever.

Anyone care to remember THEIR Karla Kay?

MY MOUTON JACKET

 

A question on another blog: What did YOU covet in high school?

Beginning about the ninth grade, I coveted a Mouton Jacket---the softest, smoothest, dig-your-fingers-into-that-lush, cut pile garment that ever came off a sheep. They weren’t for school---oh, No. they were for church and special dates and other VERY special occasions, and I longed for one of those beautiful things for YEARS. Even the linings were slipper satin, a fabric reserved only for wedding dresses and the finest fur coats.

We'd sit in Sunday school or BTU, in the folding chairs ringed round the room, and nobody, no matter what the temperature, would take off their Mouton. Except maybe Karla Kay, who would casually shrug hers off over the back of the chair so her fancy embroidered monogram on the inside left would show to advantage. Hers was even richer with the redolence of her Daddy's cigars, which seemed to permeate their whole lives and lend an air of added elegance to the soft fur.

And I finally got one---Christmas of senior year---perfection, with my own initials in gold-outlined-in-red-satin-thread, right there inside on that smooth chocolate lining. I cannot tell you how luxurious it felt, that piece of sheepskin and satin, cut and sewn to fit. There was more magic in that fluffy garment than in a dozen glass slippers or invisibility cloaks. I felt beautiful---just showered and made up in the best Revlon and Woolworth’s had to offer, hair gleaming and eyes bright, looking and smelling marvelous, feeling the nervous, happy anticipation as a sweet succession of nice young men arrived at my door to escort me out for a lovely evening.

I wore it all through college, as well, and once, at a fraternity party, I got the wrong coat. My date George had handed it over at the little check-table, and in the flurry of all leaving-at-once to get back to the dorms for curfew, the young pledge handed me the wrong jacket.

George did the obligatory holding; I slipped into it and slid my hands into the pockets. The size was right, but It was like picking up the wrong baby---It was not mine. It didn’t hang right, my hands didn’t fit right, and it was just OFFF. I flipped back the left side---no initials. The coat-check guy headed for the big front windows, pointing to a brother holding the car-door for his date. “That must be it” he said. “It’s the only other one I handed out tonight.”

Old George ran for the door, with my little red pumps in twinkly pursuit---he flagged down the car, we ran up and explained things, and then he opened the car door.

The other girl feigned amazement that she might have on my coat, staying firmly seated, doing that hugging-shrugging motion that hugged it and herself, running her hands up the neckline and preening herself in it like a satisfied cat. She even pouted a little bit when she stepped out of the car. I reached and flipped the front to show my monogram, and she gave a resigned sigh as she took it off and handed it over.

SHE KNEW. And I knew she knew---she’d almost got away with my beautiful coat, and left behind a lesser version, thin and cheap as her intentions, with a stiff lining and no beautiful satin frog-loop at the waist. There was even the nasty scent of her Intimate cologne all around the neck fur, and I had to go sit up on the big old widow’s walk sunroof atop our dorm, with it blowing in the breeze two cold afternoons before the traces of that awful smell were gone.

I wore that coveted coat all through college, and its slightly-shopworn remains are in the guestroom closet upstairs, still in its Goldsmiths bag. It was the only thing I ever really aspired to HAVE in all my high school years, and it took three each of hopeful Christmases and birthdays before it finally appeared, for I was never one to press for anything. If my parents said, "No," it meant no. If they said, "We'll see," then you could live in hope, but you'd better not mention it again.

That gleaming lining is only a soft whisper now, but the initials still shine. I just go hug it sometimes, and I swear I can smell a long-ago spritz of Woodhue, and recapture the luxury of that young time---the evenings of a shining pony-tail  and bright eyes, of stepping out into a fun evening when all things were right, and a mere coat made my small, circumscribed World perfect.

"WHO SHOT J.R.?"

 

(A very close facsimile of the Original cake, which was 14" across)

• Leah and I have been harking back to some “old” TV shows in the past little while, and just now we mentioned the “Who Shot J.R.?" DALLAS episode that everybody in the audience was so avidly awaiting.   The seasons were different, then, in 1980 (yes it was 45 years ago), and usually consisted of 25 or 26 episodes, then re-runs for the off-season.  And the last season had ended with J.R. lying bleeding on the floor, with nary a glimpse of the culprit. The plot was discussed in pool rooms and beauty parlors,  at school events, ball games, and even 
• out at the smoking spot outside the Methodist

Besides, I'd seen the havoc those new TV series could wreak, with the tale of two ladies at the Beauty Parlor tying up over a magazine with Nick Nolte from Rich Man, Poor Man.   And I'd personally witnessed the time at P.T.A. meeting when the long, lanky Town Alderman tried to step OVER the folding chairs between him and the aisle to get his wife home on time about three weeks into THAT show.   Rumor was that he had to wear an "appliance" for a couple of weeks, but I wouldn't know about that.    

 Well, we had been hired to cater a small Wedding Dinner for a young couple---I don’t remember which one had been married before, but they didn’t want a “Big To-Do,” just a nice evening at the Country Club for about thirty friends, with a pretty Fall-decorated cake and delicious Cornish-hens-and Dressing dinner.  

As time went on toward the date, I was asked quite a few times at the office about timing re: getting home to see the show, and once, “When you gonna let us out of there?”    Since I was certainly not in charge of anything but the food, I had no answer for them.

But I DID think of one thing that might calm the waters and assure that no one missed the show.  We put together a little Movie Night plan, carrying both the new AirPOP, the old popcorn popper, several BIG salad-bar bowls, a big package of quart-sized Dixie cups, several flavors of popcorn salt, and  several pounds of Orville's Best---all unbeknownst to the Bride and Groom.

 

As the dessert was being served, and some folks hitting the dance floor, we started the poppers to work, with butter melting in a big pan and all that unmistakable scent of POPCORN in the air, filling those enormous pans and hoisting them to the warming shelves on those big Franklin ranges.

 When it got on toward nine o’clock, everybody had suddenly decided to stay on and watch in the big lounge, and a surge of refills at the bar and tea pitchers and Coke Machine preceded the crowd into the TV room, with chairs and cushions brought from every room in the club, and all those folks in their evening finery lounging on furniture, the floor, several on laps and handy leaning-spots all over the room.

We passed out cups of popcorn and lots of paper towels, set out the rest of the bowls and toppings, and went our way back to the clearing of tables, to hearty applause for our unexpected treat, and shouts to befit an Ole Miss/State game when the shooter was revealed.

 

I heard nice things about that unexpected lagniappe to the experience for years, and the surprised and grateful Bride and Groom remembered us with a handsome tip.      

PAXTON PEOPLE XXXI: DIANNA BRIGHT

 

Dianna Bright has a purple color scheme in her kitchen, with a bosom-swell of plums printed on the curtains, the tied-on cushions in the captain’s chairs at the breakfast table, and the little crocheted-hanger-on-one-end dishtowel swinging from the oven door.  She has two shades of purple placemats, which she alternates round the table, and sets the table for two anew after every meal.  She gets a fresh plate, bowl, cup and saucer out of the cabinet while the last ones whirl through the dishwasher, and puts the matching napkin back into a ring beside each plate. 

She’s house-proud and cookin’ proud and takes elaborately-concocted, wonderful casseroles and salads to Church Suppers and Missionary Society luncheons and can set out gorgeous tea-trays for Eastern Star, with all the tee-ninecy sandwiches spread right to the edge of the bread and lined up in pretty patterns and formations that she finds online.

 Somehow, after her “raisin’” in a very small shotgun house with three siblings, and the attendant lack of many grace notes in the discordant symphony of their days, Dianna has a flair for gracious moments, and she loves to have a pretty house, set a pretty (and lavish, as the occasion may call for ) table, and almost most of all, she likes things to MATCH.    None of the modern love for all things old, for her, nor a bit of rust paired with even the most exquisite lace would sway her, and she just doesn’t quite get the craze for the vintage items which cost more love and money now than they ever dreamt in their Duz-box and Kroger-giveaway beginnings. Except for matching "china," which she occasionally finds at yard sales or Goodwill.  

She likes SETS of things---full service for eight “Everyday” dishes stand in her left-hand kitchen cabinet, remarkably intact for the twenty-one intervening years since her Wedding Shower. 

Numerous small sets for four are arranged in the dining room's room-wide Hutch Wall, built by her husband Havlon, who is known best for the beautiful hutches and built-ins he creates right in people's dining rooms---any size, any space, with shelves and drawers and carving satin-smooth as fine furniture.  He has a habit of always signing his work on the back, even if it means just writing his name on a board he's about to nail on a wall. 

Dianna will trade dishes out for holidays and seasons, as long as all the salad plates and butter dish and cream and sugar are of the same pattern.   She keeps that table set, and it BRIGHTS her to look at it and know that things are in order.  It MATTERS.  

 

 And that mattering is a far remove from doing her homework at the old oilcloth kitchen table of her growing-up years, with its bottles of Ketchup and Tabasco atop the faded-pattern oilcloth flanking the long-used old steel “silverware” standing in the well-worn coffeecan, the small bristle of toothpicks in a silver Garrett snuff can, and the fluffy pouf of krinkly, translucent one-ply paper napkins in their stingy pinch-box with “UNITED GAS CO,” on its fading green plastic, allowing one thin sheet each for a meal.  

Diana remembers, and like she swore all her childhood and teens, she’s DOING BETTER.             

APRES LE DELIGHTFUL DELUGE

 

                             The Golden Light that seems to strike our lawn only during Halloween, with decor and candy courtesy of Leah, from a decade past.   (Looking back in after making lunch, and there appears an uncanny complete ME almost, with two sweater sleeves and a long black apron.   Several brooches (which I have several of, but Chris always knew I'd love them for the gift and the lovely of them, but they would reside on lampshades and curtain fringes).   Hold your eyes just right and there she IZZZ.

There's something about the light this morning---this crack-the-cusp and slide into November---that the door revealed as I opened it to the front lawn.   There were only leaves there---damply scattered though there'd been no rain.   Only leaves to remark the eager little hordes who graced our porch last night.   Something about those small beings---four hundred of them, usually, and surely that last night---they left absolutely nothing in their wake.

No abandoned beer cups, no wrappers or forlorn band-posters nor ticket stubs---yet-to-concert young 'uns assured the absence of emptied BICS and the limp exhaustion of light wands and necklaces---just the same grass with the same leaves.    The lawn was untrodden and smooth, with their wake pristine as water closing after a boat.  And there WAS a tide---in fact quite several, and perhaps a budding tsunami a time or two, but they honored the lawn, and scurried all the way to the driveway turn to get to me, between the two lanterns marking the walk-posts, and right to my lap with my feet dangling from the porch.   They had seen me in my gaudy glory, immense pink witch hat with veil, pink outfit from cardigan to slacks to clogs, with stripey witch stockings in between, as generations have seen me  and anybody else of the house, year-to-year, since we moved here in 1997. 

The schedule for the "town" is listed as 6 to 8, but a lot of Mamas have gotten the word about the rich pickin's in our little area, and a cavalcade of cars and SUVs begins before 5:30, when I'm usually out, in every weather but pouring, with handy carpet-panels aligned along the porch, for any sitting helpers who come along.   The firsts are some of the littlest---tee-ninecy ladybugs and small pirates and enough princesses to re-stock every Kingdom on Earth should there be a shortage.   One wee Buzz Lightyear so small as to be merely a happy lower-case "bz" strode his toddler steps up to me, grinning wide, and the plethora of comic and cartoon and HERO UNIVERSE and after-school TV and astronomically diverse little characters made their way into my heart. 

The tides DID ebb and flow, with little lapses when I just sat and rocked out to the EVERYTHING HALLOWEEK neighbor's soundtrack of Monster Music---I even stood up and danced to Time Warp one time when the lawn was not filled with Kiddos.  And Monster Mash---even the Next-Door Parents didn't believe I knew the words to Monster Mash and could approximate a bit of Boris's accent.

But when the surges came, they came BIG---twenty or thirty would come up the driveway, minding their manners, and a great colorful sway would be in front of me, almost every one with a Happy Halloween, or How You Doing? and absolute respect for the moment---nobody grabbing, nobody pushing---just a quick reach and drop into bags and pumpkins, and somehow the THERES were replaced with the Next In Lines, and it went so well, it was as if they'd practiced both approach and depart with precision.    The smiles and the happy faces at the shining silvery packs of sweets---and my waving up of all chaperones, caretakers and other grown-ups, with "Drivers always eat!"---what fun and shrill little thank yous, and over-shoulder shouts of thanks from that minimultitude---one of my high spots of the year.   I didn't hear a single protest or wail or loud voice all evening, save for the friendly greetings of the once-a-year recognitions.   

Shy teens-and teens-plus DID sort of shrink a bit til I always said, "You're NEVER TOO GROWN-UP" and then there were great smiles.  And some old familiars DID scan around the porch for Paxton, and inquire "Where's your TURTLE?" missing her presence from other years.   Every one brought a gentle pang, but the evening went on beautifully.    I stood up and carried the pan to the sidewalk entrance whenever I saw a visitor who might have trouble negotiating that small space, or toddler whose proud parent hung back and let them SHINE.  

And thus I met the COSTUME OF THE YEAR---I have at least one memorable one every year, and unless it's an absolutely Hollywood-perfect attire and makeup beyond the pale, it's almost always a thought-up or Homemade one that catches me.    The little family---two littles in charming costumes, and a Mom and Dad, with Dad trundling a full-size garbage bin, shiny with aluminum foil of its crafting on the dolly, and with a clever sign I cannot quite recall, with a tiny being inside who rose up on cue and waved his arms.   What a thought, and what a loving, albeit uncommon, piece of workmanship and deft navigating of all these crowded blocks, of that sweet Daddy for his child.

And so it went---not a whimper, not a scowl, not a blip---one more lovely Halloween in this little neighborhood.   We closed the doors and turned off the lanterns at about 8:15 and went in to have our dinner of two baked potatoes with fixin's awaiting in the oven.   Perfect evening, once again.  

    

                    From a Decade ago:   Sweetpea, grown too tall from her pumpkin of the years before, attended as a Jack-o'-Squash, and was astounded to meet Violet in our own front yard.

LOVE THAT RED

 

I've been simply mesmerized in a vast collection of photos lately---mostly old ones, for another blog subject to come in its time, and in re-reading a friend's blog this morning, I was so caught  up in his story of a staid English uncle so enamoured of a lady that he caught a train from London to Scotland in 1928, simply to have luncheon with her.   If anything came of their romance, my friend never knew, but Uncle DID buy a house near her, and lived out his long life in the Highlands, leaving behind an enormous English country house and great rooms of furniture, which his family inherited.

The atmosphere of that Perhaps Love Affair was palpable in his words, for he writes exquisitely of beautiful things and people and times, that I could see the haze of smoke in their air, the scent of Winter-long furs and Toujours Moi and dustings of face powder, with a little rim of unblotted lipstick on the unfiltered cigarette paper left in the ashtray.

 

It so reminded me of some of the women in my own family, whose great presences were punctuated by scents and colours---good perfume and wafts of Coty powder, and one Aunt whose lipstick fascinated me so as a child and teen, I could scarcely look her in the eyes, for staring at the odd configuration of her bright lips:

 

(from my own blog---a memory from a far time, published several years ago):   Her red nail polish matched her lipstick, which was put on with the oddest little down-strokes side-by-side in the middle, higher than her own lipline, then by doing a big old theater-mask-mouth which stretched her bottom lip TIGHT while she did a corner-to-corner Revlon swoop (Love That Red). That lip totally covered, she bit them tight together, transferring a coat to the top lip. The original two little pointy places right in the middle stood brightly high like the tops of angel-wings, their line of demarcation flowing into the flat dryness of a sifty layer of Coty powder which clung to the downy hairs of her upper lip.

She was the Aunt of the Purse Peke, a perfect canine armful of happy spun-gold and exuberant licks, and the longtime owner of a monkey which reached his demise by the Winter-time perch around a floor lamp which slowly decimated his tail and thus he went.   At eight, I wrote him a little epitaph for his grave out in her garden.  "HIS TAIL WAS COLD.  HIS TALE IS TOLD."   

She was also loving Sister-in-Law to her husband's two "afflicted" brothers---the term of those days to convey an unfortunate condition, usually from birth.  They were both handicapped, and she was a true, helpful, uplifting Sister.  And her "other" sideline which got her and her husband talked about and into the calaboose---perhaps moire non, when more mature subjects are discussed.   

THE STOCKIN' BAG

(Prelude Precaution:   I have no idea how all the search clicking was inserted into this post.  Pray do not click on them, for I know not where they go, nor do I endorse their presence here).

I’ve spoken so much of my Mammaw, of the garden and the swang and the Stow-ries, that I’ve seemed to pass over the three-months-a-year that we had my other Mammaw---Mammaw B., with us at our house.  Daddy was the only one of her children who chose to stay right where he was raised (a great swath of his teen years they lived way out in the country, but still near the same town).   Our house was built on the block where he was born, in the house catty-cornered back next to the railroad, and our lots contained the playground of all the neighborhood boys, with the remnants of their tree-house up the big oak in our front yard all my life.  

His four surviving siblings all moved to Memphis when they were grown (two older brothers died in the Flu Epidemic of 1918, ages five and seven), and sweet Aunt Maggie passed away when I was about fifteen.   So they settled it that Mammaw would rotate the year, with times at each house, and ours fell across the Summer months.   I was always of the opinion that Mother chose those months for her because we had an enormous garden right there on our yard, plus big pea and corn patches out at the country place, and since she didn’t fancy her Mother-in-Law’s company too much anyway, setting her down with a pan of peas or beans to shell every day  was a good way to keep her useful. 

And when she didn’t have her hands in the Pea-Pan, or in the cooler months, Mammaw would crochet---that woman could could use that needle like Stravinski with the baton---she could take a stick and a string and crochet a 3-D version of the Sistine Chapel, I thought. And she had my sly way of going up to the drugstore to sneak a look at the magazine and or comic-book counter, standing there running her eyes over the PICTURES---not the directions of all the stitches---and come home and get going on that pineapple or that pear blossom or star, just from seeing and counting those stitches.   It was the most magical thing I’d ever seen anybody do, and I still marvel at the gift.

And she made me one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever owned---a green silk “stocking bag” with tiny pastel flowers---I’d heard and read of silk---all those little worms working and making that magical thread, but this was the first I’d ever held in my hand.   And you COULD hold it---it was about a foot long, handle-tip to bottom, but with nothing in it, that ethereal stuff could be held entirely in my hand, not a stitch showing.  Those slim skeins of shimmery green looked like they could have been threaded onto the old Singer for sewing.

 She’d say, “Now this is for your Hankachiffs, for now, but it will be your Stockin’ Bag when you get grown, to keep them from getting runs.”

Little did she know of the dreams I’d dreamt of those slender boxes of Fifteen Denier, laid pressed and folded shimmery in the Specials Case at Lipson’s---that great treasure-house of scents and fabrics and shoes.  All of us little girls loved to peek into those mystical drawers of such ethereal wares, we were sure they were not of this earth, for what human could knit such fey cloth as to read through?  And a hint of something to come---something so femininely mysterious about tucking such secrets beneath your skirt---we all marveled and awaited our own turn at such secrecy. 

We mooned for those unreachable garments from the time we could tiptoe high enough to see the contents of those tempting boxes on Aunt Lucy’s shelves, as well, in there in the mysteries such as a box or two of Coty powder, fancy little combs and brushes, and little display of those odd small pull-tab nipples bought for a dime by poor Mamas to use on Co-Cola bottles for their babies’ milk. I can still smell the air from that treasure-cave when the door slid open---a mixture of my Sunday-School-Teacher’s cologne and a new doll’s skin. 

And lo, at about sixteen, we would be seen at church with leg-sheen like no other---having pulled on our our first pair of stockin’s and our ladylike manners with them. 

I’d never put any of my stockings in that lovely silk bag---I was too struck on practically IRONING the things to get them back to their pristine lay-down fold in that box---every single one in its own---I remembered perfectly which in which, where we bought them, or who all gave me each of those five pairs for graduation, and treated them accordingly.   That bag still had handkerchiefs and neck scarves and once a little secret ring for quite a while, and that was purpose enough.

 And not until the advent of mini-skirts and the time at Ole Miss beautiful Rose Clayton (later to become a Senator’s wife) accidentally flashed her racy garterbelt and stocking-tops to the entire audience at Fulton Chapel on Sorority Choir Contest night, did we slowly and unwillingly make the change over to Panty-Hose.    Pity.

 

 

TAAK, DECEMBER, 1946

 

Sometimes in an everyday day there comes along a bit of lagniappe, beyond the bright sun down the stairs and the call from a long-ago friend---a charming and beguiling thing which just causes your breath to slow and all the sounds around you to grow still. . .

This is one such, a lovely missive which has been somewhere in the world since I was four years old, and which, until now, had hovered unseen and unread, just beyond my vision, like a quiet sunbeam across the rug.    I’m not familiar with the writer, and I cannot wait to delve into her words---I’m afraid if I find her right this minute, I might just dive in like digging a spoon into a whole pie.

I just cannot tell you, so see for yourself.   A Thank You note for a Christmas gift from a friend, written by author Sylvia Townsend Warner to Alyse Gregory, in December, 1946.

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Dearest Alyse,

Usually one begins a thank-letter by some graceless comparison, by saying, I have never been given such a very scarlet muffler, or, This is the largest horse I have ever been sent for Christmas. But your matchbox is a nonpareil, for never in my life have I been given a matchbox. Stamps, yes, drawing-pins, yes, balls of string, yes, yes, menacingly too often; but never a matchbox. Now that it has happened I ask myself why it has never happened before. They are such charming things, neat as wrens, and what a deal of ingenuity and human artfulness has gone into their construction; for if they were like the ordinary box with a lid they would not be one half so convenient. This one though is especially neat, charming, and ingenious, and the tray slides in and out as though Chippendale had made it.

But what I like best of all about my matchbox is that it is an empty one. I have often thought how much I should enjoy being given an empty house in Norway, what pleasure it would be to walk into those bare wood-smelling chambers, walls, floor, ceiling, all wood, which is after all the natural shelter of man, or at any rate the most congenial. And when I opened your matchbox which is now my matchbox and saw that beautiful clean sweet-smelling empty rectangular expanse it was exactly as though my house in Norway had come true; with the added advantage of being just the right size to carry in my hand. I shut my imagination up in it instantly, and it is still sitting there, listening to the wind in the firwood outside. Sitting there in a couple of days time I shall hear the Lutheran bell calling me to go and sing Lutheran hymns while the pastor's wife gazes abstractedly at her husband in a bower of evergreen while she wonders if she remembered to put pepper in the goose-stuffing; but I shan't go, I shall be far too happy sitting in my house that Alyse gave me for Christmas.

Oh, I must tell you I have finished my book—begun in 1941 and a hundred times imperilled but finished at last. So I can give an undivided mind to enjoying my matchbox.

Sylvia

P.S. There is still so much to say...carried away by my delight in form and texture I forgot to praise the picture on the back. I have never seen such an agreeable likeness of a hedgehog, and the volcano in the background is magnificent.

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Present Day musings on that long-away and far-ago gift:    What a fabulous missive to receive for a present, beyond a mere THANK YOU---it carries all the charm of the small treasure and the imagination of a talented writer, and can you not smell the sawdust of those golden small plies of wood so intricately joined and mitered?  

I love to think that this small trinket has been passed down in that family, still treasured and kept perhaps behind glass, in memory of those two women of the past, and their friendship or kinship or fond regard of each other.  

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LAWN TEA, OCTOBER 20, 2025  POST #1400

FLIGHT SCHOOL

 

On our Adventure walks, we’re always on the lookout for Fairy houses and activities, and so when we spotted this seeming scar on the tree,  we realized we’d happened on a treasure:  See that tall, thin line extending casually from top to bottom?  That is the Ingress:  the magical doors which slide silently back, revealing a perfectly wonderful scene---the many, many tiers of a Fairy School, its vast heights providing high halls in which the little flightlings practice their takeoffs and landings, their swoops and swirls.

The inside is one great chamber of dozens of towering ledges, some of each kind of surface from which a fledgling flyer might be expected to have to use for takeoff:  Grassy plains, with soft landings and gentle errors, til the little wings catch  their wind;  tree limbs and lacy bushes and crannies in the rock, as well as stony ledges over great chasms, as the little ones grow in verve and skill.   There’s even a water-ledge, its surges held magically from the overflow, each drop hanging precipitously yet never falling onto the balconies below, as the tiny mer-fae burst   from the water masquerading as minnows, spilling silvery droplets as they rise.

 There are delightful classes in floating down on frilly filigree of banisters, ornate brims of opera-boxes, shelves of books and shining glassware.   Specially chosen cadets are schooled in Royal Comportment and Matters of State, for gracing velvet cushions and behind-the-throne lounging ledges built into the back of every royal chair in every kingdom, for quick consultation or immediate dispatch, or just for the fun and honor of having such magical friends close at hand.

And there are indoor-type launches and landings as well, for learning the genteel art of set-down on carpet, stairs, marble floors of great halls.   There’s a special course in Hover-and-Float, for secret landings inside flowers or  behind sugar-bowls and muffin-stands on tea-tables.

  One afternoon features special guests, for it’s dedicated to alighting gently and safely on the shoulders of Folk-friends. 

All these charming scenes reside behind that pale green door, as tall as the gates of fabled cities, rising in tiers of colour and form, as the patient trainers lift and guide, console and cheer, teaching their wee charges to fly.

And when those doors glide open, the glitterings and gleamings, the magical spells and the delight of flight---those are too much for most eyes.  But when you’re lucky enough to be there for the opening---when you’re quick, and when you BELIEVE---THEN you’ll see something you’ll never forget.

           GRADUATION PROMENADE

                YUME CYAN