TALK ABOUT A DERBY!!

I've long loved the Kentucky Derby---the sunshine, the roses, the infectious humor/style of the those hats-to-challenge-Ascot, the scent-of-the-mint in those sweaty julep cups, camaraderie  and the great energy and thunder of those muscles and hooves.   I still watch that sweet video from decades ago, of the baby colt and his Mama already discussing the ROSES---I usually have a few sweet tears for that one.   

Today, I ventured into a blog heretofore unknown to me from Linda's Link Party and to me, it has some of what blogging should be about---Home, Family History, Hospitality, and an evocative hand on the pen to set the stage so beautifully.   I'd missed looking in on the Derby on Saturday, and my first glimpse of a new site this morning  was mesmerizing  and captivating and I hope you'll look in on this wonderful telling of a FIRST in racing history, and the lovely hospitality of the writer.   

SALT PRAIRIE

LETTER FROM A GRANDDAUGHTER

 

I've been asked recently about my outlook on Life, and why I'm interested and take Joy in so many small things, and I think that it's the company I keep.    For example, a Granddaughter with the sharpest wit, a tender soul, and intellect way beyond her years.   I just sent a copy of one of her e-mails to NANA DIANA, who had just sent me a profoundly great compliment, to illustrate the small things that BRIGHT me, every day.    From a 21-year-old Jane Austen fan with her own magnificent library, eloquent writer, and magical touch with the knitting needles. 

She works in a jewelry store, with her exquisite manicure modeling rings for bashful swains and their sweethearts, and a letter from her is a wonderful gift:

 From last August, when I NEEDED a lift, as we were in the midst of four weeks of a hot, dusty, messy, EXPENSIVE re-wiring of the whole house:

-----------------------------------------------  

Happy August, Ganjin!! I’m practically sizzling with excitement for this approaching fall. One of my many philosophies is that since Christmas is allowed November, December and January, then we should grant my hearts most fondest holiday and season the last two weeks of August, the first belonging to the dog days of summer naturally.  I’m so excited that I’ve already begun window shopping for new decorations. I have little reason these days for costumes, seeing as I’m not much of a party goer nor do I have parties to attend, but that opportunity may present itself at my local renaissance faire’s new fall festival. 

I'm sorry my replies have been so few and far between. I’ve accidentally made myself quite useful at my job and I’ve taken as many hours as they can possibly give me. The shop is turning into something of a winter wonderland (my manager gets a bit ahead of herself when it comes to Christmas festivities). Every year we receive boxes upon boxes of stuffed animals for charity. The proceeds of them are donated to Saint Jude’s children’s hospital and the stuffed animals are either kept or donated to children or elderly in the surrounding area. I’ve enclosed a picture of our two variations this year. We’ve also put up this massive beautiful arch in front of our door that has inflicted a torrent of glitter upon the whole store and my person. 

I had a woman come in the other day that reminded me so much of you. She had these lovely iridescent dragonfly wing earrings and was remarkably kind. She ended up buying on a whim a citizen watch that came with an extra bangle she swore to give to her daughter. Sometimes I think people are put in our path to remind us of loved ones so that we might love them even better and miss them even more. 

Today is a lovely, breezy, overcast day. It’s a welcome break in the streak of 100 or more degree days. It makes me think of a Taylor Swift song I play obsessively once August shows its face. It’s a rather sad song (titled “August” aptly enough) but the opening lines “Salt air, and the rust on your door. I never needed anything more,” is a breath of fresh air every time I hear it. A reminder that every Summer closes with the relief of Autumn. That every sunburn heals and every humid inhale is one closer to the first fogged exhale of winter. That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy my summer though. It was filled with new opportunities and excitement; long drives giggling over the ill fortune of a broken AC in 120° weather; cheering on friends from afar during brave, once in a lifetime kind of moves; and as always pages turned on a well loved book and stitches knit on a much anticipated project. 

My current read is “The Invisible Man” but H.G. Wells and my current knitting project is a bag as a present for K’s birthday. You may know universal studios in Orlando has opened up a new park, and in it they have a whole land dedicated to the classic universal monsters I love so dearly. Amongst them is a character who hasn’t wandered the parks in many many years, the Invisible Man himself, and I was so utterly thrilled at his return that I just had to order the book in and read his story again. I’ve collected a handful of pictures I thought you’d might like to see of new jewelry, bookshelfs and trinkets, yarn and their subsequent end results, my newest silly bumper sticker, and critters and the like. I love you, I hope the last vestiges of summer ‘25 treat you well."xxxxxxxxxxxxxx\

ISN'T SHE A MARVEL?  I'M SO BLESSED.     THESE sweet young folks are  whence springs my JOY.

    

TRACKS, PART II

 

Image from the Internet---my home clothesline is long a thing of the past, except for heavies being aired out for storage.   I DID notice in the search, that only one out of perhaps every fifty scenes DID have the proper way to pin things on the line---every single item took up TWO pins, with little spaces between.   

We lived four houses down from a railroad track---my most delightful time of day was when the Illinois Central stopped to take on fuel. I would run down the block, climb the enormous, swooping trails of wisteria vine in the last neighbor's yard about six feet up, and peer into the dining cars, all alight and bright with white napery, ladies in their nicest hats, and the coats of the smiling waiters.

But my daytime relationship with the train-tracks was a more personal one, born of years of time-between-trains---we knew the schedules and the whistles and the times of every arrival and departure. During my early childhood, before the engines switched from coal to other fuel, the close-to-the-tracks houses had a whisper of fallout from that coal-smoke. I’d be sent out on washing-day with a damp rag, to reach up high, grasp the heavy wire clothesline in that dampened cloth, and walk one-end-to-the-other, tightly clutching the line as the residue from several-days’ train-passings was gathered into a grimy blackness in the center. And when we took in the fresh-dried clothes, my Mother would “look the corners” for any telltale misses which had been folded beneath the clothespins into her fresh-washed laundry. We ran out in a frenzy many a washday, when the far-down-the-turn whistle reminded us that the train was due. We’d gather armfuls of the whites helter-skelter, holding them in great loose swags as we snatched the pins loose and ran for the back door with hems dragging and socks spilling in our wake.

Those hurried-frantic day-moments of grabbing damp clothes were SO worth the nights---I thought it the most wonderful, the most romantic, the most elegant thing in the world to be able to sit there in that small space, with lovely shining silverware and china, and be one of those happy, beautifully-dressed passengers enjoying their meal. I never saw beneath shoulder-height, but having seen train dining cars in the movies, my child’s mind converted those images into glorious colors and gleams, with flowers in vases and a silvery coffeepot wielded by the white-coated waiter.

I've told several times of the darkened evenings of watching the colorful displays of the people in the train windows, just their shoulders-and-heads view, reduced to small soundless color TV portrayals in those rectangular windows, kindling a travel-longing in my soul. I'd have been content just to sit there, sidelined on that switch-track forever, living that soundless life of gracious warmth and genial company over the china cups.

Moire non of my own fabulous trip-on-a-train, with every one of the wonderful experiences I'd dreamt of.

TRACKS PART I

 

PHOTO BY MISSISSIPPI'S MARTY KITTRELL

Beneath the wild melodies of the wind chimes at night, I can hear the low moan of the trains passin’ through a few blocks from our house, especially in this lovely weather, with the windows open, and the sound wends its way in through those shady windows, down the long hall, and flows down these narrow stairs like oil down a drain. To my ears that oh-so-familiar old woooooooaaan is an echo of past train-sounds of decades, from those hot Delta days whose clock was the train-times; they stopped for water, for coal, to offload and take on passengers, and the mail was unloaded as swiftly as tossing out the bags.

The strong-as-iron mailbags with their leather-belt straps and their old-penny locks had the grinds of cinder-landings and underfoot stompings and dusty-concrete-draggings branded into their indestructible fabric. Not even years of being hung in all weather from the T-frame, feet from the tracks, to be snagged by the hook of the fast-passing express, could pierce the armor of those magical mailbags.

We loved that conjuring trick, and gathered to watch, every time we could---the depot worker would squint his way out into the sunshine, holding or dragging the gray-brown canvas lump, manhandle its weight up the several feet onto its iron gallows, and step back toward the door of that “railroad-colored” building---a sort of blacky-grayish-grunge color which marked every small-town depot I’d ever seen.

Smalltown "Postmistress" hanging out the day's mail with her hair and slip blowing in the wind.

The fast-approaching train would shudder past, the clicks of the pin-width gaps between the rails causing those flying silver wheels to give off their trademark ca-CHUNK ca-CHUNK as the open door neared the swinging mailbag. In a move fast as a blink, the hook swung, the bag disappeared into that big maw, and the train was gone, in a diminishing clamor and whoossshhhh that left us breathless ourselves, and again amazed by the magic.

And of more Train Magic from the past, moire non.

SLICE OF CUT CAKE

 

Daddy's Aint Ruth, who was as "Country as they come,” raised a whole passel of chillun, each with two names in the family fashion, and each growing up in that not-too-large frame house with the two outdoor faucets through the wall over the kitchen sink.  They were big old high brass things, both gushing out cold water into that wide trough sink, deeper than ours, in those days before doubles and all those charming little modern doo-dads on one side, so handy for disposal and rinsing and bar needs.  The two faucets were put in together years before, in trust of a "hot water heater" somewhere in the nebulous future.  And many a dish went through that kitchen, a literal dozen plates per meal at the long wood table down the length of that fragrant, colourful room, and also a literal two-meats and four casseroles,a big skillet of bread, and several  pots of sump’n nother just picked and shelled from the garden.

And the desserts!  I’ve never seen so many or such variety at a plain old family meal---it was common to have cake and pie AND a puddin’ sitting on the sideboard as they sat down to supper after a hard day’s work.   She had but two cake recipes, for the actual layers---a yellow one and a chocolate, rich with a great cloud of Hershey’s cocoa sifted into the Godchaux before creaming in that immense old Sunbeam the shade of aged ivory.  But the additions and the flavorings---she had about five good-sized bottles of Raleigh flavorings in the cabinet, even back then when I was a teen and boasted THREE of my own---vanilla, of course, and lemon extract and the ethereal almond for the most exquisitely flavored pound cakes.    She also had coconut and "imitation rum," of all things, and in addition to putting a few drops of the coconut into the cake layer before baking, she’d set the freshly-grated coconut aside, put a few more drops into the “milk” which was carefully saved from the coconut.

One of the boys usually had coconut duty, and he’d poke the ice pick into the three little monkey-face holes at the end, maneuver the holes over a little bowl, and drain out all the what-chefs-today-call-water before taking the coconut out to the shade and a big concrete block, to crack it gently with a hammer and dig all the lovely soft meaty insides loose, like hulling out a particularly fragrant oyster from its shell.  Those curvy bits of meat had a gentle brownish rind on the outside curve, which had to be removed with a small sharp knife, to keep the whitewhite flesh pristine for the grater.

I can just hear the whushwhush of the grating, as Jean Evelyn or Mary Ruth stood at the table with the big old box grater, filling the big pyramid with great drifts of the snowy shreds, ready for the cooling cake.   And Aint Ruth had a way of taking that leftover bowl of “milk,” adding in a bit of sugar and a teaspoon of that delightful extract, then tossing the liquid around in a bowl with all those mounds of coconut.   This was left to sit whilst one of them heaped the great billows of seven-minute onto and over those three layers, straight from the cooling rack. 

  She was the first I ever saw to take some strips of waxed paper, slide them under several sides of the cake, and collect all the coconut which fell from the expert fingers patting it gently onto every inch of the gleaming frosting.   At the end of the process, they’d slide out the paper, then dump all the bits of escaped coconut onto the top of that gorgeous cake, and it was done.

BUT.   If one of the boys (or girls, for that matter), had come through the kitchen with a little sweet-craving, they’d just matter-of-factly take a whack at whatever cake layers were lying there cooling.   And this was not the “OH, Hon!  Don’t cut the cake ‘fore the company sees it,” where one neat slice from the finished marvel would be noticed, but only in passing.  This was a quick knife through one of the naked layers resting on the racks, picked up like a pizza wedge and lifted for a bite as the culprit headed elsewhere in the house or leaned casually against the counter for a chat with the cooks. And then the cake-assembler had to deal with an oddly-shaped piece to frost and stack, which they did with such a practiced, unfazed air, or simply saying “Guess we got a two-layer cake today!” with a casual swat in the direction of the cake thief, that it must have been a frequent occurrence.

That simple, natural gesture of confidence and welcome-to-it astonished me the first few times,  for I loved to be there for the Saturday baking (or Sunday morning, if they were adding on a little extra for us “company”), and I could not fathom being allowed to just demolish a project like that.   Cakes were sacred things, round and perfect and immaculate of construction and method---the formula had to be right for them to rise, or to taste right, or to be exactly enough for the three layer-pans, and to so casually dismember some of the parts before the actual assembly---it rather sent my baking mind into disarray for a bit, as if she’d snipped a big hank of fabric off a dress, leaving the hem a foot shorter on one side.

I realize now that those cakes and their casual treatment, that easy comfort in the kitchen and in that whole filled-to-the-brim house, with the respectful, kind kids and absolutely devoted parents---those cakes were the absolute symbol of a kind of child-raising I’d not encountered before.   There was a philosophy of trust and an easy camaraderie amongst all of them, a gentle kind of living together with all taking a willing part in the keeping of the home and family. 

 I was raised in a  tight-ship-kitchen, a flinch-over-spilled-milk household, with never in my life a cake cut out of reach of Mother's watchful eyes, even though I had baked every single one made in that house since I was Twelve.   The cake might come out at dessert time, be judiciously sliced onto the right number of small plates, and then went back under the cover, with a a snap and slide back beneath the cabinet until Mother brought it out again.  My only graduation to being alone with a cake was about my junior year, when my parents started delaying their dessert until about nine,  between GEORGE GOBEL and DINAH SHORE,  and I could go to the kitchen and set a tray with two cups and saucers and two little cake plates, boil the copper kettle, and pour the boiling water over the Folger's instant, to go with the two slender slices I delivered to the coffee table before going back to my chair.   And here were all those cousins making free in their own homes, just helping themselves to a needed part of a whole-yet-to-be-made, with scarce as thought as popcorn.

The first time it happened, I looked at her, wide-eyed, then back at the wedge-missing layer on the rack, and as I turned my gaze to her face again, she laughed, reached out a casual finger and patted up some crumbs.   Just before she put them into her mouth, she said, “I ain’t never made a cake that couten’ be CUT!”

My, how we all adored her!!

Dumplin' Days

 

I SWEAR, Y'all!!  This April weather is what they might call CAPRICIOUS---it's been cutting capers all over the map, thermometer and Thermostat settings.   The honeysuckle was sweet through the windowscreens last night, and this morning's 45 sent the windows DOWN and the furnace UP.   Days like this make me want to cuddle in and treat it like it's February again, one more time for the sun gets to make the calls all Summer.  

It's what would and should be known as a Dumplin' Day. Those are the ones when the weather is just TOO cold and bad to go out in, the warmth of home and flannelly shirts and cups of cocoa beckon, and the scents of a pot of something richly simmering on the stove soothes and relaxes the body and soul. And nothing is better at that than a big pot of chicken and dumplings. It's even a silly, feel-good word---dumplings---sounding like the fat cheeks of rosy new dolls or the back of a baby's plump knees.

My Mammaw's (and in turn my Mother's) dumplings were the roll-out-on-the-counter type, made with some of the stock from the simmering pot. Fat carrot slices, chunks of celery and some leaves, and an onion or two, speared all round with toothpicks, THEN cut into sixths or eighths, gently bubbled in the deep heavy Wearever pot with the biggest old hen from the butcher's counter, and in some instances, an elderly one from her own stock, come to the fullness of days in that dusty chickenyard out back.

The yellow-fat old bird seethed away for a couple of hours, turning the vegetables into smooth, melting mouthfuls, and raising glistening dots of oily fat to the surface of the rich stock. A few peppercorns, a handful of salt from the little crock beneath the counter, maybe a small curl of sage from the bush perfuming the air out by the porch.

Several cups of the broth were ladled into a small flat pan and inserted into the freezer for half an hour so the dough wouldn't take a quick-rise as it was stirred together---that was MY reason, for I always kept SR flour. And it's easier working with cold dough than when it's warm and stubborn. Dough-crawl was always a problem---must be something in the sense-memory of millennia of dough that keeps it trying to retract from every thump of that rolling pin.

The first broth-chilling pan I remember was one of those little flappy-handle ice-cube trays, clickety cube-release thing removed, slid back into its neat little frosty slot in the freezer compartment. Flour and broth were stirred into a stiff mass, no herbs or salt or butter, then the whole chilly lump dumped onto the flour-dusted white countertop, top dusted with more flour, and rolled, elastic and lively, into a big round disc.

Great slashes of the big ole cutter-pan made squares and triangles and odd little shapes from the rounded edges. A gentle slip into the bubbling pot, ten minutes lid off, ten with it on, and the dish was ready. The chicken had already been lifted with the huge old slotted spoons, set aside to cool a little, then was sort of yanked into presentable pieces, hacked into serving bits, sliding from the bone, with the backbone and neck removed to a small plate for Grandpa's thorough attention and enjoyment. These were also the two pieces with the small bits of bone which might escape into the broth, and Mammaw had a strict aversion to having any stray bits left to surprise the unwary.

The whole stew was ladled into a huge farmhouse bowl, a big ceramic one with a yellow rim and flowers on the sides. We could have fed a regiment from that bowl. I kinda doubt that there's ever been a civilization or culture in this wide world that DIDN'T have some version of chicken and dumplings. I hope not.

In the first kitchen, that of the little "shotgun" house of my very early childhood, my Mammaw could reach each and every item whilst standing in front of the stove...one quick turnaround was all that was possible. The stove (an early Amana, I seem to remember, from repeating the beautiful word like a mantra as I stood on the big flour bucket and stirred stuff), the fridge (a tiny Philco that I could almost see the top of, with its latchety pull-down lever to open the door "Ca-Chick"), and an immense Hoosier cabinet were, with a scruffy-but-scrubbed wooden table, the only appliances and furniture in the room.

The cabinet held a flour sifter in one side, into which about a ten-pound bag would fit. You just stuck a bowl under (dumpling flour went into a heavy red-outside-creamy-white-inside bowl which resembled and weighed about as much as something carved from an immense brick).

Mammaw had one of the first dough-scrapers I had ever seen, made by my own Dad by cutting a metal pie tin in half with tin snips. Mother had the other half at our house, and the two ladies made good use of the homemade convenience. The business edge was wicked sharp, I recall, and not to be trifled with. Later Daddy thought to give a little corner snip off both of the flat sides, and there you had a neater surface for scraping, plus you could cut your dough and piecrust very handily without grabbing a knife. It also was useful when you finished...just scrape the scraps and flour to the edge, hold the flat half-pan beneath the counter, and hand-dust the debris into it...no messy cleanup.

Mammaw also had the traveling scissor-man "dull" the edge of her scraper. The man came to town several times a year to sharpen anything that needed it---he had an array of wheels on which he ground the knives, scissors, even your garden hoe and plow. He would also patch a pot, putting little metal washer-thingies through a hole to reseal it into usefulness. He ground the sharp flat blade of her scraper to a shining roundness, so that the metal would not scar the white enamel pullout tray of her Hoosier cabinet, on which she rolled her crusts and dumplings.

That recipe was geared to a bowl that would probably hold two gallons. That big old farmhouse bowl weighed enough empty to require a good lifting arm, and full---well, there were always plenty of volunteers to lug it to the table.

And with side dishes of greens and silverpeas and chowchow and conserves and a big heavy-cut glass each of celery stalks and slender green onions standing next to the steaming, crusty cornbread or featherlight risin' rolls---Any general or king could have sat down to that table.

THAT KINDA DAY.

BLESSIGNS, REDUX

You know how you can look at a page, and there's the faintest little nuggle that something is NOT QUITE RIGHT?   I guess I've proofread for so long, the misses just glare out at me---I can telll from here that there are three l's in that TELL.  Or hidden in a milllion of very fine print.   Several years ago, there was one such little typo on a Holiday letter that just caught my eye, and my heart.    A blogger signed off with "BLESSIGNS," and it so struck me that it's not wrong, and so apropos to the subject that they must be a REAL THING---at least while I spell the word like that.    So, for this Spring morning, with all that NEW and FRESH and WONDERFUL out there, and to come---I wish everybody BLESSIGNS.    

 I like that. We just oughta recognize more of those signs than we do, I think. It could be a color, or a breeze, or a beautiful sunrise, a line we read or hear, or even a rainy day that hinders something we meant to do, but what we do instead is ever so much more meaningful---and we usually don’t even know it. It might even be a person whom we don't even consider important or interesting or worth our time, but there could be a wonderful gift awaiting the taking.

I’m going to start really looking out for BLESSIGNS---they must be everywhere, if I’d just raise my eyes from the dishpan or the monitor or the little day-to-days that are waiting, same as always, day after day.

They’re out there. And in here. I just have to be more aware and more interested and alert, and there they’ll be. I don’t think it was accidental that I saw that odd little word on on that next-to-last day of that whole year of '08, and I've really kept watch since.

Dear Bob Ross was a genius in his field, and in Life, as well.   "There are no mistakes, just Happy Accidents."

Happy Accidents and many BLESSIGNS to YOU!!   Keep a lookout.

 

HONEYSUCKLE'S OUT!!

 

Per

                         Perfect palette of color in the lawn-wide Fairy Dell.

Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air;
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific;
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there;
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows;

And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.

Walt Whitman   "When Lilacs Last . . .'

We're still in the mud-stage from last sunset's quick, fast Gully-Washer---so dark, I hurried out to put the cans out, then a bright hour and a half before the real dark fell velvet blue.   But this morning, I noticed four clumps of tulip greens---the faithful old things were here when we moved in, and that's 29  years ago. Last year they didn't even bloom, but we left them there in hope, sorta like a faithful old dog who's outlived his huntin' days, but still deserves a place by the fire.

And Miss Effie, the nesting flamingo who sits at the foot of the BIG TREE, will soon lay a few tiny pastel eggs in her nest, in honor of the Season. She's been with us since three houses ago. You DO know that flamingoes sitting on a nest are NOT TACKY, don't you? Just wanted to be sure.

And all over the beds, small remnants of Used-to-Be narcissus and jonquils and hyacinth are peeping out---remnants of impulse grabs at the check-out of many a long-ago wait-in-line a the grocery, the fillin' station, and other places that stick the pretty temptations RIGHT THERE while you're waiting and have your wallet out anyway---those bulbs dried in a sack in the fridge drawer to give them the whole renewing-cycle of a REAL year, if they're lucky, and tossed toward the mulch pile in June and missed, if they weren't. 

 The moss is a verdant blanket of velvety hues, all across the back garden, and with all this lovely weather lately, REAL Spring  promises to be right around the corner. Before we know it, the grapevines will be sending out their little seeking fingers and the Fairy Dell is already filling with the gleamy leaves of millions of little purple violets. Something about hundreds of yellow dandelion blooms scattered upon that moss among the dainty purples---the color wheel knows what it's doing---perfection.   The Winter-crimped carpet of ivy is already beginning to green up and shine, and even a couple of bushes have either retained lots of fresh leaves, or they're just jumping out to get a head start.

I'm headed out now to shear off a few limbs of the Honeysuckle visible from Leah's high window---it's waving in the constant breeze out there snugged up with the wind chimes, and perhaps I'll pick a blossom or two, put my tongue to the honey, and for a moment, be EIGHT again, lying in clover, tasting the hot Summer sweetness of those years---dusty feet,  scabbed knees and all.  

SPRING LETTER FROM MISS MARTHY

A SPRING LETTER FROM MISS MARTHY TIDWELL:

Dear Rachel,

I hope this letter finds yall all well and warm, and dug out from under all that Ice and Snow!  We are all well as Common and gettin all set up for Spring.  

Sledge got us a new little Troy-Bilt this year---said the old one was just give out, and too heavy, besides, so we've got the rows all ready, and some of the reddishes are just about eatin-size and the peas might soon make a good mess to cook.   I know your Mammaw always said wait til after Good Friday to put a seed in the ground, but once he got his hands on that new little red plow, he was out there by February when he could find a sunny day.  He's got a good stand of snap beans and the cucumbers  and those  cantaloupe vines are takin off into the middles, already.    And I always think of that time with my Mama's cantaloupes the minute one vine shows on the ground---that was just the meanest thing that Mrs. Walker ever did, and Mama never forgot it.   

I don't know if I ever told you the story, but it come about with the Missionary Society at their July Meeting.   You know, they went around the county, with one church hostin one year, and another the next---well it was our turn, and there was such a great foofraw for everything to be JUST SO---you know how good cooks put their best pot forward haha.   And this year they had the idea to make a really fancy Salad Bar like they'd see on a cookin' show.   

Well, we'd had a real Bumper Crop from that handful of saved-up seeds you gave us on our trip up there that year, those Decker seeds that they said wouldn't grow anywhere but Indiana---well they musta thought our Miss. dirt was close, because we had a right smart good turnout all through July.   We had enough to give a few neighbors one, and they just couldn't quit makin' over those Mushmelons.   

So when Mama heard that the preacher's wife had saved up grapevines and made baskets special for the boquets for the tables, and their son John had come home that day before from Delta State just to do the flower arrangements---who ever thought ferns and pitcher plants and bayou lilies would look so elegant?  Well, Mama thought she'd give everybody a taste of those good melons.

She'd saved up four of the best ones.  You know they're big as a basketball, and so sweet.   Well she got out a couple of real nice platters, and begged the borry of Earnestine's silver wedding platter, too.   She peeled and sliced those melons into the perfect moon shapes, and I'm tellin' you those platters looked like a magazine.   We even put a few sweetpea blossoms on there for a little purple.   We had to put books in the back seat to balance 'em all flat, but they made it to the Fellowship Hall OK.    

 I went on ahead, because I had made a double recipe of Chicken Salad.   Four of us did, to have enough.  Then I waited and helped carry in the platters and they were so pretty under that Saranwrap. 

The melon went into the church refrigerator to last the mornin til lunch, and when finally lunchtime came, the church ladies brought in the food.   Everything looked so pretty when the ladies came into the hall, and Mama walked over to see all three of her platters of that golden goodness, and she got the shock of her LIFE.    Them slices was just plumb gritty-gray cause they was scattered with enough black pepper for a hog killin'.   And salt too, had to be---for all those pretty slices, washed down in all the juice leakin' out, and just RURNED that good melon.   Well, somebody had done takened, and scattered hafe a box of black pepper all over them cantaloupes!!  It looked like it was covered in ants, and a lot were swimmin’ in the juice down on that silver Weddin’ platter!  

I could see the tears in Mama's eyes for how ugly that was and  all that waste.  And Mrs. Walker standin over there, just watchin to see how Mama took it.   Mama asked who did that and why and she said, "That's the way WEE like it at Mye house." 

Mama said she first started to say this wasn't her house it was the Lord's house and she hadn't no businness prinkin up somebody elses food, but she just kept her mouth shut because ladies from all over the county were coming in.   But many and many a member saw that mess and knew all that salt and pepper was just to burn Mama's hide.   I don't know if Mrs. Walker ever got to help with a luncheon again.    I do know that hardly anybody ever made over her food at First Saturday again, and plumb few ever took any on their plates---even when she made that Mountain Mama Delight, and that's sayin' somthin.       

That's all til next time.  I clean forgot to turn on the TV for my story, I got so caught up in tellin this.   Take all mistake for Love,

                 your friend,   Marthy Tidwell

 

LIME PICKLES AND CANDIED WATERMELON RIND

 

We've had a fabulous celebratory time this LONG already weekend---Friday with a six-year-old neighbor who LOVES pink and pretties like we do---she and her Mama came for cookie decorating for a couple of hours.   Then Sweetpea and her Mama were here for Easter Lunch yesterday, with wonderful tales of their St. Patrick's Week trip to Ireland.   Her high school band was invited to St. Patrick's Day parade, and they had a wonderful week.   They had also made a tour around Europe last June, performing concerts in five countries.  Her Ganner would be SO proud---he brought home so many musical instruments while she was younger, and she settled on playing Clarinets, but also plays Sax as well.   

Today was just us of the house, slow and comfortable, choosing lunch from several days' yummy leftovers, a whole afternoon with just pre-views and trailers of the "new" Jane Austen series---it was almost like watching the whole movie---we KNOW how it ends, Heart/Heart.   Our favorite Author---we speak often in Austenese, with quotes from all the books populating our conversation in our Southern Drawls.  We exchanged our Easter bags---always new Spring-flavored shopping bags to each other, and mine had divine Silicone kitchen items---ladles and spatulas for every use, candy and Peeps and a Moon Pie and best of the best---she'd searched and found the jars of Candied Watermelon Rind I used to save up 79 cents to buy for myself at Safeway every two weeks when they were all babies.   It came in a narrow jar like olives always came in---just room for about seven of the inch-big cubes in a lovely green syrup.  They sold the candied Cantaloupe, as well, with golden syrup.      And she'd Amazoned two pints of LIME PICKLES, so very like the ones I learned to make from her Grandmother, my first Mother-in-Law.   Such sweet remembrance, and so thoughtful a gift.

 Then just at a beautiful sunset, the two small neighbor children were invited over again for a few moments to receive their bags of fun things and candy.   

The livestock has been fed (Seven cats, three possums and five raccoons that I know of---we should have bought stock in Friskies and Nutrena five years ago),---they get their dinner out the back door, on an immense cafeteria tray twice the regular length.                                                                                                                                     The dishes are awaiting Monday, and Leah has retired with a Miss Marple.    I've had a Spa Hour and it's Hubble Time, so good night and a Happy Week to you all!  

PS.  I reminisce and speak of my Mammaw so often here, I feel everybody should know about her by now.   Mammaw of the Roses, the family history told in stories, the dozen white Persian cats with one blue eye and one green, who "lived by the clock and the calendar and time for the mail to be up."   She had a correspondence with Park and Burpee seed companies which equaled her letters to and from family, didn't get an indoor bathroom until 1958,  raised two children in a shotgun house without electricity til "TVA came in 1938," and had a little grave of her first daughter out where she plowed and planted her garden. 

 I doubt that she traveled more than seventy miles in her life (to Memphis when Grandpa was in the hospital).  She had a black silk dress with a rhinestone pin in her closet that she'd ordered from Sears Roebuck to be buried in, and she wore it once the time Mother and Daddy took her to Memphis and she danced with Lawrence Welk.  

She also had The Louvin Brothers play and sing in her front yard when they were traveling from show to show with her Brother-in-Law's band.   I was about eight, and she and I served them noon dinner on the way to their next date, and she got to play along on her mandolin to Tennessee Waltz.

Today would be her 131st Birthday!

RADAR AND HER FAMILY

                                                            

We've had a long love and affinity for BUNNIES.   When we were first married, Chris knew I loved and missed having a pet in the house, and so surprised me with a precious pink-and-white baby rat.   She lived in an aquarium in aspen shavings, with a mylar-silver coffee-sack as her hidey-home, and traveled with us everywhere.   She'd travel in a charming small birdcage, and I'd sweep grandly into whatever motel we were occupying, with a scarf draped over her little house.   She was very easy to support---a tiny leftover from whatever our lunch/dinner was, her licky-water bottle, and whenever we got out of the car for any length of time in the Summer, we'd stand two or three icy cans from the drink cooler in her abode, to snuggle on to keep her cool.   We loved and cared for a succession of those little girls, for when one seemed to be gently easing into her last days, he'd being home a baby---Seven in all we had, over those first years.  

But before Penelope (christened PeePee forever by Daughter Two, when she immediately peed into her hand on first meeting)---there were Bunnies.  We lived in a tiny "mill" house in a charming little town on the Alabama line, and one cool evening near Easter when Chris came home from making calls on clients, our hug included a "Reach into my Pocket."    I obligingly reached into his blazer pocket, and encountered the softest, warmest little creature---she was white with a perfect little raccoon mask on her eyes and lop ears.   Due to the ears and the fact that MASH was playing in the background when he came home, her name was immediately RADAR.  He'd stopped by the local Rabbit Man's farm and picked her up for me.

And Radar loved living in that little house with the fabulous screened porch---she'd spend her days out there in the sunshine, and slept in her bin in the bathroom; the big old clawfoot-tub made a great hidey-space beneath til she got too tall to be comfortable under there.   We almost had to pay for renovations on that house---in the night, she would walk up to the bathroom wall, gently gnaw loose a piece at the bottom of the wallpaper, and start backing up, tearing that inch-sized strip toward the ceiling clean as a carpenter.   And WIRES!!!   Back then only our phones had charger-wires, and her great joy was to nip one in half and just keep walking.   And her HATE for a broom was lethal---she'd grab the bristles in her teeth, I'd swing the broom gently up in the air, and she'd hang on to give it an enormous KICK with her hind feet.  

Chris one day brought her home a Husband---a much larger long-hair Lop, and she had three babies in her bin in the tub.   The first one kinda escaped out into the tub, and was named Houdini; I was such a mystery fan we named the next two WhoDunnit and Sherlop.      And when we moved down to the coast, with a big yard, Radar's five babies with LONG hair like their Daddy were named Samson, Fabio, Rapunzel, Godiva and CrystalGale.   They found nice homes with neighbors and kin when we moved up here, and I 'spect there's a line of long-haired Lop-Ears still flourishing in LA (Lower Alabama in Chris parlance).

SUNDAY AT THE PICCADILLY

                                                           

Introducing two new folks, long-time residents of Paxton.

Estelle Emerson finished her after-church lunch well before her husband was done with his.   She never took much time with ordinary things like eating, because food had never appealed to her much; she considered a can of Beanie Weenies apiece to be a perfectly adequate meal.   She hated to have to cook and her sparse larder consisted of instants and microwaveables, with one shelf of the small pantry devoted to boxes of StoveTop and Minit-Raas and jars of Chef Boy ar Dee sauce.    She was a bright spot in the browns and end-of-Winter jackets and coats in her pink shiny jacket and a wide ferny skirt with a blaze of flowers.  

She consulted her purse and emerged with an old-fashioned gold compact, one that she had gotten as a graduation gift.   She did one of those chin-bob, three-point scans in the mirror, touched the corner of her mouth with her pinky finger, and dropped the compact back in.   Then she stood, took a quick brush at her skirt, and set a fast pace to the 50% Off Corner of the Gift Shoppe as her husband finished his pie.

Dennis, intent on scraping every last bit of coconut-laden filling from the stiff, lardy crust, sat there silently in his Sunday khakis and blue plaid 90%-cotton shirt as she disappeared through the archway.  He was used to Estelle's darting, dragonfly ways, her quick, deft movements around the house, and her no-nonsense economy of living life.       He dragged the side of his fork across every surface of the naked, perfect shell of the crust, opened wide and inserted every millimeter of the tine-end into his mouth.  He closed his lips around it, then withdrew it slowly from the tight channel, leaving it as shining as when he'd unwrapped it and its companion spoon and knife from their paper cocoon.   Giving a series of several satisfied little smacks, he checked his watch for Time-Til-Kickoff and sat back to wait.   Estelle liked to take her time.

And he liked to "Watch the Line."  There was always someone interesting or funny or dressed so special at these Sunday noon dinnertimes---from kids with tats and last-night's clothes, slept in or hurriedly recovered from a strange floor when noon-time sleep gave way to the quick, gnawing hunger of the young and hung-over.  Young guys with earrings slid unabashedly past cashiers with their trays of mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, chicken noodles and slabs of chocolatey cake, while their dates heel-tipped past with small plates of green things which they might or might not eat, for fear of spoiling their lipstick or image or both.

An important-bustling smug-faced man with the large hair of a confident preacher herded several older folks to their seats, while a small caravan of well-dressed younger ones and several seasoned waiters followed with trays holding plates with one chicken leg or discreet small servings of turkey and gravy and big mooshy peas which comprised Walt's Senior Specials, along with little dishes of Jello or pie.

Dennis gazed longest at a petite, wrinkled lady in an outfit Twiggy would have killed for---tight little skirt and matching white pleather jacket with an oversized Newsie Cap in the same far-fetched material.   Her white GoGo boots and dandelion hair-to-match gave her the air of having popped onstage between scenes on Laugh-In, and stayed frozen there for the last fifty years, beginning as Goldie Hawn and ending as Golden Girl.     You could imagine her closet at home, with its lingering ghosts of Arpege and Intimate, hanging full of a lifetime of tee-ninecy ensembles of bright sweepy skirts, demure puff-sleeve white blouses, and little pumps with ankle socks.

Golden Girls Goldie's conversation matched her wardrobe---bright and effusive.   Her voice flew up and down the chirpy notes of the treble clef---sometimes like the tweetings of chattery birds, and at other moments, when she was really into her story and smiling wider than wide, it quite resembled the sound of the little plinky bar in a music box.

Estelle reappeared down the hall, carrying a flamingo-covered something which blended with her bright-splashed skirt and shiny jacket.   He realized that it was a bag---90-to-nothing there wasn't a thing in it, because Estelle was an acknowledged "Fool for Bags"---any kind, and shopping ones especially.   She even rotated them with the seasons and often, because her scant grocery list scarce ever filled two, and she liked to show them off.   

A stiff-haired crisp man in a black suit and squiggly ear-wire held the door as a smartly-dressed lady in an off-white pants-suit, pumps, and a dashingly-draped pink scarf breezed in.     Estelle and Dennis waited to go out, and the man's wary eyes continued scanning them til they stepped outside before he let the door swing shut behind them.  The smooth heavy white car, which they assumed belonged to the guarded lady, eased into a wide parallel at the curb, motor running and the driver as alert as the escort, as Estelle and Dennis, one brightly striding like a flitting gaudy bird, and the other headed for his La-Z-Boy, retrieved their own big Chevy, gently rounded a hitchhiking backpacker and turned toward home.  

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

 

                                                      

It’s such an honor to be amongst such wonderful, kind people whose words and pictures and ideas and sheer talents brighten every day. I can tune in and find humor, color, bright sayings, little fun tips and trips and stories of families and work and spiritual journeys to inspire and amaze. I’ve had my heart touched and almost broken, my funnybone tickled, my eyes filled with glorious images, and my soul sent soaring through other people’s sharings.

Today, the Springtime-Sunny morning has been brightened a hundredfold, over at LIFE AND LINDA with her invitation to visit her magnificent garden.   Even with all the GREEN springing outside our own doors, scented breezes drifting past the window-open sheers, and such sunny pockets of golden light all throughout our neighborhood, I have been right here at the screen for ages, sighing and smiling over her phenomenal way with plants and scenery and knowledge of the gardening world.   Do go and just get lost in all that wonderful place of such color and scent and fabulous landscaping.    You could just simply stroll and DWELL.   

PLAIN PLANES, PLEASE

 

We live in a little "Ranch" house with a split personality.   One of the main reasons we bought it was that the entire basement had been fully carpentered into technically five rooms---a big "den" space with room for a big dining table, a breakfast area, two "don't count to a Realtor" bedrooms, along with a laundry room with room for our freezer,  and a fully-tiled bath.   I mean "fully"---the very first owners owned a tiling company, and walls, floor, and shower are still shining with fabulous green tiles. ceiling and floor---you could hose the entire place down if you wanted to.    

The house came with fairly lots of Eighties carpets in all the upstairs; over the years we removed them all to uncover the honey-colored hardwoods.  Oddly, there were wonderful "bespoke" draperies on the five windows in the living room, and even when we bought it in 1997, a pristine Sixties Autumn Gold kitchen---counters, fridge, stove and linoleum.  And another kitchen downstairs---just plain green this time, with gleaming maple cabinets and room for our six-burner wide-oven black cast-iron stove, Miss Frankie.   The owners said that the wife liked to entertain her big family, but "not mess up the house," and thus all the gatherings were held downstairs, where everyone could come in the back door and straight DOWN.  

I had already noticed that there were no light "fixtures" as we knew them in any of the rooms---just a square, flat pane of glass screwed in the ceiling to hold several bulbs, which you couldn't change without a step-ladder.   And the walls were remarkably unmarked, as well, but we put that down to having a great plasterer when they repaired any nail or picture-holder before they showed the house for sale.   

But there was another explanation:  The wife hated the thought of anything hanging from the ceiling, or  on the wall or tables or a counter-top.  And she said so, frequently that one time I saw them at our little HouseWarming celebration---she went through the whole house with a frown on her face, and told me, "Well, it's not to MY taste, but if YOU like it . . ."     I did and do, all these years later.   And we took great pains not to burden her with such an unpleasance as our cluttered house thereafter--just wouldn't have been kind.   

                                           

I'd bought a fabulous chandelier on FB marketplace right before COVID, and just left it sitting in the box for these five years, and so the folks who re-wired the whole house last August hung it for us, to shine and flourish its pink tulle bows , and our Memory Tree remains decorated and lit year-round.   Four exquisite pastel silk Cheongsams, each a work of embroidery art, that I found in a pile at Goodwill hang on satin hangers over the guest room curtains, and not to mention, but I will, the pink Nutcracker banners in the dining room, the over-stuffed pink chair befitting Mole's wee abode, the brooches and necklaces and all sorts of twinkly things sprinkled around on windows and lamps.   Just looking into our front windows with all the glitter and sparkle would probably make that poor soul take to her bed.  

                                                 

THE POINT OF GRACE AND THE MOMENT

 

ONE OF MY LAST LETTERS TO MY DEAREST COUSIN SANDRA:

Oh, Sweetpea!   What a wonderful message from you!  You just say the dearest things, and have the sweetest, purest spirit of any adult I've ever known.   There's a wonderful innocence to your brilliant mind, a childlike faith and wonder at the simplest things---I remember your words about bread, about lavender, a Summer breeze, kneeling to receive The Cup, the little creek as it flows---plums and a fresh-ironed cloth whisked onto a table for supper, the gathering of your Loves around that table, growing young together.

Indeed, you DO have words---absolutely reams and scores of them, speaking of only the best of things, the sweetest parts, the simplest, deepest gentle murmurs of the way things should be, as you see them.   You have a way of portraying life as we'd all like to live it, in a simple, slow grace of BEING that we forget could be, or that we've never given a thought in our busy, moving, on-call, duty-filled, get-it-done lives.   You MAKE us think about those things---those better ways, those spirit-filled moments, those days of Grace lived in shade and sun, walking gently where we're impelled to run, to get things over with, to get on with it, instead of enjoying the simple charm of the NOW.

SO love to hear from you---would that it were every day, every hour.   I could read and read your words, drinking in those slaking words, filling up entire with the feeling of beautiful and pure. 

 Remember we loved that "simple" book several years ago---Beth Breathnach, was it?   We all seized upon it as a mantra of sorts, a missal for the Church of the Everyday Stuff---likening a dull morning to a garden ripe with delights, or a chore to a gift to our nearies and selves.  It was a wonderful, fulfilling read, propped in the arbor in the Summer shade.   We thought we could be JUST LIKE THAT, accepting the goods and the simples and the smalls.   Just NOTICING them was a great blessing; having them pointed out was a lovely gift, and would that it had lasted forever, for we drift, we allow, we succumb to the leaving off of things, the dusts of the days, the pilings of THINGS and STUFF and debris of shoppings and hoardings and receivings, stored up in their outlived, useless selves, merely on the possibility of their later use.  

 Oh.  My.   I have to get OUT of that track.   We were Yard Salers, Goodwillers, Thrift Store browsers, picking up a plate here, a set of dishes there, two cloths and an abandoned craft-basket filled with ninety-nine kinds of ribbon and wire, channeling Martha Stewart because we saw exactly THAT PLATTER in the magazine and who knows what entertaining marvels would ensue if I had one of my own??

Mine's all geared to nesting, I've found---home stuff and kitchen stuff and house things---and except for two china cabinets, our La-Z-Boys, and the computer and TV, every single thing we own came from Goodwill.   Piles and drawers of tablecloths and coverlets and curtains for windows I'll never own, with so few things costing more than a dollar or two---can't pass up that twenty-foot Battenburg banquet set, even though our biggest table is eight feet.  

DAYUM.

I'm verging away to the silly now, but life has been such ridiculous DEPTHS lately, of such a surfeit of things to walk over and trip over, that my mind is dropping to the level of those maze-rats---you can change course around blind ends and blank walls just SO MANY TIMES before you forget where and who and WHY you are.   I've lost my words into the ether so much lately, but now that the actual building is completed,  I don't weep so much for the losing of the words as I have of late in my usual self.  

So YES.   I Have lost my words,   And that's just what I've called it.   I can pretty well type anything, as the stream comes from my brain, but sometimes I have to stop and think "Now what is that A-word that I'm looking for?"   or "Do I really mean Accumulation or Assimilation?"   Or I've even gone so far as to offer a guest a cup of cigarette without missing a beat, though not a soul in the room smokes.  

I love you, faraway Sister-Girl.   Sisters of the Spirit---yours "rubs off" in the most lovely sense on me, and I just hope to send you some of the reassurance of your worth and kindness and so-enviable way of living life that I try to pattern and live.   I lived Serene for a long, long time, and the past few years have been beyond NOT.   You're keeping me centered on that sweet focusing-point of Grace and The Moment.